The lofty gains which experts say a nation can reap by premising its development on population figures probably leaves some people, especially foreigners, wondering why Nigeria has remained in existence from its origin without an acceptable census figure. Many Nigerian citizens and groups who permanently dispute their country’s figures are neither mad nor foolish; they know that each figure that the population commission has ever declared for Nigeria has always been fictitious. The people also know as of fact that whether a census exercise is credible or not, it would hardly be taken into consideration when national policies on development are being formulated for execution. What then makes the coming census scheduled to hold in Nigeria from May 3-5, 2023 important? Put differently, if demography and feasibility studies are irrelevant to policy makers, why should anyone bother about the 2023 National Population and Housing Census?

Both the government and the public body mandated to conduct a census have always told the people the opposite of how the exercise would be done. If they say they are set to organize a most credible event, it is likely to end with several hitches and manipulations. If the National Population Commission (NPC) affirms that she has all it needs to do a good job, what she actually means is that she has been assured that all the required resources would come-in before D-Day. This time around, she has said the census would be digital, but people may in reality expect failures and deliberate seizures, the way many now feel about the recent general elections in the country. What this suggests is that there is a natural trust deficit in Nigeria’s polity which cannot be filled by mere assurances. In fact, if the feeble assurances of the NPC fail at last, the body would not be as despised as INEC, whose cast-iron assurances are now perceived as self-destroyed.

As the NPC gears forward to May 3rd, it must beware of anything hazy around the time we are in. The government that directed her to conduct the census has 3 weeks remaining of its 8-year tenure. The political environment is charged with bitter laden- election petitions in which some candidates are accusing the electoral body of frustrating their petitions by refusing to grant them access to examine election materials. There is ample doubt if this period can serve as an auspicious time for another national exercise. In 2016, when census was due, it was shelved because as the NPC testified at the time, “the new regime of President Muhammadu Buhari needed to settle down in office before embarking on a huge project such as a national census.” 

Another critical matter is the readiness of the NPC in terms of the human and material resources available to her. The NPC has not received as much support as she needs from government. Unlike INEC which got all it asked for, the NPC has only 46% of what it requires for a successful census in a large territory such as Nigeria. Clem Agba, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, revealed this while speaking at a high-level partners’ engagement in Abuja less than one month to the exercise. This is why the assurances of NPC’s central planning committee that it is set to conduct a successful exercise can only be a political statement which no one is obliged to believe. It is in essence a timid assurance which can further place Nigerians far from the NPC. 

In addition, the scope of the assignment is quite large. Indeed, if the NPC believes that counting people in refugee camps is tedious, it may turn out to be far more complicated than the commission may have imagined. Only a few days ago, the federal government released the sum of N15 billion for the repatriation of Internally Displaced Nigerians from three neighbouring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroun. The displaced persons were those who reportedly fled to neighbouring countries at the height of Boko Haram and other terrorists’ activities in the North-east. Speaking to newsmen in Abuja last Friday, Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno state said the repatriation takes immediate effect.  The implication of this is that the NPC may midway into the census process get to learn of new refugees.   

As we hear, the Commission requires well over 800, 000 officials to take part in the exercise. Have they all been recruited? If so when and what evidence is there that they will not “jump ship” before the start of the exercise? Would the NPC which has less than 50% of its required funding be able to settle the allowances of the recruits or are we likely to see protesters asking for payment midway through the process? These questions are relevant because assurances notwithstanding, failures always occur during elections and even during the recent registration for the National Identity Card, nationwide where what the operating body said and what their personnel and the general public witnessed were different. Even where those recruited are mobilized, there is no guarantee that they would be trained or be capable of assimilating the relevant processes. 

Another assurance which may have been well-intentioned but which many are not likely to believe is the introduction of technology. The NPC has proudly revealed that the 2023 census would be the first digital attempt at compiling population data in the country. It is true that the use of technology for exercises such as census is in line with global reality and best practices, but as we have found from other events, the human dimension in digital events can render the entire exercise fruitless. It is therefore not enough for the NPC to suggest that the census will be hitch-free simply because it was designed to be technically handled. Unlike INEC again, not much is known by the public on what is to be done as well where when and how. The only salutary statement made so far by the NPC in the area of public enlightenment is that she has secured the support of the National Orientation Agency (NOA).

Of course NOA has the required structure to mobilize Nigerians to embrace any public policy because the Agency has offices and operatives in all the 774 local government areas of the country. In truth however, NOA is virtually moribund with no resources for operations. What keeps the Agency alive is that staff salaries are paid monthly as is done in all federal parastatals. NOA has no vehicles for effective movement from one place to another. Ordinarily, the Agency is exceedingly useful especially in grassroots mobilization which it accomplishes by using its capacity to address citizens in the local languages. This separates her from other organs of mass communication which inform but do not educate and which have no feedback mechanism to bridge the gap between government and the people. Can the NPC which has less than it needs raise up NOA from her involuntary slumber? 

There is also the changing political disposition in some states, the best example being Lagos state where the matrilineal principle has suddenly become the most potent tool for categorizing citizens. During the last elections, certain forces successfully and violently silenced a candidate on the basis of the place of origin of his mother. With nothing done to those who perpetuated the abominable act, the NPC may not be able to stop some citizens from travelling away from their places of residence to their places of origin so as to be counted in a safe abode. Although the NPC has given assurances that prescriptive criteria such as religion and ethnicity are not part of the coming census, it will take more than assurances to get some people to buy into the idealistic sermon

In the past, a high level of mutual suspicion and distrust featured prominently in our census exercises. In 2006, for example, some states rejected the census exercise of that year which they claimed was manipulated against them. Lagos in particular said the exercise failed a credibility test and ran a parallel census. Considering that past exercises had been so bedevilled, the NPC, the government and all Nigerians cannot be simplistic about the 2023 census. It requires plenty of resources and time as well as little assurances cannot be vouched for. 

Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, prominent Igbo politician and businessman, was in the news last week for his comments on the Yoruba-Igbo face-off in Lagos. Speaking at the first anniversary of Prof Chukwuma Soludo’s governorship of Anambra state, he appeared to be pursuing a reproachment between the two largest ethnic groups in southern Nigeria. But he started with a tough tone, saying: “Never, never again can we allow anybody to take the life of any innocent Igbo person. All of us are going to bite the person.” He then switched to a heartening tone that, in my opinion, was more conciliatory: “I want to tell those in Lagos to realise that there is no war between us and Yorubas.”

What he said next, or didn’t say, is the matter we are still trying to settle. “Yorubas are—,” he said, appearing to pause before continuing: “There are just political rascals and we are going to handle them.” Initially, I thought I heard “they are just political rascals”. But given the flow of his speech, I was circumspect. I shared the video with a friend, an Igbo who lives in Canada. We often try to discuss ethnic matters dispassionately. He thought he heard Yorubas are rascals. Although I also felt it sounded so, I took it more like a cheeky comment not meant in a sinister way. My colleagues at TheCable and I went back and forth on it and concluded Iwuanyanwu said “there are” not “they are”.

Iwuanyanwu later issued a statement denying saying “Yorubas are rascals”, disclosing that one of his children is, in fact, married to a Yoruba. Sadly, the simmering tension between Yorubas and Igbos over the elections, exacerbated by anti-Igbo comments by MC Oluomo, the glorified motor park tout, only got worsened after the “rascals” news went viral. While some Yorubas felt offended and wanted an apology, many latched on to it for political use. I do not know Iwuanyanwu personally but having watched him from afar for over three decades, I would say I have never seen him as an ethnic bigot or a rabble rouser. He is a proud Igbo, sure, but he doesn’t come across as a promoter of hate.

However, lost in the “rascals” storm is what Iwuanyanwu said about addressing the issue. “The elders have directed secretary general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to set up a commission of inquiry to find out things destroyed, and people are going to pay,” he said. I have my reservations with this approach. When there is a conflict with intense emotions as we have witnessed in the last few weeks, I believe the process of mediation and reconciliation needs to be deeper and wider than that. There is nothing wrong with finding out what happened and seeking compensation for the affected, but a one-sided approach will not solve any problem. We will only be dealing with symptoms and side effects.

As I have written a million times, maybe more, conflict is part of any human society. Children born of the same parents have conflicts. As Iya Kola, my grandmother, used to tell me when I was a kid, even the tongue and the teeth quarrel — as close as they are. “When your teeth bite your tongue, that means they are fighting,” she would say. In various societies, there are conflicts along different lines: racial, gender, class, inter-ethnic, intra-ethnic, religious, ideological, and so on and so forth. More so, in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society such as ours, conflicts are inevitable. And I am realistic enough to accept that they will not disappear overnight. The real challenge is how to manage them.

In 1999 or 2000, I attended a training on alternative dispute resolution with focus on mediation. One major take-away that has shaped my general attitude to life is that there are conflicts that can never be resolved. Therefore, don’t be in denial: you have to admit it. For instance, Christianity says Jesus is the Son of God. Islam says God does not have any son. Both faiths can never come to an agreement on this, so it is a waste of time trying to reconcile their theologies. What you do, in this instance, is to foster tolerance and mutual respect for each other’s beliefs. That is why I am at home knowing that not all our conflicts in Nigeria can be resolved. I am more interested in how we can manage them.

Pray, what do we benefit from fuelling turmoil that can set the country on fire? I was not yet born when Nigeria went to war in 1967, but from all the accounts I have read, it was not a picnic. Military officers who fought during the war have told tragic stories of friends killing friends and course mates decapitating course mates. I am also told that there was hardly any Igbo family that was not affected in the ensuing devastation. People speak bitterly about the pogroms and what led to the pogroms till this day. Those who witnessed the Civil War, either on the Nigerian or Biafran side, are not very eager for a repeat — but much of the hotblooded Tweeter generation fantasises war as a Netflix series.

In my life, I have witnessed inter-communal crises and street riots, including the End SARS uprising, and I would not participate in promoting anything similar to these till I die. The consequences of unrests are multifarious. Where do we start from? Is it the dislocation? Having to hurriedly move from one part of the country to the other not because you killed somebody but simply because of your tongue or creed? Or is it the uncertainty? I was an adult when the June 12 crisis engulfed Nigeria from 1993 to 1998. Only God knows how many times I left home for office and ran back midway as vehicles started driving against traffic to escape sporadic shootings by the security forces.

Is it the economic devastation? Millions of Nigerians rely on daily income to sustain their lives. Many market women feed their families from daily sales. In the event of violence and instability, their lives will be ruined. How many offices, banks, markets and shops will open when soldiers are patrolling the streets and shooting at random? Promoters of strife need to sit down and count the costs. Maybe they do not have the mental capacity to understand the consequences. Maybe they cannot be bothered: it is either their way or the highway. Those trying to push the country into war are like a child vowing to give his mother sleepless nights: he too will not sleep. There will be no winners.

I will say this again: we need a peaceful country before we can talk about progress and prosperity. You cannot even be talking about justice without the peace. Comfort for the tree is comfort for the bird. If the tree is inhospitable, the bird will not perch at ease. It is in the interest of the bird for the tree to be cosy and comfortable. I wish those stirring strife can understand this fact of life. If you sow discord and instability, neither you nor your family will know peace too. The desire to propagate hate may look intoxicating now but when the consequences hit, there will be no medals to be distributed. Therefore, the protagonists and antagonists will do us a world of good by beating a retreat.

I pray day and night for Nigeria to have more peacemakers than rabble rousers. Peace-building seems to be going out of fashion. We now appear to have entered an era when those who should promote peace, mutual respect and understanding are the ones stoking the fire of hate and strife — all because of the political emotions of the moment. People who should call hate mongers to order and make genuine efforts to help heal our wounds are the very ones pouring fuel on the naked fire. Some are doing it openly and brazenly while others are at the backend engineering things, with their hands barely hidden. The penalties for this mischief, borne out of desperation, will sadly not spare anyone.

Nigeria urgently needs peace builders — old and young, men and women, southerners and northerners — irrespective of “tribe and tongue”. Desperate and unconscionable demagogues and ideologues are on the rampage and are rapidly expanding their fanbase and reach. Go on social media and you will understand what I am saying. We need a new army of peace builders to counter this disturbing affliction. We need Nigerians who are determined to work for the peace and progress of Nigeria without regard to ethnicity, religion and political affiliation. We need them to step up to the plate not just to dilute but also to overwhelm the hate-mongering and ethnicity-baiting.

As for me, I made up my mind ages ago to be an agent of peace. I was a guest at the CORA Book Trek session a week ago to read and discuss my debut book, ‘Fellow Nigerians, It’s All Politics’. The book, a collection of essays on the Nigerian project, attributes the underdevelopment of the country largely to political intrigues that are not targeted “at the greater good of the society”. One question I was asked was why I was always “sitting on the fence”. I’ve been getting this accusation for years apparently because I don’t ignore the different sides to an argument. The truth is that I don’t sit on the fence — just that I don’t say what some people want me to say. I don’t amplify their prejudices.

As I told the audience, I didn’t jump into journalism. When I chose to be a journalist, I had a purpose in mind: to be a promoter of peace and national development. There is, thus, a method to what I write. I don’t just boot my laptop and start typing like a headless chicken. And I can boldly say that I have never promoted ethnic or religious hate even when I have been a victim myself. It is not that I am such a wonderful patriot, but I recognise that these things are part of life and the best option is to temper your own emotions so that you can see clearly and proffer solutions with a sense of responsibility. The cheapest thing is to take sides and be hypocritically blinded to your own faults.

Today, I plead with well-meaning Nigerians to raise their voices and drown out the noises of those currently working overnight to pitch Igbos and Yorubas against each other in the name of politics. It is time to break the monopoly of hate mongers. Warning: if you choose to be a peace builder, there is a price to pay: you may be accused of being politically correct or sitting on the fence. Refuse to be blackmailed by the merchants of strife. Above all, people are free to demand justice if they feel aggrieved. People can support any candidate they like. But nobody has a right to provoke or attack others because of their choices. We must put our primordial emotions in check for the greater good.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

INTERIM JOKERS

Do we ever learn anything in Nigeria? In 1993, the June 12 presidential election was annulled. Under pressure, the military left power and appointed an interim national government (ING) to run the country and conduct fresh elections. The military overthrew the ING within 100 days and Nigeria went into prolonged political crisis that crippled the economy and turned the country into a pariah. Thirty years later, some people are on the streets of Abuja asking for the annulment of the February 25 presidential election and the appointment of an ING again. Freedom of speech is part of democracy, I know that very much — but so also is winning or losing an election. Democracy.

MUTTAWALE’S MUTINY

Mr Bello Mutawalle, governor of Zamfara state, has blamed the naira recolouring policy for his loss to Mr Dauda Lawal, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the March 18 poll. No, it was not because he didn’t have naira. He said because he was critical of the policy and joined other governors in suing the federal government, over 300 truckloads of soldiers were moved to Zamfara to rig the election. He said the soldiers informed voters that anyone supporting APC, his party, would not be allowed to vote. While I won’t doubt his story, it is instructive that just three weeks prior, APC won the presidential election in Zamfara while PDP won President Buhari’s home state. Confusing.

FOR FUNSO

Hearty congratulations to Mr Funso Aina, MTN Nigeria’s senior manager, external relations, on being named the ‘Innovator of the Year’ in Europe, Middle East and Africa at the SABRE IN2 awards — regarded as the Grammy or Oscars of the PR industry. He is the first African to win in the brands category. The award, presented at the PRovoke EMEA Summit in Germany, is a fitting crown for his industry and intellect. Funso and I have been friends for decades and we always enjoy a joke or two together, so I teased him: “What did you invent?” Of course, the top-notch MTN Media Innovation Programme (MIP), a programme for Nigerian media professionals, is a winner any day. Felicitations.

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS

In my article, ‘Yoruba vs Igbo: The Battle for Lagos’ (March 26, 2023), I incorrectly stated that Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe had a PhD from the US. In fact, he started the programme but did not complete it. He later received honorary doctorates. Also, I gave the impression that Mr Funso Williams had an Igbo daughter-in-law in 2003, whereas his son was not officially married to Dr Walter Ofonagoro’s daughter until 2005. Finally, Prof Eyo Ita actually lost the premiership of Eastern Region to Zik after an internal war in the NCNC over the 1951 Constitution. Meanwhile, I was wrongly accused of saying NCNC “members” cross-carpeted to the AG, but I only said “allies”. Even that was disputed. History.

For avid followers of Nigeria’s sociopolitics, the name Samuel Ortom regularly hums in the ear like the droning rhythm of a busy bee. The man who has been governor of Benue state for almost eight years is outspoken, fearless, and even daring. He is never shy of intruding into the tooth-picking, complacent comfort zones of those whose actions and inactions, have made life unbearable and un-liveable for our people. Their kinsmen superintend over swathes of the national landscape, rendering them ungovernable. Ortom has been a gadfly, a consistently loud voice on issues of insecurity in his state and indeed in the entire Benue trough. His reactions to the murderous, blood-spilling preoccupation of marauding herdsmen who have serially violated the peace, quiet and pristine equilibrium of simple agrarian folks in the state, have brought him into regular collisions with the establishment.

He has tirelessly voiced his grief and helplessness about the relentless activities of the cattle-herding nomads, who have illegally arrogated to themselves, the nation’s infinite national flora as unfettered grazing ground. It has become a pastime for the aggressors to invade unsuspecting communities typically under the cover of night. To loan the popular Biblical quote from John 10:10, the itinerant herdsmen, “cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy”. This trend has compelled aborigines to flee their homelands and to seek refuge in spawning camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). Such impromptu infrastructures dot the torso of the nation’s renowned number-one grower of food in the country. The crowded, spilling, inconvenient camps, it has been suggested, hold numbers in the region of a million IDPs. That the camps have largely survived devastating epidemics remains a contemporary mystery. This is even as the numbers of those uprooted from their homelands continue to balloon. New joiners in the forms of newly dislocated persons and newborns sired under such intolerable circumstances have swelled the tallies.

Visits to scenes of the invasions and desecration of the pristine abodes of his people and tours of various medical facilities where victims are managed have become constants on Ortom’s official itinerary, inevitably and unfortunately. Having to arrange and fund the internment expenses of many of his constituents, felled by the herdsmen rascals has been a most unpleasant fixture of his governance regimen. With static fiscal accruals to the state from the national till, Ortom has depended on the goodwill of colleague governors and public-spirited individuals and organisations, to augment material provisions for the management of the IDP saga. The development has indeed become a cost item on the financial spreadsheet of the Ortom government.

In his hands-in-the-air consternation, Ortom expected the unambiguous denunciation of the trend from the highest levers of state administration. He anticipated specific directives from the commander-in-chief to his troops to deal decisively with the ogre. Ortom sought an audience with the president a few times so as to brief him about the niggling situation in his state to no avail. He thus came off with the impression that a conspiracy by senior members of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari who are from Benue state, had culminated in his being shielded from the nation’s chief executive. A miffed Ortom surmised that the central government, constituted by the political party to which he belonged in the early years of the security situation in his state, the All Progressives Congress (APC) could not be bothered to mitigate the quantum emergency he was contending with. He took his fate into his own hands and decamped to the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to seek a second term as governor. The line had been drawn in the relationship between Ortom and the federal government.

Much as he was a “returnee” to the PDP, Ortom sustained his capacity for vitriol. He has relentlessly tackled the leadership of the party on issues he feels very strongly about. At various times, he has spoken about the imperative for internal democracy at the several rungs of the political structure of the party. He has advocated inclusiveness, equity and balancing. Ortom chaired the PDP committee which opted for the “borderless zoning” of the presidential ticket of the party in early 2022. This implied that aspirants from every geopolitical section of the country could aspire for the ticket of the nation’s number one office. Nigeria’s former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, beat about half a dozen other aspirants to clinch the ticket at the primary held in late May 2022.

Ortom in concert with four of his colleagues, Nyesom Wike, Seyi Makinde, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and Okezie Ikpeazu, of Rivers, Oyo, Enugu and Abia, teamed up to constitute a group known as G-5. They mandated themselves to press for a north/south balance between the office of the national chairman of the party and the presidential candidate. Since Iyorchia Ayu, the chairman hailed from Benue in the north-central, it was expected he would step down as he promised before the primary and be replaced by a southern chairman since Atiku comes from Adamawa in the northeast. Ortom would become a very vocal member of the quintet and pulled no punches in his engagements on the subject. He riled severally at Atiku and the Fulani ethnocultural stock in general, arising from his bottled-up anger about the irreparable damages being committed by them against his people.

Ortom by the way has been my friend for a while now. Our relationship developed at the instance of his chief of staff, Tivlumun Nyitse, who has been my brother since my first day at the university back in 1982. The educational course and professional careers of Nyitse and I have followed similar trajectories in every material in particular. We both studied English and regularly sat next to each other all through our years in university. We graduated the same year in 1985. We variously worked as teachers during the early years of our post-graduation occupational ventures. We pursued our passions in journalism where he worked with the sadly now-defunct National Concord newspapers, while I sought fulfilment in the primordial Daily Times of Nigeria. Nyitse and I both served as directors of press affairs and chief press secretaries to strings of civilian governors and military administrators in our various states, Benue and Kogi, between 1992 and 1999.

Nyitse subsequently joined the bureaucracy in his state, rising to the position of permanent secretary. This was before his voluntary retirement in January 2014 to pursue his ambition to be governor of Benue state. I served in several portfolios as an aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007 and took a shot at the senate in 2011. Nyitse obtained a doctorate in mass communications while I earned my doctorate in media arts. The various congruences between the profiles of Nyitse and me are indeed the stuff of a fairy tale. Ortom indeed took me up for working for Atiku during the latter’s robust and recent presidential quest, following from him, Ortom’s position on the Fulani question. I methodically explained to him that I had been an Atiku aficionado even before our “Aso Villa” odyssey beginning in 1999. Ortom understood and the relationship between him and me, therefore, was not impacted.

Days after his anti-Atiku vituperation at a banquet he held in honour of his G-5 allies in Makurdi last November, Ortom demonstrated penitence by apologising if his declamatory outburst against the Fulani nationality and Atiku, was misunderstood. That act was notably statesmanly. Ortom who visited the Bauchi state governor, Bala Mohammed with his G-5 friends after his “Makurdi vituperation,” was interviewed by pressmen about his comments on the Fulani/Atiku subject days before. Point is that Ortom needs to be understood within the context of his being a leader who had been so relentless and thoroughly worsted and frustrated by the virulence and viciousness which nomads have sustainably unleashed on his people through the seasons. He is human by the way, and as such is entitled to emotionalism from time to time.

Tuesday, March 28, 2023, Ortom shocked many with yet another display of statesmanship. He announced the withdrawal of his election petition, over his loss of the Benue northwest senatorial position to the candidate of the APC, Titus Zam, at the Saturday, February 25, 2023 polls. Ortom noted that he exited the case in the interest of peace and brotherliness. He observed, however, that his action was without prejudice to the litigations filed by other candidates of the PDP at various levels. Ortom spoke after he met with the campaign team and stakeholders of his parliamentary quest. Famous for his frequent recourse to the Holy Bible, Ortom noted that his decision was informed by the expression in the Book of John 3:27, which says: “A man can receive nothing except it is given to him from heaven”.

Ortom who has been an active participant in the politics of his state for several decades expressed appreciation to God and to the people of Benue state for the several opportunities he has had to function in various offices and capacities. Ortom’s words: “The grace of God has taken me to key positions at the local, state and national levels, within which I was a local government chairman, state secretary, state deputy chairman and national auditor of PDP. I was minister of the Federal Republic, and I am presently serving out my second term as governor”. Ortom observed that he couldn’t have trodden these paths without getting on the wrong side of some people. He said: “For those I might have offended in this journey of serving our state and country, I seek their forgiveness. This is as I also forgive those who have offended me”.

In a nation famous for elite arrogance at various levels, Ortom has displayed striking statesmanship, an action which should not be thrown under the carpet. The average African politician is haughty and all-knowing. His carriage is denominated by prototype nose-in-the-air arrogance while viewing others with unfounded contempt and derision. Ortom whose story of ascendancy from the valley to the hilltop has been told and retold desires to return to the status quo ante. He desires to return to his pre-public office personality. He wants to be his previous simple, unassuming self after office, savouring luam with ashwe, adenger and other homemade soups in commonality with friends and folks. He craves to be back to earth with his constituents and comrades, shorn of the isolationist tapestries of office and power. Ortom has just reaffirmed, by his recent gestures, this burning desire, courtesy of his recent narratives and body manifestations.

Olusunle (PhD), poet, journalist, scholar and author is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE)

City FM is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

LAGOS, the most cosmopolitan and politically progressive state in Nigeria on March 18, 2023 engaged in the degenerative politics of exclusion. The debilitating disease of campaigning that a non-full-blooded native cannot be governor, is an incapacitating one. Ten days later, a different philosophy of politics evolved in Scotland where the parliament elected 38-year-old Humza Haroon Yousaf, son of first generation migrants from Punjab, Pakistan, as the country’s first minister, or de facto leader.

The Scots were not interested in who Yousaf’s father is, where his wife comes from or the nationality of those he hangs out with; they simply want someone to get the job of governance done; somebody to lead their struggle  for devolution of power in the United Kingdom, UK. So, the world would be witnessing the strenuous struggles of Scotland led by Yousaf to negotiate a possible exit from UK, while the latter, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Indian origins, would be fighting to keep the kingdom united. Interestingly, Pakistan and India, along with Bangladesh were a single country under British colonialism. So, while Scotland strives to progress in world politics, Nigeria is in regression.

The Nigeria media also appears not to be patient enough to read the world. For instance, in this week’s three-nation African tour by United States, US, Vice President Kamala Harris covering Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, they are screaming that Nigeria was snubbed. Some of the headlines read: “US Vice President, Kamala Harris shuns Nigeria”; “Nigeria missing as Vice President Kamala Harris visits Africa”; “Nigeria missing in VP Harris list of countries to visit”; “Again, US shun Nigeria!”

These are clearly presumptuous. We do not know the reasons for the tour and whether Nigeria fits in. We do not know the objectives, and in any case, why must Nigeria, one of the 55 countries in Africa, be included in a tour of three countries. To me, it is logical  for the US to visit Ghana because it is the American military base in West Africa; a poster boy of International Monetary Fund anti-people policies and a place where unpopular Western culture can be tested. It is, therefore, not surprising to me that the visit is coming at a time the Ghanaian parliament is debating a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, LGBT, bill called the “Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Value.” It seeks to make it a crime to be gay, bisexual or transgender.

Harris had, before her visit, said she had raised the issue of LGBT with Ghana because it is a human rights issue. Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo had tried to pre-empt parliament  when he told the American media: “I have no doubt that the parliament of Ghana will show as it has done in the past … its sensitivity to human rights issues as well as to the feelings of our population and will come out with a responsible response to the proposed legislation.”

In Ghana, Harris, accompanied by her husband, Doug Emhoff, returned to the LGBT issue and the Ghanaian bill: “I feel very strongly about the importance of supporting the freedom and supporting the fighting for equality among all people, and that all people be treated equally. I will also say that this is an issue that we consider, and I consider to be a human rights issue, and that will not change.” A second issue about the visit is the US trying to get Africa into an anti-China and anti-Russia alliance. On the latter, Akufo-Addo in December, 2022, in a report to the US, had complained that Burkina Faso was engaging Russia’s private military contractor, Wagner Group, to fight Islamist extremists and violent groups. 

In an apparent reaction to this, Harris announced in Accra: “To help address the threats of violent extremism and instability, today I am pleased to announce $100m in support of Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo.” She said in 2024, Ghana would receive an additional  $139m.

 These are not things that are likely to appeal to Nigeria because the country’s position on LGBT is clear, and a campaign against China and Russia are not likely to succeed as Nigeria has no disagreements with those countries. Also, we do not have a culture of making other countries enemies, our  enemies.

Indeed, why should Africa side one international power bloc against the other, more so when world politics is not always logical? For instance, the war in Ukraine threatens to go on for a while with each side digging in. As more lethal arms are being deployed, the UK decided to supply depleted uranium munitions-armour piercing tank rounds – to Ukraine. In reaction, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his country would be deploying tactical nuclear weapons in neigbouring Belarus. Ordinarily, this would seem a tit-for-tat war game.  However, the European Union, EU, would have none of it. EU top diplomat, Josep Borrell, bellowed: “Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.”

The US also responded angrily as this may be an escalation of the arms race. But as an African, I ask myself: what am I missing in all these? If the US has, over the years, crossed the oceans to store nuclear weapons in Germany, Turkey, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium, what will be out of place for Russia to store same type of weapons in neigbouring Belarus?

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, described the Russia decision as an “extremely dangerous escalation which makes the use of nuclear weapons more likely…the likelihood of miscalculation or misinterpretation is extremely high; sharing nuclear weapons makes the situation much worse and risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences”.

I agree completely. However,  it would be wishful thinking if some countries can deploy nuclear weapons and we expect others not to do same. Generally, why would countries with nuclear arms decide whether others should not be similarly armed? For instance, why would Israel attack Iran in an attempt to stop that country acquiring nuclear weapons when it is warehousing  the same weapons?

Generally, it will be unwise for Africa to allow itself to be a pawn in world politics. To me, it is understandable that the US would send our Jamaican-African sister Harris on a charm offensive to Africa, it is left to us not to be as vulnerable as Brother Akufo-Addo.

World politics reminds me of the 1700 British play: ‘The Way of the World’ by William Congreve. The title is based on the dog-eat-dog manner the characters in upper class society employed all means including greed and deception to outwit themselves to protect their  interests. Africa needs to learn the way of the world and map out its own path to development.

In the months that preceded the February 2023 presidential election, supporters of Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso both badgered me to recognize Kwankwaso’s matchless political might and affronted me for ranking Peter Obi above him. My unrelenting assertions, which have turned out to be accurate, that one of Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, or Peter Obi would emerge president this year riled them to no end.

One day in 2022, a particularly persistent, monomaniacal Kwankwaso groupie asked me in a comment on my Facebook page why I consistently ignored Kwankwaso in my analyses of likely successors to Muhammadu Buhari. I responded that it was because Kwankwaso was only a “local champion” of Kano politics who had no political traction outside the state.

My lighthearted, unpremeditated comment was screenshot and shared widely within Kwankwaso devotional circles on social media. Kwankwaso’s devotees were enraged because they misconstrued my description of their object of political worship as an insult.

But it isn’t. Although many Nigerian English speakers think “local” is a term of disesteem, it isn’t by any stretch of conventional semantic imagination. It’s a value-neutral term that simply means nearby; not far away in relative terms; limited to a town, city, state, region, etc. rather than a larger area.

 As I pointed out in an April 20, 2014, Daily Trust grammar column titled “12 Popular Misusages in Nigerian English (II),” “There is not the slightest whiff of inferiority in the word in all varieties of English except in Nigerian (and perhaps Ghanaian) English.” A “local” person isn’t an inferior person. Nor is an “international” person a superior person. “Local,” “regional,” “national,” and “international” are mere terms to indicate geographic relativity. 

It was always obvious to any disinterested observer that Kwankwaso was a local Kano champion, that he wasn’t in the presidential race to win it, and that he only wanted to leverage his presidential run to help his son-in-law get elected as governor of Kano State. And he achieved his goal.

Kwankwaso won Kano State convincingly in the presidential election, but didn’t even win second place in Jigawa, which used to be a part of Kano State until relatively recently. That’s a classic instantiation of a local champion.

Obi was different. From about the midpoint of 2022, it became apparent to me that Obi would shake and shape the presidential election in ways his opponents hadn’t come to terms with. When I wrote a column titled “The Peter Obi Tsunami APC and PDP are Underrating” on June 18, 2022, several Kwankwaso supporters—and, of course, APC and PDP partisans—sneered at my suggestion that Obi would be more than a social media sensation among naïve, wide-eyed southern Nigerian youngsters.

A few Kwankwaso supporters imputed ridiculous, extraneous motives to my analysis, such as the idea that I wanted Obi to be president because my wife’s father is Igbo from Anambra State. There was also, of course, the inverse of this sentiment from Obi enthusiasts. Some of them playfully said to me that I was “Obi-dient” because I was an “in-law” to Obi. 

I’ve never been obedient (however the word is contorted in spelling) even as a child. I’ve always been rebellious, disobedient, and inquisitorial. It’s insulting to think that as an adult I’d be obedient, even as a joke, to a delusional, manipulative, Machiavellian, identitarian populist.

Yes, I’ve advocated power rotation to the Southeast in several past columns in the service of national cohesion and distributive political justice and would have been happy for either Obi or Kingsley Moghalu to be president, but my assessments of Obi had no connection with this personal disposition. It was based purely on what I perceived. And my perception has turned out to be more accurate than my critics were prepared to accept.

Even though Obi’s support base was delimited by religion, it did transcend Anambra State, the Southeast, and the South. It got to Christian Northern Nigeria. I predicted exactly that. I thought he would win Benue State, but he fell short because of the star power of APC’s governorship candidate, who I understand is a well-loved Catholic priest. I didn’t think he would win Nasarawa and Lagos states, but he did. His loss of Rivers State is obvious electoral fraud.

Obi’s critics said he had no structure to win elections outside his ethnic base. They didn’t reckon that the church was his structure. And it situated him as widely as it could. Even in the remotest villages in Nigeria, pastors preached that Obi was the only defender of the Christian faith that congregants must vote for. It was the biggest, most impassioned, pan-regional mass mobilization of Christians that Nigeria has ever seen.

Few political structures can outrival that. But the structure of the church that enabled him to win pan-regional Christian votes (except in Yoruba land where ethnic solidarity proved to be more potent than religion) also limited and doomed him. It made it constitutionally impossible for him to be president even if he won a plurality of the vote. 

That is why I think Obi is suffering from a delusional disorder when he talks of his “mandate” being “stolen.” What “mandate”? As Buhari will tell him, intense religious mobilization of voters can take a candidate far, but it can never lead to a national mandate. 

Obi couldn’t possibly have a national mandate when he couldn’t get up to 25% of the votes in Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara, Jigawa, Borno, Yobe, Katsina, Gombe, Bauchi, Adamawa, Kwara, Niger, Kogi, Kebbi, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti, Oyo, Ogun. That’s 20 out of Nigeria’s 36 states. He won or got more than 25% of the votes in only 16 states. With or without rigging, I can bet my life that the outcome would be the same.

When people are ensconced in their hermetically sealed echo chambers, they hear only their own voices and noises. The sounds that exist outside their self-created silos are always inaudible to them. That’s precisely what’s happening to Obi and his devotees. But I look forward to what his petition will reveal.

Anyway, what the outcome of the election has revealed is that Obi isn’t the “local champion” that Kwankwaso supporters told me he is worthier to be called than Kwankwaso. Obi, in fact, won more votes in the North than Kwankwaso did.

Obi got 2,080,847 votes in the North. Kwankwaso got 1,454,649 total votes, most of them from Kano, cementing his position as a local Kano champion. In fact, as TheCable’s March 7, 2023, post-election analysis showed, “Kwankwaso did not get up to 100,000 votes elsewhere aside [from] Kano.”

Apart from winning 12 states (I insist he won Rivers State, making it 13), including two northern states, Obi bested Kwankwaso in 13 northern states: Kaduna, Taraba, Borno, Gombe, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Sokoto, Nasarawa, Plateau, Adamawa, and Benue.

I don’t say this to ridicule Kwankwaso with whom I am on cordial relational terms. In fact, when he visited the United States late last year, he was gracious enough to call me from Washington, DC—after his minions had made an anguished hue and cry about my offhanded, well-intentioned but misunderstood description of him as a “local champion.” 

Although I am critical of his tendency toward infantile personalization of power (which caused him to paint red “Kwankwasiyya” inscriptions on physical projects he completed when he was governor), I have profound respect for Kwankwaso for his transformational infrastructural uplift of Kano, my second state after my home state, and for his remarkably praiseworthy investment in the education of Kano’s youth even while outside government.

I have never ceased to be impressed by the investment of his own personal wealth (to the extent that we can call the wealth of any politician “personal”) to sponsor scores of brilliant Kano youth to acquire much sought-after and relevant higher education degrees in universities across the world. He himself completed a PhD in water engineering from Sharda University in India last year, which signposts his love for education.

Nonetheless, he is still, for now, a local champion. But I think he and Obi have a bright future together in national politics if they learn from their mistakes and make strategic amends. 

Kekong Bisong was my indefatigable metaphysics teacher back in the days at St Joseph Major Seminary, Ikot Ekpene. He is perhaps one of the finest wines that the Catholic church has brewed. In knowledge and in character, he is a good advertisement for the Church. He is not a scholar and a saint only, but also a controversialist. As a distinguished Philosophy Professor, he does not only fancy controversies; he creates them. On this, I can safely say that he is a brewery of controversies.

Whenever he went up to the pulpit to preach, the atmosphere became mute so much so that you could hear the musings of ants. Mute because, we knew he will disagree with even what Jesus had said in the Scriptures. But only to agree later. He does not only disagree for disagreeing sake; he disagrees so he will have reasons for agreeing. It was he who taught us how not to follow the crowd, subscribe to groupthink, belief system, conventional wisdom, etcetera, until when there’s a justification or a raison d’etre. 

On one occasion when he came to the class, he told us a story to validate his point on what he called ‘necessary disobedience’. He started by asking who discovered the mouth of river Niger. Ofcourse, all of us said Mongo Park. He then went on to tell us of a boy who was preparing for a common entrance interview. Fortunately for him, his uncle is a member of the panel and had whispered to him that he will be asked “who discovered the mouth of river Niger.” Ofcourse, the conventional answer even among university professors is that Mongo Park did.

The day came and the boy was again reminded of the name Mongo Park before he departed home to the venue. The interview had started and it was his turn to answer questions. His uncle’s eyes were all on him when a panelist asked: “Who discovered the mouth of river Niger?”  “My grandfather”, the boy answered.  The uncle was so disappointed as the boy keeps repeating” my grandfather.” A member of the panel then went further to ask him why he thinks the answer is his grandfather. He replied: “My grandfather was a fisherman who lived around New Bussa long before Mongo Park arrived. He definitely knew about the mouth of the river before Park. Only that he was not literate enough to tell the story.”

All the panelists were amazed and clapped for the boy. This is what Kekong Bisong called necessary disobedience. For him, the work of the teacher is not to produce conventional ideas and then expect the students to reproduce same at examinations. It is rather to train the mind in challenging beliefs and conventions so as to ascertain what is true and real. This was also what Dr. Bala Usman advocated for when he called for a review of our syllabus to reflect our situation. May God bless his soul!

The ‘partisan behavior’ of some clerics during the 2023 elections, have now forced me into a recollection of Kekong’s philosophy in thinking that these behaviors, inspite of the provision in most Churches, that Priests ought not to take part in partisan politics, could at best, only qualify as holy or necessary disobedience. Apart from my personal experience, a large number of people had called to either complain about not knowing the direction to follow because of the discordant political prescriptions made by their pastors on the party to vote for, or that they and their priests belonged to different political parties and hardly see eye to eye.

The situation chilled me to the marrow because, almost, if not all churches, had representatives in the unfortunate tournament of choosing for, instead of guiding their followers on how to choose their leaders. Even the Catholic Church that used to be our bastion, exemplar, and parapet of hope owing to its rich traditions on Church-State relations, plus the provision of the Canon law that priests should not take part in partisan politics, had some of her Priests involved in this exercise of unprofessional, uncritical and seemingly embarrassing prescription of our present paralysis. What is evident is that, some church leaders, baffled by the development, came out to speak.

The Catholic Bishop of Aba, out of many other church leaders, for instance, said in a statement: “My attention has severally been called to publications and allegations of partisan engagement by priests and leaders of various groups within Aba Diocese but I carefully elected to study the situation from behind the scenes to understand the motivations of the individuals, priests and lay faithful, involved and what exactly they intend to achieve by dragging the Church and my good self into the murky waters of partisan politics. 

“I find it particularly shocking that the individuals who are actively tarnishing the image of the Church in several parishes and communities in the name of active partisanship claim to be acting with my imprimatur.  They feed unsuspecting faithful in various parishes and groups with lies and had become very much emboldened in the last few weeks, perhaps assuming my silence to mean acquiescence.”

The Bishop then cautioned: “The Church has left its doors open to all participants in the 2023 electioneering season to come sell their programmes to the people of God. We have maintained this informed position since the beginning of the campaigns because the Church cannot as a true Mother embrace one or few of its children and throw the others into the cold. We have welcomed everyone into our fold while allowing the voters the freedom to make the ultimate choice at the polls.”

That was Rev. Prof. A. N. Echema – the Catholic Bishop of Aba Diocese. After reading the statement, a friend said to me, had the Bishop seen what happened in Southern Kaduna, he would had called for a declaration of a State of emergency to checkmate clerical partisanship. But on my own steam, I remarked: “Apart from the fact that I was not happy with the way and manner some of the clerics literally bullied their followers into voting in certain patterns aimed at changing the current leadership and the nest that hatched it, I prophesied that there’s likely going to be a church-going apathy after the elections. I say this because, the positions these clerics took, excluded most of their sons and daughters whose dreams, candidates, party and interests didn’t tally; thereby denying them the warmth of the Church’s motherhood for all. But I thought we had gone beyond the issue of party and are now talking about candidates.

Yes, as Bishop Echema observed: “While admitting that the Church can guide the decision of the voters within its fold at very critical points, it must be emphasised that in making that decision, the Church is essentially concerned with the personal attributes of the leaders and their vision for the society.  Membership of any group or society has never formed the basis of the Church’s approval or disapproval of any political leader.”  

Now that the elections are over and it is an open secret that most Christian clerics in Kaduna state, out of deep angst, pointed to the direction of the PDP’s gubernatorial candidate, Isa Ashiru, who, according to the INEC, lost to Uba Sani of the APC, it is important to re-echo the words of Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah at the funeral of Yakowa to the governor-elect, Uba Sani.

Kukah said to the then deputy governor and Yakowa’s successor, Ramalan Yero: “To our new Governor, Archbishop Ndangoso and I listened to all your beautiful testimony. The world looks up to you never to be tempted by the whispers of the wicked whose devilish and selfish hold on power has held our society down. Do not be tempted to think that the Muslims have taken what the wicked have presented as a prize for only Muslims. You have taken over the steering wheel and must obey and respect all road signs so that we can arrive at the destination that we have set for ourselves. “

“Balancing our dreams together “, Kukah continued, “can make ours one of the greatest States in Nigeria. Let us reverse the divisive, ugly and pernicious past which was constructed by men who had the hearts of apartheid. By pursuing the politics of exclusion, these men and women merely destroyed both the noble Faith of Islam and the North that its founders dreamt of. I want to assure you that there are millions of Yakowas outside the Muslim community, and that the monopoly of power by one section or even one gender or generation denies our people a future. This is what South Africa realized. It is what the Americans have now realized in Obama.”

To my mind, the necessary disobedience by the Christian clergy in especially Southern Kaduna should not be interpreted and seen as a creedal hatred against the identity of the governor-elect since the candidate whose coming they heralded doesn’t share the same Faith with them. It should rather be seen as an angry yearning for a change from an APC that could not only manage our rainbow collection of diversities, but also implemeneted, even on the eve of the elections, some uncritical policies that made some of its governors went to court.

Finally, did the clerics stray? No! It was simply a situational intervention; a necessary clerical disobedience to their code of conduct aimed at saying enough is enough. A contumacy that was entered into out of love. They complain that government didn’t manage diversity well; government implemented uncritical policies; the body language of government has not shown that the defense of human life is the essence of democracy. Therefore, they are ready for a new order even if to be headed by the red goat economist. God is the Giver of Power. May He bless our governor-elect and all our leaders with the wisdom to reunite us. Out of the ashes of despondency, and the cynicism of the vulnerable, shall arise a great nation. May God bless our state and nation.

Damina wrote from Holy Family Catholic Church Gidan Bako and can be reached via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Good governance is the kernel of Nigeria’s development. Effective leadership will address a good number of today’s nettlesome challenges. The vexing problems with education, healthcare, security, unemployment, and electricity can be managed or palliated with responsible leadership. But why are we not giving currency to these crucial and experiential issues in our post-election conversations? Why is the repugnant, the vicious, and the divisive governing the public discourse?

I would hazard a guess as to why. To some, good governance is natively partial; it is selective of candidates based on kinship, religious orientation, or some manufactured puritanism. It must be their candidate as president, or doom and gloom befall the country. So, they constitute themselves into a bulwark of cynicism, scorching conversations and the polity with hate, prejudice, and fear.

This is an unpatriotic and jaundiced disposition to domestic concerns. It is clear that to these ones what matters is not whether the president-elect or the leadership is competent, and sufficiently prepared to fix the country; the grouse is that he does not conform with their bias.

But being patriotic does not mean anyone must like the government or the president, it dictates citizens must commit to the peace and progress of the country regardless of who is president. We must move the conversations away from the crude to the sublime. Nigeria is too important for groundless tropes to be the definers of critical discourses.

We should set the right tone and tenor for the next administration. We should begin to study and review the Renewed Hope manifesto. We are collectively plagued by the same problems; we need food on our table; we need qualitative education for our children; we need security of life and property; we need good healthcare; we need jobs, and we need decent living. These are existential perturbations that should arrest our attention.

We keep going through the same mill every cycle and expect a change. As citizens, we should be more purposive about governance, and less obsessed with thrilling distractions.

I must say Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, even as president-elect, has begun on a pragmatic and winsome trajectory. By seeking reconciliation with those he legitimately, fairly, and squarely defeated in the presidential election, and by re-affirming his commitment to be president for all Nigerians and to run a government of national competence, Asiwaju is endearing himself to Nigerians.

His deportment so far has been statesmanly and nationalistic, confounding the suggestions and assumptions of traducers. I hope he keeps this streak. Good governance will frustrate the expectations of scoffers.

Let us revisit the manifesto. In it, the president-elect delineated his plans for the country. My interest is in a cocktail of prescriptions – federalism/decentralisation of power, national security, economy, power, agriculture, education, healthcare, transportation, and foreign policy. These constitute the critical sectors of government. But I am of the view that the administration, most importantly, will be assessed on how well it manages our diversity, on security and the economy.

The president-elect as started well with words of affirmation, of unity, of communality, which will further help in building national consensus. He should maintain this expansive disposition – as always.

President Muhammadu Buhari recently signed 16 constitution alteration bills into law. Of significance is the bill on financial independence of State Houses of Assembly and State Judiciary and those on the removal of the railway, prison and electricity from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list.

I believe this offers the Tinubu administration fecundated ground to drive its vision of more balanced democracy. Federalism and Decentralisation of power is a prominent feature of Asiwaju’s manifesto. There is still a lot of room for decentralisation of power in areas of crime prevention, stamp duties, certain forms of taxation, resource allocation – as enumerated in the manifesto. It is expected that the president-elect will work with the national assembly to motor his vision.

On the economy, the president-elect has a fine blueprint and prescription. He says his administration will improve existing industries and sectors; adjust the revenue allocation prescription to give states greater flexibility to foster grassroots economic development; build an economy that produces more of the everyday items – both agricultural and manufactured goods; bring the national infrastructure policy to life and harmonise it with the national industrial policy to ensure optimal development of key sectors; review federal budgetary methodology, curb importation of non-essential goods, reform the tax system, as well as implement a naira-denominated monetary policy.

The president-elect says he will tackle insecurity with technology, confidence-building, citizens’ participation, intelligence-led policing, improvement of salaries and welfare of troops, creation of anti-terrorist battalions, bolstering of manpower, freeing the police from VIP security and guard duties, and again, deployment of technology.

In all, the president-elect’s team will largely account for the success of his plan for Nigeria. The president-elect has stated unambiguously that he will run a government of national competence. This is comforting and reassuring. He must succeed for the sake of Nigeria.

We should go back to the Renewed Hope manifesto, to study and review it. Let us talk governance, not this babel of conspiracies and prejudices. Citizenship comes with responsibility. We are evenly plagued by the same problems, of which good governance can palliate or fix. So, let us talk governance.

May the president-elect succeed.