“You look dull. I hope you are good”

“What else can the son of man do, with all the problems on someone’s head in this country?” 

“What happened? Your team messed up in the Premier League? Is your problem David De Gea?”

“No”

“May be the Arsenal coach then, because that match Arsenal played against Leicester City, during the weekend, the entire team, from Manager to the reserve bench should be placed on transfer when the window for transfers open. I should ask sef, which one is your team?”

“My problem is not football, please. I am not one of those who lose their heads over football in the UK, when they don’t even know the name of a single football team in Nigeria. I just can’t stand our people’s obsession with everything European.  It is a kind of colonial mentality. Neo-slavery.” 

“Please don’t moralize. We live in a global village. People are free to make their own choices. If I buy a television set with my own money, I can watch whatever I like on it. So, what is your problem? What’s on your mind?” 

“I am actually thinking of going on a private visit abroad.”

“So, what is stopping you? Go ahead.”

“You know how it is. I don’t want a situation where I will now travel and people like you will start carrying placards, complaining about how I travelled without telling close friends.”

“Ah come on, my friend. Must you joke with everything? When last did I even see you? If you travel quietly and you come back, what can anybody do about that? Sometimes, it is even good to hide your movement. You know our people and their bad belle, envy and evil eye.”

“I think it is just sheer courtesy to let close friends know one’s movement. It is our culture. Otherwise, you would think I am anti-social and that I am stingy. As I don tell you now, even if na small chocolate, I go buy bring for you, make you too taste something from the abroad”.     

“Well, good for you. But as for me, I don’t know about other people, every man with his own hustle. So where are you going?”

“Jandon”

“Jandon. What is that?”

“You don’t know Jandon? That is the slang name for London. I will just go for about a few days. I won’t even tell them in my office. I will just steal a few days and call in sick. My boss likes to kill somebody with work. I cannot come and kill myself. I am telling you because you are my man.” 

“That is like cheating your company. The company must know where you are at any time.” 

“You are my person, that is why I am telling you.” 

“You are a manager in your company. You must set a good example. I am sure the terms of your contract do not allow you to go on secret trips.” 

“All of these because I have confided in you? Even the President of Nigeria goes on a private visit. He is in London right now, nobody actually knows where he is there, what he is doing, who he is talking to, who is visiting him. That is the President. I beg, company can rest. I want to do like the President. It is a private visit to London, please.”

“I would expect that the normal thing for you to do is to apply for leave. You can just write about three lines. I am sure your office will have a back up for your position who can cover up for you while you are away. Until you resign or leave the job, you have a duty of care to ensure that you don’t disrupt your company’s operations. You can’t just take off and say it is a private visit. Even if you are going to see Her majesty the Queen, it is unacceptable. It is just simple, straightforward commonsense. You know I am your friend, just advising you.”

“So that what will not happen? So that the company will not sack me?  They will not try it. I am the soul of the company. I have paid my dues.  They all know my integrity is intact.” 

“Your integrity is not intact if you take the company for granted.” 

“You can’t know my company better than me. I work there. I know my worth. But it is not your fault. I tell you something, you begin to offer advice. I am sure you are one of those people going about saying President Muhammadu Buhari cannot go on a private visit.”

“Yes. I am.” 

“I know. Of course. You are a PDP sympathizer. Must you people play politics with everything? Is the President not entitled to go away for some days after a hectic election, to just go and rest, take some time off from the madness of Nigeria, recuperate, rejuvenate and prepare himself for the beginning of a second term?”      

“He didn’t follow due process. It is simple common sense.”

“Common sense. Common sense. How many of your proverbial common man voted for common sense in the last general elections? The common man rejected common sense and I tell you nothing will happen.” 

“That is a different matter. What I am saying is that the President of Nigeria has a duty to respect the Constitution of Nigeria. Whenever he wants to travel, he must inform the National Assembly and hand over to the Vice President who will act on his behalf. The Constitution does not recognize “a private visit.” The President of Nigeria is a public official. The Nigerian taxpayer must know where he is, what he is doing at all times.”

“Very soon you people will alter the Constitution and ask for details of what the President does with his wife in the other room. You people are busy quoting the Constitution as if it descended from Heaven.”

“We are in a democracy. There are rules of engagement. We are under the rule of law, not the rule of men. We cannot have leaders who break the law. We must call them out.” 

“I know you people’s problem. You are not happy losing the election.”

“That is not it. I am a Constitutional purist.  A President can only be absent from duty within the purview of the law. The law is what the law giver says it is, just as company rules and terms of contract are sacrosanct.”

“So what will you say, if you suddenly hear that indeed the President, before leaving for London already sent a letter to the National Assembly? After all, there is no vacuum. Last Wednesday, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo presided over the Federal Executive Council meeting. Under his watch, FEC approved N56 billion for the e-border initiative. Other contracts were awarded. He is in charge in the President’s absence.” 

“Is he doing that as Acting President or as co-ordinator of activities as he was once described when the President delegated authority to him?” 

“Semantics. You people are the ones complaining. What if a letter suddenly shows up on the floor of the Senate?”

“I won’t put that past them. But we have been told anyway that the President can rule Nigeria from anywhere in the world. And we are saying we don’t want a diaspora President. Every job has a contact address and the contact address for the Nigerian President is in Nigeria. We know about official visit, state visit and working visit.  The Nigerian Constitution does not talk about private visit. It talks about vacation.” 

“You better don’t give yourself hypertension. I think lawyers, politicians and journalists are just always looking for something to talk about. Keep talking, before you know it now, Buhari will be back in Nigeria.”

“What if he extends the visit? After all, he once disappeared for more than 100 days.” 

“And what happened? I think this whole problem has been created by his spokespersons. I think they should just have told us that the President is going on a short leave. He is entitled to vacation. But I also guess they have called it private visit, because they don’t want appointment seekers and contractors to disturb him. All those sycophants who are always seeking the eyes and ears of Presidents have been tactically told to keep off.  You must always see things in context.”   

“That is not an excuse to disobey the Constitution. The president cannot embark on classified trips. He cannot go on secret missions.  That is unknown to the Constitution.”

“Would you be satisfied if you suddenly see him going to Selfridges to shop, or having a meal at a restaurant? You want to see him. Fine. I just hope you people will not come again and say he is using Nigerian money to have fun” 

“No. He cannot go to Selfridges. He will have to explain the source of the money.” 

“There you go. Please can we talk about something else. Last, last, everybody will be okay in this country, because it looks like everybody is depressed. It is just the level that differs. People who have not seen N500 thousand in their lives will be shouting, our money, our money”

“You are just a government apologist.” 

Yes, I am. It is only government apologists that win elections in Nigeria. At least for now. And for your information, my long-term plan is to go and run for election in my state, Bayelsa state. That is why when you were talking about company rules and contract, I just dey look you. See in our state, the House of Assembly has just passed a bill that says every lawmaker in that state who ever served is entitled to a life-time pension. Next election in that state, I am there oh, my brother. N500k for life, every month. Even if I die sef, I will tell my family not to let anybody know, so they can keep paying the money into my account. I will just go on a private visit to heaven.”

“Countriman will not sign that bill into law. He must not do it.  It is a vexatious piece of legislation.”

“Who is Countriman? And what is your own? Are you from our state?”

“Seriake Dickson, your Governor is the man we all call Countriman. Look, we must insist that politicians must have jobs that they do. The job of the legislature is to make laws for order, stability and good governance, not to make selfish laws that establish a rent-collection system for lawmakers. I have it on good authority, anyway that Governor Dickson has rejected that bill.” 

“You don’t know what you are talking about. Your countryman must not try any such thing. The House of Assembly will override his veto. Leave matter. You see, in this country, everybody is looking out for himself. You are busy quoting Constitution. That is why you are still struggling. Listen to yourself. If you give yourself hypertension, you are on your own oh. All these people with whom you make noise, you’d be surprised some of them are collecting rent somewhere. That is Nigeria for you. I am a pragmatist.”   

“Certain things are just not right”

“And you are the one going to correct those things that are not right. Something that Tafawa Balewa could not do. Something that Gowon could not do. Something that Murtala Muhammad died for. Obasanjo and Buhari put head, more than twice. Na you and your noise-making go solve Nigerian problem? I beg.”

“I am a patriot.”

“Very good, congratulations. What you don’t know is that every country has its own identity and culture. Look at New Zealand and Sri Lanka. On March 15 in Christchurch, New Zealand, two mosques were attacked, 50 persons were killed.  The leadership of that country has used that tragedy to turn around their country, and reflect deeply. They changed gun permit laws. Prime Minister Jacinta Arden is leading a campaign for open, secure and safe internet, to check extremism and bigotry. On April 21, in Sri Lanka, terrorists struck again killing more than 300 persons. The President of Sri Lanka has fired the defence chief and the police chief.  Here in Nigeria, people are killed daily, abducted, brutalized. Have you seen or heard that anybody has been fired? Get real, man. If you are a patriot, be real.” 

“We need a people’s revolution in this country. We need to rescue young men like you from those who have captured your minds and the Nigerian state.”

“Oh, sorry. I see you have been busy watching television. The people who talked about revolution in the last elections in Nigeria lost woefully.  Wake up, man. You better don’t go and talk revolution with Nigerian policemen when next they flag down your vehicle. Your revolution can earn you a bullet in the leg.”

“Leave me alone. Look at you. You keep talking about Nigeria as if you are from Guinea Bissau.”

“Don’t worry hen. I will buy you something from London… Bye.”

I believe we all have that one family member who thinks that he or she has the right to intrude into your schedule and order you around. When they call you, they won’t give up until you pick their calls. And these people, they can call you liked a hundred times. Send text messages. Whatsapp. Report you to the entire neighbourhood. They can be so ferocious, your phone will keep ringing non-stop, you would think the fire service is at your door. This is exactly that happened to me, for at least two hours, as I sat down to write this piece. I stubbornly refused to take the calls. Wetin? Some people can use the phone to harass and intimidate.  Ki lo de? I could neither think nor write.

I had other things in mind: the defiance of the Sudanese Professionals Association, for example. The people of Sudan want a new post-Omar al-Bashir order, a complete break from the past,  by all means. They have refused to accept whatever has been offered by the military council that took over after Omar al-Bashir’s ouster. They want an immediate transition to civilian rule that is led by the people themselves not by soldiers. I am fully in support of the people of Sudan. Omar al Bashir is a shameless dictator. He deserves the place that he has now been given in the Kober Maximum Prison, the same place where he used to keep his critics and victims. 

He also deserves a day before the court of justice: to answer for his crimes against humanity and the hardship he imposed on his own people. African dictators, like Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias, believe that they are invincible but we have seen them falling one after the other and there are more that should fall: Paul Biya in Cameroon, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo in Equitorial Guinea and Idris Deby Itno in Chad. Between 1993 and 1999, our own professionals used to be like present-day Sudanese Professionals. We had the Concerned Professionals, who stood up and insisted on an immediate end to military rule in Nigeria. But that was then. Our professionals have all since taken to pepper soup and goat head, and to inanities garbed in the cloak of acquiescence and indifference. Many of them have developed pot-bellies. They have eaten their own part of the forbidden Nigerian fruit, their mouths smeared with oyel, I mean oil. And hence: Professor Pat Utomi who was one of the original minds behind the revolt of the Nigerian middle class in the mid to late 90s Nigeria is now writing a trilogy on the complicity of the Middle Class and how that Middle Class has failed Nigeria. There are lessons for the Nigerian Middle Class in what is happening in Sudan. 

I also had in mind the Easter Day killings in Sri Lanka, over 290 dead and over 500 injured in what looked like a pre-meditated, organized attack on churches, guest houses, hotels and other buildings. Coming shortly after the tragedy of Notre Dame de Paris, those who argue that Christianity seems to be under assault and that our humanity is under siege may not be too far from the truth. Sri Lanka is a country with serious ethnic and religious fractures, a little trigger could throw that country back into civil war and protracted humanitarian crisis. The response of the enlightened world is in order; the blatant act of terror has been condemned from the Vatican to Nigeria’s Aso Rock. 

I wondered though, how our own Aso Rock picked up the tragedy in Colombo with such emotional clarity and promptly issued a statement. On Good Friday, there were reports of Christians being killed in Katsina-Ala Local Government of Benue State as they returned from church. The Nigerian Presidency apparently missed that, but of course Sri Lanka was in the international news networks, and our leaders in Nigeria hardly watch Nigerian news channels. But let someone fire a shot in the West Bank, or release a report in Washington DC, or a bullet in Yemen, there will be a buzz around Nigeria. It is amazing how the yet unaddressed imbalance in the global information order leaves Nigeria constantly showing up at the lower end of the moral, governance and policy spectrum. 

I was also thinking of the Sharia Council telling President Muhammadu Buhari to take national security seriously and protect Nigerian Muslims, and I thought the best message would be to insist that all Nigerian lives matter- Muslim, Christian or animist. I also read a story about the Minister of Finance saying Nigeria is mindful of its borrowings from the Chinese, Eurobond loans, the World Bank and the Africa Development Bank and how we have not even borrowed enough because we have not yet reached the threshold of borrowings within our peer group, and I felt like lamenting how poorly digested textbook knowledge sabotages Nigeria. By now, Nigeria should be tired of all these half-baked ideas about debt-to-GDP ratio, and all these power point intellectuals who get to high office after a weekend course in Harvard where they learn nothing other than the ability to do power-point magic. Their village-type, poorly exposed bosses look at the power point and they think it is magic. Pat Utomi may need to investigate the abuse of technology as an instrument of deception and theft in policy corridors, facilitated by the complicit middle class that he is disturbed about.           

My head was trying to sort out these issues, even as my phones kept ringing, buzzing and tingling. The calls would not stop. The urgency was intimidating. The persistence was offensive. I picked.

“Yes?”

“I have been calling you since. If somebody is calling you, you should pick your calls.”  You know that kind of tone, sounds like the guy at the other end is holding a horse-whip and would apply it on your back, to beat the devil out of you, if you were available.

I smiled, knowing that the call will soon go off and you will be told later that the caller’s credit is finished. In Nigeria, callers don’t ever have credit on their phones, particularly if they are calling from hometowns. You ‘d have to call them back and send them phone credit later. 

“Yes? Ki lo sele. I hope there is no problem. A ku odun oh. Compliments of the season. How are my children?” It always helps to be polite.

“Amosun ti tun bere oh. Amosun has started again. Jemila ori e ti jeun yo o. He is on rampage”. 

“What’s the problem?” Ibikunle Amosun, also known as Senator Ibikunle Amosun (SIA) is the Governor of Ogun State, Nigeria, (2011-2019).  Amosun ran for the Senate from Ogun Central, his Senatorial district in the 2019 general elections, and the people of that constituency decided to send him to the National Assembly which sadly has become a retirement home for former Governors who need a resting place and for all kinds of malcontents without measurable ability- the reason Nigeria’s National Assembly is progressively incompetent. Amosun also wanted to impose one of his boys as Governor of Ogun State; he even chose candidates for all the seats in the election, but the people rebuffed him. They rejected his Gubernatorial candidate and voted majorly for the All Progressives Congress, the party that brought him, Amosun to power, and which he rejected to go and form a rival party, a platform he deployed to treacherous use in one of the most classical cases of anti-party politics. But Amosun is not giving up. He lost the election. He was humiliated, but since the elections, he appears set on a revenge mission. 

“Amosun has sent caterpillars to Kuto market. He wants to demolish all the shops including Mama’s shop. Call your sister quickly, so that they don’t destroy the shop.”

Mama means my mother. She died in 2013. In her lifetime, she rose to be an Iyalode of one of the key groups in that market and the state. The caller was so hysterical that her shop will be demolished. But wait a moment, if Amosun wants to demolish the entire market, it would be wrong to worry about personal spaces.

“Caterpillars are already in Kuto. They say Amosun has asked them to demolish anything in sight”, I was told. 

It is barely four weeks to Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s end of tenure, but he seems to find it difficult to withdraw as Governor of the state. His minion having lost the Gubernatorial election, he has since embarked on a desperate mission to tie the hands of the Governor-elect, Prince Dapo Abiodun. He is creating booby traps for him. He is laying land mines. If what we know is so bad, how about other acts of mischief that are not yet in the public domain? Since the Gubernatorial election of March 9 in Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun has refused to conduct himself after the fashion of a gentleman. He and his chosen candidate have refused to congratulate Dapo Abiodun, the declared winner of the election. Instead, Amosun, using the power of incumbency has been busy appointing permanent secretaries, general managers, and board members. These new appointees are not going to work with him. They will work with a new Governor that will be sworn in next month. Is it morally right, intelligent or correct to act so mischievously? Amosun has also embarked on the demolition of houses and structures while announcing new projects by the state government. In Abeokuta his hometown where the people voted for him to go to the Senate because they believe he used the office of Governor to help his own Egba people, Amosun has been busy demolishing houses and shops in Adatan towards Moore junction, Adigbe, Lafenwa market and now Kuto. The people’s interpretation is that Amosun is targeting political opponents and their areas of influence. 

But his main target is Dapo Abiodun, the Governor-elect. There are uncompleted projects across the state. Amosun is not focusing on those uncompleted projects in the twilight of his administration. He is busy destroying things and creating new problems. It may take Dapo Abiodun a whole four years to correct the damage that Amosun has created since the election of March 9. Whose interest is being served? Even President Muhammadu Buhari who may not need handover notes is asking for handover notes. In Ogun State, Amosun has refused to set up a transition committee. The Governor-elect has a Transition Committee and 10 working groups. But there is nobody to talk to on the other side because the Governor has refused to recognize the people’s will.  Amosun can beat his chest in his wife’s presence in “the other room” and remind her that he is still the man in Ogun State – good for him- but each time he does that he should keep an eye on the clock and the timelines of history. 

It is sad that our democracy in Nigeria continues to create little tyrants. Amosun is definitely not alone and this is not in any way, a partisan comment. In Oyo state, there was once upon a time a man who called himself “the constituted authority”. He too demolished buildings and punished anyone whose face he didn’t like. His name is Abiola Ajimobi. He was also once a Senator, and he became Governor. As Governor of Oyo state, he was a male version of the legendary Efunsetan Aniwura, the bad woman of Ibadan politics. Not even the Olubadan could talk to Ajimobi. He trampled on the traditional institution and surprised even his own most ardent admirers. Why and how do good men end up as villains in Nigerian politics? I have no clue yet. It is sad that in Oyo state as in Ogun state, we have been hearing stories about the outgoing Governor behaving badly. Ajimobi also wanted to go to the retirement house in the National Assembly. The people have rejected him and also rejected the candidate he wanted as his successor. Ajimobi has not been smiling since then. He too has been behaving like a China in the bull shop.              

Ajimobi is just probably slightly better than the out-going Governor in Imo State, Rochas Okorocha who also wants to go to the National Assembly. INEC won’t give him a Return Certificate because INEC insists he forced the state Resident Electoral Commissioner to declare him winner under duress. Okorocha wanted his son-in-law as his successor, but the people of Imo state refused. They voted instead for Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In Imo state, the people have rejected Okorocha’s “Iberiberism”, whatever that means.  Ihedioha should humour Okorocha after May 29, by erecting his statue at the market place so the people of Imo State will for long remember the “Iberiberism”  known as Rochas Okorocha.

These are only three examples of the end-time Governors in Nigeria. Their two-term tenures have ended but they want to retain control and remain in charge. This is not the first time we would see this withdrawal syndrome on display. Power is like opium. It is addictive. Once you take it, you get hooked. End-time Governors probably deserve some kind of rehab treatment. They must learn to let go. There must be legislation banning all departing Governors from making last minute bank withdrawals, contract approvals, demolition of houses and shops, and new appointments. The rule that a serving Governor is in power till the last minute is made for decent people, not for the types we have seen in Nigeria. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) should be more concerned about these rogue, end-time Governors than the politics of the 9^thNational Assembly.      

Young people are leading a people’s revolution in Algeria and Sudan, both developments remind us forcefully of the wages of mis-governance, the power of the people to seize control of their own destiny, and the role that the youth can play in a country’s development process.  It is encouraging to see that in both countries, we are witnessing the triumph of the people’s will. In Algeria and Sudan, it is Arab Spring (or Winter?) all over, with the people saying No to Repression, No to Dictatorship, No to the abuse of power. 

The ordinary people are the heroes in both emerging revolutions- the villains are the members of the ruling elite, those the Algerians refer to as “le pouvoir” (that is the powerful) who have suppressed and alienated the people for decades. Algerians want a complete change of system, a break from the past. The people of Sudan are similarly asking for a new order. These courageous young men and women, who have since been joined at the barricades by professionals and in Algeria, by the military, are determined to stand firm until they have their way. They refuse to be cajoled. They do not want half-measures. They know what they want and they have been very peaceful in making their demands. They are no longer afraid. They are on the streets. They are on social media. The power of the youth in full expression, can be loud and overwhelming.  

In Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the 82-year old who has been the absolute dictator in charge of Algeria since 1999 and a member of the ruling establishment since independence from France in 1962, has been pushed out by the protests. Bouteflika’s reign of terror was marked by corruption, cronyism and repression. In 2010/2011, he survived the Arab Spring that swept through North Africa and the Middle East resulting in political crisis and regime change in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Syria. But he could not survive weeks of protests by the Algerian people this time around. Bouteflika had used every trick in the books to remain in power. Since he suffered stroke in 2013, he had been rarely seen in public, choosing to run the country through a selected group of family members and political associates. Still he wanted a fifth term in office. The people refused. 

In February, he tried to introduce cosmetic changes with the promise that there would be a national conference. The people took to the streets. They no longer trusted him. They just wanted him to go. He eventually abandoned his fifth term ambition. Even that was not enough for the people. They waved the Algerian flag on the streets, and spoke their minds with unusual boldness. Many of these young Algerians who have become revolutionaries have not known any other President in their lives. But they have seen the corruption of the Algerian elite and they were determined to register their protest. 

A descent into chaos seemed imminent until Army Chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah intervened and asked that the best way forward would be to invoke Article 102 of the Algerian Constitution, and thereby move the country forward within the Constitutional Framework. Article 102 requires the Algerian President to step down in the event of his incapacitation, and with his exit, the leader of the Upper Chamber of parliament would assume office as President in an acting capacity and conduct fresh election within 90 days. Bouteflika, Africa’s oldest President has since resigned, his vanity project of building the Great Mosque of Algiers remains uncompleted. His successor, Abdelkader Bensalah, the former leader of parliament has promised that he will organize elections on July 4 and respect the people’s will. But the Algerian revolutionists have refused to stop the protests. They don’t just want Bouteflika out of the way, they want the entire system that he represents and all his cronies that he has placed in strategic positions in both government and business out of the way. They are putting pressure on Bensalah.   

In both Algeria and Sudan, we have not only seen the people- the youth - fighting for themselves, rejecting years of misrule and graft – we have also seen the military establishment turning against the government. In Algeria however, the military helped to facilitate the process of change. In Sudan, we have the military subverting it – that is a key difference between both countries. In Algeria, the military queued up behind the people to defend the Constitution. In Sudan, the military capitalized on the people’s protest to seize power, suspend the Constitution and impose a state of emergency on the country. But one lesson from both countries is that it may be unwise to under-estimate the people’s resolve. When a revolution begins, especially one arising from disenchantment with prices and living conditions, it may be difficult to predict when and how it will end. This explains why in Sudan there have been three Presidents in two weeks. Four-month protests over rising prices of fuel and bread ended surprisingly in the removal of Omar Al-Bashir from office. Al-Bashir like Algeria’s Bouteflika, is a veteran dictator. Most of the young people who are leading the protests in Sudan were not yet born when al-Bashir seized power in Sudan 30 years ago. The military may have taken advantage of the people’s protests but the youths of Sudan insist that the military is unacceptable because that is not the change they want. General Ahmed Ibn Auf has had to step down. He fell within 24 hours! The new General, Abdel Fattah al-Bashan may also not survive in the face of the people’s anger even if he has taken the step of sacking and detaining more members of the disgraced al-Bashir government, and appears ready to negotiate a civilian-led transition. Omar al-Bashir ran a military government in practically every regard. His reign was marked by state-sponsored terror, autocracy, war and genocide.

The military council in Sudan has declared that it has no intention of handing him over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) where he is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, thus confirming the suspicion that the new caretakers in Khartoum are a clone of the al-Bashir government. The politics of the ICC notwithstanding, Omar al-Bashir should be made to answer for his crimes, against the people of Darfur and the people of Sudan in general. It is not enough to keep him in “a safe place.” 

These recent developments in Algeria and Sudan, and perhaps Kazakhstan should be a warning sign to all sit-tight leaders and those leaders who take the people for granted. Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev is probably the smartest of the three dictators. Faced with protests by the people, Nazarbayev quickly stepped aside in March, to make way, he claims, for “a new generation of leaders.” He manages to retain control of his country’s Security Council. He has also created a cult of personality around himself with a pompous, self-styled title of “Leader of the nation.” The capital of Kazakhstan has also been named after him by Parliament. It doesn’t matter as his own day of reckoning would still come. 

Across the globe, there is a growing new wave of fascination with the ideas of democracy and people power, especially among the youth. It must be considered a positive thing that the youths of Africa are part of this trend. Africa has its fair share of dictators and sit-tight leaders. It took sustained international outrage to get Joseph Kabila to relinquish power in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is now Senator for life!  In Equitorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo and his children are sitting atop the country’s wealth; the old man has no plan to leave power anytime soon. In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni is effectively a President for life. But all autocrats should contemplate and learn from the fate of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia, and now Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan. No matter how long it takes, the people usually win in the end.

It is one thing, however, to get rid of the strong man of power, it is another to maintain or achieve national stability. Dictators may be removed or they may die or they may be incapacitated, but after their exit, they tend to retain something of the country’s DNA in their hold. This is the sad story of Cote d’Ivoire after Houphouet-Boigny, Libya after Muammar Ghadaffi, Iraq after Saddam Hussein, Venezuela after Hugo Chavez. The rest of the world must therefore keep an eye on the developing scenarios in Algeria and Sudan. It is the people’s will that must prevail in the end, not the will of military usurpers or the clones of the ousted autocrats.       

What happened in the United States, at the Augusta National Golf Club on Sunday was phenomenal, historic and inspirational - a truly human story in its grandeur and implications. With a single, final stroke, and a hard stare, Tiger Woods won the Masters, his fifth since he won the first in 1997, 22 years ago. History was made. This was his 81^stPGA tour win. His first major title since the 2008 US Open. His fourth Masters green jacket was in 2005. As he wore the jacket again on Sunday, 14 years later, he said: “It fits”. Indeed Tiger, “it fits.” 

It was one of those wow moments in the history of sports. The crowd cheered. The Tiger roared! On display was a touch of greatness, originality and talent- pure talent. Tiger Woods’ career as a golf athlete has been marked by “highs and lows” to borrow President Barack Obama’s words, but the highest moment for him, a moment that would forever be remembered in the history of golf was that moment on Sunday when he shot the final putt on the 18th hole. The legacy of Tiger Woods has become one of the most defining moments in the history of the game itself, and although he is second in terms of overall record to Jack Nicklaus who has a record of 18 major wins, Tiger Woods trails behind with 15 major trophies, there is no doubt that Tiger may well end up as the champion of the records. He is however, not defined by statistics. 

He is defined by his determination, confidence and the manner in which he has ended up at the other end of the tunnel of self-discovery to regain his composure and his pre-eminence. Many cannot be blamed for giving up on him and thinking that he had reached the end of his career. His marriage collapsed, he was called out by women who accused him of sexual harassment. He had a car accident. He was charged for driving under the influence. As recently as 2017, he was still battling with multiple back and leg injuries. He even took to painkillers. He lost the star power that he once wielded as younger players took over the game and charted their own paths, even if many of them came into the game, inspired by him. On Sunday, April 14, the old Tiger Woods returned to claim his place as a Master of the game. 

His triumph is the triumph of the human will over adversity. It was pure humanism, irony and spirit on display. For a man to rise and fall, and find the courage and the energy to rise again is one of the most inspirational tales about what makes us human. For generations to come, others will draw inspiration from the example of Tiger Woods. He is beyond golf. He is such a fine example of the human spirit. 

The young 21-year old who won his first green jacket in 1997 has become the man, one of the greatest of all times. In 1997, his father watched him as he wore the green jacket. This time around, his own children, 11--year old Sam and 10-year old Charlie, were at the Augusta National to watch him. The son has become the father. A cycle closed, a new chapter was opened, as history was made, fusing together the story of three generations beyond the moment.  Tiger’s two children were not yet born at the time of his reign as the king of golf. Hear him: To have my kids here, it’s come full circle… You know my dad was here in ’97 and now I’m the dad with two kids here.” That was touching. Those words reverberate beyond the golf course. 

There are of course many lessons to be learnt from the story of Tiger Woods. Only those who persevere win at the end. From being the Tiger of the pack, Woods, ended up in sixth position in the PGA Championship in 2009, fourth at the US Open in 2010, and sixth at the British Open in 2018, and at other times he disappointed us even more tragically. But now that he is back at the top, the question is: will he be able to sustain the magic? And it won’t take too long for us to get an answer to this question as Tiger Woods participates in some of the tournaments in the remaining months of the year: the PGA Championship, May 16-17, US Open, June 13-16, British Open, July 18- 21 and the Presidents Cup, Dec. 12-15.  Whatever happens in the future, we would all have that memory of April 14 to cherish: Tiger Woods is the greatest comeback king of the game. His achievement, by the way, momentarily united President Trump and President Obama, with the two political opponents agreeing on the authenticity of Tiger Woods, with President Trump becoming a twitter cheerleader for Tiger Woods. Congratulations, Tiger.   

We owe our colleague and compatriot, Kadaria Ahmed a debt of gratitude for leading a group of Zamfara stakeholders to bring to local and international attention the mayhem and chaos going on in her home state of Zamfara state, which resulted in the killing of innocent Nigerians, the disruption of mining activities and the reign of what can best be described as sheer madness. The video on the Zamfara protest has since gone viral, with the intrepid journalist, daughter of Zamfara, Kadaria Ahmed calling out the Governor of the state, and the President of the Federal Republic. The image of Ms Ahmed, standing out there un-cowed, unbowed, courageous and outspoken, with an orchestra of men hailing her and urging her on is an image that will remain etched in my memory for a long time to come. I salute Kadaria’s courage and heroism.

We need more persons like her. Persons who can stand firm in the face of tyranny. Persons who can lead citizens to positive action. Persons who can call a spade by its name. Courageous men and women who can expose the idiocy of executive arrogance. I am particularly proud that Kadaria is one of our own. Media men and women often get blamed for the malfeasances of others. All over the world, they are treated as victims and fall guys: it was refreshing seeing one of our own standing again at the barricades to defend in the field of action, one of the finest virtues of the journalistic trade: the capacity to speak truth to power. Thanks, Kadaria, for giving Nigerian journalism and the tradition of activism a necessary shot in the arm, at a time the push was most needed. This daughter of Zamfara, this beautiful daughter of the North West, had fought on behalf of the people of Borno, Benue and Plateau and the missing girls of Chibok and Dapchi. When it came to the turn of her own people, it was good to see her taking to the barricades and standing firm. She says she has not been able to visit home for about a year. 

She speaks for many Nigerians who are on exile in their own country. They can’t visit home because their homesteads have been turned into killing fields. It is not all the people in the Internally Displaced Camps in the country that represent the full population of displaced persons: there are many others who are stranded within this country who can not go home out of fear and despair, many of our compatriots from Borno, Benue, Plateau, Barkin Ladi and other parts of Southern Kaduna and Adamawa are stranded, they can’t go home, not anymore, and yet weekly or monthly, they receive sad tales about their relations who have been killed or abducted or their sisters who have been raped and murdered. In the video in which Kadaria Ahmed featured prominently, a distraught lady reported that her brother has been abducted in Zamfara and the villains are asking for a ransom of N200 million.  

Kadaria Ahmed adds that the Governor of Zamfara state is “the most useless Governor in the history of Nigeria”. This may be a very harsh assessment, which speaks to the depth of her feelings and anger. But many Nigerians can relate to that. There are many Nigerians who consider the Governors of their state, useless, irresponsible, and indeed, stupid. Ms Ahmed was drawing attention to a major Nigerian malaise: the failure of leadership which results in sundry social crisis and the over-prioritisation of politics over and above good governance and common sense. According to her, the Governor of Zamfara state, Abdullaziz Yari has since abandoned his responsibility as Chief Security Officer of Zamfara State. We we were told he gave up that function. He resigned. Candidly, what kind of man abandons his people to their fate? 

We were also told that Yari spends most of his time in Abuja.  Many Nigerians can also relate to that. Nigeria is supposed to be a Federal system. But we have this unfortunate system where state Governors spend more time in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, shaking tins and begging for hand-outs from the Presidential table. Other levels of government in what is meant to be a Federation are at best beggars, seeking a share of the national cake. When a state gets a bad Governor, he practically relocates to Abuja, to promote the culture of sycophancy and slavishness. I may not agree that Abdullaziz Yari is the “most useless Governor in the history of Nigeria”- the word history is too ennobling- nonetheless, I can name at least two other Governors that I consider more useless who may not necessarily fall into the framework of “Nigerian history” but let me say that I know one thing: Kadaria Ahmed is very truthful and blunt. 

In that video that has now gone viral, Ms Ahmed also called out the President of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari. She reminded him that the buck stops at his desk and he has a responsibility and a duty to defend the interest of the people of Zamfara state. She told him that the people of Zamfara state voted for him in 2015 and gain in 2019, and they deserve his attention. This our sister sef? She was practically calling the President of Nigeria an ingrate! Kadaria! But the rhetoric worked. It had to take a protest by Kadaria Ahmed a few straggling men, and others, cowering behind an alpha female, calling out everybody for President Buhari to take notice of the crisis in Zamfara state. And what did he do? He issued a statement from Jordan, where he is attending a conference on the Middle East – how does that really concern us, the lazy wonks at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have not yet told us- but the President tells us that he is the “one of the unhappy leaders in the world.”  How pathetic. 

Our President is “one of the unhappy leaders in the world!” Ha. Please fetch me tissue paper. I need to clean my tears. If the President is looking for the meaning of sadness, he should visit the families in Zamfara, Birnin Gwari and Kakangi who have lost their loved ones. He should go to Benue and Plateau states and find out what is going on, He should go to Southern Kaduna and feel the people’s pains. He should go to Sokoto and find out what has gone wrong. We are definitely not talking about his own happiness here. We are talking about the happiness of the Nigerian people and their right to decent, safe and secure livelihood. It is the duty of the President to discharge that responsibility and lead all of us to what he himself and his campaigners call “the next level”- whatever that means.   

I have an idea: President Buhari is probably the only Nigerian President since 1999 who has curiously and surprisingly retained dead woods in his team for four years. He should as he seeks to constitute a new cabinet, sack all his service chiefs and re-jig his cabinet. They may be his kinsmen or friends, but they are not helping him. He needs to do something drastic about the Nigerian security architecture and the governance team as well. He The office of the President is not a place for a functioning Godfather and an avuncular presiding officer. President Muhammadu Buhari must think out of the box if he is serious about moving this country to “the next level”,  and let us make this additional point, with due respect: some of the ideas and initiatives that President Buhari needs will not come from the compromised APC henchmen that he surrounds himself with. I don’t want to imagine how Kadaria Ahmed will describe these henchmen. She is so independent-minded she may just conclude that they are weak and incompetent, and there will be enough evidence to prove her right. But what the heck, Kadaria, these same men got the President a second term! And you too have been accused, most recently of being a Buhari promoter!

But by the way, the Nigerian government has since taken notice of what is more popularly known as the #MarchforZamfara protest. The President has issued a statement. He needed to be prompted to do so! The security establishment and the Nigeria Police have also said that they are extending something they call “Operation Puff Adder” to Zamfara state. Whoever throws up these names must be a comedian. We have heard of Operation Python Dance. Do pythons dance? We have heard of Operation Crocodile smile? Do Crocodiles smile? And now Operation Puff Adder. I beg. There is serious humanitarian crisis in the troubled states of the North East, the East and the North Western parts of Nigeria. It is about time the Nigerian government realised that we are talking about human lives.  These days, when Nigerian authorities announce that 60 persons died in Sokoto and 50 were murdered in Zamfara and five others committed suicide in the South West, or five husbands killed their wives in the Mid-West, they make it sound like it is small number, out of 200 million, but hey, when will our government at all levels begin to realize that every Nigerian life matters? This is the strong message Kadaria Ahmed and her likes are putting across. Don’t tell them to bugger off. And I say: all the male chauvinists who have been attacking her on social media should go see a shrink. 

My take: Operation Puff Adder sounds like a knee-jerk response. As for Governor Abdullaziz Yari, he should just keep quiet. Whatever he says can be further used against him. And when President Buhari returns from the luxury trip to Jordan, he should visit Zamfara state and other troubled parts of Nigeria to publicly demonstrate his “unhappiness”. There has been so much talk about the role of foreign miners in the Zamfara crisis.   Can we just be reasonable for once? The problem in Zamfara is not about foreigners. It is about us, about Nigeria – the failure of leadership, the idiocy of the governing class and the dividing lines that continue to make this country so pathetically vulnerable.  As things stand, it looks like the government of Nigeria only responds to emergencies when people go out to protest.  This is the ultimate take-away from the #MarchforZamfara protests. 

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that the commission will soon reveal the time-table for Governorship elections in both Kogi and Bayelsa states. He made this known while defending the commission’s 2019 budget estimates before the joint National Assembly committee on INEC. The elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states are termed end-of-year elections.  But first, we are glad to hear that INEC was fully funded in 2017 and 2018, under the open envelope system. Many Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government that have appeared before the National Assembly have had cause to complain about poor funding, that is- the failure of government to respect the terms and provisions of the Appropriation Act. INEC wants more money and expects to be fully funded again in the 2019 budget. I have no problems with that. The Chairman of the Senate Committee and his counter part in the House of Representatives more or less commended INEC for a job well done in the 2019 General election. I don’t know about that. I certainly have a different opinion. But it is good to see that INEC, despite all its tribulations, and loss of face, is moving on and thinking ahead. But while doing that, INEC and its Chairman, Professor Yakubu Mahmood may as well be reminded of a few points:

1. Not many Nigerians are pleased with the conduct and management of the 2019 general election, and before it, the elections in Ekiti and Osun states.
2. Most Nigerians are convinced that INEC as it is, is heavily compromised. They do not believe that it is an independent institution. The coming elections and the outcomes of the litigation over the 2019 elections provide INEC an opportunity to restore public faith and confidence
3. We hope that INEC will take proper stock of the 2019 general election and learn and imbibe certain lessons and use its institutional framework to make appropriate amends.
4. INEC should be seen to be supporting the amendment to the Electoral Bill as proposed to ensure greater transparency and credibility in the conduct of elections. The failure of card readers and the spectre of vote-buying made the recent Nigerian elections look more or less like a clever contrivance with pre-determined outcomes.
5. Kogi and Bayelsa are very sensitive states, where the people have developed a high level of political consciousness. The only thing that INEC owes the people in those two states is to conduct free, fair and credible elections and refrain from “the scourge of in-conclusi-vity”.  
6. INEC’s reputation is at stake. Professor Mahmood should begin to worry about how history will remember him and his tenure. He should pay some attention to that and may be he should start by paying attention to public perception. All the persons before him who boasted “ I don’t care” ended up in the dustbin of history. 
7. There is the silence of the mortuary and anger in the land. INEC should not put fire to that anger. INEC is already looking ahead, the people are looking at the past and the present. All timelines may collide in the future, and all architects will be called to account.        

In a Report titled The Misery Index 2018 authored by Dr. Steve Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, Nigerians have been labelled the sixth most miserable people in the world. The misery index was introduced in the 1970s by Arthur Okun, an American economist, author of the seminal work, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Trade Off (1975). The original index considers such factors as unemployment rate and inflation rate. It is a formula, a methodology as it were, consistent with what is known as Okun’s law, but modified subsequently by Harvard Professor, Robert Barro and Professor Steve Hanke. The latter releases a Report annually. He tells us that: “My modified Misery Index is the sum of the unemployment, inflation, and bank lending rates, minus the percentage change in real GDP per capita. Higher readings on the first three elements are “bad” and make people miserable. These are offset by a “good” GDP per capita growth which is subtracted from the sum of the bads. A Higher Misery Index score reflects a higher level of misery, and it’s a simple enough metric that a busy president, without time for extensive economic briefings can understand at a glance.” 

In the 2018 Report which is basically a forecast of what to expect in the year 2019, Hanke identifies Venezuela as the most miserable country in the world, followed by Zimbabwe, Argentina, Iran, Brazil, Turkey, Nigeria, South Africa, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Egypt and Ukraine. . Is Nigeria the sixth most miserable country in the world? Where is Syria? South Sudan? Somalia. Steve Hanke’s Report does not necessarily cover all the countries of the world. But certain points are clear from his submissions.

First, the Misery Index makes the point very clear that economic growth is linked to the people’s prosperity and happiness. Countries that suffer from stagflation are likely to have very miserable citizens. Second, lack of economic growth or a poor economy can result in political and social crisis as we have seen in Venezuela where inflation rate is said to be above 6,000% and Zimbabwe where inflation is allegedly over 97%, although this has been disputed in other evaluations which unlike Hanke’s Index, accommodate the employment rate in Zimbabwe’s informal economy. Third, good governance, leadership and political stability are important factors for macro-economic growth. The least miserable countries in the world as seen in the Misery Index 2018, would also seem to have strong leadership, and institutions and a certain measure of stability. Fourth, poverty should be avoided because it could lead to misery. Fifth, the state has a responsibility to prevent the growth of poverty and promote economic growth. 

It is important to break down and outline some of these well-known, elementary points because I see a tendency in this season to ignore external rankings or politicize them. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has already jumped on the back of the Misery Index to say that the Report confirms the party’s position that Nigeria’s economy “has virtually collapsed under Buhari.” The Hanke index does not say that the Nigerian economy has “virtually collapsed”. It says the people are among the ten most miserable people in the world. It is an economist’s index not a political review. 

Nonetheless, there are certain basics that should be established. Indeed, unemployment rate in Nigeria is about 23. 10 per cent (Q3 2018, an all-time high between 2006 and 2018. Youth unemployment according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is even higher. Inflation rate is about 12%. Food inflation is higher at 13.5%. Recently, the Central Bank of Nigeria reduced Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) to 13.5%, down by 50 basis points from 14%. Nigeria’s GDP growth is 1.8%.  Compared to statistics from other parts of the world, these Nigerian statistics paint a gloomy picture. Unemployment rate in India, for example, is 6.1%, Canada (5.8%), Australia (4.9%), United Kingdom (3.9%), Germany (3.1%), Ghana (2%), Cote d’Ivoire (2.6%), Saudi Arabia (12.7%) etc. 

There is also no doubt that the Nigerian economy has gone through major contractions in the last five years. The sharp drop in the spot price of oil depleted the country’s reserves, created a foreign exchange crisis  and soon resulted in recession. In 2016, Nigeria faced the consequences of a negative growth of up to 2.3 %; in 2017, inflation was as high as 18%. In September 2018, the Economic Intelligence Unit of The Economist Magazine and the HSBC Research Unit predicted a gloomy economic prospect for Nigeria in 2019 and also jumped into the troubled waters of analyzing Nigerian politics, with predictions about the likely outcome of the 2019 Presidential election in Nigeria. Both the ruling party in Nigeria – the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Nigerian government kicked. They told the “experts” to keep their opinions to themselves.     

The EIU/HSBC in retrospect got the political analysis wrong (PDP lost the 2019 Presidential election, APC won) but the economic projections remain relevant and instructive. The Steve Hanke Misery Index Report may have been influenced by the EIU report. Rather than dismiss it however, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Presidency (Hanke insists the message is so straightforward even a busy President can follow it) should study the report and attend to the messages about economic growth and the careful management of certain indicators to deliver prosperity to the people. Nigeria’s palace economists may quarrel over the statistics and the methodology, but not the common sense. 

But is Hanke’s description of Nigeria as the 6^thmost miserable country in the world accurate? Even if the Nigerian economy has not “virtually collapsed”, can misery be affirmed strictly on the basis of unemployment rate, inflation rate and lending rates? Does poverty necessarily translate into misery? Is the correlation absolutely given?  Nigeria ranks low in this 2019 Misery Index, just as it ranks low on the Human Poverty Index and the Human Development Index – these are challenges for governance and leadership. But does all that mean that Nigerians are miserable? The word misery connotes unhappiness, distress, wretchedness, hardship, suffering, affliction, anguish, sadness, sorrow, melancholy. 

I think there are gaps in the Hanke Misery Index in terms of the parameters adopted; perhaps a more holistc assessment of the connection between economic growth and a people’s response as individuals and communities may have shown that economic prosperity and growth do not necessarily guarantee a people’s happiness. There may well be more misery in all the developed countries of Central Europe taken together than may be in Kenya or Cape Verde. 

There are perhaps certain anthropological factors, a certain kind of neuroscience that accounts for a people’s happiness rather than cold macro-economic statistics. In 2011, Nigeria was classified as the happiest place on earth in a Gallup Poll and its people as the most optimistic. This was within the context of widespread underdevelopment, and all forms of social sector crisis. Nigeria’s status as a happy country was again confirmed in a World Values Survey in 2014. It is noteworthy however that in 2018, Nigeria was listed as the 91^sthappiest country in the world, and the 5th happiest country in Africa in the World Happiness Report. OBv iously so much happened negatively in Nigeria between 2014 and 2018. But the sum indication is that as at 2018, Nigerians were adjudged happier than they were between 2014 and 2016.

How then can we suddenly become the sixth most miserable country in the world a year later? The difference is who is looking at what. The UN 2019 Happiness Report, for example, focusses on the human being and community, on relationships, or the neuro-science and the anthropology of happiness, rather than economic indicators. The World Happiness Report is more reflective of the Nigerian situation in my view than the Misery Index. We may have moved from being the happiest people on earth to the 91^stin the world, a reflection of the existential crisis that Nigeria faces, but the word misery does not quite capture the people’s true essence.

My point is as follows: the measurement of happiness or its antonym, misery is perhaps more subjective and experiential than academic and statistical. Culture and context should matter. Nigeria has been described as one of the poorest countries in the world. The country faces a problem of low level insurgency in the North East. Corruption is rife. Reports of all shades of violence are common place. The country’s wealth is concentrated in a few hands. Steady economic growth is a challenge. But we the people are not in misery. There may have been a slight increase in cases of suicide and depression in the country since 2015, but generally Nigerians are a resilient lot. 

The average Nigerian is imbued with a fighting spirit.  If people in other countries go through what Nigerians have gone through and are still going through, such countries would have imploded. But Nigeria has not collapsed because the people’s fighting spirit is unique. In the midst of risks and vulnerability to poverty due to economic mismanagement by Nigeria’s leaders, the average Nigerian continues to forge ahead. These are people who don’t give up easily. They believe that tomorrow will be better. When they are faced with election rigging, voter intimidation, outright theft of public resources, these are people who are likely to say: is it not four years? “Let them come and do what they want to do and go away.”  When people get killed and are abandoned by the roadside, you’d be surprised that with the corpses lying in open spaces, some Nigerians can just pull seats together and begin to have a drink, a few metres away from a decaying body. 

There is no weekend when there is no celebratory feast in a Nigerian community: flashy attires, expensive cars, exotic drinks, musicians waxing lyrical, and the men and women dancing away with no care in the world. I do not know any other country in the world where the parties and celebrations are as elaborate as the parties we throw in Nigeria. The Misery Index is talking about high unemployment rates in Nigeria. This is true but the people are so resilient, they manage to get by. They have learnt to move beyond their governments. Nigeria is the biggest market in Africa. Those who cannot get formal jobs find other things to do. 

Come to Lagos, Dr. Hanke. Some of the young ladies you would see on the streets of Lagos and on Nigerian Instagram are from very poor backgrounds and they have no extra-ordinary skills, but you are likely to see them driving expensive cars, wearing bespoke clothes, the type that Kim Kardashian cannot even afford. This is the “small girl, big God” generation that puts a lie to all that talk about misery in Nigeria.  Besides, thuggery and cultism are considered professions in Nigeria, and regarded as more profitable and influential than medicine, law or engineering. Thugs and cultists are patronized by political leaders and they are well-paid for their efforts, particularly during election seasons.  

It is only in Nigeria I guess, that a security guard, earning less than a $100 a month will have three wives and 10 children while his own employer will be struggling to maintain a family of four. It is also in Nigeria that you will find a civil servant having five wives and two concubines, even when he has not been paid a salary for 24 months. Misery? Professor Steve Hanke is an applied economist. He may not have visited some of the countries covered by his study, but in the case of Nigeria, he should not rely on textbook statistics. Unemployment rate, lending rate, inflation rate, GDP per capita may make sense to the economists, but those things sound like voodoo to the average Nigerian. 

The people live in a zone that is beyond theory. The average Nigerian is not intimidated by the gap between the very rich and the very poor, for him or her, there is a religious, rather, a spiritual side to this thing called poverty or inequality. The Nigerian is told by the large population of prosperity evangelists in the country – Muslim, Christian, and animist - that he or she can become rich overnight. In Nigeria, you can see a man as poor as a church rat in January and by December he has a mansion in his village, attended to by a retinue of hangers-on, all very happy, and he too has become an employer of labour and he is likely to pay salaries more regularly than government! Nigeria is the ultimate headquarters of trade-offs; not even Arthur M. Okun could have imagined that. The Nigerian character and attitude both raise questions about the true nature of work, employment, economic growth, or the meaning of misery beyond the theories and “forecasts”. The other question is: what is the integrity of the applied data? 

The 2019 general election in Nigeria has been described by international and local observers, stakeholders, direct participants and the electorate themselves as a “disappointment”, “ a bad day for democracy”,  “a step back from whatever Nigeria may have achieved since the return to civilian rule,”, “a shameful exercise”, “below par”, “an affront on international standards and best practice”… indeed, there is a near-universal consensus that the 2019 elections have failed the test of integrity. However, no one should expect that democracy will produce perfect results: it is in the nature of democracy itself to spring its own surprises and contradictions, be it in the United States which is yet to recover from the issues arising from the 2016 Presidential election, or in the United Kingdom where democracy has created a Brexit crisis and the people are seeking to correct the problem with more democracy, or in Thailand where a military junta and the monarchy seem to have conspired to extend military rule through the vehicle of democracy. But even in these examples, nothing compares to what Nigeria has just gone through or is still going through in the name of democracy.      

Since 1999, there has been a concerted effort, and clamour,for the need to strengthen the electoral process, to ensure that the people’s vote counts, and to reduce the menace of electoral malpractice and irregularities. In 2007, the newly elected President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua publicly acknowledged the need to address the crisis to move the country forward. This led to the establishment of the Uwais Committee on Electoral Reform which made far-reaching recommendations on how the electoral process could be improved. The Uwais Report suffered a Nigerian fate. It was swept under the carpet. In the 2011 and 2015 general elections, with Professor Attahiru Jega as the Chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigeria managed to reduce the scope of electoral abuses. One clear sign would be the relative gradual reduction in the number of election petitions. By 2015, Nigeria’s electoral chiefs were being sought after by other West African countries to help train their election officials, to help manage electoral processes across the sub-region and to offer useful advice.  In 2015, the unusual happened when a sitting President and a ruling party lost power at the centre and every one hailed the development as the triumph of democracy. 

What was overlooked was the fact that Nigeria’s democracy often described hitherto as “fledgling”, “nascent”, “putative,” in spite of the appearances of progress, had not yet grown in any real sense. It remained a “nascent” democracy. The relevant institutions for delivering credible outcomes were still problematic. We were carried away by the good sense and intentions of temporary leaders, we were carried away by short term achievements of good men, we failed to realize that it is better to keep power in the hands of good institutions and to protect the integrity of the state itself. With the transfer of power to a new set of leaders, the illusion vanished, the situation unravelled. New managers took over the same institutions for electoral processing, and whereas they make the right noises about “free, fair and credible” elections, they have proven to be more desperate for power, strictly Macchiavellian, and ready to use the instruments of state to achieve their objectives, fair or foul. The residue is this: the state cannot be entrusted to the whims and caprices of individuals. The Nigerian state must either evolve or continue to be recursive. Greedy and unfeeling political leaders cannot be trusted. 

In 2019, Nigeria took many steps backwards. Every electoral malaise that we have identified over the years was on full display in larger and surprising proportions. The images may not be entirely new, but the scope and character were shocking.  Those who have been handed victory may be holding thanksgiving services and prayer sessions, but they obviously know in their hearts, if they have any conscience, that is, that they have not done well at all. We are now in the era of “Inconclusive elections”, but it is, the electoral umpire the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) itself that suffers from this newly discovered disease that is called “inconclusive”, it is the country itself that is “inconclusive” to the extent that it is yet to evolve beyond its original fault lines. The cracks have opened wider, the reign of impunity has been enlarged, the people do not want the worst to happen, so they seem to have opted for the default mode of cowardly acquiescence. “What can we do? I can’t come and kill myself for Nigeria. I beg, let them do whatever they want, is it not just another four years? This is the back-face of voter apathy in Nigeria. The front-face is the brazen manner in which the electorate bartered votes for cash on election day. 

In many polling units, voters sold their future at the rate of N2, 500 per year and hence for the next four years, they collected N10, 000. The Nigerian professional political elite has perfected the art of exploiting the people’s poverty for political ends. Where this may not work, the goal was still achieved through violence – in 2019, thuggery was openly declared to be a profession like law, engineering, or medicine, and the state simply looked the other way. More lives were lost in the 2019 Nigerian general election than the casualty rate in the aftermath of the Cyclone Idai that caused massive devastation in the Southern African countries of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Nigerians found themselves in a situation worse than a state of nature, and they just seem to be moving on. Something is wrong with Nigeria. We need to worry about its future. 

Beginning with INEC and its leadership. How is the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu feeling right now? Those who know him say he is a well-educated man. They describe him as a gentleman. But he has just presided over one of the roughest elections in contemporary Nigerian history. He has taken INEC to the lower depths. He makes Attahiru Jega before him, look like a star. The irony of it all is that Mahmood Yakubu is in addition to being INEC Chairman, the Chairman also of the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC). In that capacity, he has in the last two years, been more or less, the chief electoral officer across West Africa, providing technical support and advice, and getting Nigeria to play a leading role in ensuring sub-regional stability. Wherever he went, the ECOWAS team celebrated him. But here we are: the same Professor Yakubu Mahmood has not been able to provide the same quality of leadership in his own country. I don’t know what the judgment of history would be, but I can see very clearly that only a minority will be satisfied with the performance of INEC under Yakubu Mahmood’s watch. He once boasted that he has conducted over 180 elections since his assumption of office but Nigerians will remember him more for the number of inconclusive elections that he and his team presided over. INEC under his watch, has disappointed Nigerians.

The police failed Nigeria. The military also failed Nigeria. The 2019 general election in Nigeria is won and lost at the expense of the people’s blood. It is indeed comparable to a Boko Haram operation. Nigeria is paying the price for not paying enough attention to the Uwais panel report of 2008. Nigeria is paying the price for refusing to implement the 2014 National Conference Report. Nigeria is paying heavily for refusing to amend the Electoral Act 2010. The spiritually-minded may well add that “Karma is at work.”

Will Nigeria or the government learn any lessons from what has happened so far in these elections? I don’t think so. Have we learnt any lessons yet? No, we haven’t.  I think Nigeria and its people will just move on. They will forget very soon and 2023 will not be any different. Amnesia is this country’s principal ailment. The failure of the people is the original source of the failure of the country itself. This is what gives the architects of impunity and violence so much audacity.

Somehow, Nigerians seem to have forgotten some of the valiant men and women who sought to take over the governance of Nigeria at the highest level and who campaigned vigorously for change and progress. The 2019 general election is probably the most intense in Nigerian history, with the largest number of voters – 84 million registered voters we are told, the largest number of political parties – 91, and the largest number of Presidential candidates – 71.  It was a general election that broke the statistics on all scores including the number of recorded killings, number of persons injured, the number of inconclusive elections, vote buying, militarization, inconsistency, manipulations and violations. 

The change agents expressed their intention to help save Nigeria but they were denied and ignored because they didn’t have the instruments of state and the forces of coercion under their control, 

I am worried that many of these gladiators, those change agents who thought they could get involved in the game – that is what it is, to be honest- and make a difference have all been forgotten and abandoned. To tell the truth, they have all been consigned to a lonely place in the corridors of power and history. The Presidential race was reduced to a two-man, two-party race. A 76 –year old Muhammadu Buhari vs. a 72-year old Atiku Abubakar, PDP vs, APC, in a country that is predominantly dominated by youths, with as many as 91 registered political parties. Nigeria’s 2019 Presidential election was a battle of the septuagenarians. And you still wonder where were the youths? They were busy collecting N10, 000 per vote, brandishing machetes, killing people in Rivers, Plateau. Bauchi and Kano. They supported the old men. They sold their souls for cash. Some of them got killed. Many of them have survived and they hope to be compensated for their criminality. 

Nigeria must spare a thought for those now forgotten and lonely young men and women who lost out because they did not have the instruments of state under their control. They failed because they could not match the masters of impunity money for money. These change agents, many of them went round Nigeria, but they had no money to give the electorate on election day. Only people who have access to good money and licensed bullion vans win elections jn Nigeria. Now we know that. Many of them were articulate and charismatic. But nobody wins a Presidential election in Nigeria by being articulate. They had big ideas about the future of Nigeria. Nigeria 2019 was not about ideas. It was about brawn, cash and impunity.

As we take stock of the tragedy and the disappointment that has befallen us, it is important that the triumphant crowd, staging hollow victory parties, remembers the true change agents who tried but failed. It is important we pay tribute to those gladiators whose messages of hope and redemption remain nevertheless all-time relevant. Please step forward Emmanuel Etim (38) of the Change Nigeria Party (CNP), Omoyele Sowore (47) of the African Action Alliance (AAC), Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim (49) of the People’s Trust (PT), Kingsley Moghalu (55) of the Young Progressives Party (YPP, Ali Soyode (55) of the Yes Electorates Solidarity (YES), Olufunmilayo Adesanya-Davies (56) of the Mass Joint Action Alliance (MAJA), Adeshina Fagbenro-Byron (59) of the Kowa Party,  Obadiah Mailafia (61) of the African Democratic Congress (ADC),  Fela Durotoye (47) of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), Tope Fasua (47) of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), Eunice Atuejide (40) of the National Interest Party (NIP)…. Obiageli Ezekwesili (55) of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN),  former World Bank staff and former Minister of the Federal Republic was also part of that crowd until she saw the handwriting on the wall, and announced her withdrawal from the race but of course, she was nicely remained by INEC that expression of interest in Nigerian politics is at some point, a trap from which no one can escape.  

But all of these key Presidential aspirants/candidates and similar persons at the state and local levels, like Banky W in Lagos, didn’t get any chance to make the significant impact they wanted to make. They were shut out by moneybags, Godfathers, thugs, the threat of violence, and the triumph of impunity. Many of their parties may soon be de-registered in accordance with with the law. 

These were men and women who probably suspected that they would not win because of the transactional and pre-bendal nature of Nigerian politics, still they went to the field and spoke their mind. Their message, collectively is clear: they want a different Nigeria, a new Nigeria, a better Nigeria, a Nigeria that serves the interest of the people, not the interest of a cabal. I salute their courage. The future of Nigeria belongs to those persons who take the risk to challenge the status quo. This is our only source of future strength. As we can see -  too many activists and radicals in civil society have voted for sheer pragmatism and hope has become the most expensive item in Nigeria today. 

Ordinarily, the postponement by a week of Nigeria’s 2019 general election should not have generated as much outrage as it has done, but the protest that the postponement has attracted is positive proof of the fact that the Nigerian electorate do not trust the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). In 2011, the country’s elections were postponed even after voting had started. In 2015, the elections were postponed for six weeks on security grounds. The explanation that has now been given in 2019 about “logistical problems” should have been sufficient, but Nigerians are unimpressed because they have learnt not to trust the present INEC or the ruling government, hence the default response has been a series of speculative, yet unverifiable theories about what may be the actual story behind the postponement. Speaking for myself, I am willing to give INEC the benefit of the doubt, but what I find curious is the timing of the postponement, the management of the fall-outs, and the too many unanswered questions still hanging in the air. INEC needs to make more disclosures. 

The election was postponed Nicodemously in the middle of the night, while most Nigerians were asleep. The people had gone to bed hoping to troop out in the morning to use their voters’ cards to determine the future of Nigeria in the next four years, only to wake up in the morning to be told that their dream had been stolen while they slept. That certainly is suspicious.  Legitimate questions have been raised and INEC has not yet offered satisfactory answers: At what point did it occur to INEC and its leadership that there were challenges of logistics? At 8 pm on February 15? At 1 am on February 16? Was there a meeting to determine the best course of action and at what time did that meeting take place after Nigerians had gone to bed? Was there at any point a meeting of all relevant stakeholders before the decision to postpone the election was taken? Who took the decision on behalf of Nigerians and all stakeholders? 

Or was it a unilateral decision? If so, should only one person take such a weighty decision which has economic, social, and political implications not to talk of implications for the country’s image? INEC has since the postponement met with party leaders and election monitors and observers. We can label this without prejudice as an insulting afterthought! Who will defray the additional cost that is now being  incurred by international monitors and observers? Who will compensate political parties and candidates for the cost of preparation for election day? How about the people who travelled from one part of the country to the other to vote? How about the intending brides and bridegrooms who had fixed their weddings for February 23 and March 9, but who would now have to shift the dates and print new invitation cards?

In the explanation offered by INEC, there was some reference to the “weather”. When I got to that line, I was afraid that the author of the press release would soon end up blaming God for the postponement, but well, INEC didn’t – at least not yet! But the explanations are obviously unsatisfactory, given how INEC had consistently assured the Nigerian people and the international community that it was ready and prepared. If the postponement was inevitable, it would have certainly been foreseeable, and it could have been announced a few days earlier. Indeed, a few days to February 16, Professor Yakubu was still on television swearing that the dates for the election were sacrosanct. Was he deliberately lying to Nigerians when he said that? The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has for record purposes, pointedly accused the INEC Chairman of lying about the weather. NAMA insists that there was no disruption in air traffic services as claimed by Professor Yakubu.  

What I see is that the postponement has achieved only four things and you can interpret each item positively or negatively depending on your inclination. One: it has deepened the Nigerian electorate’s suspicion, mistrust, angst and disappointment regarding what they consider to be the lack of independence of both INEC and other institutions involved in the management of the current electoral process. The people are convinced that there is something fishy about the postponement. INEC under Professor Mahmud Yakubu’s watch may have conducted over 1,000 elections, but the verdict out there is that the present INEC has not advertised enough capacity, hence the people have been talking about the “Osun Template” and a certain unproven intervention by the United States and other countries of the world, or a local plan to derail the elections and a scheme to put in place an Interim National Government. What we hear is that the ruling APC actually wanted a staggered election or a series of inconclusive elections to enable it control the outcome of the 2019 polls, or at best remain in power by all means.. 

Two:   Before February 16, there was so much tension in the air, passion as well, and what looked like very serious determination on the part of the voting population to participate in the 2019 general election. This reading may be contradicted by the number of voters cards that remain uncollected, but what I have seen is that those who had their cards and who were ready to vote were ready to troop out on election day. The last time I witnessed such passion was during Nigeria’s 1993 general elections. The people wanted to vote out the military and its agents, and they meant business.  The postponement of the scheduled February 16 election has brought down the level of tension in the country. It has poured cold water on the people’s passion.  It is too early to confirm whether or not this will affect the turn-out nationwide on Saturday, February 23, but what we hear on the streets is that the people are insisting that no kind of manouevre will prevent them from having a say with their votes. 

Three: by that token, INEC may have inadvertently set the people against the government of the day. What was meant to be a normal process has been turned, more or less into a referendum on the Buhari government. The people are not blaming Professor Mahmoud Yakubu. They don’t even know him: he has not yet attained that level of importance. The man they blame is President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC. Which is why I think the APC has played very clever politics by immediately distancing itself from INEC and the postponement. The witches in APC have mastered the game of not allowing their mouths to be publicly smeared with blood. They have chosen the best strategy in the circumstance, and I applaud them for that. 

Four: the postponement has further deepened the suspicion of the international community. It has put Nigeria on the spot. No one should be surprised that the international media is already analyzing and over-analyzing what is going on in Nigeria. And who is going to help the present government manage the perception problem that has arisen, especially when President Buhari tells CNN: “Nobody will unseat me!” Is he or the APC, in a position to pre-determine the outcome of this election? 

The sum of it is that INEC is at the crossroads. Nowhere is the job of an electoral umpire easy. It is more challenging in Nigeria because you have to serve man and God, especially as the enabling factors do not stop with the right of the people to vote and choose but a panoply of other factors including religion, ethnicity, money, violence, incumbency, traditional institutions, the occult, and political mischief. Nonetheless, not much rigorous thinking went into the postponement of the scheduled February 16 election. INEC could have told us for example that it wanted to use the opportunity to bring more people into the voting bracket by declaring 3 more days for the collection of voters cards, or some other kind of sop. Instead, INEC placed its credibility on the line. It confirmed earlier suspicions that there was an original plan to postpone the election. It played into the hands of the skeptics.

The challenge before Nigeria’s INEC as I see it, is how to now project itself as a credible and reliable electoral umpire. It can do that by disappointing all doubting Thomases and run a free, fair and credible election on February 23 and March 9. It is expected that INEC would use the one-week postponement to address all issues of logistics, and ensure that nothing goes wrong. I mentioned Professor Mahmud Yakubu earlier. He certainly should not allow himself to end up as a fall guy. He must do what is right.  He and his team must make sure that no election anywhere in Nigeria is declared inconclusive! Yakubu’s INEC has unfortunately acquired a reputation for declaring elections “inconclusive.” Nigerians are tired of such declarations. It is one word nobody wants to hear. The general public opinion is that when any election is declared inconclusive, it is a ploy to rig and manipulate the result. The time available is short, emotions are strong, the Nigerian public is politically divided, INEC has an urgent task to reassure Nigerians that it is sincere and that there is no hidden agenda. Any attempt to stagger the elections or postpone the elections further, will amount to a violation of the will of the people. 

Politics matters. Yes. It is probably the most important factor that defines our lives. But the country matters more. As Nigeria goes to the polls, the country must come first – every one seeking a job in government must realize that it is only when there is a country that they can get the job they seek. Letters of application are already before the people of Nigeria: the people in whom resides the sovereignty of Nigeria must be allowed to decide.  INEC must be ready to address all issues arising from the postponement of the 2019 general election. It needs be reminded, as I close this piece that all of this began with its mismanagement of previous elections, particularly in Osun and Ekiti states, and its predilection to declare elections “inconclusive.” The controversy over the presence of an alleged relative of President Buhari in one of the most strategic positions in INEC has also not helped matters. The burning of INEC offices along geo-political lines in areas of strength of the opposition only further worsened things. And is it true that a major supplier of election materials is also a candidate in this election? Could it also be true that elections were actually held in some parts of the country on February 16 because INEC could not reach all its officials and units before the scheduled commencement of elections? 

And finally, is the postponement in conformity with Section 26 of the Electoral Act and Section 105 of the 1999 Constitution? If truly it is not, then we are yet to get to the end of this postponement cinema in the light of both Section 105(2) of the Constitution and Section 26(5) of the Electoral Act. And did I hear right as I penned the last paragraphs of this commentary that President Buhari at an APC caucus meeting in Abuja announced that the security agencies have been instructed to ensure that anyone who snatches a ballot box on election day does so “at the expense of his life.” Where is the law in Nigeria that allows the President of the country to so publicly endorse extra-judicial killing and official violence? One last thing:  The international community is watching. Other world leaders expect President Muhammadu Buhari to provide the leadership that is urgently required at this critical moment in Nigeria.