AS an undergraduate in Great Ife, the Obafemi Awolowo University, I was a member of the Students Representative Council, the parliament. Whenever we met, the generality of the student body surrounded the venue to observe. The idea was that the parliament represented the students, so they have a right not only to observe, but also influence it. In a far limited sense, that is what is called the gallery; except that while the gallery can be cleared, same does not apply to the parliament.

The idea that parliamentarians are autonomous and should not be influenced either in picking their officers or legislating, was ridiculous.

Given that background and consciousness, I find it a huge joke for some legislators-elect to demand that the leadership of the 10th National Assembly should be determined by members alone without influence from outside, including, the ruling party and the President-elect.

It is wishful thinking to expect the in-coming Executive to be disinterested in who becomes the Senate President, Speaker or their Deputies. Even the legislators diverting the country’s attention on such a matter know they are joking. Otherwise, they would not be littering our cities with their billboards and posters soliciting to be elected into the leadership of the National Assembly when they know the general populace, being neither Distinguished Senators nor Honourable Members, are not eligible to vote in the hallowed chambers.

I have not read about these legislators or their horde of supporters making a case for pro-people programmes the next Assembly should pursue; how to check the financial recklessness of previous assemblies, or the content of the character of those aspiring to lead the Assembly. It is all about zoning, sharing offices, and by extension, cornering the resources of the country.

Some even warn that the scenario of the 8th Assembly when Senator Bukola Saraki broke ranks and got himself elected against the position of the party, should not be repeated. I ask: why not? Was the rebel Saraki leadership not far better than the out-going rubber stamp Assembly leadership?

The idea that only National Assembly members should determine who the Senate President or House Speaker should be is as ridiculous as saying politics should be left to politicians alone. Even when the Constitution empowers the President to pick ministers, he cannot be allowed to do so without pressures and interference from various groups, parties, communities and interests, including the National Assembly. Indeed, it will be ridiculous to expect one man alone to pick a minimum of one minister from each of the 36 states without outside interference.

Even if we all close our eyes and play deaf to the process of NASS members electing officers, that would not mean the Assembly will be independent; a parliamentary leadership that wants to sell out will do so irrespective of whether its ascension was backed or rejected by ‘outsiders’. In any case, the idea of whether the NASS is independent or not would not be determined by its antagonism to the Executive.

The fact is that the way the NASS runs is so compromised that it cannot be independent of the Executive. First, it pays its members all sorts of allowances and emoluments, outside what is officially approved. And that is to the extent that the net payment to a member of the House of Representatives comes to some N10 million ($21,621) monthly and that of the Senator, N14 million ($32,272) monthly.

Secondly, the Assembly pads the National Budget so heavily that President Muhammadu Buhari in his 2022 Budget claimed that the NASS inserted 6,576 new projects in the budget, including over 1,500 into the budget of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture alone. These insertions are done without regard to needs, feasibility studies, conceptualisation, design, costing or availability of funds. This, as we are aware, is an annual ritual in the NASS.

Thirdly, the parliamentarians hijack executive responsibilities by awarding themselves ‘constituency projects’ which they cost, award, implement, supervise and approve by themselves.

Perhaps a more fundamental issue is the electoral process that produced many of the NASS members which we all know cannot stand the most basic of scrutiny. Some were not even candidates produced through normal party primaries; and for many, their elections were characterised by financial inducement, blatant vote-buying, intimidation and violence. In summary, the process which produced some NASS members was criminal.

For many legislators, investing huge sums in getting elected into parliament is a worthy investment because the returns are very high; perhaps the highest and safest investment in the country.

So, what we truly need in Nigeria is not the so-called independence of the legislator from the Executive, but his independence from an un-parliamentary culture. A critical step is to make it so unattractive that only those interested in serving the people will seek election into parliament. I am never tired of making a contrast between the Nigerian Senator who for the work of making laws collects an obscene net of $32,272 monthly or $387,264 annually, and his Cuban counterpart who receives not a single cent for doing the same work. While the Nigerian Senator claims to be doing legislative work full-time and lays claims to other monies, including for vehicles, the Cuban Senator has a full-time work and being a legislator is part-time. So in Cuba, after a normal day’s work, while his fellow workers are going home to their families or for relaxation, the Senator is heading to the National Assembly for the voluntary part-time work of making laws. Therefore, where in Nigeria a Senator may be willing to buy votes, employ thugs and violence in order to get elected or re-elected, the Cuban Senator does not buy votes, and may not even be too keen to get elected. Yet, the quality of law making in Cuba, is not inferior to that in Nigeria. If anything, going by the pro-people laws in Cuba, the Cuban National Assembly is far superior to that of Nigeria.

This is not about a socialist or non-socialist system, it is about basic human decency. For instance, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the two-term President of Iran who left office in August 2013, did not retire into stupendous wealth like former Nigerian Presidents. He merely returned to his work as a lecturer in the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Iran University of Science and Technology.

When he returned to his teaching job after a ten-year absence, he told his colleagues and students: “I am very happy to be back, as if I am home.”

Again, unlike former Nigerian Presidents and state governors who have convoys of expensive cars, including bullet proof ones, Ahmadinejad has been seen going to work in crowded buses. He has no fear of being mobbed because he was and remains part of the Iranian people.

On August 17, 1980, the 6th Commonwealth Law Conference convened in Lagos, then capital of Nigeria. After the arrival courtesies were dispensed with, it fell upon Shehu Shagari, civilian president of Nigeria then in office for 10 and a half months, to declare the conference open. The keynote speaker was Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and leader of the opposition Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), who had run President Shagari desperately close in the contest for Nigeria’s presidency only one year before.

That contest ended up being decided by the Supreme Court of Nigeria in a judgment memorably described as being “a compromise between law and political expediency”. At the head of the bench that decided the case was Atanda Fatayi-Williams, at the time the Chief Justice of Nigeria. As famous as this judgment would become, the antecedents arguably proved to be more lasting in their influence on Nigeria’s politics and institutions.

The relevant part of the story begins on August 16, 1979, when the Federal Electoral Commission, (FEDECO) headed by Michael Ani, announced Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) as the winning candidate in the elections to return Nigeria to civil rule. Three of the five presidential candidates in the contest repudiated the result, setting up what would become an epic election dispute. Obafemi was one of the three.

The Electoral Act of 1979 under which the vote took place anticipated that there could be a dispute and conferred on the Supreme Court the jurisdiction for final decision-making on disputes concerning the presidential election. The panel to hear the disputes were to be led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria but the then incumbent, Sir Darnley Alexander, was due to retire on August 24, 1979, a mere eight days after the announcement of the result and well before the Supreme Court was due to begin hearing the presidential election dispute.

Three days before the retirement date of Chief Justice Darnley Alexander, on August 21, 1979, then military Head of State, Olusegun Obasanjo, an army general, requested to meet Atanda Fatayi-Williams, then a Justice of the Supreme Court, at the seat of power in the Dodan Barracks in Lagos. At the meeting, Obasanjo offered Fatayi-Williams the office of Chief Justice in succession to Sir Darnley.

In his memoirs, ‘Faces, Cases, and Places’ published in 1983, Fatayi-Williams claimed that this offer “was totally unexpected, and, for the first time in my life, I was at a loss for words”, adding that Obasanjo “watched my discomfiture with relish and delight”.

Some of his peers on the Supreme Court were not so sure. Fatayi-Williams was admitted to the Bar of the Middle Temple in London in 1948, one year after Chukwunweike Idigbe and three years later than Dr. Egbert Udo Udoma, both of whom were his peers in the Supreme Court. Fatayi-Williams was from Lagos; Idigbe came from the then Mid-West; while Udo Udoma came from the then South Eastern State. Idigbe became a judge in 1961, before being appointed to the Supreme Court in 1964. His service on the Supreme Court was, however, fractured by the Nigerian Civil War.

Udo Udoma, who also became a judge in 1961, had enjoyed a career as a lawyer, minority rights activist, campaigner, politician, and federal legislator before being appointed a judge in 1961. Two years later, in 1963, he became Chief Justice of Uganda with the understanding that upon the end of his tenure in Uganda, he would return to a position on Nigeria’s Supreme Court. This came to pass in 1968 when General Yakubu Gowon appointed him Justice of the Supreme Court. Atanda Fatayi-Williams arrived court in 1969 as a junior to Udo Udoma and, strictly speaking, to Idigbe.

In his memoirs, ‘The Eagle in Flight’, Udo Udoma recalls that upon the retirement of Chief Justice Adetokunbo Ademola in 1972, the then-ruling Supreme Military Council considered five names for appointment to replace him, namely: Professor Taslim Elias, who was then the Attorney-General of the Federation; John Idowu Conrad Taylor, then Chief Justice of Lagos (as the office was then known); Dr. George Baptist Ayodola Coker, Justice of the Supreme Court; Rotimi Frederik Alade Williams, a senior lawyer in private practice; and Udo Udoma himself. Fatayi-Williams was notably not in the running. In the event, the military preferred Taslim Elias, who had served them well as Attorney-General.

When a new military regime relieved Elias of the position in July 1975, they settled on Sir Darnley Alexander, until then a little-known Chief Judge of the South Eastern State, whom Udo Udoma had recommended for that office.
In 1979, the stakes in the appointment of Chief Justice were very high: the presidency of Nigeria could depend on it. Udo Udoma, who lived with medically induced disabilities, writes in his memoirs that: “Justice Fatayi-Williams, then also a Justice of the Supreme Court, registered a solemn protest on the ground that he saw no reason why I (Udo Udoma) should be given such a high post as the Chief Justice of Nigeria despite the fact that I was an amputee. He felt strongly that the SMC under the leadership of a Yoruba man like himself would not be justified to ignore him who then had no handicap. He then contacted several Yoruba men, including Chief S.L. Edu, to contact General Olusegun Obasanjo as Head of State to plead his case.”

Continuing, Udo Udoma records that these “intrigues succeeded and he was preferred to me because, in his representation, he was able to convince General Olusegun Obasanjo that since Alhaji Shehu Shagari as a Hausa-Fulani, was contesting the office of President of Nigeria and had chosen Dr. Ekwueme, an Igbo man, as his running mate as Vice-President, both of whom were likely to win, then the office of Chief Justice of Nigeria ought to be filled by himself, a Yoruba man, especially as Chief Obafemi Awolowo was sure to lose the election.”

Udo Udoma published these lines in 2008, 28 years after Obafemi Awolowo’s keynote to the Commonwealth Law Conference in 1980. In that address, Chief Awolowo alleged that the appointment of Fatayi-Williams to the office of Chief Justice in 1979 came with an implicit bargain concerning the determination of the election petition of that year. He also claimed that days before the Supreme Court announced the decision on 26 September 1979, Chief Justice Atanda Fatayi-Williams leaked the decision of the Court to General Obasanjo who desired to be reassured that he could proceed with the inauguration date of 1 October 1979 as planned.

Nearly all the protagonists involved in this story are no longer alive and their stories are hidden away in books, whose existence most Nigerians do not know about. The only one alive, General Obasanjo, an otherwise prolific author, has not held forth on these issues. The full facts of what transpired may never be known publicly.

In 2008 and in 2019, judges who sat on controversial presidential election petitions in election years enjoyed quick judicial elevation from the parties in whose favour they decided. Also in 2019, a chief justice was sacked ostensibly because he could not be trusted to determine presidential election petitions in a predictable way in the manner that his would-be successor could. What seems clear is that since 1979, judicial appointments and decision-making in election petitions have always enjoyed a relationship underpinned by a whiff of quid pro quo.

Those interested in following the fate of the presidential election petitions whose consideration is ongoing in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital, may wish to remember that there are currently only thirteen serving Justices of the Supreme Court, which leaves the court with eight vacancies to be filled by a new government.

Politicians have learned to turn election dispute resolution into auditions for the shifting of judicial deck chairs. First, they rig elections in order to get the opportunity to rig the courts with judges ready to help them to validate rigged elections. That is the legacy of the unspoken antecedents of Awolowo v. Shagari.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Congratulations, King Charles III. The whole world literally stood still as the major networks of the globe tuned to Westminster to report the incredible cultural spectacle of your coronation. The global community felicitated as one family with the United Kingdom, gluing its eyes to the show stopper.

Before God and man, Charles III ascended the throne of his forebears, assuming the position of King of England and the commonwealth realms. He is head of state of fifteen sovereign states — the United Kingdom, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.

In addition, there are also three Crown Dependencies, fourteen British Overseas Territories and two small associated states of New Zealand: the Cook Islands and Niue. Although the British empire expired a long time ago, the British monarch still has some kind of imperial reach and significance for many people outside his immediate geographic location.

The multicultural dimension of the reach of the English throne was aptly showcased during the coronation rites. The choice of officiating personnel was thoughtful and representative. Ancient rites were incorporated into the modern ceremony with a seamless gliding between traditional superstition as encapsulated in the idea of the globe, and Christianity which is the religion of state. Kudos to the British for staging a first class spectacle.

There is something fascinating about culture. Any culture. When closely observed, one finds incredible similarities between peoples; one discovers, too, that the essential hypocrisies that separate the royal from the plebeian are basically the same, especially when both are beneficiaries of historic injustices. You torture no one but yourself when you attempt to use the measuring rod of morality to assess thrones and their occupants. If tempted to do so, remember the wise counsel of the toad: leave me out of any tale where tails are mentioned.

The beginning of every reign marks the birth of another era for good or for ill. Fate is an inveterate teaser. It taunts us with possibilities. Will the new king surpass his long=reigned mother, Elizabeth II, in royal housekeeping to ensure that the mystique surrounding the House of Windsor is not completely eroded and the sheer nakedness of the royals exposed?

In today’s world, it is not quite possible for any king to replicate the power and reach of Genghis Khan (ca. 1162–1227) whose Mongolian Empire spanned the entire Asian continent from the Pacific Ocean to modern-day Hungary in Europe. It was the largest empire ever, and the emperor had a large appetite for cruelty, conquest and destruction.

Neither is the kind of serial adultery and single minded infamy that characterised the reign of Henry VIII permissible now. But, given its history and circumstances, the coronation had its own string of ironies.

One couldn’t help remembering that the coronation was happening in a church created by King Henry VIII when the Pope refused to allow him take another wife after his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In retaliation, he broke away from the Catholic church and formed the Church of England of which he was head. He was therefore technically able to give himself permission to do as he willed. In the end he married six wives in the following order: Catherine of Aragon (the mother of the future queen Mary I), Anne Boleyn (the mother of the future queen Elizabeth I), Jane Seymour (the mother of Henry’s successor, Edward VI), Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr.

One must notice, too, the storied matrimonial circumstances of the new king and queen who are both divorcees. In another age and time, that would have counted against them, but if anyone needed evidence that some aspects of the monarchy were moving with the times, there it is.

Perhaps, Edward VIII who abdicated the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson and became known as the Duke of Windsor, would feel vindicated in his grave. His abdication speech still resounds around the world: “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love…”

The British establishment seems to have now come to terms with the contemporaneous trend which is more libertarian: Marrying for love cannot be demonised. Moralists can eat their hearts out.

Symbolism aside, Charles III is ascending the throne at a time of great turmoil in the world, especially in Africa where the iniquitous policies of British colonialists of yore continue to fuel conflicts in the region. Many analysts argue that the main reasons for Africa’s poverty are the slave trade and British colonial exploitation. As head of state, the English monarch is a principal beneficiary of the wholesale looting of the African continent and the dehumanisation of the people.

How does a king begin to redress centuries of injustice in this modern era when he is no longer the chief executive of state? One of the moral scandals of modern governance is the fact that slave owners were compensated for agreeing to release their slaves during the Abolition while the slaves themselves who had suffered the dehumanisation have never been compensated to this day.

To achieve its aims on the African continent, the British unleashed many atrocities in every direction of the compass — The Mau-Mau uprising (1952) in which historian Caroline Elkins believes up to 100,000 could have died; The Iva Valley Massacre in Enugu; The Aba women’s riot in 1929; Sotik Massacre in Kenya (1905); Chilembwe uprising in Malawi (1915); and the countless atrocities in Southern Africa. There are also numerous unedifying tales from Ghana, Sierra-Leone, Liberia and other countries where British colonialism once held sway. In Asia, between 12 and 29 million Indians died of starvation under the control of the British Empire,

It may be convenient to have historical amnesia but the truth must be told. Britain financed its Industrial Revolution and prosperity from the looting of Africa and Asia. The coronation itself was, in a way, a sad reminder of how the English monarchy appropriated gems from Africa and Asia to adorn its crown.

St. Edward’s Crown worn by King Charles III is made of 22-carat gold and 444 precious and semiprecious stones, including 345 rose-cut aquamarines, 37 white topaz, 27 tourmalines, 12 rubies, seven amethysts, six sapphires, two jargoons, one garnet, one spinel and one carbuncle.

In the same vein, Queen Camilla wore Queen Mary’s crown which has a gold-lined silver frame and 2,200 diamonds. In response to serious opposition by cultural and political activists from India, Iran and other countries, the crown did not feature the infamous Koh-i-Noor diamond, a 105.6-carat stone mined in India with a long, disputed history that is seen as a symbol of the United Kingdom’s looting past. It was reportedly fitted instead with Elizabeth II’s Cullinan III, IV and V diamonds originally from South Africa.

For those of us in the former colonies, therefore, the coronation of King Charles evoked a potpourri of emotions. Parts of the ceremony looked like slices of the coronation of the Olu of Warri in Nigeria’s Delta State despite the differences in race, history, culture , etc.

And, like in Africa, there was the sub-text of royal intrigues and gossips, with some members of the royal family and their plebeian media pugilists doing their damndest to further drive a wedge between the royal family and the estranged Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan. There’s no shortage of hate and ill-will out there.

One former Labour minister and diarist, Chris Mullin, suggests that Meghan Markle is a “cuckoo” in the royal nest and her “woke Californian hang-ups” are likely to destroy her marriage to Prince Harry, and the Duke of Sussex will “come limping home”.  Talk about taking an analgesic for another person’s migraine! Calvin Miller must have had people like Mullin in mind when he famously said, “Humanity is fickle. They may dress for a morning coronation and never feel the need to change clothes for an execution in the afternoon.”

Back to the question: How does a king begin to redress centuries of injustice in this modern era when he is no longer the chief executive of state? If the king is interested in some form of reparation to former colonies (including the return of their artefacts and precious stones), he knows how to deploy his soft power to achieve his goal. That is why Providence made him understudy his mum for seven decades.

If God saves the king as the British Anthem prays, He probably will have mercy on the kingdom too. So let it be with Charles III.

Who will set some Nigerian leaders free from their liking for U.K. Medical Doctors? Who will be paying for the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari’s medical treatments in U.K after May 29, 2023? Will Buhari curb Buhari’s obsession with the U.K universities (for his children) and healthcare system for more than 40 years? When shall we begin to get answers to our questions on what really ails our leaders who continue to travel abroad for even dental and ear problems?

When should we the people insist on getting answers to the questions on whether we have the right to know the health status of our leaders and public servants generally? When can we know the nature of the health challenges of our leaders? When shall we have a National Assembly that will take newspaper editorials on accountability, responsibility, public good, pubic interest seriously on the day of publication? Will President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sign a covenant with Nigerians that he too will not be travelling to United Kingdom and France for medical examination from May 29, 2023?

When will all medical professional bodies in Nigeria stir the conscience of our leaders by robustly protesting irresponsibility, hypocrisy and corruption of our leaders who continue to shun healthcare system they pretend to be funding? Why do our leaders continue to set up even Universities of Medical and Health Sciences when they know that they don’t expect any good out of them?

When will the Office of the Citizen begin to set up mobilisation committees to begin to organise civil actions against all these spineless members of national and state assemblies who cannot question executive rascality and excesses all over the country? And this: how many newspaper editorials, and special documentaries and commentaries should the mainstream and social media do before the federal and state governments can show responsibility to develop the Nigerian healthcare delivery system to serve the country? Who will deliver us from our reckless dealers who call themselves leaders who always meet even their waterloo in U.K?

Is there any takeaway for them that one of our leaders and his wife are currently in jail in the same U.K because they went there to look for a medical service that should have been provided at home if the leader had done well as a leader of the legislature where they have approved billions of naira for healthcare in the last 24 years?

These questions became germane again at the weekend when it was clear that our leader who was in the United Kingdom for the coronation of King Charles 111 on May 6 is still spending time with his dentist in the same U.K where he had in 2017, spent 104 days on health grounds. What is more curious, our President-elect we would not like to be infected by this very reproachful Buhari’s passion for medical tourism in the U.K is in Europe too.

The Nigerian leader who left the country on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 joined others for coronation of Charles III and his wife, Camilla, as King and Queen of England on Saturday, May 6.

The Presidency had earlier been silent on Buhari’s date of return. But a statement signed by Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, on Tuesday last week noted that the President could not return because of a dental care. Adesina told the nation that the President would still be in the United Kingdom for another five days for a procedure already initiated.

The presidential spokesman had, in an earlier statement, said:  “Ahead of the coronation, the Commonwealth Secretariat would take advantage of the gathering of leaders in London to play host to a summit for Presidents and Heads of Government of Commonwealth countries on Friday, May 5.” The President participated in the summit, which deliberated on future of the Commonwealth and role of the youth.

His entourage includes Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, his Information and Culture counterpart, Lai Mohammed and National Security Adviser (NSA), Maj.-Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd). Others are Director General, National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Amb. Ahmed Rufai Abubakar, Chairperson/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, among other senior government officials.

As people were still smarting from the news that our out-going leader who is generally believed to be very close to the Archbishop of Canterbury was still in the U.K for five more days, there was a newsbreak within the same week that the President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu too would be in Europe on investment drive and fine-tuning of the transition details.

According to a statement by his media aide, Tunde Rahman, the President-elect, was on an investment drive to Europe. Mr. Rahman said the former Lagos State Governor was billed to hold business talks with multi-sectoral players in manufacturing, agriculture, fintech and energy. The statement noted that the trip would also create a conducive environment for the president-elect to fine-tune his transition plans and programmes, as well as policy options without unnecessary pressures and distractions.

The statement reads: “During the visit, the President-elect will engage with investors and other key allies with the goal of marketing investment opportunities in the country and his administration’s readiness to enable a business-friendly climate through policies and regulations…Already, meetings with multi-sectoral actors in Europe’s business community including manufacturing, agriculture, tech and energy have been lined up.”

They added this: “Asíwájú Tinubu hopes to convince them of Nigeria’s readiness to do business under his leadership through mutually-beneficial partnerships premised on jobs creation and skills acquisition…Reviving the country’s economy forms a major plank of Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda and the meeting is part of his efforts to re-establish Nigeria’s importance in the global economic chain and create empowering opportunities for the country’s huge youth population.” Who will set us free from this “modern-day slavery” that our leaders’ recklessness has triggered? When shall we be set free from the United Kingdom, after all?

On August 15, 2021, in the heat of COVID-19 ambush, I wrote an article here tiled, ‘Buhari and Tinubu in London: The significance’ https://guardian.ng/opinion/buhari-and-tinubu-in-london-the-significance/|.  In the article, I lamented the fact that President Buhari who was then on a medical vacation in the United Kingdom actually met Bola Ahmed Tinubu who had then reportedly displayed a walking stick. This is an excerpt from the Inside Stuff then:
…That is why I would like to repeat the point I have been making since 2017 here when our elected leader on whose table the buck should really stop that it is not gratifying to note that the leader of the most robust economy in Africa has been flying to London for medical examination more than 60 years after the same London granted us independence and republican status.

The other day some cheeky and unchiselled commentators on digital platforms were even arguing that it is not good enough for us that our leader has been travelling to London for medical check-up; when his only son had a power-bike accident, he was flown to Germany for proper treatment and whenever his wife isn’t feeling fine she always flies to the United Arabs Emirate (UAE) where another great man and our former vice president, Atiku Abubakar prefers as his Plan-B home. Great men’s charity should always begin from abroad.

The other big man, whose cognomen is Oba l’ola, Yoruba people’s metaphor for ‘tomorrow’s king’ wasn’t around in his domain at the last Sallah celebration. He wasn’t in his empire a few weeks ago too when the crucial local government council elections were held. Yet his absence wasn’t noticed as they, as usual, won all the Council seats. Anyway that was how his supporters and indeed his people confirmed his rumoured medical condition, which has just been confirmed that it wasn’t a big deal, after all. He was seen with the commander-in-chief he assisted to seize, I mean return to power in 2015.

It can now be seen by all of us who have been circulating some dangerous intelligence that despite the secret pact so many eye-witnesses have hinted at, the lanky beneficiary of his 2015 stratagem would not honour the covenant to hand over to him, after all. We have all seen the great friends, political mentor and mentee together in London where it is said they have always met to renew their loyalty to each other concerning that #Covenant-2023.  All doubting Thomases have thus seen that the two friends are as fit as fiddle.

Don’t misconstrue the walking stick you thought you saw: it is a symbol of wisdom, which comes with old age. It is also a badge of royalty for Oba l’ola (Furure King) in the old Western region. Don’t read their body language anyhow in the United Kingdom. They are great men and we have all felt great seeing them together in high spirit. They need our great prayers for good health and indeed healing too for our great nation as Nigeria’s leader returned home at the weekend. It wasn’t clear whether Oba l’ola too returned home at the weekend.

And so as our leader has returned to his kingdom after the great summit on education and examination of his health in the United Kingdom, he should listen to the voices of wisdom and reason, which most of us have been reiterating since 2017 that Nigeria’s commander-in-chief should take advantage of his summits and health-care experiences in London to invest purposefully in even a few hospitals where our leaders and our people and indeed Africans can also be cared for….’

This is the conclusion of the article then, which I still believe in:
…And so the urgent task before Buhari and Tinubu who rule Nigeria from Abuja and Lagos is that next time, we would like to see them after their medical examination in a Nigerian hospital. As they return home, the two great men should note that their greatness will be diminished by their abysmal failure to invest in even two British-class hospitals in Abuja and Lagos where they rule Nigeria.

We don’t want to see them abroad together again on any health grounds. They need to pay attention to at least the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH), National Hospital Abuja, (NHA), University of Lagos Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). These are the low hanging fruits they can easily invest in to prevent the reproach of a great nation whose great leaders always fly over ill-equipped hospitals to get treated in great hospitals abroad. Who will tell our leaders to remove this reproach from Africa’s most strategic country?

The politics of democratic transition is hardly ever a beauty pageant. Oftentimes, the dazzling brilliance of campaign media displays conceal an underlying ugliness in the substance of what is on offer. It is all an ancient marketing gimmick in which the public is sold the new messiah as the product of an immaculate conception. The woman or woman to save society is packaged as a new brand of detergent, toot paste or antacid to ease our current discomfort.

Ultimately, when the campaign is over and the frenzy of marketing ends, the elegant Photo Shopped images of the contestants on campaign billboards  and Instagram posts end up in the trash. The ‘’fine boys” and “sharp girls” that street people would have liked to see as winners end up being scrubbed off the walls of public places. More often than not, the most morally attractive and physically appealing people hardly win democratic elections. Morally ugly and physically unkempt people emerge from behind the screen of marketing and campaign make-up.

In parts of the Third World especially Africa, elections into high political office are mostly a contest among the rough hewn and  jagged operators of the power system. It is often the jugglers of multi- dimensional crookedness or at best the princes of the hegemonic deep state that get rewarded with the prime seat at the high table of power. Other power aspirants merely crawl around the high table in concentric circles of relative power access dictated by proximity to the master. African democracy is mostly a referendum to choose the most decorated fox.

So, as tribunals and sundry courts deliberate on an avalanche of petitions arising from Nigeria’s last general elections, public response to the outcome of the elections has shifted to matters of the morality of those who won. Some people are lamenting the emergence of persons of doubtful integrity as the imminent leaders. Others are regretting the emergence of persons of less than papal  purity as leaders of the next government. That is not totally true. After all, in Benue, the long suffering citizens have elected a serving Reverend gentleman as the next governor. Nonetheless, there is now a residual excessive moral emphasis on  the imminent leadership of our republic.

The social media is perhaps the prime purveyor of the emergent moral crusade. All available platforms are awash with moral valuations of the major figures that the elections have produced especially at the presidential level. I personally do not like the unprintable things that people have been posting in the social media about the major figures of the incoming administration.

Mr. Dino Melaye as spokesperson of the campaign organization of Mr. Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) literally set the tone in the immediate aftermath of the elections. He was bitter, sounding more like a nattering co-wife. He called the President-elect all manner of uncomplimentary names that have to do with the assumed murky origins of the man’s humongous wealth and fortune. Similarly, he characterized the Vice President- elect, Mr Kassim Shettima, in unedifying epithets that make him look like a world famous Al Queda villain. In fairness to his myriad critics, Mr. Shettima did not quite help himself when he went to represent Mr. Tinubu wearing that over-sized musty grey suit complete with a knee length tie and a bad pair of workout shoes! The comic essence of his outfit on that occasion was probably lost on his bespoke audience!

In more recent times, the power game has shifted to the leadership of the incoming National Assembly. There again, the front runners Mr. Akpabio and Orji Kalu, both senators,  have been cast in not very attractive moral portraits. Some social media cranks have argued that when coupled with the incoming first two citizens, the three foremost citizens would look like a triumvirate assembled from Columbia, Afghanistan and clans of old Sicily.

The social media and widespread Pentecostalism are largely to blame for the confusion of values. Judgments and value assessments about people thrust onto high places are being made by both street urchins on social media and all manner of religious zealots. The other powerful set of moral arbiters of the new power people are the new crop of religious fanatics being spewed by the thriving national industry of Pentecostal pastors and congregants of sundry churches. Along with them are sundry free lance moral crusaders in mosques whose targets are everything secular. Consequently, conversations about the appropriateness of our democratic choices of personnel  are failing to address the pragmatic political and governance challenges that now face us. I would contend that the excessive emphasis on the moral credentials of our new leaders is fatally misplaced and wrong headed. People are mixing up things that do not work together or necessarily add up.

Politics and ethics do not work well together. It is often said that politics is an amoral undertaking. No one knows whether it is a profession, an occupation, a hobby, a game or a business. But one thing is clear: the normal parameters of any known professional ethics and moral code have no place in the political enterprise. The story is often told and re-told of the old Ibadan dark political genius who used to insist on a screening interview for apprentice politicians who sought his assistance or want to sign on to him for tutelage. The first entry qualification interview used to consist of a set of related questions: “ Can you tell lies without batting an eye lid?” “Can you see what everybody says is white and swear an oath before the most powerful gods that it is actually black?”  “Can you kill your opponent to clear your way to power?” “Can you betray your mother if it becomes necessary?” “Can you swear and stand by a lie on oath with any of the Holy books?” Applicants who score the highest affirmative marks at this screening interview sessions end up as the next set of successful politicians!

Secondly, power and morality are strange bedfellows. The old Machiavellian dictum is a classic of this school of power politics: the end justifies the meanness. On your way to power, it does not matter whose ox is butchered and converted into ‘suya’ to energize the race. The key objective is to get there. Power has its own driving morality. What is right is what takes the power seeker to the place of power. All else is a distraction. The preachments of a thousand pastors and bishops amount to nothing. Power defines and decorates its own saints. It does not matter what you call a man of power on his way to the summit. When he gets there, he will re-christen himself in the most glowing and saintly epithets. He will pile up all the accolades that the best of men desire and dream about and heap them on himself.

More importantly, the criteria for the selection of those who must contest elections to our highest  political offices are guided by existing legislation and procedures. The current Electoral Law in its most current version reserves the screening of party candidates for elections for the political parties. Each candidate is deemed an ambassador of his/her party. Only the party can decide who to present to INEC as the candidate for an election. Once that decision is made, no other body can contest or invalidate the choice. Not the police even if the person has been arrested a thousand times for sundry crimes. Not the security services even if the candidate has endangered the state in words or deeds in the past without being convicted by a court of appropriate jurisdiction. Even the law courts have their hands tied because the Electoral Law happens to be the law that guides and guards all election matters. Therefore social morality as protected by law enforcement, the judiciary or state security have no meaning in matters of determining who seeks or ascends to power in our polity.

 There is therefore a conspiracy of factors that insulate  those who contest for and emerge from our elections from the normal run of moral and ethical scrutiny that would ordinarily bar common criminals and other miscreants from aspiring to high public office in other climes. In other places, even ordinary traffic infractions, drunk driving, an unwarranted wink at a damsel or falsification of a birth certificate can deny you clearance to run for a county election let alone a presidential contest.

Even in situations  where clearance for electoral contest follow reasonable scrutiny, democracies have a way of returning outcomes that may not showcase the best that a society has to offer. The offspring of even the best democracies can be decidedly ugly and unattractive. American democracy in the 20th and 21st centuries was believed to have graduated to an exceptional  meritocracy in which only the best candidates in each party can hope to be cleared to contest for the presidency. Additional merits are accorded to moral credentials, quality of knowledge of national and world affairs as demonstrated in open media debates and speaking engagements. Yet in the 2016 presidential contest, a nasty Donald defeated a relatively decent and brilliant Hillary Clinton to become president. Trump merely honed his ability to mouth gutter clichés, to abuse and mock opponents and to trivialize serious national and global issues. He abused and cursed his way into the White House and used the same antics to hang in there for four years.

This anomaly in democratic outcomes is worse in illiberal democracies. Check Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Syria and the Philippines under Duterte. The reality of the illogic of democracy is that the electoral outcome is the product of a popular mandate delivered at the ballot by an irrational mob. On election day, I step out to go and cast my vote just as my security guard, steward or janitor is on their way there as well. The egalitarian end of democracy overwhelms enlightened votes with irrational inputs.

More often than not, the outcomes that make the elite unhappy  are the result of so many non -rational variables that may not have anything to do with common sense or enlightened  moral considerations. It is very often  dominated by simple bread and butter or pocket book issues. But at least a credible democratic system ought to emplace sufficient guardrails on the way to critical power contests to protect the society against the emergence of proven criminals.

But the bottom line remains that cannot limit individual access to power with rules outside what our enabling laws allow. To that extent, all those who have emerged as a result of the February and March presidential and governorship elections are qualified by law to wear their new toga. Roadside reservations about their moral credentials are neither here nor there. The challenge of ensuring an appropriate moral context for public office is to change the enabling law that determines who qualifies to run for crucial public office. Such a revised electoral law should have roles for the police and the national security apparatus.

In the aftermath of the 2023 elections therefore and as we await the swearing in of the new governments, what becomes of utmost importance is the performance of those elected to the various offices. Equally important is the moral conduct of those newly elected after being sworn in. Technical qualification to contest these elections does not however confer immunity from moral censure on the office holders once they are sworn in. Their present and past actions remain subject to scrutiny and investigation throughout their tenure in office and perhaps afterwards. It is only in their incumbent positions that they can be held accountable as moral examples for the society.

However, the imperative of maintaining the moral leadership is not diminished by the laxity in the electoral selection process. Big camels may slip through the needle’s eye of party qualification to contest. But once elected and sworn in, rulers are held morally accountable by the strength of the institutions of state. The police, the anti corruption agencies, national security agencies ,the judiciary and the mechanism of public book keeping must remain the gaurrails of accountability of the political leadership.

When democracy births illegitimate offspring, the same electorate that enthroned the ugliness waits to judge the moral compass and competence of the new power wielders. If the electorate fails to bring its will to bear on those who rule, the only recourse for society is the strength of the institutions of state. There lies the beauty and contradiction of the democratic state.   

Tunde Obadina (where is he?) was one of the columnists of yore that I relished reading, both for his flair and bluntness. I think he was of the National Concord stable. Others were the likes of Lewis Obi and Sina Adedipe (both also of the Concord); Sonala Olumhense of The Guardian, Muyiwa Adetiba of The PUNCH (published here last week)and, of course, Kayode Samuel of the Vanguard. I have not stopped wondering why Kay stopped maintaining a column – and I have told him so. The riposte he fires regularly on Facebook does not, in my view, compensate for the great loss his absence from serious opinion writing has meant to many. Today, I bring readers one of Obadina’s writings that I ferreted out of my library last week. Titled “Reaping what you sow”, it speaks to our situation today as it did decades ago when it was first written. Enjoy it:

“No wonder the Vice-President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, burst into a dance at the NPN rally in Mapo Hall, Ibadan, Oyo State last week. This uncharacteristic public display by the nation’s number two was brought on by the declaration of Chief Sunday Afolabi and Alhaji (Busari) Adelakun for the NPN. The party’s National Chairman, Chief Adisa Akinloye, whom Chief Obafemi Awolowo two years ago had dared to show his face in Mapo Hall, was also there dancing in jubilation. “Let Akinloye go to Ibadan”, said Awo in November 1980, “convene a meeting at Mapo and tell everybody to come and hear him talk of rig the election; he wouldn’t be able to speak at the meeting”.

Akinloye, Akinjide and a host of top NPN members were in Mapo Hall not to accuse the UPN of election rigging but to lay claim to Oyo State for this year’s election. When the UPN leader mocked Akinloye and Akinjide for losing their deposits in the 1979 elections in Ibadan, he was not to know that a couple of years later that these men and the NPN would be embracing two of his top party stalwarts in front of a sea of supporters in Mapo Hall. At least one member of the NPN has been so affected by the success of his party in poaching within the UPN top hierarchy that he suggested that even Chief Awolowo should think seriously and join the NPN. “The NPN”, said Chief Lekan Salami, a NPN leader in Oyo State, “is the only party where Awolowo could achieve his life-long ambition of being president of Nigeria”

Salami is confident that given the NPN’s structure, a Yoruba candidate will be president in 1987. “All we need to do at our end is to announce an ideal candidate and I personally would support Chief Awolowo as the person but for his political approach… if Awo joined hands with his fellow Yoruba in the NPN and signifies his intention to run the race, there is just nobody among all the Yoruba politicians who could challenge him; all of us would be naturally bound to rally around his success and leadership” said Chief Salami.

With the apparent failure of the PPA (Progressive Parties Alliance) to shape a common front, it is not impossible that Awolowo might consider the option offered by Salami! The idea seems absurd but the wonders of Nigerian politics cease to amaze me. Chief Akin Omoboriowo, the former Deputy Governor of Ondo State who recently joined the NPN, predicted nine months ago that if the 1983 elections were free and fair and the Progressives won, Nigeria would experience rapid social and economic development. “If Nigerians voted in favour of the Progressives, Nigeria would have crossed the watershed from decadence and stagnation to progress and virility”, said the erstwhile UPN leading member. Are we now reading NPN for progressives? What has happened within the space of the past eight months to warrant a redefinition of “progressive”, that is, apart from Omoboriowo’s failure to get the UPN gubernatorial nomination for Ondo State? Chief Ornoboriowo said in Bendel in March, 1981 “while the UPN is working hard to improve the lots of the common man, other political parties are busy playing the politics of money” The question is; has the former deputy governor lately realised that the Unity Party had stopped elevating the common man or has he by his decision to embrace the NPN joined “the politics of money”?

Chief Sunday Afolabi’s explanation for his disaffection with the UPN probably holds true for his fellow decampees:”What happened can be likened to the story of a group of farmers who cultivated a vegetable farm”, Afolabi told supporters in Mapo Hall. “They laboured and invested their resources individually and severally to ensure that the farm flourished and excelled (over and above) other competing farms. Some of the farmers put all the manure they had, diverted all the water they had to the farm to provide food for the vegetables with little bother about the fate of the fruits of the farm. The vegetables grew, blossomed and brought forth an abundance of harvest. A disagreement arose when the harvest was ripe but those men who had been put incharge of the farm, wanting to exclude other farmers from the harvest, used all their weapons to ensure a monopoly of the harvests to the utter amazement of onlookers”.

This is Afolabi’s story of the Oyo State branch of the UPN and the primary elections in which he and Adelakun failed to clinch their party’s gubernatorial nomination. Afolabi’s parable raises a fundamental question. Were the vegetables for the consumption of the farmers who had invested their resources towards the harvest; or were they for the hungry masses whom the farmers had promised to provide food? One should be forgiven for thinking that it is the former. This conforms with the general trend of Nigeria politics. People enter politics and make contributions to the development of the party as a private investment, the yields of which are for private consumption. The lofty aim of improving the lot of the common man is merely cosmetic, beneath which is a cynical ugly face of self-aggrandisement.

Politics, ill understood, has been defined, wrote Isaac D’lsraeli, as “the art of governing mankind by deceiving them” How else should politics be understood? Certainly in Nigeria, since political independence, politics has not so much been the art – since art presupposes a measure of imagination and finesse – rather, politics has been the crude practice of governing the people by deceiving them. Is it not, for instance, within the context of the privatization of politics that the recent statement by the Chief Whip in the Kaduna State House (of Assembly) that people who did not contribute anything to the NPN during the 1979 elections are those now enjoying the fruits of the party should be understood?

The concern seems to be that if a man contributes to the electoral fortunes of his party, almost always by giving money, he should automatically be entitled to some of the fruits of victory, which means government posts and inflated contracts. Like a businessman whose rationale for investing money in a particular economic activity is the monetary profits accruing from his initial input, the politician invests time and money into gaining constitutional power for the supreme purpose of the material or and social psychological benefits which come with power. In other words, politics is viewed as a vehicle to either multiply your wealth or to be uplifted one step nearer God as the all powerful!

It is this conception of politics that makes our political system ineffectual in dealing with the economic and social problems confronting society. Issues and programmes are in reality irrelevancies, part of the facade that politicians must indulge in to portray a semblance of democracy in action. It is this individualization of power that has contributed to putting the PPA in coma, perhaps, to be revived after the elections. What primarily binds its component parts is the imperative to defeat the NPN but the individual quest for power presents an insurmountable obstacle to unity. If there was a strong commitment to social change, the issues of who will be presidential candidate or trust within the alliance would not pose such a problem.

It is equally this individual conception of power that makes the NPN potentially a formidable party. Power breeds power, not only because the incumbent party has control of the machinery of elections but also because they have -power in hand, they exist as a magnet drawing in politicians whose prime concern is to back a winner. Perhaps, President (Shehu) Shagari understood the dynamics of the sinews of the NPN when he told opponents, “if you can’t beat us, join us”! It should not surprise us that if the NPN wins the elections this year, subsequent years will witness a flood of decampees to the party.

Perhaps, here lies the real basis for the fear that we are heading for a constitutional form of dictatorship”

Tell me, has anything changed in the politics of Nigeria or in the comportment and understanding of our politicians? Obadina’s piece must have been written before the election of 1983, during the Second Republic and here we are in the Fourth Republic 40 years after! What has changed? What have we learnt? Absolutely nothing! Where, then, do we go from here?

When leaders disrespect the people…

We have been told, with glee, that our outgoing President, retired Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, will be spending an extra week in London to see his dentists. I am sure they expect us to clap for them or praise them for that! Be sure they will list that disclosure as one of Buhari’s achievements in office! Thank God for His mercies! I am sure you still remember there was a time they never told us anything about the president’s medical tourism, which the presidential spin doctors kept as State secret! It was treason and felony rolled into one for anyone to demand to know what aileth the president, how much of State money he has gulped treating himself at our expense abroad and why he has failed to provide quality hospitals here at home. Buhari is junketing everywhere in his last few days remaining, mopping up this and lapping up that. No problems! Everything that has a beginning surely must have an end. And an end is surely coming for Buhari’s clueless and incompetent administration. Can you imagine that he is still borrowing money right, left and centre? It is like he is intentionally trying to provoke us, shoving it down our throat and throwing it right in our face! Is it that there are no dentists in Nigeria or that there are no dental clinics? They ruin medicare here, fly abroad to enjoy the best of medical facilities and then flaunt it for us to see! Such insensitivity and callousness! I feel ashamed of our leaders!

Is Nigerian politics getting better? Are Nigerian politicians getting more mature and politically savvy as we move from one phase to the other in democratisation and nation-building? From my balcony, I have been observing quietly the mini-crisis that has broken out in the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the sharing of positions in the 10th National Assembly. With the offices of president and vice-president already settled via the ballot in the general election, we are left with the parliamentary leadership positions which are not usually as simple as the presidency because of the complicated factors that are always at play. Still, I am left to wonder how tone-deaf many of our politicians can be.

I agreed that Nigeria, being multi-religious and multi-ethnic, will often be caught in a web of intrigues on how to share political offices in such a way that will accommodate as many interests as possible, particularly the major ones. There will always be multiple and conflicting interests at play and we cannot avoid the fierce contestation for now. There is the regional interest: northern and southern. There is the religious one: Muslim and Christian. There is the ethnic: the Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba being the ones on which the “tripod” of Nigeria was founded. Then, there are the ethnic and religious minorities across regions and geo-political zones, some of which are fluid or subsumed.

But as atomisation goes, the more you divide, the more you magnify the latent differences. If you divide the north, you will see the Muslim majority and the Christian minorities. If you divide further, you will see north-west, north-east and north-central. Because religion is the biggest identifier in the north, it really does not matter if you are a Muslim Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, or of any other ethnic group when it comes to sharing national positions. It begins to matter only if the competition for the national position is internal. You will then start hearing about what northern geo-political zone should get it.  The northern Christian minorities are, understandably, a distinct group as well.

In the south, ethnicity — and not religion — is the major marker. The tussle is traditionally between the Igbo and the Yoruba, the two biggest ethnic groups. When Yorubas get something at the national level, it is most likely at the expense of Igbos, except it is shared on the basis of geo-political zones. It also means when Igbos get it, Yoruba will be left out. But over the years, the southern minorities have also asserted themselves on the account of the oil wealth which is produced in their land. If you divide the south-west, where the Yoruba are in the majority, you will find religious interests somewhere, notably in the last few decades. It never used to be so but things have changed.

By and large, it is practically impossible to please every interest at the same time. Some will have to settle for the short end of the stick per time. If you achieve religious balancing, you may upset regional setup. If you please regional interests, you may be unable to sort out zonal complications. All these are political interests — and as political beings, we will always discover that something has to give at every point. Meanwhile, we are not even discussing gender interests or social inclusion in a society where you are automatically disadvantaged because you are a woman or because you are living with one disability or the other. It takes a conscious effort to build an all-inclusive society.

At the dawn of this democracy in 1999, we achieved political balancing almost flawlessly. President Olusegun Obasanjo was a Christian and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar a Muslim. That is religious balancing. Obasanjo was a southerner and Atiku a northerner. That was regional balancing. The No 1 position went to a Yoruba, No 2 to a Fulani and No 3 to an Igbo. That was the tripodal interest well satisfied. The No 4 position went to the north-west, meaning the biggest zone got a fair deal. The No 6 position — the deputy senate presidency — went to the north-central, but not to a Christian, as would be expected, since the senate president was a Christian too. Southern minorities got No 7.

This arrangement, which now looks like the golden era for political accommodation in Nigeria, lasted for eight years. Although it didn’t solve all our political problems, or end agitations, or turn Nigeria into a developed country, there was some emotional satisfaction that came with balancing the national power metrics. When you compare 1999-2007 with what we have today and what we are likely to have with the imminent inauguration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it would appear we are now living in a different country entirely. Some of our political leaders have been carrying on as if the aspirations and expectations of some parts of the country should be brazenly discarded and ignored.

I admit that some of the developments that have upset the political arrangement were not pre-planned. It was inadvertent in 2007, for instance. Naturally, presidency would go to the north and vice-presidency to the south, which was what happened. However, a leg of the tripod was replaced with another, as the Igbo gave way to the south-south in the choice of vice-presidential candidate. The south-south had become a political force with the campaign for resource control by the Niger Delta militants. While one problem was solved, another was created. The Igbo lost their place in the top three — relegated, as it were, to No 6 for eight years before falling out completely since 2019.

From 2007 to 2010, under President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the Christian north — a major bloc since Independence — claimed No 3. Yorubas settled for No 4, having been No 1 for eight years. South-east got No 6 (deputy senate president) while the north-east got No 7 (deputy speaker). Although Igbos would have preferred a higher position since Yorubas, their fierce rivals, had held the No 1 spot too, No 6 was still better than nothing. Yar’Adua’s death in 2010 disrupted the system and we are yet to recover from that. Dr Goodluck Jonathan, his deputy from the south-south, took over and sent the entire metrics into a spin. What appeared to be an emerging power arrangement was torpedoed.

But some of the disruptions were engineered as well. When Jonathan was elected in 2011, the zoning arrangement was recalibrated. The north, specifically the north-west, got the No 2 and the north-central retained No 3. Though an Ogbia minority from Bayelsa, Jonathan had played up his “Azikiwe” name and appointed an Igbo general as chief of army staff — the first since before the Civil War — as soon as he got power in 2010. The south-east embraced him. The core north rejected him because of the short span of Yar’Adua’s tenure. Jonathan had been asked to not run so that the north could finish its eight years, although that was complicated because of a lack of legal guarantees.

The Jonathan era witnessed a bastardisation of the power arrangement. The speakership that was zoned to the south-west was usurped by Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal who plotted a coup with PDP renegades and Tinubu’s Action Congress (now part of APC). Hon Emeka Ihedioha, from the south-east, became his deputy. The vice-president and the speaker, No 2 and No 4 respectively, were now both from the north-west. Effectively, the Yoruba were completely out of the topmost national power arrangement for four years. Jonathan and the PDP were accused of having marginalised the Yoruba even though it was clear to all that it was Tambuwal that was pursuing a selfish agenda.

The disruption continued under President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. The senate president came from the north-central and the speaker from north-east, meaning the No 1, No 3 and No 4 positions were all in the north. Ironically, this settled some questions. One, the senate president was a Muslim from the north-central. Even though he has Fulani roots, he was socialised as a Yoruba. The speaker was a Christian from the north-east. This went against the norm of picking Christians from the north-central and Muslims from the north-east for legislative positions. It gave the northern minorities a sense of belonging again as it was under Sir Ahmadu Bello, the former premier of the north.

Buhari’s second term witnessed another upset of the system. The senate president and speaker in his first term were not his choices in any case, and they were adequately curtailed and not allowed to retain their positions. We now had the No 1 and No 3 from the north and No 2 and No 4 from the south-west. There was no room at the Inn for the south-east. Muslims headed both chambers of the National Assembly. In fact, the speaker and his deputy were both Muslims. This was in absolute contrast to where we started from in 1999. The APC under Buhari did not make any conscious effort to balance the power metrics in a way to assuage feelings of marginalisation and exclusion.

But if we think the Buhari era was a departure from the norm, it appears things may even go farther under Tinubu. With No 1 and No 2 Muslims, I would expect No 3 and No 4 to be Christians as we seek to heal national wounds so that we can focus on the serious tasks of national development ahead. But I was naïve. Senator Barau Jibrin, from the north-west, soon declared his intention to be senate president (he was later persuaded to settle for deputy). Hon Idris Wase (north-central) and Hon Ahmed Betera (north-east) also declared for speakership. That would have meant Muslims holding No 1, No 2, No 3 and No 4. And the No 5, the Chief of Justice of Nigeria, is also a Muslim.

While I agree that we have to outgrow regional and religious balancing at some point, I don’t think we have reached that stage yet — after 24 years of democracy. More importantly, though, inclusion must not be limited to region and religion alone. We need to accommodate gender, age and disability considerations. Women are about half of the population but they occupy less than 5 percent of elected positions. Nigerians below 35 years constitute about 75 percent of the population. How much space do we give them in political offices? There are 30 million Nigerians living with disabilities. Do they matter in our political calculations? We have a very long way to go in diversity management.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

ABN REINCARNATED

When the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) went to court in 1993 to stop the June 12 presidential election, we laughed it off. It was an inconsequential association, we said, especially as the law under which the election was conducted ousted the jurisdiction of courts. We all know what happened next. Well, five people calling themselves “FCT residents” have gone to court to stop the inauguration of a new president. They are also asking for President Buhari’s tenure to be extended. The “25%” case is already before the election tribunal at a higher court and, ordinarily, no judge should entertain it. I smell a rat but I believe the process will ultimately take care of itself. Mischief.

GOING WELL

Ahead of the inauguration of a new administration, President Buhari and his wife have moved into the Glass House, a transitional home at the presidential villa for outgoing presidents and their spouses. I think we need to be thankful that democratic rule has endured in Nigeria despite all the challenges. At least, we are assured that presidents will come and go at predictable intervals after President Obasanjo failed to sneak third term into the constitution in 2007. In many African countries, they are stuck with one president for decades, mostly after the laws have been amended midway for selfish reasons. It took us long to get here but we are not doing badly. Progress.

FINE LINE

On Wednesday, Justice James Omotosho of a federal high court sitting in Abuja restrained the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) from imposing fines on broadcast organisations. He also set aside the previous fines imposed on 45 stations by the NBC. The judge said the commission does not have “judicial powers” to impose fines, ruling that its action was “against the doctrine of separation of powers”. In its response, NBC hinted it would file an appeal after studying the judgment. If NBC appeals and the judgment is upheld, it would have far-reaching implications for other regulators and the power to impose fines. It would also be a major deviation from global practices. Remarkable.

NYSC AT 50

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was set up in 1973 as part of post-civil war efforts to foster national integration. Corps members are usually posted to parts of the country other than where they are come from. Many have questioned if the scheme has not outlived its usefulness. I would not say it has. But the time has come to take a comprehensive look at its enabling law so that we can finetune it in line with contemporary realities. There is a para military training whose value I honestly don’t know. I also don’t know if it must be headed by a military officer. For national service to be more productive and attractive, we need to make far-reaching modifications to the NYSC. Change.