The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, has directed that sting operations at night time be stopped in all the Commands of the EFCC.

This is in line with the newly-reviewed procedures on arrest and bail of suspects, EFCC said in a statement on Wednesday night, November 1.

According to the statement, Olukoyede gave the directive in Abuja in reaction to the arrest of 69 suspected internet fraudsters by operatives of the Ibadan Zonal command of the Commission in Ile-Ife, Osun State.

“Already, many of the suspects duly profiled by the Command have been released, while profiling of suspects yet un-released will be completed, without further delay,” the statement reads.

[NationalDaily]

A presidential spokesman, Tope Ajayi said President Bola Tinubu did not ask for a yacht.

This comes amid outrage after details of the N2.1 trillion supplementary budget Tinubu submitted to the National Assembly were published.

According to the budget, N5.09 billion was allocated for the yacht, N2.9 billion for sport utility vehicles for the Presidential Villa, and another N2.9 billion for the replacement of operational vehicles for the presidency.

The yacht was listed under the Nigerian Navy’s proposed capital expenditure of N42.3 billion.

Speaking on the development, Ajayi said he doubted if his principal needed one to perform the functions of his office.

“The trending issues on social media since yesterday are two items in the 2023 supplementary budget. One is the provision for a presidential yacht in the supplementary budget by the Navy, and the other is over N6 billion for vehicles for the State House.”

“It is important to state clearly that President Bola Tinubu didn’t ask for a presidential yatch, and I doubt he needs one to perform the functions of his office. From what I know, the request for a yacht, however it is named or couched in the budget, is from the Navy, and they must have operational reasons for why it is required.

“The budget office should be in a position to also explain to the public why such expenditures should be accommodated now, considering the economic situation of the country. I must readily admit that the one reason our budgeting system has been the subject of public attack is the very simplistic way some of the line items are described by civil servants who prepare the budget.

“Examples abound. Sometimes in 2016, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project of the Ministry of Solid Minerals worth over N300 million was captured in that year’s budget as a “website”. Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people, rightly, asked to know the type of website that would be built with N300 million.

Ajayi further stated, “It is important to say that journalism should enrich public enlightenment and not create an atmosphere of siege. It is poor reporting to always reduce State House budgetary provisions to the President and Vice President. 

“When the State House makes provision for vehicles, it is reported as if it is the President that will use all the vehicles or eat all the food when a provision is made for food and catering services.

“We have had such inaccurate reporting in the past. A President and Vice President cannot, for any reason, spend N20 million naira to eat in a year if it is about the food they will eat as first and second families. How much food can a person really eat? 

“Yet, we will read headlines that Tinubu, Buhari, Jonathan, or whoever the President is wants to spend N5 billion on food and catering in a year when in actual fact such budgetary provisions are made to accommodate many state events, meetings, hosting of VIPs, foreign dignitaries, and even visits by other Heads of State and bilateral and multilateral meetings that the State House will deal with in a given year,” he said.

[Vanguard]

Former vice president and presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, said on Monday that Nigeria was the bigger loser in last week’s decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. That was a convenient exaggeration to hide his misery.

But it was unnecessary. After unsuccessfully contesting to be president six times, it would have been human for him to admit that this loss, on what might well be his last attempt, was difficult to bear. He didn’t need to frame it as a national tragedy, because quite frankly, it wasn’t.

It’s the tragedy of the political elite enabled by the choices made by politicians, including members of Abubakar’s PDP, which also used to be Labour Party candidate Peter Obi’s home.

Even if Abubakar or Obi had won the 2023 presidential election, it would have been almost impossible to overturn. It just happened that they were at the receiving end.

Transmission and forgery tourism

Yet, the pursuit of redress need not be frustratingly difficult and complicated. If, for example, the National Assembly had made Section 60 of the Electoral Act on the electronic transmission of results compulsory, and not discretionary whatever the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) might have said later, it would have had no option but to comply. 

The commission waffled because the law is not binding. Its non-compliance undermined the integrity of the system and opened the door to self-help, a point acknowledged in the judgment of the Supreme Court.

Another obvious source of distress for Abubakar and Obi, particularly Abubakar, was that the court refused to admit and consider the pleading that Tinubu’s certificate from the Chicago State University (CSU) purportedly filed as part of his documents to INEC, was forged. 

After losing the first round of legal challenge at the tribunal, Abubakar’s counsel mounted a vigorous attempt at a US court to obtain Tinubu’s certificate and succeeded in spite of inexplicable efforts by the president’s team to block them. 

Armed with the deposition from the US court, Abubakar went to the Supreme Court believing that he had eventually found the smoking gun. But there were at least two major problems which serious lawyers from other parts of the world watching the live Supreme Court proceedings on October 24 would have been embarrassed to see. 

One, the deposition filed by Abubakar’s lawyers did not comply with the rules of evidence in a Nigerian court, which make the certification of such documents by the issuing courts or authorities mandatory. Instead, the Supreme Court said, the certification of the document was done in the chambers of Abubakar’s lawyers. This negligence – to have either the US court or CSU certify the deposition alleging forgery – handed a loophole to a legal system notorious for its embarrassing fastidiousness to technicalities. 

Heart of the matter

But that was only a part of the coup de grace. Two, the case lost its way even before it reached the tribunal, which in the presidential election, is the court of appeal. 

The whole point of the contest was not whether a forgery had been committed, though it may have been material at an earlier stage. The point was whether Abubakar’s lawyers could prove that the presidential election on February 25 had been so significantly rigged that Tinubu could not have won it. 

And to do that Atiku didn’t need to go the US, except if he was doing so as Rauf Aregbesola’s lawyers did in Osun State in Rauf Aregbesola & 2 Ors vs. Olagunsoye Oyinlola & 2 Ors (2011) 9 NWLR Pt. 1253 Pg. 582, where the team used forensic help from abroad to make its case. 

It was the inability of Abubakar’s legal team to meet this herculean challenge that forced them on a forgery tourism – a sexier, far less complicated route, which regrettably, often ends in a heartbreak.

In the few cases where the Supreme Court has overturned the election of governors – never those of presidents – the decisions, especially in the cases of Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi vs. INEC & 2 Ors S.C. 252/2007; Peter Obi vs. INEC & 2 Ors S.C. 123/2007 NGSC 50; and Senator Hope Uzodinma & APC vs. Rt Hon. Emeka Ihedioha & 2 Ors S.C.1462/2019, have been mainly on technical grounds. In a presidential election, however, the petitioner is faced with a different, higher level of tyranny. 

He will have to prove in court, within 180 days, that elections in a substantial number of the 176,846 polling units scattered in some of the country’s remotest villages and involving an estimated 187 million odd ballots had been rigged. And this would happen in a court barely equipped or prepared for such a grind.

Moving Olympus

On top of that, the petitioner would also have to climb this evidential Kilimanjaro when the defendant is already at the peak of it, ensconced in office and exercising the full powers of incumbency. 

In the face of such odds, Abubakar’s legal team desperately grasped at two straws – the allegation that Tinubu forged his certificate, and the claim that he ought not to have been declared winner because he failed to get 25 percent of the votes in Abuja, the federal capital.

On a good day, it’s improbable that any of Abubakar’s or Obi’s lawyers would say, with a straight face, that they believe that the constitution created Abuja as an enclave of super voters. Even for a constitution widely criticised for its clutter, it would be taking a malicious lack of clarity too far to suggest that the writers meant that Abuja voters were greater than the rest of us. 

Not even in the US, famous for its “federational” oddities does the capital, Washington DC, hold an electoral veto vote over the other states. In fact, the whole point of the Electoral College is to equalise the states. Nigerian courts have also made this point repeatedly. But obviously, the election petition industry will stop at nothing to reinvent its growth, expansion and prosperity.

Some have used the scathing valedictory address by retired Supreme Court judge, Musa Dattijo Muhammad, delivered the day after the court’s judgment as evidence of lost hope in the judiciary. That’s exaggerated, and hardly supported by the jurisprudential philosophy of His Lordship. His call for introspection was the right one, but his record is a cautionary tale for those inclined to take his latter-day pseudo-radicalism as gospel.

Way forward

There are three things that could minimise this regular cycle of bitter election combats, which take a toll on everyone, except those for whom the combats have become a cash cow. 

One, cut down the layers of litigation. In the presidential election, for example, the Supreme Court should be the first and last court. It used to be so here. And it is still so in Ghana and Kenya. In Kenya, after complaints have been made and investigated by the election management body, any party that is not satisfied goes to the Supreme Court, which has two weeks to dispose of the case.

Two, shift the burden of proof to INEC. Again, Kenya provides a good example. The election board in that country receives petitions, if the intra-party mechanism fails to settle them. It also investigates complaints fairly transparently, even though members of the board are appointed by the president but confirmed by the legislature. In Nigeria, the election board is sometimes the playground of politicians, and is frequently accused of impeding petitioners’ access to election records. 

And three, election petitions should be disposed of before swearing in. Once a winner has been declared and sworn in, a petitioner faces a near-impossible task of over-turning the result.

Since Abubakar has said he is not going anywhere, he would do well to mobilise his party to ensure that whether it is him or someone else in 2027, the party’s candidate would be spared his current misery. And it would also be in the enlightened self-interest of the ruling party to join him in fixing the broken system.

Nigerians may experience fuel scarcity as the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has condemned the attack on the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero.

Naija News reports that NUPENG also threatened to down tools over the attack and brutalization of Joe Ajaero and other labour leaders by perceived agents of the Imo State government.

Recall that Ajaero and other leaders of NLC and their Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), among others including some journalists were on Wednesday attacked and brutalized by suspected thugs contracted by the state at the NLC secretariat in Owerri.

The thugs allegedly descended on Labour leaders and other protesters, smashing vehicles, inflicting injuries and dispossessing handsets, money, ATM cards among other valuables from labour leaders and others that had gathered at the NLC State secretariat to begin the scheduled protest over pending labour issues.

Speaking on the incident NUPENG’s President, Prince Williams Akporeha, threatened to call for a nationwide industrial action.

He warned that NUPENG will call a nationwide strike if the Imo state government does not release the arrested labour leaders and address the grievances of its workers.

He said “We condemn with the strongest term the arrest and brutalization of Congress President, Comrade Joe Ajaero and other labour leaders by the agents of Imo State Government.

“We reject the act of violence and barbarism being unleashed on labour leaders, workers and others. We cannot accept this uncivilised behaviour in a democracy.

“The workers of Imo State must be freed. We are determined to free the state workers because injury to one is to all.”

[NaijaNews]

Internet and phone networks were down across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the Palestinian telecommunications agency said, in the second such blackout in the besieged territory in less than a week.

To our good people in the beloved country, we are sorry to announce that communications and internet services have been completely cut off in Gaza,” the Palestine Telecommunications Company (Paltel) said on X.

Global network monitor Netblocks confirmed that Gaza “is in the midst of a new internet blackout with high impact to the last remaining major operator, Paltel.

“The incident will be experienced as a total loss of telecommunications by most residents,” it said in a post on X.

An AFP journalist in Gaza confirmed the loss of communications, adding that his phone still had signal because he was using an international SIM card.

Another AFP journalist said only people with Israeli or Egyptian phone lines could still use their mobiles in the border town of Rafah.

Internet and phone networks were completely cut last week but were restored at the weekend.

AFP

Early this year, Mr. Damian Obiefule, Prof. Ben Nwabueze’s secretary, called to say Prof wanted to see me. I was elated. The last time I saw him was at the 2018 TheNiche Lecture at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA. He sacrificed all to be at that lecture, spending well over two hours on Third Mainland Bridge, even as his health was failing.

In fact, I had pleaded with him two days earlier not to stress himself coming but he ignored my plea, insisting that he would be there even if on a wheelchair. And he came on a wheelchair. He was extremely faithful to friendship.

Shortly after that, the COVID-19 pandemic set in and I couldn’t visit him. So, when Damian called to say he asked when I would be free to see him, I was over the moon. I told him I would come the next day. Damian was our go-between. Anyone who knew Prof would attest to his peculiar telephone culture – he neither called nor picked calls directly.

That was Damian’s remit. And what an unusual visit it turned out to be. Usually, I would sit in the living room and wait for him to come down. But on that fateful day, as I meant to take my seat, Damian said Prof wanted to see me in his bedroom. Prof was lying down on his bed and immediately Damian announced my presence, there was a huge smile on his face and he spread both arms. I walked straight to the bed, bent down and he put his arms around me in a bear hug.

“Ike, thanks for coming,” he said, his voice husky. “Prof, the privilege is mine. How are you doing? I just came to say hello and wish you well,” I responded. Still holding me tightly, he said, “I am good. Damian has been sending all your messages to me. Please take care of yourself.” The visit lasted about five minutes and we said our goodbyes.

When I got to the door, I looked back one more time. Our eyes locked briefly. As I took my leave, I had a hunch that would be our last meeting. I feel very sad at Prof’s death on Sunday, October 29, but I am not mourning. Only few men can beat their chests and say they achieved all they wanted in life as he did. In our last interview in 2017, he said: “I don’t have any personal regrets. I have achieved all I wanted to achieve. At 86 what else could I want? I am satisfied.

Nwabueze was born in the bucolic community of Atani, Anambra State and his birthday is a matter of conjecture as he narrated in his autobiography, Ben Nwabueze: His Life, Works and Times. “Atani as an illiterate community at that time meant that there was no written record of my birth. There was no system of registration of births and deaths, and no certificate of either event.

The recollections of old family members and certain events that occurred around the time were the usual means of ascertaining the dates of births in the village. These means indicate 1931 as the year of my birth, but the exact day and month in 1931 remain a matter of conjecture. The conjecture … fixes March as the month of my birth, probably 22nd March.”

Though the era defined him, when he admitted being “at bottom, a die-hard traditionalist,” it didn’t negate the fact that he was perhaps one of the most urbane, suave and gracious Nigerians schooled in all the nuances that define the present times. Nwabueze explained why and how he was able to straddle both worlds seamlessly. “People may sometimes wonder how someone schooled in the ways and practices of the learned profession of law, in the ideas and processes of constitutional democracy, and generally in the values and norms of modern life, as I am, has also such strong attachment to African indigenous customs and traditions, as I have.

“The explanation lies partly in the deep respect I have for customs and traditions as an embodiment of the soul of a people, and partly in the fact that as a child growing up in Atani, I was actively involved and participated fully in its traditional and cultural life to such extent that my entire outlook, vision and personality were impregnated by the village’s customs and tradition, to such extent indeed as to make them part of me.”

That was Prof Nwabueze, a man who spent his entire life erecting solid foundation for enduring positive change, a man I had the rare privilege of being inducted into his hallowed loop of friendship. I was told by Damian that the man I revered from a distance fell in love with my column, Candour’s Niche, in the Daily Independent newspaper. Then, I got a call one day from his chambers for a meeting. He had written another book and wanted me to be part of the public presentation. That was the beginning of our very robust relationship.

Prof believed in friendship but at the same time didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was very principled and value-driven in his engagements. An intellectual pugilist, he never ran away from any scholarly fight. He was cerebrally arrogant. And why not? But even in his arrogance, he elevated every discourse with superior argument. When he agrees with you, he does not only stop at reading the article and nodding his head, he sends a “thank you letter.” When he disagrees, he does same or writes his own article.

When we were about to set up TheNiche, I hinted him but forgot to alert him when we hit the newsstands. When he eventually saw the newspaper, he was jubilant and quickly sent a mail. “Dear Ike, what I saw of the publication, TheNiche, was superlative beyond description; it is not of course less than what I had expected. Congratulations!” In celebration of his 85th birthday, he assembled some accomplished scholars to write a book in his honour and invited me to be part of the project.

Again, the ever ubiquitous email. “Dear Ike, knowing how busy you must be putting materials together for future issues of TheNiche every Sunday, I have some trepidation in requesting you to undertake an assignment involving considerable study, thinking and writing. But I do want you to be part of a book project consisting of essays by various contributors, including yourself, with the title, Challenges of Good and Democratic Governance in Nigeria: Essays in honour of Professor Ben Nwabueze. The title of the chapter I would like you to write on is ‘The impact of jumbo remunerations for National Assembly members and the high cost of governance generally on good governance in Nigeria.’”

For me, it was not a mere request. It was an “order” from the Field Marshal of Intellectualism, master of the written word himself. Then came another mail from him in 2016. “I seek permission from TheNiche and yourself, as author of the article titled: Time to rethink Nigeria, to publish the article as appendix in my forthcoming book, The National Question & Corruption – With Form of Government as the third agitating issue. I would be pleased to get your approval as quickly as possible.” That was the relationship I had with the learned professor whose children reverently called “Oduah,” and others “Akunnia.”

Nwabueze, as another great Igbo son, Professor MJC Echerou, noted was everything – “a junior civil servant, high school teacher, law student and teacher, solicitor and advocate in private practice, minister of education in military administration, legal adviser to a large multinational financial institution, adviser to a United Nations board of labour experts, and co-founder and for nearly three decades secretary general of Ohanaeze, the pan-Igbo cultural organisation.”

Then throw into the mix a haul of over 200 peer-reviewed articles, over 100 conference keynote speeches and 34 books, with the first, “The machinery of Justice in Nigeria,” published in 1963, the transcendental and mythical image Akunnia carved for himself looms large. Though he had no personal regrets, he was greatly burdened that Nigeria still crawls at 63. “I am disappointed for the nation,” he once said. “The country is not what I had expected it would be or what I thought I would leave behind when the time eventually comes.”

Prof. Nwabueze lived a charmed life. From his humble beginnings, he grew up to become perhaps Nigeria’s most authoritative legal export while at the same time dominating, in significant ways, the domestic legal environment, becoming the most quoted legal authority in Nigeria. Akunnia humbly wanted to be “remembered as a poor village boy born of illiterate parents who knew the value of education … as a true patriot of Nigeria … as a man passionate about knowledge” when he is gone. But he will be remembered for much more. Goodnight Oduah!

The draw for this season’s Carabao Cup quarter-final was conducted on Wednesday night, following the completion of the fourth-round fixtures.

Chelsea will host Newcastle United in what is the tie of the round. The Blues defeated Blackburn 2-0, while the Magpies hammered holders Manchester United 3-0.

Liverpool play West Ham who eliminated Arsenal in another all-Premier League affair.

Port Vale welcome Middlesbrough and Everton take on Fulham.

The games will be played in the week commencing December 18, 2023.

Carabao Cup quarter-finals:

Everton vs Fulham

Chelsea vs Newcastle

Port Vale vs Middlesbrough

Liverpool vs West Ham

[DailyPost]

•Labour alleges attempted assassination 

The stories that dominated the news cycle in varying degrees the past week have something in common: they reported on the true nature of our politics as an infinite cycle of warfare among combatants who do not know alternative states of existence. They cannot figure out other ways to live, move, and have their being other than an endless play of this paralysing game of politics. Whether you are looking at the example of Rivers State where Nyesom Wike (who has all but defected to the All Progressives Congress though retains a foothold in the Peoples Democratic Party) and his successor, Siminalaya Fubara, were engaged in a contest of wills, or you consider the instance of Imo State where their leaders booked up available hotel rooms ahead of the coming elections to frustrate the logistics organising of the opposition parties, you are seeing the same pattern of perpetual politicking.

We seemed permanently doomed to a fate where there is never going to be a let-up on power contention for our leaders to transition to governance. At this rate, all we will ever know will be an unending tussle for the reins of power.

This brings me to one of the biggest culprits of the practice of an all-consuming commitment to the chase of power: The PDP presidential candidate, Abubakar Atiku. Last week, he lost his presidential election litigation at the Supreme Court just like everyone—and by that I mean people who did not become Nigerians just last night—expected. Apart from a few who love histrionics and pretended to be pleasantly surprised, I do not know of anyone who imagined that a court that could remove an incumbent president in Nigeria had been composed.

The excitement of the whole certificate drama peaked at the very point where a quintessential African “big man” was forced to accountability by a court untainted by the messiness of Nigerian politics. Once that show entered the Nigerian legal landscape, some of us knew it would instantly become degraded by the uninspiring jurisprudence of judges who will plod through tedious pages of prefabricated judgment. Even Atiku himself must have known how the case would end but still went ahead anyway. As I observed in an earlier article, his mission might not have been to undertake the impossible task of getting the judges to critically reflect on the virtues expected of a president but to prepare for the next election.

His pursuit all along, as it seems to me anyway, was to delegitimise the incumbent—to give those harbouring disaffections from the last election the emotional resource to justifiably base their resentment.

So, I was entirely unsurprised when Atiku insinuated he would keep up the good fight of refurbishing the Nigerian polity. He presented his mission as service in a higher cause, but we have been Africans for long enough to know that politicians in this part of the world do not fight for the country’s sake. Nobody commits that many resources to battling incumbent power in African politics unless they seek to usurp them. Make no mistake, Atiku is not trying to “deepen our democracy and rule of law…” for “the country… to reach its true potential” as he so nobly puts it. Everything he has done is a preface to the 2027 election when he will relaunch his presidential ambition. Such perpetual politicking is why we are caught in an endless coil of mobilising disaffection, delegitimising institutions/institutional figures, unsettling the polity, and dragging out the estrangement until the next election.

While we can rightly argue that such strategies are exactly the nature of politics, and that there are no historical examples of a polity that subsists without continuous (and acrimonious) power contentions, we should also recognise that this perpetual politicking lacks statecraft. We have a set of leaders adept at battling to win elections but entirely clueless on the science and art of governance. For them, every resource of democracy—its institutions, plus even moral visions and thought—must be pimped in the service of accruing power. And by the time they eventually get that power, their heads are drained out and their souls purged of virtues. Political power then becomes a carapace for hiding the jarring emptiness within.

I should note that Atiku is not the only one with eyes set on the next election. A couple of weeks ago, I started receiving emails from a Yoruba parapo list server already mobilising efforts for Bola Tinubu 2027. The man has not even identified his mandate let alone deliver on it, but his parochial kinsmen are already strategising his tenure extension to, of course, retain their benefits. “Awa lokan” politics has morphed into an “awa nikan ni” entitlement mindset. Yoruba elites and intellectuals have revealed themselves to be the tortoise in the fable who took the name “All of You” so he could amass what belonged to the collective. Beyond their audacity of mobilising for their poorly performing tribesman for the next election is the massive insensitivity to the feelings of non-Yoruba Nigerians.

But that is precisely the kind of moral blind spot one gets from a society where all politicking has become destiny. They expend every resource on winning and retaining power, but never get around to the most important part of it all: building the skills to meaningfully govern. That is why former President Muhammadu Buhari spent 12 years seeking power, finally got it, and did nothing useful with it for eight years! The present administration too has started on the same path of fighting tenaciously for power, winning it, and demystifying themselves because of it. Their case is even worse than that of their predecessor(s) because they were the loudmouths who had all the bold ideas of what the nation ought to do. Now that they oversee the nation, it starts to unfold that the grand visions they shared while playing opposition politics were all just talk. They never developed the skills necessary to craft a viable state, and they are not about to start.

We are now trapped in this perpetual cycle where, by the nature of our politics of perpetually fighting for power, the possibilities of social progress are severely limited. We cannot plan for the long term because all available resources must be drafted toward preparing for the next election. To be a politician in Nigeria means nothing more than being positioned to legitimately rob. You rob to get into power, rob to stay in power, and still rob to remain politically relevant even after your serial tenure in power expires.

That is also why Nigeria cannot build a country for its young ones. All the resources that should go into developing the infrastructure that should help its youths flourish must be expended on politicking. Our politics of power encourages people to produce children, but also has no agenda for their future other than mobilise them as voters right from the moment they can stand on their feet and walk.

We cannot take care of any of the infrastructure of healthcare, education, public facilities, and so on. All those urgent interests must be relegated so we can prepare for the next election. Politics is a deity with expensive and insatiable tastes; it cannot gulp enough of our flesh and blood.

Not only does politics consume our future, but it also robs us of our past. We also cannot look back into our history to learn anything about ourselves other than how the last election was lost and won. Our society is jinxed with leaders who do not know anything other than contending for power; we are doomed to perpetual politicking. Without an insightful understanding of the past nor a resolve toward the future, we are condemned to wallow in an eternal dystopic loop of nowness.