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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Programme: CITY TALKS WITH REUBEN ABATI

Time: 12:00pm

Topic: Lagos Bans Commercial Motorcycles In Six LGAs

Date: Saturday, May 21, 2022

Guest: Gbenga Omotosho (Lagos State Commissioner for Information & Strategy)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Programme: CITY TALKS WITH REUBEN ABATI

Time: 12:00pm

Topic: Cost of nomination forms & resignation of political appointees

Date: Saturday, May 14, 2022

Guest: Adamu Garba ( Fmr. APC Presidential Aspirant)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Programme: CITY TALKS WITH REUBEN ABATI

Time: 12:00pm

Topic: Political Developments In Lagos State

Date: Saturday, April 30, 2022

Guest: Hon. Wale Oluwo ( Fmr. Commissioner for Energy & Min. Resources Lagos State)

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The Lagos State Government following reports of an alleged “rape incident”  involving an 11-year old female student of Chrisland Schools Lagos, and male pupils of the school, during a trip to the World School Games in Dubai (March 10 -13, 2022), promptly shut down the school, to investigate exactly what happened. A video was put into circulation showing the girl, in a dominant cowboy position, riding a young male student like a horse in an amorous fashion, with one of the students watching and recording the bedroom scene. Some other people said the girl was also shown in a reverse osmosis position, whatever that means. The public was shocked. These are primary school children for Heaven’s sake engaging in activities straight from the pages of Kama Sutra, the iconic text on sex and dalliance that their mothers, fathers and grandparents may never have ever heard of or experienced. Raw sex in a primary school!, photographed and videoed and put into circulation. It was like a screen shot of Sodom and Gomorrah. Matters got worse when the mother of the girl involved raised an alarm and made statements to the effect that the school, Chrisland, had failed in its duty to take care of her daughter while on a trip to Dubai, under its auspices;  on the return of the students, her daughter was taken for a pregnancy test without her consent, and that when the video became public, every attempt to engage with the school failed, and that the school had told her daughter not to say a word to anybody about her experience. Her daughter, she claimed, went to Dubai as a virgin, and returned as the protagonist in a sex video, traumatized, afraid to return to school. 

I followed the story closely. The Lagos State Government having shut down the school and its various branches warned the public to desist from sharing the video. Long before the state government reminded everyone that the circulation of pornography would attract a penalty of 14 years imprisonment, the video was already in circulation in any case, and many social media sites used it as click-bait. But what would any parent gain from a group of minors exploring adult experience? Many must have been motivated by sheer curiousity and the native belief that seeing is believing. The Lagos State Government has now re-opened the Chrisland Schools, and the students are on their way back to the classroom in all the locations where the school has branches: Victoria Garden City where the incident occurred, Idimu, Ikeja, Festac, Lekki and elsewhere.

Chrisland is one of those well-appointed schools with a strong reputation and record of achievements dating back to 40 years. The Awosikas, owners of the school, have through their educational system produced generations of students who have become established in many fields of human endeavour at home and abroad. In the absence of a functional public system, many parents patronize schools like Chrisland which aspire to and maintain higher standards of instruction. Nigeria is a country where education is still valued in terms of the acquisition of certificates, observing the routine and the process to the letter. Even if a child is still going to end up as an internet fraudster or as a Boko Haram soldier, parents believe that a starting point is to give their child, good education. This is more the case among the troubled Nigerian middle class, especially in the Southern parts of the country. Elsewhere, in other parts, the story is different. The North, for example, has the largest collection of out-of-school children. In parts of the East, the enrolment of the boy-child in trade apprenticeship schemes, by the way a global business model, continues to compete with enrolment in the formal school system.

This then makes it all the more surprising when it is reported one case after another that there are serious issues with the same schools that middle class parents and their wannabe colleagues patronize. In the same Chrisland School in question, there was a report around 2019 about a male teacher who was said to have defiled a 2-year-old. The man was convicted. In Abuja, there was also the case of a victim of sexual abuse, 14-year old Keren-Happuch Akpagher who died in one of the elite secondary schools – Premiere Academy, Lugbe. Before the latest incident in Chrisland, there was also the matter of Dowen College in Lekki, Lagos, in which 12-year old Sylvester Oromoni died. The Dowen College matter, still unresolved, with the family still protesting an attempt to sweep the matter under the carpet, was a big scandal. These are three of the reported cases of similar incidents in schools across Nigeria and in Lagos State. Many more of such incidents would go unreported, given the culture of silence that governs the Nigerian cultural and social space. Now, after the temporary closure of Chrisland Schools and police investigations, Chrisland has now been reopened by the Lagos authorities. The Police and the Lagos state government probably acted swiftly in order to prevent the ugliness of the Dowen College affair from re-occurring. To start with, I think, a review is necessary. In this country, we forget too soon, too easily. Things happen at such a frenetic pace, that we hardly have the time to reflect on what may have happened, before we move on to the next incident. Our present-mindedness, that is temporocentrism, is the biggest affliction that holds this country down.  

I was struck by three major reactions to the pre-teenage sex scandal of the Chrisland students. Tonto Dikeh, the star actress was the first to raise the alarm, having watched the video she said she did not think this was a case of rape or sexual violence, and that from the way the child was riding the male horse beneath her, it was obvious to her that this was not the child’s first sexual encounter. She actually calculated the rhythm of the motions, it would seem, and surmised that the girl must have had sex at least five times and that there must be an adult somewhere who exposed her quite early. I am tempted to believe Tonto Dikeh. She is a mature, experienced, woman of multiple talents. I am therefore not in a position to doubt her ability to read bedroom, erotic movements and put a date and a stamp to same.  But her more cogent point is that parents need to pay more attention to their children. The second reaction came from Shola Ogudu, the mother of Ayo Balogun’s first son, Boluwatife. Ayo Balogun is the superstar musician known popularly known as “Whizkid or Star Boy.” Ms Ogudu in a statement disclosed that her son attends the school in question and that she accompanied her son to Dubai for the World School Games – 76 students from Chrisland and incidentally, the school won about 34 medals which no one has bothered to talk about!

Ms Ogudu indicated that there was no way she could have allowed her son to travel alone to a foreign country, in the midst of 76 children and others! She advised parents to be more attentive, and devote more time to their children. Unlike the aggrieved mother in the story, Ms. Ogudu was full of praise and support for Chrisland Schools. The third reaction that caught my attention was the statement by more than one psychologist that both the girl in the video and her parents need psychological counseling. And I ask: how about the boys too? What kind of 11-year old male child starts having sex so early? What kind of homes are these characters from? I have heard some people arguing that parents do not have time. Schools and teachers are expected to act in loco-parentis. This is where the problem lies.

In our time, growing up, our parents were hands-on guardians, coaches and advisers. They drummed values into our ears at every turn. Each time you tried to venture out of the house, to attend an event or return to school, you would be told: “Remember the child of whom you are.” This had nothing to do with money but everything about values, character, dignity and integrity. But in the new society in which we have found ourselves, many parents have abdicated their responsibilities. They claim that they are busy looking for money to meet everyone’s needs. In the course of that pursuit, a child is handed over straight from the maternity ward to a retinue of nannies, home assistants and aides. In our new society, we throw money at everything including our children. Daddy has no time. Mummy is too busy trying to compete with the Joneses. The children are given all the toys that they want - from TV, to Play station to 24-hour electricity supply. These uptown babies of the new society do not cry. As Max Romeo and the Upsetters put it: “They don’t know what hungry is like/Uptown babies don’t cry/They don’t know what suffering is like/They have Mummy and Daddy/Lots of toys to play with/Nanny and Granny/Lot of friends to stay with…”

As soon as they are old enough to press numbers, they get a sleek, smart phone – usually the costliest in the market, with unrestricted access to social media. Some parents even open instagram and TikTok accounts for their children as soon they start crawling. This Gen Z group is soon introduced to all the negative stuff that social media can offer. Even outside that space, they are exposed to the dissolute lives of their parents: twerking moms, violent, 12 o’clock Dads and a community of sick uncles and aunties who set very bad examples. There are many households out there in which parents and their children are strangers to one another. When the children then fail in school, morally and academically, the same parents blame the teachers. They claim that they have paid so much money so that their children can get the best training possible. The truth of the matter is that money cannot buy everything. There are just certain things money can’t buy. Many parents themselves are in need of parenting! What do you make, for example, of those overgrown babies who wake up in the morning, eat spaghetti and spend the rest of the day playing games in front of the TV. They don’t have to work: their own parents have made enough money to feed the next five generations of idle sons and daughters! These idlers father children and the cycle continues.

It seems to me that all cases of reported misdemeanor in our schools should trigger introspection in every right-thinking, concerned stakeholder. The problem is not that of Chrisland Schools. It is an indication of the deepening moral turpitude in our land. Everything that can go wrong is wrong with the younger generation: juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, value system, cultism, the kind of music they listen to- there is even a gang called the Naira Marley Gang – you don’t want me to describe the sociology of that. Adolescent sexuality is on the rise, with promiscuity now the order of the day. Aristotle told us that “a child learns by imitation” Nigeria has taught its children bad imitation, and that is why the children replicate the bad behaviour of their parents. It is beyond the schools. After all, one Christian university in this same country once decided that it would conduct compulsory virginity tests on its new female students. Many of us complained at the time that this was discriminatory and gender insensitive. The school authorities stood their ground. After two sessions, they didn’t need to be persuaded to abandon the practice without any argument, when they discovered that among the teenage female university entrants, a virginity test was no more than a futile search for a virgin in a maternity ward!

When incidents such as the one under review occur, processes are important. I hope that the Lagos State Government and the Police would make their findings public. By deciding to re-open Chrisland Schools, both authorities must have made some findings and reached a conclusion that the school has no case to answer. Many parents are relieved. But the public has a right to know more. Parents in particular, need to know. There are also lessons to be learnt from how Chrisland Schools management has controlled the crisis and managed the communication process. They have done much better than the managers of Dowen College who practically slept off in the face of a crisis until things went out of hand. The team of crisis managers at Chrisland stayed on the matter and bombarded the public with their own version of the story before the alternative could gain ground. They had the support of other stakeholders who helped to intensify other aspects of the narrative, including detailed revelations about how the girl in question is an indulgent, over-pampered child with a reputation for sexual displays on social media and a wayward, bad-girl-attitude for which she is reportedly unapologetic! 

Chrisland School has done a good job of rescuing and protecting its brand all through the storm. In a statement signed on behalf of the school by Akin Fadeyi, a member of the school’s Advisory Board, the school has in place a strong child protection mechanism. Going forward, the school must see the need to invest more in that mechanism, and constantly engage with parents to provide the best possible arrangements for students. Besides, Mrs Winifred Awosika needs to take a second look at the Victoria Garden City (VGC) branch of the School. It was in this same school three years ago, that a teacher was eventually sentenced to a prison term of 60 years for sexually abusing a 2-year old. Is there something amiss in that school that needs to be addressed? Could it be the celebrity environment on the Island? Lagos State has more than 20 thousand schools – public and private, from the primary to the tertiary level. The Government should strengthen the Inspectorate Division of its Ministry of Education to make it more efficient, vigilant, and productive for the good of all. To parents, a simple message: wake up!      

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Programme: CITY TALKS WITH REUBEN ABATI

Time: 12:00pm

Topic: Parenting and Child Education

Date: Saturday, April 23, 2022

Guest: Akinola Akinropo (consultant & child rights Ambassador)

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Pursuant to the powers to exercise the prerogative of mercy vested in the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Section 175  (1—6) of the  1999 Constitution the Federal Government last week granted state pardon to two former state Governors, Rev Jolly Nyame of Taraba State and Senator Joshua Dariye of Plateau State, along with 157 others. The effect of pardon amounts to the nullification of punishment or consequences of a crime and conviction. The person is fully restored as if he never committed the offence in the first place. It is perhaps for this reason that Justice John Marshall in US v. Wilson (1833) describes a state pardon “as an act of grace”. The President of Nigeria grants pardon as a prerogative or an act of discretion to correct perceived injustice, wrongful punishment or judicial excesses and this could be a tricky point given the salience of the doctrine of separation of powers. The easiest defence however is for the government to hide under the cover of public policy, or the fact that no law is broken when state pardon is granted since it is a constitutional function. The only caveat is found in Section 175 (5) which requires the President to seek the advice of the Council of State and Section 175 (6) which asks the President to act “in accordance with the advice of the Council of State.” In Nigeria, the power to grant pardon is vested in the President with regard to federal offences (section 175) and in State Governors in respect of state offences (Section 212). A pardon is not the same as amnesty which is granted before prosecution, as seen under the Presidency of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua when he granted amnesty to Niger Delta militants nor is state pardon a form of judicial review as defined for now under Nigerian law.     

Nigeria has a fairly long history of state pardon. In 1966, before the civil war, the Yakubu Gowon regime pardoned Chief Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the Action Group, and former Premier of the defunct Western region, and Chief Anthony Enahoro, journalist and politician, who first moved the motion for Nigeria’s Independence in 1953, both of whom had been convicted of treasonable felony in 1963. President Shehu Shagari pardoned General Yakubu Gowon to nullify the accusation that he was involved in the 1975 Bukar Dimka coup that led to the assassination of General Murtala Muhammed. The same Shagari administration pardoned the Biafran leader, Odimegwu Ojukwu, for leading the Biafran secession between 1967 and 1971. General Babangida granted pardon to Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson, two journalists with the Nigerian Guardian newspapers who were jailed under the draconian Decree 4 imposed by the Muhammadu Buhari regime. General Abdusalami Abubakar pardoned then General Olusegun Obasanjo who was convicted of involvement in a coup plot by the Abacha regime.  President Obasanjo pardoned a former Speaker of the House of Representatives. In 1999, Salisu Buhari was convicted for forging his certificate- the famous Toronto scandal. His sins were later officially forgiven. In March 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan granted pardon to former Governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepreye S. Alamieyeseigha along with Lt. General Oladipo Diya (rtd.), Major-General Abdulkarim Adisa (rtd), former Managing Director of Bank of the North, Shettima Bulama, In April 2020, the Buhari administration granted pardon to former Governor of old Bendel State, Prof. Ambrose Alli, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Col. Moses Effiong, Major E.J. Olanrewaju, Babalola Ajayi and 44 others. 

Presidential pardons have been controversial in Nigeria. The general public often subjects the pardoned persons list to rigorous scrutiny, with questions usually raised about the criteria for determining who gets pardoned and who does not. This stems from the concern that it is often the privileged and well-connected members of society who have run foul of the law that are often ever so lucky. Even if this may not be completely true, the point is well made that a President with monarchical powers or a state Governor seeking political patronage may exercise the powers of pardon without restraint, resulting in abuse. There are also moral and emotional concerns. In this regard, perhaps the most controversial pardon granted so far in contemporary Nigerian history would be that of Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha who escaped from the arms of the law in the United Kingdom, only to return to a hero’s welcome in Nigeria and the subsequent nullification of all the sins he was alleged to have committed against the people of Bayelsa state. The pardon that was granted him by the Jonathan administration in 2013 was seen as an act of affront by both local and foreign analysts. Alams, as he was known, was accused of having corruptly enriched himself with the resources of Bayelsa state. What was overlooked in this particular case was that the pardon for Alamieyesiegha, initiated by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and later effected by President Jonathan was conditional. President Yar’Adua had involved Alams in the amnesty process in the Niger Delta with a promise that in appreciation of his contributions to the cause of peace and stability in that troubled part of Nigeria, he would be granted pardon. Sometimes the trigger of controversy may simply be blatant error on the part of the authorities as in the case of the April 2020 pardon of Chief Anthony Enahoro. Enahoro was convicted and sentenced in September 1963. He was pardoned by the Gowon regime in August 1966. He went on to become a Federal Commissioner for Information and Labour in 1967. To pardon him a second time was a loud demonstration of absent-mindedness, and to think the pardon was duly gazette. Some government officials failed to check the records!

Controversial pardons are not limited to Nigeria. However, in the United States where the pardoning process is as in Nigeria, vested in the President, the history of pardons has been more acrimonious. Just to cite a few examples: On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford granted full and unconditional pardon to former President Richard Nixon over his involvement in the Watergate scandal that led to his unceremonious resignation from office and any crime that he may have committed as President. Many Americans felt that the pardon was undeserved. It was a controversial decision but Ford stood his ground. He paid a heavy price for that. His popularity rating dropped. Similarly, in 1983, President Bill Clinton’s pardon of millionaire Marc Rich was generally considered too oily a bargain. On his last day in office on January 20, 2001, President Clinton announced more controversial pardons including left-wing Patty Hearst, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans. He also pardoned his own half-brother, Roger Clinton who was convicted for drug trafficking! His last day in office has been described as “pardongate” – a total of 140 pardons! Clinton was known for inciting public outrage with his pardons as was the case when he chose to commute the sentences of 16 FALN terrorists in 1999. His own wife, Hillary Clinton voted against the decision when it was tabled before the Senate but the President could not be stopped because he held power of discretion to grant pardons. The whole idea of presidential pardon in the American system, a hold-over from the British system was first proposed at the 1787 Constitutional Convention by Alexander Hamilton but over the years, there have been fears about how such absolute power, resting on the discretion of one man could be abused, and indeed in his last days in Office, it was thought that President Donald Trump could grant himself a pardon in advance to protect himself legally from the fall-outs of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol. President Trump tried to meet Clinton’s record, if he did not surpass it. In the final hours of his Presidency, Trump granted 70 pardons to mostly financiers and lobbyists, and executive clemency/commutations to 73 others.          

Back to Nigeria, it should in fact not be surprising that so much outrage has greeted the announcement of pardon to two former Governors – Dariye and Nyame. Those who have commented on the list are not necessarily bothered about the 157 others, but the two former Governors. The sentiments expressed so far are similar to the reactions that attended the pardon of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha in 2013. Like him, Nyame and Dariye were accused of corruptly enriching themselves at public expense. Dariye, Plateau State Governor (1999 -2007) was charged for money laundering (N1.16 billion). His matter went from the High Court all the way to the Supreme Court, at the end of which he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by the High Court; this was later reduced to 10 years by the Court of Appeal, and his conviction was finally upheld by the Supreme Court. Rev Jolly Nyame, Governor of Taraba State (1999-2007) was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. And now both men have been freed, completely without conditions. A pardon may be with or without conditions. Theirs is without any. Femi Falana SAN, Jubrin Sam Okutepa, SAN, Governor Nyesom Wike, Reno Omokri and a host of others have argued that this is a form of endorsement of corruption coming from a government that says one of its cardinal tasks was to fight corruption. In his Easter homily on April 17, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto says there are many innocent people languishing inside Nigeria’s “broken system” who should also be freed. His words: “I thank the President for accepting the report of the Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy and granting pardon to over 150 Nigerians serving various terms of imprisonment. The more serious challenge is to immediately free all innocent Nigerians who are held captive and whose only crime is that they are living in Nigeria.”  Mike Ozekhome, SAN in an informed commentary on the matter argues that the crux of the matter is that “granting pardon to people convicted of corrupt practices, whether still serving or having served, may be construed as tacit approval of such corrupt practices.”

 He argues further that the Council of State arrived at the endorsement of the pardon in error because the two former Governors committed the offences for which they were convicted under state law, the Penal Code Act and not under a Federal legislation, and to that extent, the appropriate person to grant them pardon would seem to be the Governors of their respective states under Section 212 of the 1999 Constitution. He asks: “where lies the justice for the impoverished people of Plateau and Taraba States who will now watch their tormentors stroll out with red carpet treatment?” Incidentally, it is not only lawyers and civil society activists that have expressed shock. It has been reported that even the officials of the anti-corruption agency, the EFCC and their lawyers are alarmed and demoralized. The agency reportedly spent 11 years and millions of Naira on investigation and prosecution of the two former Governors, and now both men are free. They have been cleansed of their sins. Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike says the judges who convicted both men have been exposed to ridicule, and that the pardon is politically motivated - Nyame and Dariye are members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).  

The strongest objection that has been put up is the impression that has now been created that the state protects the rich and that the poor in Nigeria have nothing to regret more than their powerlessness and lack of connections. Hence, Femi Falana SAN observes: “A Nigerian was jailed for stealing noodles in Abuja, he was not granted state pardon. If you want to pardon your friends, you must extend that pardon to other people in the spirit of equity and fairness.” Falana wants all thieves in prison to be pardoned – in other words, what is good for the big thief should be good also for smaller thieves.        

The reality check in all of this is that the deed is done and the President is unlikely to reverse himself. Ozekhome raises a cogent question about the people of Plateau and Taraba. I am surprised he overlooks the fact that some people in both states, including incumbent Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau, even Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State have been thanking President Buhari for pardoning their kinsmen. The same people will organize a hero’s welcome for the two former Governors. The effect of their unconditional pardon, after all, is that they have become new men - novus homo! As the political parties prepare for their presidential primaries, it is not impossible that these same men could show up as political candidates – for Senate or Vice-President or even President!  The other point made by Ozekhome, with due respect, is to be seen as part of the crisis of federalism in the country.  It is true that the two Governors committed offences under state law, but the affected states never investigated or prosecuted them. It was the Federal Government as an interloper that did, and so, the Council of State acted according to the process in place.  

Beyond the moral anger that has been displayed, we should be more concerned about how to prevent the abuse of presidential pardon to ensure that the main beneficiaries are not the rich and mighty and that the near-absolute powers exercised by the President are curtailed to prevent a situation whereby pardons go more to friends of the ruling party or kinsmen and political associates. The Council of State, created by Section 153 (1)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, and which is referred to in an obligatory sense in Section 175 (5) and (6) is more of a ceremonial or advisory body. Its members have no powers to overrule the President in respect of state pardon, in the same manner in which the Legislature can challenge the President or the judiciary can question Executive powers by defining what the law is. The power of a President to grant pardon, while an act of benevolence, is rather slippery. He is, in any case, the Chairman of the Council of State. In order to develop our Constitutional framework further, the judiciary should be involved in the pardoning process to check arbitrariness, reduce the scope of discretion, and to ensure that there is a judicial review of the pardon list to bring it more in conformity with the laws of the land and the end of justice. But should this appear as if the judiciary is being brought into the fray to become a judge in its own case, then the Council of State should be given more powers to be part of the process of determining the pardon list, instead of being brought in at the last minute to rubber stamp an Executive decision.