For too long, Nigeria and Nigerians have been choked by myriads of constraints and restraints put on them like a harness affixed on a horse to curtail its freedom enabling the rider to control it.

And it is a pity that like a horse, Nigeria appears to have been ridden by a rough rider instead of an expert jokey.

That is why our country is literally on the verge of falling off the cliff-politically, economically and socially by way of disunity-after being ridden to the precipice by an apparent rough rider that has been on the saddle in the past eight (8) years.

Clearly, as a die hard democrat, president-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s mission upon taking office on 29 May would significantly contrast with the style of governance of the current leadership at the centre.

The assertion above is underscored by the comment that he made at the commissioning of court facilities constructed in Rivers state under the watch of the outgoing governor, Nyesom Wike in the state capital, Port Harcourt.

It may be recalled that during a two (2) day visit by the incoming president Tinubu to the Niger delta state on Thursday 4th May, he promised that his administration would fight corruption in the judiciary by providing judicial officers with improved remuneration, necessary tools and working environments needed to do their job such as the type of infrastructure that he was invited to commission in Rivers state.

That would be in contrast with the trademark of the outgoing administration notorious for carrying out sting operations on members of the judiciary by arresting senior members of the bench in gestapo-like style in odd hours and also taking them into custody in their sleeping wears, all in the bid to intimidate and rob them of their independence from interference by the executive branch which.

In my view, a paradigm shift in anti corruption fight that would address the root cause of the malaise would give Nigeria a new lease of life and make our country a truly democratic and progressive nation as opposed to the somewhat pseudo-democracy which by all indications and measures is currently in operation in our beloved country hence we are rated lowly in the comity of nations.

But President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s utterance in Port Harcourt on fighting corruption sounded like dejavu encore to me and l guess the same applies to most skeptical Nigerians because that is similar to what the outgoing president Mohammadu Buhari told the long suffering masses in 2015 when he was assuming the role of president and commander- in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria.

That is because to the chagrin, utter displeasure and disappointment of hapless Nigerians, corruption in our country according to global corruption watch dogs, particularly Transparency International, TI has worsened between 2015 and today.

Data from Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC under the Chairmanship of Mr Musa (Rafsanjani) Auwal, Nigeria’s corruption ranking in the committee of nations in 2022 is 150th position out of 180 countries in the world corruption index.

The only country in west Africa  performing below Nigeria or more corrupt than Nigeria according to the graft monitoring organization, Tl is Guinea Bissau.

Our country on a scale of zero to a hundred (0-100) scored 26/100 in 2019, 25/100 in 2020 and 24/100 in 2021.

That signifies continuous decline in Nigeria’s rating which is not good.

And according to media reports referencing Transparency International, Tl  chair,Delia Rubio:

“Corruption has made our world a more dangerous place.

“As governments have collectively failed to make progress against it, they fuel the current rise in violence and conflict – and endanger people everywhere.

“The only way out is for states to do the hard work, rooting out corruption at all levels to ensure governments work for all people, not just an elite few.”

After a clear eye look at Tinubu’s promise to combat corruption in the judiciary, it appears feasible that he may be able to slow down the menace during his reign as president because he is planning on tackling it from the angle of closing the loopholes for corruption created by inadequate remuneration for members of the judiciary which is one of the root causes of graft both in the judiciary and indeed the entire governmental system.

So, my confidence in the ability of the president-elect Tinubu to implement the policy of pursuing a paradigm shift in the fight against corruption in the judiciary from the root and not the surface as the outgoing regime seem to have been doing is buoyed by the fact that since he has been a two (2) time governor of Lagos state (1999-2007),he must understand what it means to make such a significant pronouncement.

As such his proposition must be a product of critical thinking and not mere brain wave as Nigerians have witnessed in the past eight (8) years.

Incidentally, reforms in the judiciary, particularly with respect to a better welfare package for the members of the judiciary are supposed to already be afoot as evidenced by the approval for increase in the remuneration of Supreme Court justices (N10m and N90m monthly for both the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN and President of the Appeal Court and other justices respectively) introduced by the outgoing administration of president Mohammadu Buhari, but the pay raise is yet to be implemented.

The reality is that Nigerian judges are paid far less than our law makers, which is not fair.

Even as judges in Ghana and South Africa are said by activists clamoring for improved pay for the judiciary, to earn higher emoluments than their Nigerian counterparts, yet Nigeria is often touted as the giant of Africa.

However, the recent 40% across board increase in the salary of civil servants including members of the judiciary by the outgoing government at the centre is being envisaged as a moral and productivity booster as it is also geared towards reining in or discouraging corruption not just in the judiciary but the government system as a whole.

Although, one is cognizant of the fact the pending petrol pump price increase following the end of petrol subsidy regime from next month as the current regime exits Aso Rock Villa would wipe out the value of the 40% salary increase just being implemented, for now the salary raise that became effective from last month world give the long suffering workers some succor before the president-elect takes office and decides what to do about petrol subsidy removal.

In my view, petrol subsidy must end as planned and a 100% increase in salaries for workers across board would be a necessary first step to ameliorate the consequential effect. But that is a subject for another discourse.

Meanwhile, although improvements in the remuneration of judicial officers had already been approved, but it remains unimplemented despite the fact that agitation for pay raise for justices has been ongoing since 2008.

And it is a shame that such a critical sector has been neglected in the scheme of things for so long.

That is perhaps what informed Asiwaju Tinubu’s promise in Port Harcourt and justification for his pledge to introduce the proposed reforms aimed at stymying corruption in the judiciary under his watch from the 29th day of this month, all things being equal.

So, presumably, the in-coming president’s statement is likely not a frivolous utterance but a tactical component of his grand strategy detailed in his Renewed Hope 2023 manifesto which is an 88 page development template that he leveraged to woo Nigerian electorate to vote for him in the course of the just concluded electioneering campaigns.

At inception of the outgoing administration, the third (3) branch of government (judiciary) had appeared like the last bastion as it had remained in large part untainted.

But after a short period, it wilted owing to the onslaught by the executive arm through undue interference that has blighted it to the extent that most Nigerians no longer see it as infallible and unbiased.

And it is precisely why the judiciary is now on ‘trial’ which is such an irony because it used to be law breakers that would be on trial by the judiciary.

Arising from the above, the president-elect is spot-on, on the score of planning to tackle corruption in the judiciary as part of his party’s plans towards renewing hope in our beleaguered nation.

The truth and reality are that it is a pliant judiciary that enables or facilitates the emergence of unscrupulous politicians.

Now, not many people can spot the uncanny link between the judiciary and politicians. But president- elect Tinubu seems to have made that connection hence he seemed to have given a sneak preview of his agenda when he gets sworn into office from 29 May.

The nexus between the judiciary and legislators as well as politicians in general is reflected by the catch phrase currently dominating the political space ‘Go To Court’.

The absurdity was given a new lease of life by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC chairman, Prof Mamoud Yakubu when he declined to respond to political party agents complaints about perceived improprieties identified during the collation of the results of the 25 February elections.

Taunting aggrieved co-contestants for political office by daring them to go court is particularly the case in Nigeria where some unscrupulous political actors prefer not to campaign or woo the electorate, but deploy their financial war chests into ‘settling’ members of the bar and bench that help them obtain and maintain crooked mandates via courts as opposed to the electorate exercising their right to choose a president, senators, members of House of Assembly, HoRs, governors and state houses of assembly members.

Since the return of multi party democracy in 1999, following former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s reign up to 2007 during which the rule of law was trampled upon and the principles of democracy were disregarded, it was acknowledged by subsequent decent political actors that election malfeasance had reached an alarming proportion in 2007.

That realization prompted more democracy advocates in leadership to be more determined to reform the system and urgently too.

So, it is the reform that was commenced in 2007 by the justice Lawal Uwais committee established by president Yar’adua of blessed memory (2007-10) and sustained by ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s regime (2010-15) that culminated into the Electoral Act 2022 passed into law under the watch of the outgoing government.

At this juncture, it is worth pointing out that there are striking resemblances between the general elections conducted in Nigeria in 1979,2007 and 2023.

In a manner that appears like dejavu encore to me, the current circumstances thrown up by elections 2023 may compel president-elect Tinubu to elect to replicate what late Umaru Yar’adua did in 2007 when his emergence as president midwifed during OBJ’s watch was alleged to have been tainted as is currently the case with Asiwaju Tinubu’s mandate in 2023, which is some sixteen (16) years after.

And upon being sworn into office Yar’adua vowed to immediately embark on a reform of the process of recruiting political leaders.

Asiwaju Tinubu in 2023 ,like Yar’adua in 2007 who pledged to reform the electoral system is already pledging to end corruption in the judiciary through boosting their remuneration and providing a conducive working environment for them.

That implies that there is a parallel between Yar’adua’s action in 2007 that vowed to improve on the electoral process and Tinubu in 2023 committing to eliminating corruption in the judiciary.

Commendably, Yar’adua kept his promise by setting up the justice Lawal Uwais committee that laid the foundation for the electoral reforms that birthed previous reforms that culminated into Electoral Act 2022 currently in operation.

Having made a similar commitment on May 4 in Port Harcourt which is about twenty five (25)) days to his inauguration into office as president and commander-in -chief of the armed forces of Nigeria, hopefully, president- in-waiting Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would fulfill his promise in the manner that Yar’adua did.

A constitutional crisis similar to the instant one bordering on elections result also had arisen in 1979 when Chief Obafemi Awolowo of UPN disputed the victory awarded Alhaji Shehu Shagari of NPN and the issue of what constitutes 25% of 19 states of the federation became a protracted matter requiring Supreme Court intervention in the manner that 2/3 majority votes in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT is currently a point of contention in election 2023.

Given the anxiety that it generated, it was not expected that our law makers would not have learnt some useful lessons and as such ensured that such type of complexity is avoided forty four (44) years after.

One common denominator between president-elect Tinubu ,former presidents Yar’adua (2007 -2010), Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015) and Shehu  Shagari (1979-2003) is that they all introduced or tried to introduce reforms in the electoral system. They also tackled corruption in more scientific ways than through sheer brute force or naming and shaming methodology adopted by former dictators/ex heads of state turned democrats-generals Olusegun Obasanjo(1999-2007) and Mohammadu Buhari (2015-2023).

Fortuitously, the president-elect Tinubu whose task would be to dig our beloved country out of the deep hole where it has currently sunken, all things being equal from 29 May ,has set the agenda by making one of his priority initiatives the restoration of confidence of Nigerians in the judiciary.

And he would have to do so by sanitizing the justice administration system which is the conscience of democracy and society if it is creditable, but can be instrumental to perpetuating bad governance or leadership ,if it is corruptible.

So, to birth a new Nigeria, first of all, the judiciary has to be cleaned up as it were.

Right now, most Nigerians would argue that it is the judicial institution without integrity that is constituting a drag on our country and inhibiting it from becoming the true leader of Africa and a very consequential country in the world.

That is why the third (3) branch of government is currently on ‘trial’.

I am of the conviction that if the judiciary that is fundamental to the recruitment of our political leaders in Nigeria is fixed or put on even keel, after its ‘trial’, then our country would be on the path to a rebirth as she would be positioned to be the true leader of Africa and also one of the leaders of the world.

The critical role that Nigeria could play  in the world order was recently acknowledged by the leader of the free world, USA President Joe Biden in his goodwill message to our country in the run up to the just concluded general elections.

But to truly earn the global recognition and respect that President Biden and many other world leaders have identified and exhorted us to live up to, sanitizing the judiciary should be the task that must be accomplished by president-elect Tinubu after he gets sworn into office on 29 May, as substantive president of Nigeria, all things being equal.

If that becomes one of Mr Tinubu’s main goal, as stated earlier, history may be repeating itself because reformation of the electoral system is exactly what Umaru Yar’adua of blessed memory embarked upon after he was swept into office in a gale of disputed election result as is currently the case in 2023 whereby the president-elect Tinubu is about to be propelled into office as President and Commander- In-Chief of the armed forces of Nigeria, in similar circumstances.

Without cleaning up the proverbial Augean stable which the judiciary seems to have become, whatever the incoming government does would be tantamount to building a house on a weak foundation.

And the justification for the assertion above is derived from the reality that the  aforementioned institution has been too malleable and susceptible to  manipulation by political actors, hence our country has remained anchored on a shifty framework that has been hindering her from attaining her full potentials as the true leader of Africa in terms of being built on sound democratic principles and anchored on solid economic foundation.

Universally, great countries (apart from communist China, Russia and North Korea and monarchies governed with religious dogma especially in the Arab world ) emerge from having a robust judicial system with the rule of law embedded in its DNA. That is what would ensure the emergence of citizens that are driven by equity and justice that would ultimately produce leaders recruited through transparent, fair and free electioneering processes for egalitarian society.

But the image of the judiciary has been worsted by a series of recent judgements that have befuddled Nigerians hence the third (3rd) branch of government has been in the eyes of the storm and on ‘trial’ as it were.

Readers would agree that it is an understatement to say that the recent judgements appear preposterous to ordinary Nigerians as they have been unable to discern the rationale for the decisions without the judiciary giving explanations on how it arrived at the very complicated and confusing decisions.

In order words, Nigerians are distressed and frustrated because the aforementioned agency governing a critical aspect of their existence is in their view not living up to their expectations as their rather opaque decisions are not being explained to them in order to know why and how they made their seemingly odd and perplexing judgements.

Hopefully, the final decision of the current election petition tribunals across the country in the process of resolving the disputes arising from the 25 February

presidential and legislators elections and 18 March gubernatorial and state houses of assembly races would be very transparent.

Based on the reality of lack of confidence besetting the judiciary in the court of public opinion, l urge our lordships in the temple of justice, particularly the tribunals hearing elections 2023 petitions to intentionally enlighten Nigerian masses on the steps taken and why in arriving at their decisions.

My point is that more robust communication between the judiciary and the electorate is critical at this point in time.

As we all agree, extraordinary situations demand extraordinary solutions.

Therefore, the approach of painstakingly explaining the reasoning behind their decision which would perhaps not ordinarily be the normal drill is required when they arrive at the decisions on the matters in which they are currently adjudicating in order to carry all Nigerians along and reduce the possibilities of misunderstanding of the intents and purposes of our learned tribunal panelists that could result in further strain in the relationship between the judiciary and the people.

As the conventional wisdom goes, justice is not only supposed to be done, it also needs to be seen to have been done.

Without a doubt, with the tribunal justices going out of their way to carry Nigerians along by educating the masses on the principles applied in arriving at their judgement, the purpose of erasing any and every reasonable doubts would be served.

To most Nigerians, it was rather demoralizing and demotivating that the matter of who would become the political leaders of Nigeria is now at the behest of leaders in the temple of justice, not the masses as should have been the case.

The resentment towards the judiciary by some Nigerians conveyed by the media which is the voice of the people elicited an incendiary media statement released recently by the spokesman of the Supreme Court ,Dr Festus Akande.

He berated members of the fourth estate of the realm government (media) for daring to put judicial officers and the judiciary under trial as it were.

In his view: “No Court in any clime is a Father Christmas; so, no one can get what he or she didn’t ask for.

“Similarly, all matters are thoroughly analysed and considered based on their merits and not the faces that appear in courts or sentiments that attempt to becloud the sense of reasoning.

“So, for anyone in his or her right frame of mind to insinuate that the justices have been bought over by some unknown and unseen persons is, to say the least, a bizarre expression of ignorance, which definitely has no place in law.
“We are not surprised with the surge of these well-orchestrated verbal assaults on judicial officers across the country at this period of elections”.

As the apex court spokesman concluded: ‘it is a thing we are used to and are ever ready to absorb whatever comes our way; but there should be some level of decorum and dignity in what we say and do.

“Politics should not be played without recourse to good conscience and acceptable moral conduct, as everything is evolving globally”.

I would like to reiterate that a new Nigeria is possible if the judiciary after its current ‘trial’ ,becomes more open and welcoming to criticism by electing to drain the ‘swamp’ in which it is currently mired and a situation that going by pronouncements by its leaders in numerous workshops and seminars, is acknowledged and which is also recognized by president-elect Tinubu hence he pledged to scrub the judicial institution clean of corruption via improved remuneration and other perks that would make malfeasance unattractive to members of the bench.

Although, l do not have empirical evidence as to how Nigerians perceive the judiciary, it may not be far from the abysmal level of skepticism with which the masses currently view the elections umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

And the likely low esteem of the judiciary in the eyes of Nigerian public stems from the recent and not too recent verdicts from our courts in landmark cases ranging from recent highly controversial judgements concerning governors and lawmakers who most Nigerians in frustration assume are induced either with money or coercion of power by state actors.

And all the perceived malfeasance has been swirling around in the mass media and they are subject of gossips in drinking bars, hair dressing saloons and motor parks.

It may be recalled that Mr Rotimi Amaechi who really did not participate in campaigns and governorship election processes in Rivers state in 2007 ,which was according to INEC won by Mr Celestine Omehia,but whose victory got upturned by the judiciary with mr Amaechi crowned as governor in a manner that has left a lot of Nigerians still scratching their heads and it even left bitter taste in the mouths of many others.

A similar judgement to the one in Rivers state reoccurred in lmo state in 2019 when verdict was given in favor of incumbent governor, Mr Hope Uzodinma who was adjudged to have come in the 4th position in the INEC declared result that got upturned by the courts when it stripped Mr Emeka lhiedioha of the victory and position after he had been declared winner by the electoral body and sworn into office as the state governor.

There are more similarly stunning decisions emanating from the courts in recent times.

These are in respect of the emergence of current senate president, Dr Ahmed Lawan as candidate for the senate even in the current election circle when he was also a contender for the presidency at the same time. And to some extent, the same applies to  senator-elect Mr Godswill Akpabio who is currently the front runner to become senate president in the 10th assembly beginning next month, June.

The two (2) aforementioned very important personalities in the eyes of the ordinary Nigerians bought tickets and contested for the presidency in the same election season.

In the simple logical thinking of the masses, the pair could not have also legally contested for senate seats, a situation which is basically contrary to the provisions of electoral act 2022.

Perhaps explanations from Dr Akande about what informed the decision by the Supreme Court justices to allow the duo be senate candidates for two elective posts in the same election circle could have cleared the fog.

In the absence of the much-needed clarity, those judgements riled up Nigerians to the extent that the reputation and credibility of the judiciary has further dipped hence the third (3rd) branch of government appear to be on trial in the court of public opinion.

And all of the referenced presumed malfeasance have been swirling around in the mass media, thus further sullying the image of the judiciary.

Although, l have a gut feeling that the courts may not be really culpable of malfeasance in giving some judgements that have turned out to be irksome to some Nigerians as highlighted above, the cynicism against the judiciary as stated earlier may have its origin in the fact that it is not explaining its decisions to the Nigerian public in ways that they can understand the logic or jurisprudence behind the verdicts that they have been giving lately and which are obviously strange to most of us.

So, the power of communication that oils the wheels of relationships between business partnerships and even husband and wife may be the bane of the judiciary and the reason it is currently being despised.

As to be expected, in the absence of a robust communication strategy, the image or reputation of those who preside in the temple of justice has been dragged to the gutter level and therefore abysmally sunken.

Perhaps members of the judiciary have to read a poem written by the celebrated poet, Prof Niyi Osundare about alleged criminal judges titled: My Lord, Tell Me Where To Keep Your Bribe” to come to terms with why the judiciary is on trial.

If they are yet to read it, l have shared a snippet as presented below:

“Do I drop it in your venerable chambers

Or carry the heavy booty to your immaculate mansion.

Shall I bury it in the capacious water tank

In your well laundered backyard.

Or will it breathe better in the septic tank.

Since money can deodorize the smelliest crime.

“Shall I haul it up the attic.

Between the ceiling and your lofty roof.

Or shall I conjure the walls to open up

And swallow this sudden bounty from your honest labour.

Shall I give a billion to each of your paramours….”.

The highly critical poem by Prof Osundare which l have tagged ‘Poetic Justice’ goes on and on laying bare the foibles of alleged corrupt judges that are supposed to be incorruptible.

The bottomline is that if a new leaf is turned for good in the judiciary after going through its trial in the court of public opinion by stymying corruption amongst its members as president-elect Tinubu is proposing , a new Nigeria is possible.

Now, let me make it clear at this juncture that the excerpt reproduced above is not meant to discredit or ridicule the judiciary.

But it is aimed at calling the attention of the relevant department or officials to the sordid reputation that the institution has acquired, so that they can quickly find a way or ways to redeem the sunken image.

The truth is that our country needs transformation and it must start from a critical branch of government such as the judiciary which for the sake of maintaining its independence must transform itself by itself not by the executive arm or the legislature.

In fact, it is a compromised electoral and judicial system that would midwife the birth of executive and legislative actors that may pervert governance.

That is why it is imperative that change starts from the baseline or maternity wards or delivery rooms for political actors which is election process that can only be midwifed by a robust and conscientious judiciary that is alive to its responsibilities by keeping in check potential excesses of the electoral umpire which is an agency of the executive branch.

As media columnists/public policy analysts, we bear the burden of writing both scathing and endearing comments on both good and bad events or occurrences uplifting or afflicting our compatriots in the society.

In the same manner, judges in the temple of justice give judgements that may be good and bad to the plaintiffs and defendants respectively, no matter whose ox is gored.

But unlike media men and women, our lordships only face the wrath of the masses when they give judgements that appear to be opaque to them.

And whenever their independence is threatened by the executive or legislative branches, the members of the fourth realm mobilize the masses to align with the judiciary to fend off its invaders.

That was witnessed recently when judges got treated shabbily by being antagonized by the outgoing administration from around 2019.

The media was also vocal in advocating for improved pay for Supreme Court justices when the issue came up via a leaked petition to the presidency and the outgoing authorities have approved, but have unfortunately failed to implement the raise in salary and other perks that it approved with barely a couple of weeks to its terminal date.

But conversely, the fourth realm of the estate which is the media is often a victim of the executive arm that chases its members down with state instruments of coercion, particularly by state governors who have caused a good number of journalists to be incarcerated or have their liberty withdrawn as it were for daring to pry into their affairs, even though they are public officers and accountable to the people.

Similarly, the legislative branch is also sometimes hostile to the media as evidenced by the fact that it passes laws that are anti media.

Take for instance the passing of the Freedom of Information, FoI bill into an act of law that was like passing the Camels head through a needles eye.

Even after passage, the act is hardly respected by all three arms of government that treat the media like a plague rather than ally in nation building that it truly is.

So also are the anti-social media bills introduced during the 8th assembly by senator Ghali Na’aba,and an action that was repeated by senator Sani Musa in the 9th assembly.

And both of the proposed but not passed bills are believed by the media to have been meant to gag them.

Thankfully, president Buhari perhaps as a lesson from his experience with the infamous decree 4 introduced during his tenure as a military dictator (1984-85) distanced himself from the proposed repressive laws following public outrage.

On its part, the judiciary also often threaten members of the media with sanction as reflected by Dr Akande’s earlier referenced pungent press release.

That is in-spite of the fact that the media is structured to be partners in nation building with all three branches of government, particularly the judiciary with which it should serve as the conscience of society.

Worse of all, members of the public whose ox are gored also vent their spleen on members of the fourth realm of the estate who end up bearing the brunt of society in the course of trying to be the watch dog on the other branches of government to curb their potential excesses.

The unfortunate assassination via parcel bomb of ace journalist and Newswatch magazine co-founder, Mr Dele Giwa on October 19,1986 is a case in point.

In the light of the above, it is unsurprising that one is currently facing threats of cyber attacks from radicals who are trolling me and threatening to hack into one’s phone to obtain contents which they intend to twist and present to the public in manners that one would be embarrassed.

But, l am unperturbed and unfazed by such  nefarious antics which would fall flat and definitely hunt and hurt their backers or those who the angry internet denizens are backing when discerning members of the public see through the vile motives of the cyber bullies as sheer blackmail.

As the saying goes, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. That is an aphorism that encourages one from demurring from taking the responsibility of speaking truth to authorities, when the chips are down.

It is rather ironic that it is the seemingly innocuous shortcomings in the reformed electoral act 2022 that have now become the tipping point for the near derailment of election 2023 process that was on track to becoming one of the best.

And it is even more so because it is the granular details of the law which are supposed to have been clearly addressed in the course of reforming the former electoral law into Electoral Act 2022, but was left loose that is currently one of the thorny issues besetting election 2023.

And owing to the failings of both the executive (lNEC organized elections in contention) and the legislative branches(drafters of the electoral act 2022 that failed to tie up loose ends),the judiciary is being left to literally clean up the mess, since the burden of untangling the legal complexities with a view to restoring peace and stability in the country has been thrust on it.

The current elections difficulties echoe the constitutional dilemma that necessitated the introduction of the infamous Doctrine Of Necessity by NASS following the sudden death of president Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010 without handing over to then vice president Goodluck Jonathan and a constitutional lacuna arose.

In deed,it is heart rendering that having suffered a similar constitutional crisis bordering on elections result in 1979 when Chief Obafemi Awolowo of UPN disputed the victory awarded Alhaji Shehu Shagari of NPN and the issue of what constitutes 25% of 19 states of the federation became a protracted matter requiring Supreme Court intervention, it was not expected that our law makers would not have learnt some useful lessons and as such ensured that such type of complexity is avoided. But forty four (44) years after, we are faced with the dilemma of debating if winning 2/3 majority of votes in the FCT is a precondition to be declared the winner of a presidential contest.

In the light of the above, a new Nigeria is possible if president-elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu upon being sworn into office as president from 29 May, would immediately commence working towards forging new policy directions that would prevent the judiciary from being corruption prone by implementing the salary raise approved by the outgoing administration and which it has so far failed to actualize .

The request by the PDP that the hearing be broadcast live is one way of carrying the electorate along as it may help the judiciary rescue itself from the black book of Nigerians.

Without a scintilla of doubt, it would facilitate a buy-in by the masses if they see the decision of the tribunal as transparent, free and fair.

In fact it would give the masses the kind of respite and confidence that the transmission of elections results from BVAS and IReV by INEC could have inspired amongst Nigerians if the electoral umpire did not renege on its lofty promise of real time transmission of results from polling units to INEC saver.

The open broadcast of the proceedings on television and radio including even exploring a streaming option is necessary as it would amplify transparency in the administration of justice as opposed to the opaqueness exhibited by INEC which has tainted the outcome of elections 2023 necessitating the intervention of the judiciary.

The boast by presumed winners and INEC Chairman, Prof Yakubu that the aggrieved should go to court, gives the impression that the declared victors may have special arrangements in the courts which they intend to leverage to secure victory.

That may or may not be the case, but that is what is being passed across.

To dispel the unedifying beliefs against the judiciary and evince the confidence of Nigerians in the electoral system, after INEC Chairman frittered it away by not keeping to the promise that he would make the election process open and transparent by putting all the results from the Bi-Mordal Accreditation and Verification System, BVAS on the Independent Results Viewing Portal IReV, the call by Wazir in Atiku Abubakar, former vice president and PDP presidential candidate for the transmission of the proceedings in the tribunal via live television and radio broadcast as well as  streaming, may be the cure to the self inflicted and own goal committed by INEC at the end of an otherwise well conducted 25 February presidential and National Assembly elections exercise.

Robbing Nigerians of that right to know what is going on during elections in real time via electronic transmission is what constitutes the bulk of the reasons that Nigerians resent the INEC.

And it may be for similar reasons that the judiciary may be despised if the masses  believe that their role as electors has been usurped by the courts that also denies them the opportunity of following events pertaining to resolving the dispute by the aspirants on real time basis via open broadcast of activities from the tribunal.

Although it is not the making of the judiciary that they are being compelled to intervene in the results of elections 2023 ,as the Supreme Court spokesperson, Dr Akande veritably pointed out in his media Intervention, it is imperative that the judiciary makes its interactions with the public more dynamic, robust and interactive.

Otherwise, the judiciary risks being regarded and identified by the electorate as incubus/succubus which is a characterization that they have already branded INEC and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN which are the two (2) agencies of the executive branch of government whose combined policies literally raped Nigerians particularly in the months leading up to elections 2023 and afterwards.

That much was captured in my article titled: “Elections 2023 And The Masses As Victims Of Incubus/Succubus Government “ published on Tuesday,18 April in my column and widely shared on other traditional and social media platforms.

Arising from the above, my frank and candid advice to the judiciary is that it should take the request for live transmission via television, radio and streaming of the activities in the tribunals very seriously as it may be the game changer for the election 2023 that is looking like a cliff hanger situation .

As we all know it has a precedence in the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa commission of enquiry set up by president Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 to investigate human rights violations between 1984 and 1999 that was televised for public viewing of the process and which conferred credibility on the outcome of the exercise.

After all said and done, in my reckoning, the judiciary can make a new Nigeria happen by truly acting with the equanimity of lady justice, the iconic symbol of the judiciary that is blind to prejudices and biases.

As the popular maxim goes: the ball is in the court of the judiciary.

There are these recent prevalent cases of house-helps/ maids brutality and physical abuse by their guardians in Nigeria. It is very much on the high rise that there is no week that goes by without us seeing on the print media or social media a gory case of a maimed and brutalized kid usually from the ages of 5-12 who are serving as house-helps/ maids.

Interestingly, eight out of ten of these reported cases of domestic violence melted on these househelps do take place in the eastern part of the country and mostly in Anambra state. These statistics are struggling to back up a stereotype made around the block (which I the writer is yet to believe) that Igbo women are very brutal and aggressive with their house helps and maids but with the recent cases which I have been seeing I am beginning to think that there is an atom of truth in that stereotype.

“Instead of being defensive about this, Eastern stakeholders should rather look into it because it calls for worry”. 

Where do I begin in citing gory examples of how women brutalize their house helps or maids over a trivial issue or at the slightest provocation to the viewing pleasure of their husbands who sometimes feign ignorance or claim that they were never in support of their wives doing that but cannot do anything to save the poor house help from the fierce clench of their wives.

Just last November, we heard of the death of an 11-year-old Magreth Joshua who died as the result of torture and physical abuse she received at the hands of Mrs Nnaemeka Nwachukwu her guardian. The late Magreth Joshua was serving as a maid to her killer in Jos, plateau state where they reside. The details of the event that led to the death of the kid were quite pathetic; witnesses narrate how Mrs Nnaemeka Nwachukuwu do pour boiled water into the kid’s private parts as a form of punishment, the guardian constantly hit the girl with hardwood and always use machete and wires to flog and inflict pains on her at the slightest provocation until the girl died from the torture.

Mrs Yemi Awolola, another serial house help abuser was also arrested some time ago by the law enforcement agency for allegedly placing a knife in the fire and scarring the private parts of her 14-year-old maid, Princess Michael. Similar to the case of another abusive mistress who was arrested also in Enugu state for allegedly burning their 10-year-old maid with a pressing iron and drilling nails into her head.

Last week, a woman by the name of Chinyere Ifesinachi was reported to the police by neighbours for the level of physical abuse she always melts out on her house-help, a seven years old, Idinma. Eyewitnesses narrate that she used a pestle to hit and broke her fragile bones. She also uses knives on the seven years old child as the child has deep cuts all over her body and she is currently at the hospital battling for her life.

Just yesterday, the 16th of May, 2023, The Anambra State Ministry of Women and Social Welfare arrested one Mrs Abigail Eguta for physically assaulting, brutalizing and battering her seven-year-old house help until the lad nearly went blind. The offense of the lad according to the guardian was that the kid failed to recite the English alphabet (A, B, C, D…) correctly.

Believe me, all these above-mentioned cases are just a pinch of salt out of a sea of examples and references too numerous to mention and they are all verifiable.

This high level of cold-hearted guardians maiming, brutalizing and killing children who serve them as maids/house helps at the slightest provocations is getting out of hand. There have been far too many gory and despicable house help physical abuse cases for lawmakers and national stakeholders to keep feigning blind eyes and deaf ears. It has gotten to the extent where a state of emergency should be declared on brutalizing house helps/ maids and every well-meaning Nigeria must rise to the occasion that this stop.

Every child is someone’s child, and no parent living or dead, rich or indigent will be happy seeing his or her kids being maimed or brutalized by the guardian for whatever reason. What even makes my body twirl is that most of the reasons why these kids are being brutalized by their guardians are just the most trivial of reasons and unjustifiable; like the Anambra lady that nearly killed her house help for failing to correctly recite ABCD.

The maids who are lucky enough to escape their guardian’s homes alive are being left with lifetime trauma, physical, emotional and psychological damage to their person which they never recover from.

This is a call on national stakeholders and law enforcement to beam their bright lights on the guardian/ househelp relationships. New regulations should be made to tackle this incident to save these kids. New regulations prohibiting some level of harsh treatment on kids and stringent punishments like long jail terms melted on recalcitrant offenders.

I watched with shock, disbelief, bewilderment, amazement and chagrin, a viral video where Afrobeat rising star, who should otherwise be the product of a rich heritage of revolutionary struggles, patriotism and selflessness, descended on a cultured policeman, assaulting him, provoking him and in that process also humiliating him and the agency that he represents. The barbarism of Seun Kuti’s unprovoked attacks on that policeman is totally condemnable, undeserving, egregious and a blatant violation of one of the most noble institutions of democracy. We cannot find any justification for that cruel and degrading treatment. Legally speaking, it constitutes grave assault on and a gross violation of section 34 of the 1999 Constitution, which states clearly that:

(1) Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person, and accordingly –
(b) no person shall be subject to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment.”

Culturally, I do not know anywhere in Yorubaland, where the junior corrects and upraids the elder, to the shameful extent that Seun Kuti arrogated to himself an inexistent power of rebuke, of correction and of censoring a law enforcement officer on lawful duty. It is simply unacceptable. Where did Seun get the training that he is the one better placed to correct an elder? Is he tapping from any other source different from the one that our revered and polished Fela did? Is he not a student of history, to know that his father, Fela, was one of the most successful activists of all times, correcting the ills of the society, holding governments accountable and advocating for democracy and good governance through his music? Did Seun ever hear Femi Kuti or Yeni Kuti, ever desecrating the institutions of democracy? Or is it Nike or Lande, all whom have kept the good name and reputation of their family? Is this the way Seun wants to avenge the brutal murder and assassination of Madam Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, whose blood flows in government house till date? How many of the “unknown soldiers” would Seun be able to slap and beat up in this dastardly manner?

The Ransome-Kuti family has a place in the rich history of Nigeria, through the indelible contributions of their matriarch, Madam Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the selfless sacrifices of Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, the tireless struggles of Dr. Bekololari Ransome-Kuti and of course the inimitable Abami Eda himself, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. They represented the best of nobility, excellence, patriotism and industry, which is why Nigerians hold them so dearly in their hearts. There is no place in that family for this malady.

The defence of Seun for this uncultured display of arrogance is that the policeman attempted to kill himself and his family. He was careful not to elaborate on the circumstances and facts of the alleged attempt. He claimed that he has the video of the attempt and that the policeman was wrong, has acknowledged his error and had even apologized to him in order to evade prosecution! What a world! Is Seun speaking to his fans in Kalakuta Republic/African Shrine? Or members of the Egypt 80 Band? The video that I saw showed Seun launching unprovoked verbal assault on a policeman that was calm and respectful, it showed an unrestrained young man castigating, threatening and humiliating an officer of the Federal Republic in the name of defending himself. The video showed Seun pushing the policeman around, daring him to do his worst and refusing to be placated by other motorists who stopped to broker peace. And it was on the Third Mainland Bridge, with the attendant consequences of the dangers to motorists, traffic congestion and other distractions.

The other day, it was Burna Boy, who stormed a night club in Lagos and after his acts physically assaulted a police man. Then again it was recently the turn of one Portable, who also assaulted a policeman. Should it be the other way round, for any policeman to dare beat up or assault a celebrity then the heavens would have fallen. This unfortunate event brings into focus the value and virtue of stardom, which dictate humility, gentleness, moderation and respect for people and institutions. No positive lesson can be passed from the assault of Seun against the policeman and no defence can be offered to diminish the seriousness of the offence thus committed. And this is why the decision of the police to investigate this incidence is very laudable and encouraging. If found culpable, Seun should not walk away with this barbaric act.

But beyond Seun, Burna Boy and Portable, this event has also brought into limelight the need for the improvement of the welfare and working conditions of police officers nationwide to avoid this ugly situation whereby they become vulnerable victims of servitude, abuses and debasement. We have heard of stories of police officers who were treated as maids by the VIPs to whom they were attached, the recent one being that of the policewoman in Ilorin who was beaten and battered for allegedly refusing to run menial errands for her mistress. Situations in which police officers have to beg, crow and scout for money to pay the school fees of their children, money to take care of their health or even to buy uniform and the basic implements of their trade are totally unacceptable. Nigeria does not have up to one million police personnel so why is it so difficult to cater for the ones we have, who are daily sacrificing their lives to keep us safe?

The rise to stardom should not and cannot be the justification for unbridled brigandage and infantile gangsterism such as we saw in the video circulating of and concerning Seun. Or else it would then mean that those in the entertainment world should take urgent steps to enact such rules of engagement that will guarantee respect for other members of the society that they interact with on a daily basis. Fame cannot be the reason for assaulting a policeman and those employed to defend us cannot suddenly become victims of youthful aggression. If we condemned police brutality we must also dissociate ourselves from civilian rascality or blatant criminality. It is commendable that Seun has surrendered himself to the police as he promised. The nation eagerly awaits the outcome of the investigation of the police on this matter while commending the maturity of the policeman involved in this unfortunate incident.

Life without Christ is Crisis

Arc Mohammed Namadi Sambo GCON, fnia former Vice President of Nigeria is indeed a respectable and responsible statesman, he needs no one to blow his

trumpet as his personality, deeds and characters are sufficient testimony of his innate qualities. As one comes close to him you perceive the aura and ambience of an accomplished technocrat. As you even draw closer to him you find him unassuming, shy and accommodating. His magnetic appeal has some radioactive

elements that tend to magnify his personae. He is blessed and imbued with the radiance of a halo such that when viewed from an objective prism sparkles and

shines like the twinkle of stars making his environment look unique. He surrounds himself with young, pragmatic and energetic intellectuals whose value he truly appreciates. As an accomplished Architect he easily recognizes talents and taps from their wealth of knowledge and experience. His allergies are sycophants who rather than contribute meaningfully to intellectual discuss engage in praise singing, mudslinging, scaremongering and alarmism. He is philanthropic as he is charitable. His religiosity is never in doubt so is his passion for work. You can never fail to notice his cool, calm and collected demeanor.  He is detailed as well as meticulous in whatever challenge posed to him, you need no soothsayer to foretell you his acumen making you appreciate his dexterity in the face of daunting challenges and complex situations. If you are opportune to be within his immediate precincts you will appreciate his sense of humor. Succinctly put whenever you meet a perfect gentleman consider that he is in the mould of Arc Sambo.

His silence in the wave of heated conflict or challenges should not be mistaken for weakness or cowardice. The gentle strides of a leopard is not a symbol of cowardice. His initial foray into partisan politics was greeted with a mixed blessing. His first reaction was that of disapproval. Sen Musa Bello (MUBECO) himself a seasoned politician had overtime pressurized him to contest for the Governorship position of Kaduna State under the defunct Democratic Party of Nigeria (DPN) to the extent that Ibrahim Yaro Suleiman who was a critical stakeholder in the defunct party and was the foremost chairman of the people’s Democratic Party in Kaduna state was appointed as his campaign Director General.

Despite the insistence by his admirers and associates the gentleman in him refused to kowtow to the many persuasive vagaries as tempting as they were to coax him into a contest against his friend. While his friend defected to a rival party the United Nigerian Congress Party (UNCP) chaired by Alh Tijjani Ramalan he opted to remain steadfast and loyal to friendship and camaraderie by keeping his cool. Had he opted to contest and the election took place the coast seemed much clearer for him than his friend in person of Sen Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi CON. Makarfi’s defection to UNCP was not without its hiccups. It could be termed almost as an exercise in futility since the party had already adopted Dr Dalhatu Sarki Tafida as its gubernatorial candidate. Notwithstanding his alliance, agreement and the understanding he reached with Prof Ango Abdullahi assuring the Prof of his unalloyed loyalty and a promise to step down for the Prof should he at any point decide to want to contest. Had that election taken place it will have culminated into an explosive contest TJ a short aphorism for Tijjani Ramalan was a sobriquet his admirers and political associates fondly refer to him. He was ebullient, strong, resilient, emphatic and decisive. He had reviewed the delegate list of his party and had ensured that no delegate will betray the aspirations of Dr Dalhatu Sarki Tafida. Anyone suspected of doubtful allegiance or loyalty was substituted as a delegate without hesitation. At a point he was so confident that Dr Tafida will triumph that he declared that there was no vacancy for the position in the party.

Almost at the nick of time when all hands were on deck the transition program of Gen Abacha collapsed due to his demise. This heralded the emergence of a new 10 months political transition program of the Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar administration.

The People’s Democratic Party was formed sometime at the tail end of August 1998. Each state had a convener who was saddled with the responsibility to lead in selecting some prominent members in their respective states to form a fully , strong, virile, people oriented Democratic Party which shall stand the test of time.

Below is the list of the conveners in the 36 states of the federation and the federal capital territory.

1. Abia : Chief David Ikoro
2.  Adamawa: Alh Bamanga Tukur
3. Akwa Ibom: Obong Victor Atta
4. Anambra: Chief Edwin Umezuoke
5. Bauchi: Alh Bello Kirfi
6. Benue: Chief Dr Barnabas Gemade
7. Borno: Alh Baba Jide
8. Bayelsa : Prof Isoun Turner
9. Cross River : Sen L Imoke
10. 10.Delta : Dr Soho
11. Ebonyi: Chief Okeagbu Ogadah
12. Edo: Alh Abdulmalik Afegbua
13. Ekiti : Prof Tunde Adeniran
14. Enugu: Chief Jim Nwobodo
15. Gombe: Dr Suleiman Kumo
16. Imo: Chief Emeka Echeruo
17. Jigawa: Sule Lamido
18. Kaduna : Prof Ango Abdullahi
19. Kano: Alh Aminu Wali
20. Katsina: Dr Abubakar Danmusa
21. Kebbi: Nasiru Isa
22. Kogi: Maj Gen David Jemibewon
23. Kwara: Gbenga Nawekpo
24. Lagos : Chief Dapo Sarumi
25. Nasarawa: Abdullahi Adamu
26. Niger: Prof Jerry Gana
27. Ogun: Chief Titi Ajanaku
28. Ondo: Dr Olusegun Agagu
29. Osun: Alh Shuaibu Oyedokun
30. Alh R Haruna Eleri
31. Plateau: Chief Solomon Daushep Lar
32. Rivers: Alabo T. O Graham Douglas
33. Taraba : Abu Fari34.Sokoto: Muhammad Modi Yabo
34. Yobe: Alh Adamu Ciroma
35. Zamfara: Abdulkarim Yahaya
36. FCT: Sen Hassan Tanda.

In Kaduna State Prof Ango Abdullahi who was involved in the Presidential campaign of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo delegated his responsibility and on the 6th of September 1998 at the National Teachers institute conference center (NTI) a new party was borne .The interim management of the party headed by Ibrahim Yaro Suleiman was inaugurated together with an Administrative Secretary .

The events that followed afterwards were interesting as they were historic which will be relayed to readers in due course.

In 2006 as the democratic process took shape, aspirants wishing to Succeed Sen Makarfi threw their hats into the ring and the Governor kept his choice close to his chest. Although no one knew who his successor would be, however the rumour mill was awash with permutations. The pendulum tended to swing in favor of Arc Umar Balarabe Kubau who was the Governor’s ally and close confidant and a commissioner for works and housing in his administration. Unfortunately as fate will have it he died on his way from Kubau to Kaduna at Rigachikun. Sen Makarfi was thrown into a quagmire and dilemma as to who to choose to succeed him. All the aspirants in contest didn’t fit his profile of a successor as he was scared of them. They included Sen Isiaiah C Balat, Suleiman

Othman Hunkuyi, Lawal Samaila Abdullahi, Patrick I Yakowa, Garba Ali Madaki, Shuaibu Idris Mikati and Falalu Bello. He was determined to find his successor and his gaze and direction was lowered towards his accomplished friend with the needed pedigree, financial muscle and temperament to steer the ship of the State.

His first attempt was to send emissaries led by the erstwhile state PDP Chairman Yaro Makama Rigachikun to convince Arc MN Sambo to take up the gauntlet but he politely declined the offer. As all entreaties seemed impossible to achieve and unable to persuade his friend to accede to his request, he personally visited Sambo at his old residence located at Link Road Kabala Kaduna. They had a lengthy discussion where he consciously and practically begged him to come to his rescue against what he termed hawks who are hell bent on taking over the government and the party with the sole intent of humiliating him. After the marathon meeting Arc Sambo finally succumbed to the entreaty but under some stringent conditions one of which was the sharing of the financial burden between both parties to which an agreement was sealed. After throwing his hat into the ring all the promises were not only broken but flagrantly jettisoned.

He was left alone to navigate the murky waters and shoulder the responsibility alone. However,sensing the enormity of the challenges that lay ahead and afraid that Sambo could withdraw from the race at any point in time, he decided to offset Sambo’s company’s. Outstanding (Nalado Engineering and Construction Company) contractual obligation owed for the reconstruction of the famous Ranchers Bees stadium. This was a tactical ploy of evading contributory costs as agreed. Undaunted the aspirant continued till the last moment when he became the candidate.

After his emergence as the candidate Sen Makarfi approached him with a weird offer. He told him that should he ( Makarfi) win the Presidential nomination Arc Sambo will step down for a southern Kaduna Candidate since both of them cannot come from one particular region and constituency of the state . The reaction of Sambo was that of despair, disappointment and dejection. He felt that he was lured into a venture to be treated and used as a pawn in a chess game to be tossed around as a rag doll. When eventually Makarfi lost in the power play at the upper echelon he was left with no option than to proceed with the initial arrangement.

What is baffling is that since Sambo was sworn in as Governor there has been no love lost between him and his predecessor. It was on a regular basis one crisis after another. When the vacancy for the office of Vice President existed due to the demise of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua , Makarfi who was then a senator became interested in occupying the vacant position . He lobbied Chief Edwin Clark , the senate under Sen President David Mark and the House of Representatives. In fact the senators conducted a poll between him and late senator Kanti Bello who was only able to poll two votes. However while the

Senators were busy preparing grounds for one of their own to be the nominee the Governors forum was not left behind. What played out for Sambo was the various committees’ he had the privilege of having worked together with President Jonathan. The Presidential Task force on power and new PDP secretariat building committee. Sambo needed not to lobby anyone as Jonathan’s mind was made up on his choice as the Vice President. Mike Oghiadomhe who was the chief of staff to the President was reported to have mentioned that the body language of Jonathan all point to Sambo as the chosen one. This also was another point of contention. Why should Sambo be the Vice President. Perhaps the planned configuration and power equation of the state was been altered undermined and violated. Possibly in another episode I will dissect other germane issues arising from the  Vice Presidential position impasse.

As I was saying…again for oft times, apologies to the inimitable Allah-De now of blessed memory, a great many are still struggling within themselves over the concept of the Supreme Being, the Almighty Creator God. According to those who have occupied themselves flashing their radar to cover past millennia, they have come to the conclusion that unbelief, partial belief, and absence of clarity in the recognition of the Most High worsen from generation to generation.

As the pursuit of materialism intensifies, the narrower the horizon gets and the less the capacity becomes to recognise the high, the sublime, and the noble. The instrument for the pursuit of materialism is the frontal brain which is the seat of the intellect. The over-cultivation of the frontal brain at the expense of the hindbrain engenders imbalance and the adherents get themselves obsessed with only what is within space and time which the intellect cannot transcend. As nothing can go beyond its origin, the frontal brain harbouring the intellect, cannot go beyond the material, whereas the hindbrain is ordained the spiritually receptive part of the brain linked with the spirit which in turn is linked with the Spiritual Kingdom from whence it comes and from where it can receive guidance and virtues.

With heavy deposits of dross overlaying the spirit, transmission from intuitive perception through our solar plexus is correspondingly hampered. It is such that dreams are not helpful any longer. The true picture that is being sent forth is distorted by the radiations of the frontal brain, the cerebrum, which gathers its materials from around it, summits, conferences, and other forms of opinions around it. The message being transmitted from the cerebellum suffers from what may be likened to an exposed film. Such is it that today there are tons of papers presented at conferences that lead mankind to nowhere. Any wonder, it was foreseen by Prophet Isaiah (720 B.C.) ages ago and it is said that in these times, the Age of the Holy Spirit, “Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand; for God is with us” (Isaiah 8, 10). That is the time of Imanuel as Isaiah interprets the meaning of ”God is with us.” We are told, “It is the great time of perplexity in which one conference follows another, when distrust is everywhere, unrest and uneasiness, when hopeless confusion spreads ever more.” Isaiah went further: “The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.” (Isaiah 24: 20).

Because of the disastrous decline and the hindering of the hindbrain to make mankind truly living, philosophers rush to fill the vacuum. In response to the demand for proof of the existence of God, the Greek philosophers and theologians talk about Prime Mover proof; that there is a force that must have kick-started the planetary motion. This found resonance in renowned physicist Isaac Newton’s sensing–who said that force outside our universe must have been responsible to give impulse to the rotation of planets in orbits. Philosopher and Theologian Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109 argued that God is a being nothing greater than Whom can be conceived.” There is the postulation of the Cosmological proof Of God which states in response to “What caused God?” that “God does not need a cause! He is a necessary being whose cause must be sought in himself.” There are other postulations referred to as Teleological proof of God and the Moral proof of the Most High. The latter proof is that self-evident moral consciousness which flows from human conscience provides proof that a higher power and authority must have implanted moral consciousness in man from the cradle. Arguments, arguments, and theories, the province in which the intellect finds fulfillment and triumphal joy! Despite the narrowing in discernment and decline generally, practically all men feel something deep within when unexpected fortune suddenly falls on our laps or during deep sorrow. These are occasions that the inner being, the spirit that we are, is momentarily cleared of sediments overlaying it. When we dream, where do we think we are, and what causes it?

As I tried to invite us into contemplation last week following the enquiry posted to this column, there is God, only one God. He is Life and Power. Being Life, there was never a time He was not Life. The Divine Realm is an automatic consequence of His Being, the Radiations of His Being. Thus, like Him, the Divine Realm has no beginning and no end; it is eternal. Before Creation, God’s Radiations did not go beyond the boundary of the Divine Realm. The Divine Realm, as I had had cause to state in this column is separated from the Throne of the Most High by an ocean of flames that has no possibility of cooling down. Only His Two Sons, the Lord Jesus Christ, Love, and the Holy Spirit, His Will and Justice could cross the flaming ocean because the radiations that gave rise to it they carry as their essence, being Parts of the Father.

Creation came into existence when God the Father severed a Part of Himself and the Part was anchored at the boundary of the Divine Realm to give light and drive motion into the void. The severed Part arising out of His Will, from the Holy Word, “Let there be Light, and there is Light,” formed Itself into four equal-arms Cross with Holy Spirit as Power in the Centre. Radiations from Him, from His Countenance, shot out from there to give light and life to the void. Each of the Arms represents Truth, Purity, Love, and Justice. The Cross radiated powerfully behind Jesus when He was on earth and the Dove, Power above His Head. Gifted persons were permitted to behold these sublime Signs as pointers to His Origin and Identity so that those gifted could bear witness openly.

God, therefore, created through and in the Holy Spirit. The first set of Creatures to emerge were the Primordial Beings who were created in the Image of God by which is meant the attributes of God, such as His perfection; the intensity and clarity of their consciousness; inconceivably powerful, great in size and beauty, who serve without first considering—in absolute loyalty. They are the spiritual ideals and prototypes for all that has come into being and for development. Below their plane is that of the Created Beings who could not come into being because of the tremendous pressure in Primordial Creation.

In the annex to the Divine Realm at the summit of Creation, the Holy Spirit has His Abode as Son of Man, from God to Man to keep and maintain the Creations as eternal Mediator governing all the Creations and the Lord Jesus Christ ruling in the Divine Realm, personal in Activity even after reuniting with His Father. The Holy Spirit is equally personal in His Activity, yet Part of the Father. Creation evolution lasted 15 billion years, a long process of evolution as science has discovered, 20 million out of which the earth needed to cool down to a temperature that permits life to develop, with man as the last and the most sovereign.

In the enlightenment available today on earth, we learn that teachers were sent at different epochs to guide men. At a time, humble and obedient human beings behaved, and scintillating melodies rose from the earth in grateful thanks to the Throne of Grace for the beauty of life and of their world. This did not last long before acrimony and dissent ensued. Men would no longer listen to their Intuition and the gulf began to arise between earthmen and Spiritual Guides. It became wider with each generation as men began to immerse themselves in material pursuits and struggle for power and influence, conceding suzerainty to the intellect in place of the spirit, they could no longer understand the Language of their Lord and Creator. In the ordinance of the Creator, the intellect is to be guided by the spirit because the former is its tool. It is to act as the handmaiden of the living spirit, as its servant. It is also to transmit the strong upward urge for what is sublime, pure, and perfect received from the spirit.

Teachers and prophets began to emerge sent by the Almighty. These were Elijah, (830 B.C.); Isaiah, (720 B. C.); (630 B.C.); Lao-Tse (600 B.C.) in China; same period as Zoroaster, that is, (600 B. C.) as well, in Persia now called Iran; and Buddha (550 B.C.) in India; and Moses who received the Ten Commandments, (1200). All were sent by God Almighty. Men did not hearken to their teachings and admonitions. When men were recalcitrant and the harmony on earth was being disrupted, devastation was setting in despite the unceasing help from Above, the Almighty sent the Lord Jesus. The penetrative power of the prophets could no longer suffice because the fundamental thoughts underpinning the spread of the knowledge of the Most High and religious movements being used as the vehicles had been caught by the bug of material pursuits sometimes disguised as the truth. With the Holy Spirit, (Justice), God the Father and Jesus the Son, (Love) form the Holy Trinity. The self-acting and inflexible Laws of Nature, of Creation are the activities of the Holy Spirit dispensing reward and punishment in reciprocal actions. Retribution falls unfailingly on the originator forming his fate and of every human being depending on the seed each has scattered.

The Material Creation is the school for the human spirits to learn the Will of the Most High, the manifestation of Which is in the Laws of Nature, heed it, mature, cultivate refinement, and ennoble the spirit all of which leads to self-consciousness, the only passport to the Kingdom of Heaven, Paradise. With the discernment brought about by the increasing maturity of the spirit, the question of Who is God will no longer arise.

Lagos-Ibadan expressway
With the rains with us, and promising to be more frequent and heavier, we do not need to look into the crystal ball to predict that we are in for really a prolonged time of agony, pains, and failed appointments. April 30, the promised day of delivery has come and gone without relief. When last year this column first intervened in the predicament of the commuters on the all-important road, I wondered whether Julius Berger can behave the way it has done on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in Germany and not get sacked and bombarded by a barrage of suits against it and against the government by citizens and corporations. Why is it impossible to work on the road under floodlights as it is done in saner climes? I did raise the question last year. The extra costs it would have required we can say have gone with the health impairment and missed appointments in hospitals or business meetings caused by the road reconstruction! These cannot be compensated for by the contractor company and the government.

The thought of traveling on the road is nightmarish on its own. You cannot plan your journey. You can’t use Lagos-Ikorodu bursting out at Iperu to link with the expressway nor can you use Lagos-Sango Otta-Abeokuta Road! What do you do, you resign yourself to fate. Government officials hardly use the road, so they are alienated from our harrowing daily experiences. The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is the busiest in Africa with more than 250, 000 vehicles plying it daily. People living in places abutting the road spend not less than five to six hours every day going out or coming in. Some leave home at 5.30 am and reach their offices at 1.15 pm. Someone told me that going to Ibadan took him 6 hours, and 7 hours on his way back to Lagos. And the government does not see it as work that has become an emergency!! When will Nigerians heave a sigh of relief on the road?

My mailbox has been inundated with letters of complaints largely by residents of the area some of which I will run next week, joining Channels Television that has commendably spotlighted the unspeakable experiences of our people who have no choice but to use the road.

• Telephone number for SMS only: 08158640055

The Guardian

Two presidents in the last 24 years provide interesting examples of how to relate with the National Assembly. And between the two, the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, can decide how to model his relationship with the 10th National Assembly.

The first example is President Olusegun Obasanjo. He was not only head of the executive branch, he was leader of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the de facto head of its Board of Trustees. But it didn’t end there. Obasanjo was also, in a manner of speaking, head of the legislature. 

That may sound like a misnomer in a presidential system of government. But that misnomer was the norm. Among his lesser misdemeanours, Obasanjo orchestrated the removal of three Senate presidents in four years and used five in his eight-year tenure. 

In the famous case of the rather fiercely independent Chuba Okadigbo in 2000, for example, the former president executed his removal, in typical Tom-and-Jerry fashion, by literally swallowing Okadigbo whole the day after he ate a meal of pounded yam at the opening of the new Abuja home of the former Senate president.

Whether it was the Senate or the House of Representatives, Obasanjo kept real or potential adversaries on a leash by lining their path with banana peels, the euphemism for a web of corrupt enticements which they often overcame by yielding to.

A decade and a half after he left office as president, the hallways of the National Assembly still echo with the voices of Obasanjo’s fallen political adversaries. A number of them retaliated by pocketing bribes and still denying the former president his third term ambition.

The second example, President Muhammadu Buhari, is on the other extreme of Executive-Legislature relationship. As soon as he assumed office, Buhari barricaded himself in the Villa. He assured those who had worked for his electoral success that he was for everyone and for no one, leaving them feeling duped.

The consequence of his curious ambivalence was a National Assembly where the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) got in bed with the defeated PDP and became both the ruling party and the opposition party at the same time. 

The question of which option worked better is hardly meaningful without considering the context of each dispensation. The dominant party in the Obasanjo years was the PDP, which controlled 21 states in the first four years, with 59 of 109 seats in the Senate and 206 of 360 in the House of Representatives, closely followed by the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD).

Also, after decades of military rule, the system was still evolving and largely in its experimental phase. Politicians were relatively new and inexperienced. There was no liaison between the executive and legislative arms. Obasanjo, a former military head of state with a pretty long list of enemies after his imprisonment, could not resist the temptation of behaving like a petty village headmaster. 

A desire to avenge and vindicate himself believing that it was his patriotic duty to do so, made him wield powers for which he would be bitterly criticised as lacking in democratic temperament. 

But Obasanjo being Obasanjo, he did not mind imitating a low-grade version of Otto von Bismarck’s philosophy, that the business of Nigeria’s redemption at the time – restructuring, corruption and a pariah economy – required bloody noses and a hand of iron.

By the time Buhari was elected eight years later, the landscape had changed somewhat. Yet, Buhari’s hands-off approach was dictated just as much by the relatively mature political landscape as by his complicatedly insular, almost abdicatory political style.  

Tinubu is a different matter altogether. A former senator and state governor, he would be the only president in four since 1999 that combines legislative and executive experiences. His deputy, Kashim Shettima, also has the same credentials, as does party chairman Abdullahi Adamu. 

On paper, therefore, a decision about how to define the incoming government’s relationship with the legislature shouldn’t be too difficult. But as we have seen in the last few weeks, it is easier said than done. 

The conflicting statements between Shettima on the one hand, and Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo, along with Adamu and the rank-and-file on the other, show that the ruling party is split right down the middle on how to fill the positions of presiding officers.

The highly fragmented composition of the legislature which does not give the ruling party a comfortable majority, feeding off the bitterly contested elections, has put Tinubu in a tight spot. But an even bigger headache for him is that the problem is being fomented from close quarters inside his own party.

Both arms of the National Assembly – the Senate and House of Representatives – are engulfed in the leadership crisis, but the lower house is in the eye of the storm. The real battle is not only being fought here, it’s here, also, that the trade-offs could be made.

Tinubu confidant and outgoing Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, does not want his deputy, Idris Wase, to succeed him. On the other side is another Tinubu confidant and three-time Rep, Abiodun James Faleke, who is not only pro-Wase but also locked in a battle with Gbajabiamila to become chief of staff.

The pro-Wase group, which also includes Akeredolu, argue that it is unfair and unjust to give nothing to the North Central, which accounted for the third largest block vote, while handing the North-West two presiding posts in the National Assembly.

If the current arrangement stands – and it’s improbable – then it would be the first time in 24 years when one zone would have two presiding officers. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal defied his party to emerge Speaker in 2011, upsetting the PDP’s zoning arrangement.

In the wider zoning of party offices, the same tardiness dogged the APC with the current Speaker, and the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, coming from the same zone. Yet, neither VP Namadi Sambo (who is from the same zone with Tambuwal) nor Osinbajo (from the same zone as Gbajabiamila) was a presiding officer of the National Assembly.

It’s a danger that a party which has barely recovered from the Muslim-Muslim ticket controversy can barely afford: the prospects of two presiding officers from the same zone sitting over a joint session of the National Assembly.

But who will bell the cat? Party chairman Adamu is in a weak position, further weakened by his love of his own position. His cautious response that his party didn’t consult widely enough before the NWC’s announcement was a token of self-preservation. He spoke through zipped lips.

The truth, which he lacked the courage to say, regardless of the fact that he is also from the North Central, was that the lopsidedness was ill-advised and ought to be reviewed. Saying it as it is might have once again brought him in the firing line of North-West hawks in his party who want him removed. But after a successful election, what else does he have to lose?

The North West which played a significant role in the emergence of a Southern presidential candidate in the APC because it was the fair and right thing to do, cannot hold the same party at gunpoint for a reward that is both unfair and wrong. 

It doesn’t make sense and certainly can’t be on the basis that it gave the president-elect the highest vote, when the region has remained the country’s largest vote bank in the last six major electoral cycles, irrespective of who was elected president. With seven states, unlike other zones with an average of six states each, the North West enjoys numerical advantage. 

It does seem like after overcoming multiple and multi-faceted ambushes to emerge president-elect, the trap by members of Tinubu’s inner circle – often the most problematic – may yet again require careful and considered attention. As it was with Obasanjo and Buhari, how he handles this moment could significantly define his years in office.

Since he became governor in circumstances that remain fuzzy over seven years ago, Yahaya Bello, the governor of Kogi state, has left no one in doubt about his totalitarian grip on the north-central state. He is the be-all-and-end-all of the potentially rich, but pathetically indigent and decrepit state, whose style reminds of that of the infamous King Louis XIV in French history. Louis XIV it was who boastfully declared in 1655: “L’Etat, c’est moi,” meaning “I am the state; the state, that is me”. That phrase denotes absolute monarchy and absolutism, the type Yahaya Bello has typified in his tour of duty as default governor of Kogi state. Default, yes because of the uncanny ingenuity with which he inherited the votes and mandate of the actual contestant for the governorship who was coasting home but died mysteriously before being adjudged winner.

And since his inauguration in January 2016, Bello’s administrative style has been unequalled both in the political history of Kogi state, and unparalleled elsewhere since the dawn of the Fourth Republic. For a state which is primarily sustained by the civil service and teaching employees, life has never been as dreary, rough, tortuous, and despairing. Bello’s government entered the Guinness Book of Records within one year of his ascendancy as one which paid hapless civil servants incomprehensible percentage salaries! Senior bureaucrats receive bank notifications on their handheld devices informing them that N18,500 has been credited to their accounts as their take-home salaries for a month!! It’s been that horrendous under Bello. Please put a call through to Kogi state and kindly take the statistics of automobiles hitherto owned by civil servants, now dust-caked furniture at the front approaches of many homes in the state capital and other communities.

If the situation is this bad for public servants in the employment of the state government, the plight of local government employees is best imagined. The Joint Account Allocation Committee, (JAAC), which polls resources from the Federation Accounts Allocations Committee, (FAAC), cannibalises the funds at the level of the state governments and reverts measly tokens to the local government areas, (LGAs). Chairmen at that level simply pocket their own bits, the ubiquitous “security votes” and exhort their employees to “go back to land” and farm. Same way hopelessness, desperation, and depression pervade the state level, gloom, doom, and despair parade the alleys and bush paths of our localities.

The voices of the people have been so stifled under the Nebuchadnezzar-style governance in Kogi state, that people only discuss their conditions in muffled tones. Suicide cases were on the upsurge at some point in time, when individuals who had built their lives on their careers in public service, suddenly found themselves naked and exposed in literal terms. The inability to foot basic obligations like medical expenses, maternity bills, house rents, payment of school fees, and examinations bills for their children and wards, have unwittingly humiliated many parents under Yahaya Bello’s grimace. Juxtaposed with the regimes of all of Bello’s predecessors: Abubakar Audu, Ibrahim Idris and Idris Wada, Kogi state has never had it so bad.

On the flip side, Bello, his family, and associates are savouring safari rides of a lifetime. Rashidat Bello, said to be the governor’s senior wife, was captured on camera last year, gifting her personal aides cash. Each of her officials, security, protocol, domestic, and so on, received cash gifts of one million naira each. A news story noted that Mrs Bello’s bazaar was a follow-up to an earlier exercise where she presented automobiles to her officials for hard work and loyalty. All of these are happening in a state where not too many people are sure of one meal a day. In February this year, the same Rashidat Bello flaunted a Mercedes-Maybach S-Class Luxury Sedan 2022 edition, said to be valued at N200 million. Bello by the way, is polygamous with other wives. It is either they are genuinely conservative, or information about their closets is not as yet in the open.

Amidst all of these, Yahaya Bello’s proxies were last December, arraigned for fraud to the tune of N10 billion. Bello’s nephew, Ali Bello, and one Dauda Sulaiman were arraigned before Justice James Kolawole Omotoso of the Federal High Court, Maitama, Abuja, on a 10-count charge of misappropriation and money laundering. It is very strongly believed that the money in question belongs to Kogi state, especially because a third suspect in the saga, Abdulsalami Hudu, hitherto a cashier in Government House, Lokoja, is on the run. Very conspicuously, Ali Bello and Rashidat Bello also feature in yet another N3 billion matter being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC).

Mrs Bello, named as an accomplice in the heist, was said to be on the run, while Ali Bello, Abba Adauda, Yakubu Siyaka Adabenege, and Iyada Sadat were docked before Justice Obiora Egwuatu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, also for money laundering and misappropriation. The December 2022 and February 2023 episodes seemingly had the imprimatur of Yahaya Bello, given the involvement of his wife and nephew. Following a similar pattern, the funds so misappropriated were purportedly being converted into foreign currency in various bureau de change in Abuja. Such has been the lot of resources legitimately belonging to Kogi state, whose people thirst and hunger while their entitlements are being tossed about like Russian roulette.

Yahaya Bello recently accentuated his proprietorship in Kogi state, in the run-up to the November 2023 gubernatorial election. Singlehandedly, he picked the candidate for his party, the All Progressives Congress, (APC), Ahmed Usman Ododo, the little-known auditor-general for local governments in the state. Ododo is reputed as the “executioner-in-chief” in the impoverishment of local government workers many of whom lost their jobs and livelihoods in a mean-spirited and scurrilous “staff verification exercise” conducted in the early years of the Bello government. Ahead of the gubernatorial primary, Bello paid for the nomination forms of every aspirant to the office who served in his administration at state expense. This was to create a facade of providing a level playing field for all contenders before pulling out his joker. It is bad enough that Bello has demonstrated insensitivity to the loud clamour for the rotation of the governorship. It is the height of nepotism in the multicultural, multilingual “confluence” state that he has just put forward his first cousin for the top job in the state. Besides being a political neophyte and paperweight, Ododo’s naivety and provinciality sparkle from his visage.

Since the inception of the state in 1991, its politics has been dominated by the preponderantly Igala-speaking Kogi-eastern part of the state. The zone produced three governors in succession and logged over 18 years at the helm. Bello’s Ebira kinsmen in the Kogi-central zone had been joined in advocacy for power rotation with the Okun Yoruba-speaking Western zone, for power shift. Bello’s fortuitous ascent it was assumed, had opened a window to the reordering of the existing power imbalance in the state. But Bello thinks otherwise. His politics is that of “winner takes all”. To this effect, Bello is saying that the Ebiras aspire to retain power in 2024, possibly all the way to 2032!

It would seem that Bello has always had a nepotistic streak, by the way. With the benefit of hindsight, the “choicest” appointments in his government are not just from Kogi Central, they are from his home local government area, Okene. This has been so skewed as to “empower” his own kinsfolk even within the framework of the sociopolitical dynamics of his senatorial zone. His Chief of Staff; Commissioners for Works and Housing; Justice; Rural Development; Accountant-General; Chairman, State Pensions Board; Senator representing Kogi Central, are all from Okene. Yet, Kogi Central has three other Ebira-speaking LGAs, as well as the non-Ebira Ogori-Magongo area, making a total of five local governments in the senatorial zone.

Emboldened by the same faith Bola Tinubu/Kashim Shettima presidential ticket, Bello has prescribed a similar template. Ododo will be running with Sulaiman Abubakar from Kogi-east. This is in spite of the dominant Christian population in the seven local governments in Kogi-west, and the nine in Kogi-east. Every preceding democratic ticket, beginning with Abubakar Audu’s, Third Republic ticket in 1992, has always respected the religious plurality of the state. Audu ran with Samuel Akande from Kogi West in 1992, and thereafter with Patrick Adaba from Kogi Central in 1999. Idris paired with Philip Salawu in 2003 and 2007, while Wada ran with Yomi Awoniyi in 2012.

At a time when Yahaya Bello had the opportunity to stand up to be counted as truly professing new thinking consistent with the duplicitous “new direction” slogan his administration professes, he has failed this preliminary test. The November 2023 polls would have been his greatest opportunity to demonstrate his unequivocal subscription to political equity, fairness, and justice. Indeed, if he were a student of history in the faintest sense, he would have recalled that his “grandfather” figuratively, Adamu Atta who hailed from his very homestead in Okene, was democratically elected governor in the old Kwara state, during the Second Republic. This was at a time when the Ebiras were a minority in the political calculus of the erstwhile state. Kwara state at the time was overwhelmingly dominated by Yoruba-speaking ethnicities, but in the spirit of political sensitivity and accommodation, the electorate rallied behind Adamu Atta. Atta was in office from October 1979 and October 1983. Conversely, both in the old Kwara and present-day Kogi states, the Okun-Yoruba have never substantively made it to the seat of chief executive.

Happily, democratic pluralism has offered alternative platforms to political enthusiasts to pursue their aspirations. It is noteworthy that three Okun sons are in the fray for the coming gubernatorial debacle. Little-known Olayinka Braimoh; Leke Abejide who has just won reelection into the House of Representatives and Dino Melaye, who previously traversed the lower and upper parliaments variously, are in the contest. They are representing the Action Alliance, (AA); African Democratic Congress, (ADC), and the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), respectively. Each of the parties comes with peculiar attributes in terms of age, structural spread, and voters’ perception, among other attributes. Relatively new parties have been known to spring surprises like the Labour Party, (LP) and the Young Peoples’ Party, (YPP) in our recent political experience. Despite having previously sat in the driver’s seat for nearly two decades, Kogi-east is not letting up about the governorship either. At least half a dozen candidates from the zone, are flying the flags of various political parties at the off-season November poll.

This indeed may be a very good opportunity for Okunland to upstage Yahaya Bello and by so doing, put him where he rightly belongs. Remember the old adage that “he who the gods want to destroy, they first make mad?” Bello’s rule book of menacing intimidation, crude coercion, and gun violence, cannot subsist and succeed for all time. Even among his kinsmen, Yahaya Bello’s impunity vis-a-vis his sole imposition of Ododo does not sit well. His preference has bred quiet discontent amongst many of his former loyalists who are all playing the folkloric lizard. The belly of the reptile cannot be fathomed because of the peculiar manner of its posturing. Some of these malcontents are waiting to exact their pound of flesh at the appropriate time. Rigorous thinking, meticulous planning, deft strategising, consensus building, and efficient execution can yet bring down the pseudo-monarch from his horseback of straw.

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

Fela Kuti’s 1976 album, Ikoyi Blindness, featured a track documenting an encounter within Nigerian social context where violence is trite. The song, Gba mi leti ki n dolowo (slap me make I get money), is an encounter between an “Oga,” the quintessential big man who personifies the impunity of power, and an unnamed person who represents the disempowered masses. In the song, Oga reaches out to slap the Unnamed’s face. Rather than quake before Oga’s almighty power, Unnamed stands up to him. He taunts Oga to hit him saying the “systems of government in Africa” would arise on his behalf and he would ultimately become rich. Oga, stumped by the unusual rebuff, freezes in mid-action.

Fela being the activist that he was, of course, spoke from the angle of the disempowered Nigerian. Yet, the exchange he described gave enough insight into the predicament of Oga petrified by the defiance of the Unnamed. For Oga who must have been used to dehumanising the poor with such gratuitous violence, this unexpected boldness denies him the assertion of his status of power he sought through the slap. Pulling back from landing that slap would diminish his might as an Oga who can do and undo. Yet, going ahead would be imprudent if the enactment of that violence on Unnamed truly has the potential to change his fortunes. Oga’s hand suspended in mid-air as he is forced to listen to Unnamed’s taunt of “gba mi leti ki n dolowo” captures an intriguing moment of power reconfiguration. What happens if the violence the powerful enacts on the powerless is miscalculated and does not dehumanise? What if it instead elevates the Unnamed to be social equals with the powerful?

If you have followed the news on Seun Kuti’s ongoing travails for assaulting a policeman, you would have understood why I am using his father’s wisdom to divine the oracle. Who could have imagined that nearly 50 years after Ikoyi Blindness, the “Oga” in the tale would be Fela’s own son while the voice of the powerless lustily challenging the powerful power abuser would be the Police—an institution that has relentlessly abused Nigerians? It is a strange inversion, but here we are, parsing the layers of irony woven into the unfortunate encounter of Seun and an unnamed policeman.

By now, virtually everyone who has seen the video of Seun accosting an officer, unaware he was being recorded. There might have been a legitimate provocation somewhere, but the recording only showed Seun confronting the police officer and eventually slapping his face very hard before being restrained by passersby. The slapped officer—wisely, or maybe out of sheer intimidation—never fought him back. The first time I saw that video I wondered what kind of èèdì spell they cast on Seun. In a world where anyone can use their mobile phone to capture other people’s most mundane expressions without sparing a thought for their privacy, why get into a public fight? There is no winning for the person who wears the known face in such a dirty exchange. So far, nobody knows the name of the officer; his photo or any identifying details have not even been shared. It is Seun, the famous face in that encounter, that has now become a reference point for assault on the police.

That slap was ugly, even for a society like Nigeria where virtually everyone is prone to casual violence in everyday life. Whatever that officer did, whatever trauma a uniformed police officer represented to Seun, the man was—and will always be—a living breathing human deserving of dignity. There is no justification for assaulting him. Fela’s Gba mi leti ki n dolowo wisely intoned a lesson for the powerful. When you are higher on the social elevation, restraining yourself from engagement with those on the lower rungs of the social ladder is not cowardice. No, you preserve yourself because you do not want your virtue to be so cheaply transferred from your body to a moral or social unequal.

Like “Oga” found out, engaging the one you thought was powerless and could be driven over can end up with you being sapped of your worth. In that moment when Oga’s hand was suspended mid-action, debating whether to slap or not, he was diminished either way. The person he proposed to slap to assert your “Oga-ism” has become richer for the experience. They might not get cash out of it, but they could get morally richer because Oga let down his social worth to get into roforofo with them.

Seun must have imagined that since many police officers are routinely abused by the very system that employed them, by the coterie of Nigerian big men that use them like slaves, they can be treated like animals. Well, given his present tribulations, he sure thought wrong. They will fight for their own, not because they believe in justice or are trying to assert the dignity of their officer—whom the police institution dehumanises in other ways—but because they have been handed a golden chance to extract value from the encounter at the expense of Seun (and other civilians).

You only need to consider how the Ogas at the Police headquarters have been spitting into the air and using their own faces to collect it to know that they have become richer at Seun’s expense. A whole Inspector General of the Police had to order his arrest! A case of assault that should be treated at the local police precinct has now become an opportunity for the police headquarters to extract some moral coins from Seun. Even the Police Service Commission waded into the matter as if such violence is not routine in Nigeria. Delta Police PRO Edafe Bright even swore Seun would “regret his actions.”

The way they are going about his prosecution makes you wonder when they became so efficient at addressing an assault. Even though Seun turned himself in at the police station, they still had to handcuff him and parade him to the public. Then they asked the court for a remand order to detain him for 21 days claiming that the assaulted policeman was in a coma at an undisclosed hospital. For the prosecutor to spin such cheap and unimaginative yarn, you know that this case has become an opportunity to make money from a slap. As if all that was not bad enough, they raided Seun’s house and seized his wife’s phone!

Make no mistake, the assaulted officer is the least of their concerns. They do not abhor violence against their officers; they just want to be the ones to do it. If the Police institution truly cared about its officers, they would have the least proven it by improving their material conditions. Seun handed them his derrière on a silver platter, unfortunately. He not only slapped an officer but had also previously made a video where he boasted that he had slapped police officers many times before because he was Fela’s son. That is a slight the police will not take lightly. With his own mouth, he nailed himself to their cross.

The top officers might not even bother with him, but you see the lowly ones who regularly endure ridicule in the hands of the Ogas they are regularly deployed to serve? They will humble him. His humiliation will validate their self-worth. They will not stop there. In the future, they will still use him to deflect accusations of police brutality. Slapping a police officer in Nigeria is a fantastic example of overreaching yourself and making your victim richer at your expense. Seun is a very good musician who plays his father’s music very well. Honestly, he should have listened to the songs too.