In 2021, I released a little collection of short stories with the title, “The Law is an Ass.”

On the day we presented the book, a respected Senior Advocate of Nigeria, joked about the audacity of the title and the trouble I might have with judicial officers, consequently. We all laughed.

But he was right! Everywhere I go with the book since then, people are intrigued by the idea of the law being an ass. A lot of that fascination comes from misconceptions about the connotation of the word “ass” in the book’s context, though, but the title draws queries even from those who understand still wonder.

So, when people ask me, I explain that the expression refers to the rigid application of the letters of the law, devoid of emotions and sometimes, common sense!

Ass, in the circumstance, refers to the English colloquial name for a donkey, an animal with a reputation for unwavering obstinacy. The expression is believed to be much older than 1893, when Jonathan Swift used it in his book Oliver Twist; but most reference materials attribute its origin to that classic work.

A character in the novel, Mr Bumble, appears before a court, which suggests to him that: “the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.” Bumble knows his wife to be domineering and way beyond control, and responds: “If the law supposes that the law is an ass, an idiot.” What this implies is that the law does not pander to human emotions; call it stupid, idiotic, or even dogmatic; the law is no respecter of persons, and whoever runs afoul of it pays the prices that it states.

Nigerians’ inability to grasp this reality is one fallout that I see from the recent conviction of former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.

Since the story broke about one year ago until its determination last week, discussions in Nigeria have, in the main, been around the reputation of Mr Ekweremadu, the health status of the daughter, and whether any parents would have acted differently.

Without a doubt, the circumstances of the Ekweremadus’ conviction break the heart. I mean, every human being would do whatever they could to give a worthy life to their child. This is what the family tried to secure for their daughter, Sonia; unfortunately, they got their fingers burnt. Therefore, it is expected that human beings would empathise with the circumstances.

However, a society should have ethical thresholds that individuals should not cross. And whenever anyone crosses such borders, they should face the consequences prescribed by law, irrespective of status, position, or wealth. The only way a society can remain sane is by respecting and protecting the dignity of every human being, regardless of status, origin, or creed. It is incidentally, one thing that Nigeria lacks.

It is something that this country must learn from last week’s judgment, regardless of the pain and hurt that we feel on behalf of the original victim, David Nwamini, and the prominent politician’s family. Pathetic as it is, this story and the lessons are essential to Nigeria’s politico-legal situation.

Consider the speed with which the London Central Criminal Court dealt with the matte, for instance. The former deputy senate president and his wife were arrested in London on June 23, 2022. Less than 11 months later, the matter was determined! The ranking senator has been convicted and sentenced to a jail term.

One of the most noticeable things about the London case is that all the law enforcement and judicial officers involved maintained fidelity to upholding the law. This is clear from their understanding of the fact that truth is fundamental to the global concept of justice, and that justice for one is justice for all.

The London Metropolitan Police, which arrested the senator and his wife in June 2022, only took this step after receiving watertight evidence of the commission of the offence. Information released shortly after their arrest indicated that the police had been on the trail of the accused for over a month. They were charged to court immediately, and details of the trial have been made public thenceforth.

The usual order in Nigeria is the arrest of people, their presentation in court on some “holden” charge, and then, an endless investigation of the matter involving them. This twisted order of things is one reason for the non-diligent prosecution and sometimes, the loss of many cases involving high-profile people.

Not just that. Although the UK case involved celebrated and high-profile defendants and cross-jurisdictional issues, Ike and Beatrice Ekweremadu were represented by simple specialist lawyers. Were it the prosecution in Nigeria, there would have been an exhibition of senior advocates in unimaginable numbers. They would intimidate the court, exploit the loopholes in our criminal prosecution system, and give the impression that justice is a commodity traded to the advantage of the highest bidder.

In Nigeria, the trial of the powerful and their cohorts takes several years, such that the essence of the crimes committed, and the lessons society should learn are lost in the legal abracadabra that denies us the relevance of justice.

Here is a living example! Six months before Ike Ekweremadu’s arrest, a wealthy Nigerian Dr. Ramon Adedoyin, was charged to court alongside six others.  Adedoyin is proprietor of Hilton Royal Hotel, Ile-Ife, Osun State.

The prosecution is connected to the death of Timothy Adegoke, a Master of Business Administration student at the Obafemi Awolowo University, who was found dead after lodging in the hotel in November 2021. A lengthy trial has ensued in this case since January 2022.  As the matter unfolds, both parties continue to file multiple applications that prolong the matter. Most of the time, such applications come up because finding the truth and serving the ends of justice are not fundamental to police investigations in Nigeria. So, as cases proceed, loopholes that parties capitalise on emerge. This lack of diligence often provides exit opportunities for the defendants who may escape justice, even if guilty.

In Nigeria, justice respects status and personality. Investigators get persuaded or intimidated by the relevance of tribe or tongue, the depth of purses, the mode of worship, and the commanding position of those who maintain the reins of power at every material time. At all levels of investigation and prosecution, some law enforcement agents play games with justice leading Nigeria to this current situation where justice is crying for justice.

That a lot of those who lead the course of justice are not true to their calling and their country has also confused many citizens about the sanctity of the law. So, we play politics with the issues of ethics, and emotionalise on the altar of justice. We sacrifice the sanity of our society for the expediency of loyalty.

The law is unbiased- it is concerned only with jurisprudential matters of what’s right and wrong. That Ike and Beatrice have a duty to help Sonia to live is critical to their parental instincts and duty but then societies have a gatekeeper who maintains law and order and these gatekeepers, and the instruments of their operations are blind to our sentimental and emotional issues that are natural to human basic assumption. Society is imperilled. When the gatekeepers, judicial officials, police, lawyers etc see wealth, class, status, and tongues as it is in our country.

Here lies the foundation of our troubles.This is the reason Nigeria is where it is today. The high and powerful have appropriated the right of the average person to justice. How do they do that? By deploying the same resources, they pilfer from the people, they subjugate the same people. Since the erosion of access to justice, the people have taken the law into their own hands. This is the root of the social unrest that is clear in insurgencies, civil disobedience, crimes, deviance, and the desperate desire for money that has consumed our nation.

Even as Nigerians look forward to some soft landing for the Ekweremadus in their current predicament, we should not lose sight of the very important lesson that the law should be blind to status, creed, and tribe. Societies with aspirations for a better tomorrow and national sanity must wake up to these challenges in the interest of national order. It is the only way to a healthy society.

It started like a grudge match. Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, was dealt a bad hand in a failed transaction. Later, he vowed revenge. Not in a pound of flesh, but by venturing to make his own success where he had been ambushed. 

At issue was the decision of the government of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2007 to reverse the sale of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries (two of Nigeria’s moribund refineries) to Blue Star, the Dangote-led consortium. 

Blue Star had paid about $670million for the plants in the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, and gone away thinking it was a done deal. It wasn’t. 

Even though the refineries were producing at about 20 percent of their capacity at the time of sale, the Yar’Adua government, egged on by labour, insisted the “national patrimony” were under-valued and underpriced. The sale was reversed.

Dangote walked away bruised, but unbowed. Six years later he announced plans to build a private refinery in Lagos with a capacity of 650,000 bpd – over 200,000 bpd more than the installed capacity of Nigeria’s four refineries combined. 

It sounded like a crazy idea. So crazy, Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said on Tuesday, that on account of it, the U.S. lender J.P Morgan threatened to expel Nigeria from its Government Bond Index for Emerging Markets.

After unforeseen delays, including cost reviews (from the original $12-$14billion to $19billion) not to mention energy transition concerns, the glut in global supply caused by COVID 19 and spooky markets caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, the refinery is now set for official commissioning on May 22. 

One source told me on Monday that perhaps the most significant recent reason for the delay was the need to sychronise power supply to the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU), which has now been significantly completed by General Electric. 

Apart from an estimated 250,000 direct and indirect jobs that the refinery would create, the refinery is also expected to spin off other business opportunities, a story that Dangote loves to share in a country with 33 percent unemployment. 

S&P Global reported two months ago that early commencement of the Dangote Refinery would not only benefit Nigeria, but could also benefit Africa currently suffering a shortage of diesel as a result of the closure of three of five refineries in South Africa. 

The continent imports about 700,000 bpd of diesel. Diesel is one of the four quality Euro-V products expected from Dangote Refinery. Others are gasoline, jet fuel and polypropylene.

But how does Africa’s richest man propose to deal with the growing resonance of the global green army?

He was once outspoken on global warming and its predations. At a fundraiser hosted by the Lagos State government for victims of a major flood disaster in 2011, Dangote said, “All over the world, nature is reacting. We are having extreme weather conditions…as managers of the city, our responsibility is to share knowledge with our people to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

That was before he started building his refinery. For Nigeria and much of Africa, where energy resources, renewable and otherwise, remain considerably underutilised, the choice seems to swing between managing emissions, already among the lowest in the world, and expanding industrial processes required to meet rising energy demand.  

Dangote Group said it was not in denial of the dilemma it faces from green campaigners. The Group Executive Director, Strategy, Capital Projects and Portfolio Development, Devakumar G. Edwin, said five years ago that the group was dedicated to producing “efficient and clean fuels by investing in processes that meet European standards of gasoline.”  

Edwin tracked back to why the refinery was started. “Primarily,” he said, “Nigeria exports raw materials and imports finished products. When you import the finished product back, you are essentially importing poverty into the country. 

“We have always focused on import substitution. It’s what we are doing in sugar and what we’ve done in cement. So, we decided to adopt the same strategy for petroleum refining.”

Apart from the economic implications, an NGO, Stakeholder Democracy Network, reported on its website that the quality of the stock of imported fuel could also potentially undermine air toxicity, and cause other environmental problems.

Yet, the Energy Transition Plan (ETP), a green playbook by the government to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, is an indication that Nigeria recognises the urgency of sustainable carbon footprint.

The ETP comes on the heels of the Petroleum Industry Act, finally ratified in 2021. The law is supposed to introduce stability, transparency and accountability to an industry that has long resisted reform. 

The ETP anticipates a scenario in which increased investment in the sector would lead to an uptake in the use of gas as a “transition fuel” and also help accelerate the move toward decarbonisation. 

The divergence of opinions surrounding what methods to implement and what outcomes to project has in some way come to define the conversation on sustainability, with a number of developing countries even canvassing such ideas as “energy justice!” 

Large industrial projects like Dangote Refinery, which covers 2,635 hectares, are infamous for environmental challenges they present to the local ecosystem, often causing long-term damage and increased risk of displacement. Already, local populations have called attention to the disruptive effects of the refinery to the environment and their livelihood.

The continent faces what could well be Hobson’s choice: how to overcome widespread energy poverty while at the same time not ignoring global concerns about the deleterious effects of converting its rich deposits of hydrocarbon resources. Nigeria, like many commodity-rich countries on the continent, is at a crossroads. Is there a bridge?

Maybe. And Africa’s richest man is poised not only to fill a vital supply gap but also to do so as a business, keenly aware of all the bad habits that ruined the state refineries. Reuters quoted him as saying he was focused on starting production at the end of the third quarter of 2022 and to reach full capacity by early 2023 – a dream now deferred.

Dangote Refinery is not Nigeria’s first experience in private refining. To plug the supply gap, previous governments issued dozens of licences for “modular refineries.” 

As a result of price caps and other regulatory hassles, however, only two of them with a combined capacity of 10,000 bpd are currently producing. Yet their combined output, even with those of rogue refineries that dot the oil-rich Niger Delta region, still fall far short of the estimated daily consumption of 72million litres daily, an estimate still viewed with suspicion in some circles. 

One and a half decades after Dangote’s Blue Star misery, the mood in official circles has changed. In 2021, the government gave state oil firm, NNPC Limited, approval to buy a 20 percent stake valued at $2.76billion in Dangote Refinery, indicating a significant shift in government attitude. 

Dangote told The Economist that the refinery would save Nigeria up to $10 billion in foreign exchange and generate approximately $10 billion in exports. The country’s perennially opaque petrol demand and supply chain could also be re-written. While the location of the Refinery could bring benefits of lower freighting costs, pump prices would still be largely determined by the markets.

Nigeria imports 80-90 percent of all domestically consumed petroleum products. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Nigeria imported $11.3 billion in refined petroleum products in 2021, becoming the 18th largest importer of the products in the world, while refined petroleum was the first most imported product in Nigeria.  

Whatever the world may be saying about fossil fuels, carbon footprint and spooky markets, the hundreds of thousands of unemployed Nigerians cannot wait for the relief that the commencement of the refinery promises, even if it’s indirect.

As Kudirat Oyefeso, a trader in Ajah, Lagos, about eight kilometres from the site of Dangote Refinery said, “It is the person who is alive and has something to do that can worry about climate change.”

Looking back in his quiet moments 16 years after he felt hard done by the Blue Star experience, Africa’s richest man might perhaps sometimes pinch himself as he recalls how what started as a grudge match has ended up feeling like the parable of the rejected stone.

Creation and how it came into existence has, from time immemorial, been enigmatic to nearly all human beings on the face of the earth and will continue to be so for unforeseeable future. Scientists have pre-occupied themselves with the search for the answer. Archeologists have been digging looking for elusive evidence. What figure are we going to give that we can say would be able to boast that they are not trapped in the mystery? Is it two million or four? Or the entire population of Christians which is said to be 2.4billion world-wide or the Muslim population of 1.8billion world-wide? I mention Christians because there are sufficient hints in the Bible, indeed, in Genesis. It is the comprehension of the revelation that is undoubtedly the hindrance. That being so, to say the world can boast of two million who can boast they are not trapped in the mystery of how Creation came into being could amount to being generous. Come to think of it: this is even in the face of the world’s population nibbling at an arguable figure put at 8billion by PEW in 2020. Yet, mankind will not give up.
It is for this reason that I consider for contemplation today a posting to this column in which issues are raised bordering on how Creation came into existence. The post reads as follows:

“The Big Bang theory is the most widely accepted of how the universe came to be among scientists, especially astronomers, and irrefutable evidence supports this (The Microwave Background Noise). A diversion of thought, Science’s claim about the Big Bang, the cosmos, the Earth, and life do not conflict with the Catholic faith. The Roman Catholic Church has accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution for six decades.

“It is debatable, however, whether there is only one universe or we are part of a multiverse for the following reasons:

1). It recognizes that our universe was formed through external force.
2). We have learned enough about the origin of our Universe, and there is no compelling explanation that the answer to know our Universe’s origin can be found in our universe.
3). It offers a satisfactory explanation of the question: Where did God come from?

“I believe that the answer to how our Universe was created can be found outside our Universe, not within it. So, to dimension to spirituality, while most humans believe God created the Universe, humans are essentially saying if it cannot be understood, then a superior being is responsible since we cannot fathom who she/ he/ it is. People are satisfied with that – there is no debate about that at this level. But a curious mind would ask, if our general premise is that there cannot be something out of nothing, that is, everything we know is all part of God’s plan, then where did God come from? The multiverses theory may explain the origin of God if we cannot answer that.

“The flame is the Sun stored in the form of carbon components, and when it burns, carbon and oxygen in the air combine again under immense heat and go back to carbon dioxide. I’m going this route to justify there must be some external influence on the birth of our Universe, so the origin of God will always be unanswerable question because we don’t have access to outside our Universe where the answer may lie. Likewise, if the Big Bang occurs, followed by the Universe’s inflation like a balloon, then the cause must be external, again supporting that the multiuniverse is probable.

“There cannot be fire without a spark, but there can be gold and diamonds out of that without a creator. Once fire starts, there is no need for an external force, though. Our Universe is self-sustaining after the Big Bang. –Peter.”

In the present time, a great many human beings have saturated their heads with all sorts of things. They feel on top of the world that they are unable to hold themselves in check, but display the audacity to ask from where the Most High, our Maker, the Almighty God, comes from? It is elating that bad as things are, the waves of growing irreligiousity engulfing many parts of the world, the enquirer recognises the existence of the Creator, God. I was availed a video recently in which some young girls in Israel said in an interview that they did not know who Jesus Christ was. They had not heard the Name before. Smiling, they asked the interviewer: “Who is He?” In Israel of all places!!

Those who have come to the recognition of Him can only admonish themselves not to waver, but stand firm. We are expected to draw closer to Him by the hour, every day. The more we do so, the more we perceive and recognise His Greatness and perceive in reverential awe and worshipful adoration of His Holy Name. However, we are told in the enlightenment spreading on earth in these times that the true worship of God does not lie in wringing of hands but in swinging in His Will which is manifested in His Laws. With doing His Will by heeding His Laws which span the entire Creation, but more known as Natural Laws on earth, we get increasingly perfect, and the more perfect the more discerning. The Laws make doing good and being pure a condition of compliance. It is by so doing that we will not be entangled with guilt arising from dross that overcasts our spirit. And the unhindered intuition will be free to admonish, to warn and to guide. With this, the greatness of the Almighty Father becomes even more discernible, more visible in our lives that the question of where He comes from will not arise. That He is would be enough to bow the spirit.

Since the question has been asked, I will nevertheless attempt to answer it In The Light of Truth. It need be made plain that there is only one God and one Power. He is Life. When we contemplate Life, we find that Life is Life. It has no beginning and has no end. We are told: Hold Life before your gaze and you find that there was never a time Life was not Life because It is Life Itself. It is autonomous. It is independent. It requires nothing from anywhere to make It live because It is Life. Life is, therefore, eternal. When God willed that Creation should come into existence, He uttered the proverbial Holy Word: “Let there be Light.” Dake’s Annotated Bible reports: “And God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’” (Genesis 1: 3). In Genesis 1:2, there is the revelation that states: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The Spirit of God in reference here is the Holy Spirit.

It should also be noted that in Genesis 1: 11 we read “And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its own kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth…” I will come back to this presently.

When God Almighty sent out the great Word, Let there be Light, it was a Part of Himself that was severed to anchor at the boundary of the Divine Realm. The Word automatically formed Itself into four equal-armed Cross. From the centre, bearing the severed Part, Holy Spirit, Rays shot out into the void at great velocity from the pressure of the resultant Power in the Word that is the Light. Thus in the Power is Light and Holy Spirit. Thus the Word is Light and the Light is the Cross and the Cross is Power. It is said in higher knowledge: “The existence of God, of Power, of Light, i.e. of Life, alone inevitably brings into being the Creations.” The four equal-armed Cross was seen by gifted people radiating behind the Lord Christ and the Dove above His Head, both testifying to His identity. The Cross was the Living Cross of Truth and the Dove the living symbol of the Holy Spirit. The Cross of Truth is different from the crucifix.

Although the Radiations of God themselves are not the Light, they nevertheless contain all that is necessary for Creations. The Radiations streamed down to immeasurable distances. With cooling along the way, entities began to emerge—the birth of Primordial Beings, of Created Beings, Developed Spiritual Beings and then the Residues that longed for self-conscious existence and so on. With the cooling, vast planes also emerged consistent with the degree of cooling.

This was the beginning of Creation. God the Creator is not in His Creation which is His Work. No artist is in his work nor does he merge with it. It can only bear his stamp of his expertise. This first Creation is called the Primordial Creation, and the inhabitants there are Primordial beings who are the ones referred to as having been created in the image of God. The image refers to their attributes of perfection, and unimaginable sizes and inconceivable beauty, the enrapturing splendour, for example. They are the spiritual ideals. They are the prototypes after whom all spiritual are to develop and realms and planes are seen as copies. So, we are told, as above so below. So was it that in the evolution of the Subsequent Creation which lasted millions of years, the appearance of and the sequence of the features on earth as described in the Bible are as they occurred in the Primordial Realm: grasses, plants, aquatic animals, birds, animals and then men. All said, it should be stated that man is limited in capacity to grasp the Nature of the Most High God.

There are seven Universes, not one. They are listed in the Book of Revelation of John but referred to as Churches. They are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea (Rev. 1:11). Human beings on this planet earth are in Ephesus. Dr. Richard Steinpach contributing to the Magazine for the dissemination of the New Knowledge for True Upbuilding reported that about two decades looking back today, “radio telescopes began to probe the skies (which up till then had only been observed with optical instruments) and were able to pick waves even beyond those of visible light. Through these observations, revolutionary discoveries were made: that in the remote expanses of the universe into which our eyes cannot penetrate, there exist stars whose conditions and behaviour are without precedent. Dr. Stephen Lampe, states in his book, “The Primordial Laws of Creation” that our earth is a planet around the sun, and the sun is only one of the billions of stars in our galaxy known as Milky Way, The Milky Way itself is one of billions of galaxies in just this Universe, Ephesus. And each universe is driven by incomprehensible motion.

With such unimaginable size of each universe, it can be seen that this planet earth with all the inhabitants is no more than a speck of dust. It is undoubtedly an act of incomprehensible Love that given how conceited human beings have run it down, the Creator still cares so much for us His creatures.

(FULL TREATMENT TO ENCOMPASS OTHER ASPECTS OF THE ENQUIRY NEXT WEEK).

LAST week, Nyesom Wike, the outgoing governor of Rivers State, gave Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s putative next president, extravagant welcome to Port Harcourt, the state capital. Tinubu was in Port Harcourt to open a Magistrate’s Court complex that Wike named after his wife. Wike declared a public holiday and closed down shops so that Rivers people could turn out to welcome Tinubu. He later hosted Tinubu to a grand reception, a lavish banquet! Surely, those acts were an extraordinary abuse of power.

How would you explain a sitting governor naming a monument, built with state resources, after his wife? How would you explain a state governor declaring a public holiday, closing businesses, thereby crippling commercial activities, so that someone could “open” the monument? And would any responsible would-be president be part of such abuse of office and waste of state resources?

Well, Tinubu and Wike are two of the same kind. They are cut from the same political cloth and have identical governance styles. Politically, they believe in power by hook or by crook. Their maxim is: “Political power is not served a la carte; at all costs, fight for it, grab it and run with it.” That’s what Tinubu said before this year’s presidential election, and it’s what Wike practised with his political brigandage in Rivers State.Lagos, which Tinubu once governed and still controls as the feudal lord, and Rivers, where Wike holds sway, are the hotbeds of electoral violence and political thuggery in Nigeria, seemingly state sanctioned.

Their governance styles? Well, they have a reputation for capturing the state and turning it into a personal fiefdom. The sources of their stupendous wealth are unknown. Recently, Dino Melaye, a former senator, said Wike lent him his private jet when he ran for Kogi State governorship in 2019. Wike has always been in public life, from local government chairman to minister and governor. So, how did he acquire a private jet? As for Tinubu, stories of his unexplained and inexplicable assets, at home and overseas, still rumble on. The subliminal message in the Tinubu-Wike alliance is that likes attract likes. So, no surprises! However, the wider implications must worry true democrats and genuine advocates of integrity politics and good governance. For the Tinubu-Wike alliance has had egregious impacts on democratic development and may pose real danger to governance.

Recently, Magnus Abe, a Tinubu ally and governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, in Rivers State, withdrew his election petition. Why? Well, hear him. “If we continue our battle in the court”, he said. “We will end up in direct confrontation with the president-elect” who has “taken a clear position” on the issue. Surely, Tinubu would also distance himself from the petition of his party’s candidate, Tonye Cole. So, because of his alliance with Wike, Tinubu is muzzling attempts to strengthen democratic development by ventilating grievances and evidence of alleged poll-rigging in court. It’s a bad for democracy!

Well, there’s also the danger to governance. Speculations are rife that Tinubu may give Wike a senior ministerial position in his government. All genuine advocates of integrity politics and good governance in Nigeria must be worried about a government based on an alliance between Tinubu and Wike, whose politics and governance styles are defined by naked self-interest, abuse of power and utter lack of transparency and accountability.

But why is Tinubu cosying up to Wike? I offer two reasons. First, Tinubu wants to push the narrative that Wike and his group of five renegade PDP governors, called G-5, helped him to “win” the presidential election, thereby arguing that his “victory” was inevitable. Second, by bringing Wike and maybe some other G-5 members into his government, Tinubu would like to give the impression that he’s forming a government of national unity, comprising opposition politicians. Both propositions are fallacious and untenable.

Take the view that Wike and the G-5 helped Tinubu “win” the presidential election. In Port Harcourt, Tinubu thanked Wike “for your contribution to my victory,” saying: “I couldn’t have done it without your structural support,” including “the pivotal role the great and wonderful people of this state played.” But that’s utterly deceptive! First, as widely reported, two reputable outfits, Yiaga Africa, an election-monitoring organisation, and Premium Times, an online medium notable for its investigative journalism, have shown, based on results from collation centres and the INEC portal, that Peter Obi, not Tinubu, won in Rivers State. Surely, if Tinubu didn’t win in Rivers State, then the narrative that he “won” the presidential election because of Wike and Rivers State falls flat. Rivers State becomes a metaphor for Tinubu’s questionable victory.

As for the rest of the G-5, all the three governors who ran for the Senate lost their bids. Only Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State won his re-election bid. If most of the G-5 governors couldn’t win a senatorial election, how could they help Tinubu win the presidency? In any case, how could the G-5 be proud that they made Tinubu president when he secured only 8.8m votes, minus the disputable votes in Rivers, Lagos and elsewhere, and was rejected by 16.4m voters? Well, they may say “a win is a win”, ignoring the critical issue of legitimacy.

Which brings us to unity government. Tinubu cannot claim to forma unity government by appointing Wike and any other G-5 member as ministers. They are renegade members of PDP, who betrayed their party. Besides, the G-5 doesn’t represent the 16.4m voters who rejected Tinubu. They’re the ones he should reach out to, through the parties they supported, if he wants to form a unity government, assuming he overcomes current legal challenges to his election.

Shockingly, Tinubu described Wike as “a man of principle” for “saying the presidency must come to the South”. Total claptrap. Can Wike swear that if Atiku Abubakar had made him his running-mate he won’t have run with him? And if, based on fairness and justice, he wanted power to come to the South, why the South-West? And why, to him, was another Northern president bad, but a Muslim-Muslim presidency good? Let’s be clear.Tinubu’s alliance with Wike and the G-5 is self-serving, misguided and unsavoury. It’s not in the national interest!

By SUNDAY EJIKE and LANRE ADEWOLE 

The Nigerian Judiciary on Monday commenced the substantive process of determining the next lawful president of the federal republic, as full proceedings began in the multiple petitions challenging the election of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The Court of Appeal, serving as the court of first instance and which christened itself as the Presidential Election Petition Court, has put a five-person panel together, to determine the multiple challenges to the outcome of the February 25, presidential election.

A glaring absence on the trial panel, is the President of the penultimate court, Justice Monica Bolna’an Dongban-Mensem, widely expected to lead the trial and provide required leadership.

There was no word about the self-exclusion, since putting the panel together, was her call.

Apart from missing in action at the inaugural sitting, there was no mention of her issuing any directives to the panel on how to conduct the proceedings, suggesting that she is totally out of the national assignment.

No official reason was volunteered for her absence as there are no known contention about her participation by any parties in the multiple petitions, before the court.

In her place as the head of the panel, was Justice Haruna Tsammani, who doesn’t appear like a placeholder, considering he didn’t mention anything about being a stand-in for the PCA.

Dongban-Mensem is likely trying to avoid the embarrassing meltdown suffered by her immediate predecessor-in-office, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, during a similar assignment in 2019 when former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), challenged the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari.

At the inaugural sitting of the five-person panel, protest broke out in the open court over calls to the PCA, to recuse herself for alleged stain of partisanship.

PDP, which fielded Abubakar against Buhari of the ruling party, insisted that the APC membership of the jurist’s husband, Adamu Bulkachuwa, made it inappropriate for her, to sit on the presidential trial panel, let alone head it.

Her husband also went on to win Bauchi North senate seat.

Bulkachuwa ignored the protest letter earlier written by the opposition party, asking her not to empanel herself for the adjudication of the February 23, 2019 poll, and surprised everyone with her appearance at the head of the panel, at the inaugural sitting.

The petitioners would have none of it and at the insistence of the lead counsel of the PDP, Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, Bulkachuwa, had to embarrassingly meet the protesters in chambers, where it was agreed that the case against her participation, should be argued in the open court.

Addressing the court after the forced break, she said, “ the counsel for the two petitioners raise an issue in chambers directing me to excuse myself from hearing their petition. This matter has initially been brought to my attention in a letter from the office of the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, dated May 8.

“Their request is now in public domain, but the counsel for the petitioners must approach the court with a formal application” she requested.

Days after the open grandstanding, she withdrew herself from the presidential election trial, saying, “I am recusing myself from the panel for personal reasons”, adding that a new presiding judge, would be appointed.

Obviously to save her face, the panel, without her, went ahead to rule PDP out of order, claiming that the jurist’s relationship with her senator-husband and son, Aliyu Abubakar who was a governorship aspirant on the platform of APC, was not enough to infer, she would be biased.

Unlike Bulkachuwa, no relative of the incumbent has been ratted out of being closely-connected to any of the contending political parties before the court.m

Interestingly though, almost all the dramatis personae in the 2019 protest, are currently before the court, in one capacity or the other, or simply on the opposing side to the side they took four years back, especially the senior lawyers.

Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, PDP’s lead counsel in 2019, who spearheaded the open court putsch against Bulkachuwa, is now the lead counsel to the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

Wole Olanipekun, SAN, who led the legal team of Buhari in 2019, is still the leader of the team, defending the election of Tinubu.

Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who held the brief of the ruling APC then, is still in the same role, before the court, four years after.

However, INEC has now traded Yunus Ustaz, SAN of four years back, for Abubakar Mahmood (SAN) this time around.

With Uzoukwu now on the side of the one who was Atiku’s running mate in 2019, the former Vice President, has now settled for Chris Uche, SAN, among other heavyweight Silk.

Warning and pledge

Since Justice Tsammani took over the leadership mantle of the panel, he has been trying to show he is in charge. The judge who famously shocked now-late Oyo governor, Abiola Ajimobi leading the Court of Appeal panel that dismissed his petition against the senatorial win of Kola Balogun, at the inaugural sitting, moved to take control, by issuing warnings to parties, in his opening remarks.

Tsammani, noted that the Court is known as Presidential Election Petition Court and not Tribunal and warned against sensational statements from parties in the matter for the safety of the country.

“We should avoid unnecessary time-wasting applications as election matters are time-bound”, he said and promised that justice would be done at the end of the day.

The senior counsel in the matter, quickly queued behind the Court, with pledges.

Olanipekun, representing Tinubu, pledged the unflinching support of the Bar, in whatever the Court intends to do in ensuring that the petitions are heard expeditiously.

Counsel to the Atiku Abubakar and his party, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), joined Olanipekun in assuring the court of the support of his team in delivering justice in the matter.

According to Uche, “We shall do everything possible to see that this matter is amicably resolved so that the country can move forward”.

Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), for Obi and Labour, also pledged the support of his team to enable the court resolve the petitions seamlessly.

Counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmood (SAN) also aligned with the commitment made on behalf of the Bar, saying, “We recognize the importance of the matter to the country. We shall do everything possible to assist the court in arriving at justice”.

Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) representing APC. also promised that the legal team of the party in the matter would provide all the necessary assistance to the court for quick hearing and determination of the petitions challenging the victory of Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling party.

One for Tinubu

At the inaugural sitting of the Court, the Action Alliance (AA) and its presidential candidate, Solomon David Okanigbuan, through their counsel, Mr. Oba Maduabuchi (SAN) moved a motion seeking the withdrawal of their petition numbered, CA/PEPC)01/2023, challenging the declaration of Tinubu as the president elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on March 1, 2023.

After moving the motion and there was no objection from the respondents, the five-person panel, granted the request for the withdrawal of the petition and consequently dismissed it.

Apart from Tsammani, other judges on the panel include, Justices Stephen Adah, who is the presiding Justice of the Asaba Division of the Court of Appeal, Misitura Bolaji- Yusuf, Boloukuoromo Moses Ugo and Abba Mohammed.

There was also a mild drama earlier when the AA’s petition, the first of the petitions against Tinubu’s election, was called; Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau state stood up and announced himself as the representative of the President-elect, but was not granted recognition as such, by the panel.

“You cannot represent an individual. Tinubu is not a corporation that would need a representative,” the presiding justice held.

Lalong, had to amend his representation, saying, “My Lords, in that case, I will represent the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

The Court also demonstrated its commitment to quickly run through the national assignment by giving short adjournments to parties, to put all the requisite processes together.

It adjourned further pre-hearing session on the petition of the Labour Party and its candidate, Obi, to nullify Tinubu’s victory, till today.

The court equally fixed the same date for another petition by the Action Peoples Party (APP) while it heard the case of the Peoples Democratic Party and its  Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, yesterday, following a short adjournment on Monday, till Tuesday.

While adjourning the cases, the court urged parties to identify all the witness statements and documents they would rely on or object to, during the actual hearing of the petitions.

With the dismissal of the petition by the Action Alliance and its presidential candidate, the petitions against Tinubu’s election before the court, are now that of, Atiku Abubakar and his Party, Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP), Action Peoples Party (APP) and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), where-in, they seek the nullification of Tinubu’s election on the grounds of substantial non-compliance with the provisions of the Constitution, the Electoral Act and INEC’s guidelines for the conduct of the election.

Atiku, Obi’s cases

Atiku Abubakar, who hinged his petition on five grounds, is seeking the conduct of a fresh election due to alleged irregularities at polling units on February 25.

He and his party claimed that Tinubu was declared the winner when all results and accreditation data from polling units had not been transmitted and uploaded by INEC.

Obi is also alleging various irregularities, insisting that Tinubu and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, were not qualified to contest.

The LP Presidential candidate insists that, the President-elect did not win the majority of lawful votes and failed to garner one-quarter of votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The two other political parties, Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and Action Peoples Party (APP) had, in their separate petitions, challenged Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the presidential election by INEC

APM, in its petition numbered, CA/PEPC/04/2023, joined INEC, APC, Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and Kabir Masari as respondents.

In the petition of the APP  Tinubu, APC and INEC are the 1st to 3rd respondents respectively.

APM and APP are challenging the outcome of the presidential election on the grounds of alleged substantial non-compliance with the electoral laws as well as INEC guidelines for the conduct of the election.

The APM is contending that Tinubu was not qualified to contest the election on the grounds of alleged double nomination of his vice-presidential candidate.

It is also questioning Tinubu’s candidacy on the grounds of the substitution of the initial “placeholder”, Kabir Masari, with  Shettima.

On its part, APP claimed that Tinubu was, at the time of the election, not qualified to contest the poll by virtue of the provisions of Sections 131(c) and 142 of the Constitution and Section 35 of the Electoral Act 2022.

The APC had already filed its objection to the five petitions, urging the court to discountenance them all

In the opening pages of his book, Who Will Love My Country: Ideas for Building the Nigeria of Our Dreams, Senator Ike Ekweremadu unapologetically declared his love for Nigeria  saying, “I love Nigeria and will forever love it.” The book contents, the regular sweet nothings Nigerian leaders preachify but which they cannot stretch themselves to live by, now take a new meaning in the light of his fall from the grace of deputy Senate presidency to a convicted prisoner. When you consider the past 11 months when he and his wife, Beatrice, were tried in a London court for organ trafficking, you will understand why the man loved Nigeria as fiercely as a scoundrel raised by indulgent parents.

Hardly had the arrest of Ekweremadus been announced when sympathies poured in for them. From Senators Dino Melaye and Smart Adeyemi to the Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, they were never short of commiseration. Ebonyi State Government announced it stood with his family and asked the UK Government to be considerate of their children’s plight. Speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila too requested the Nigerian High Commission in the UK to give him needed support (and those ones hired a lawyer for him shortly after). Colleagues in the Senate visited the Ekweremadus, and some even attended the court sessions to show support. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo the letterman wrote to the Chief Clerk of the Central Criminal Court of England to beg for mercy in their sentencing. Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament, Rt. Hon. Dr. Sidie Mohamed Tunis, and Head of Diplomatic Mission to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr Duru Hezekiah, also appealed to the UK Government for leniency. Both chambers of the National Assembly also begged for mercy. Even the Chair of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, who once advised Nigerians to shun crimes while abroad set aside her conviction and joined in the plea for leniency. Her disdain for Nigerians caught in the vortex of crime abroad does not seem to extend to the political elite.

In all the demonstration of anxieties by several highly placed Nigerians not used to seeing their fellow “big man” in jail was a glaring omission: some fellow feeling or even as much as a thought spared for the other Nigerian—the poor young man whose kidney would have been harvested— involved in the matter. There were times during the months of trial I wondered how that young man felt when he saw the overwhelming support from official quarters for the person who was going to rob him of his life. He must have felt lonely, invisible, unsupported, and inconsequential.

With all the high-powered support he received, it is understandable why Ekweremadu would love Nigeria with all his heart. Who would not love a country where the powers that be commit themselves to work in your favour? Why would he not love a country that sides with him against his victimised countryman? The demonstration of support that the Nigerian political class offered Ekweremadu against that young man proved how much our society lacks an appreciation of justice. If that young man had walked into a Nigerian police station to report that a big man wanted to harvest his organs, nothing would have happened. Apart from our lax laws on organ harvesting, our justice system abhors the idea of punishing a big man for an infraction committed against a lowly nobody. In a country where people buy human body parts for N50,000 or even less, Ekweremadu would even have been commended for offering N3.7m. He would even have been garlanded to assuage the shame of the allegation. He would be given the title of “Fiwajoye” or something similarly ridiculous.

Given what we know about the crime of the Ekweremadus, I am baffled some Nigerians think it was their parental instinct that went on overdrive. Even if you do not find their attempt to jump the long queue for organ donation immoral, how about the paltry sum they offered their victim? The boy is around the same age as their daughter. If the transaction had sailed through, it would have been tantamount to shaving off a part of the young man’s life to extend their daughter’s own. What would have at least been moral in such a shady transaction would be to make a willing donor an offer that can at least guarantee them a quality life. Imagine the victim had been returned to Nigeria and fallen sick sometime later, how would he have coped? Even with all the mad love Ekweremadu proclaimed for Nigeria, he did not entrust his child’s life to the dilapidated hospital system in the country.

One clown who labelled himself a “deep thinker” even blamed the Ekweremadus’ travails on the average Nigerian southerners’ tendency to pull down their own. He said if the person involved were a northern Muslim, he would have sought refuge from a mosque rather than inform the law enforcement agents. Such a mindset, reeking of the southern Nigerian condescension that serially stereotypes the average northerner as meek and lacking agency, is irritating and problematic on all levels. Why should the person whose life was undervalued hesitate to affirm their self-worth so that one big man somewhere would not be accountable to the law? The road that leads home might be far, but even the lowly-born slave has a father.

In a country like Nigeria where people with kidney disease and who can afford the expense have to go to India for medical care, what would have become of that poor guy if they had taken his kidney for a measly sum? The fact that the Ekweremadus priced the young man’s life less than the cost of a business class flight ticket from Nigeria to London shows they are depraved and wicked. Actually, what they proposed to do is what Nigerian leaders have done since forever. They take and take and take from the people, and that is all they know how to do. They have been robbing our society of the vital organs that it needs to function, and it is nothing to them to try to take a bodily organ just to shore up their own lives.

With the way the case panned out, I want to believe that the young man redeemed from the snare of the fowler will be forever grateful to the British legal system. To those who habitually steal from us, the young man’s body did not belong to him. He was a mere bag of flesh, available for their use and abuse. But for the integrity of the British medical system, the young man’s body would have been taken apart and used as spare parts. I can bet that he too will now love Britain as much as—and perhaps even more than—Ekweremadu loved Nigeria. His love for that country and its justice system will be far more sincere because, while Ekweremadu loved Nigeria for letting him believe he could take what did not belong to him, the British system ennobled this would-have-been victim. The young man might have been poor and lowly born, but they saw a human deserving dignity.

Funnily enough, at the public presentation of Ekweremadu’s book launch in 2016, part of his speech noted that “the greatest honour and tribute we can pay to Nigeria is to love it. To love Nigeria requires us to fundamentally revise and reexamine our attitudes, our values, and how we treat one another.” Events around his conviction show why he could not but love a country that lets him do whatever he likes. The trouble with being a brat is that if your parents fail to straighten you out within the threshold of the homestead, outsiders will discipline you on their behalf.

Most of us have attended functions in our beloved country where, after a long wait (some lasting several hours), the guest of honour finally arrives with a retinue of security men and political hangers-on. The Master of Ceremony (MC) then takes over. “Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, please permit me to welcome His Excellency,” the MC begins before reeling out titles of the arriving guest. We are then told that ‘His Excellency’ is just a filler because the person we were expecting “is unavoidably absent due to urgent state matters”. No problem. The introduction continues with His Excellency “being ably represented by His Excellency (the MC again reels out titles for another stand-in) who is also unable to join us today because of the exigencies of state but is ably represented by His Excellency…”  

This peculiar kind of protocol speaks to a lack of accountability that defines officialdom in our country. There is hardly any Nigerian who doesn’t feel devalued by the nauseating practice. With the exception perhaps of those at the receiving end of the buffoonery. The issue here is, if we cannot change such a simple but notorious image that requires just basic decency, how does anyone expect public officials to fix the more complex socio-economic problems? How can we accept that public functions are about wasting time and disrespecting people? Is it not obvious that those who hold the people they are supposed to serve in such contempt would feel entitled to abuse public resources?  

A document by the United States-led Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—comprising 37 member countries which account for three-fifths of world GDP and three-quarters of world trade—on the required standard of ethics in government prescribes that public officials must serve “in a timely manner with care, respect and courtesy.” Those virtues are lost on most of those who hold the levers of power in Nigeria. Unfortunately, this is not restricted to the public sector, it is across the board. Today, the hallmark of being a ‘Big Man’ in Nigeria is to be able to live above the law, disrespect the people and be waited upon, including at public functions. 

There is a short piece going round on WhatsApp that has no name of the author titled, ‘The things I missed at King Charles’ Coronation today’ which I find very instructive. It is about what transpired (or did not) last Saturday in London. It is a must read for authorities in Abuja and the 28 states as they plan their programmes for the 29 May inauguration. I hope they understand that what we showcase to the world at public ceremonies is sheer indiscipline and a lack of manners. And we cannot continue like this if we want to be considered as a civilized society. I have had opportunities to sit with diplomats and foreign dignitaries at events in our country and I see the way they laugh at us. But before I get ahead of myself, let me go back to the WhatsApp post. I will highlight each of the points made by the writer and put my own comments under it.

Nobody ‘stole’ my precious time, as everything went according to schedule; even the King and the Queen arrived the venue at the appropriate time. I never heard any announcement of “ladies and gentlemen, while we wait for the special guest of honour, may I beg your indulgence to…”
Public officials in Nigeria are notorious for coming late to events because ‘Bigmanism’ (and ‘Bigwomanism’) in our country is defined by how irresponsible someone in a position of authority can be. They will send their protocol people ahead to events to be alerted to ‘start coming’ once everybody is seated. Leading by example does not apply to them. From politicians to businessmen and traditional rulers, especially the new ones being installed these days, what they exhibit is utter contempt for the people. Midway to an event, they will arrive with their unruly mob ostensibly to ‘steal the show’ and in the process disrupt proceedings. They do it at both official and non-official ceremonies, including weddings and burials and we even applaud them.  

There was no siren and escorts of dignitaries driving recklessly into the venue and trying to outdo one another.  
The competition among aides of these officials is a security risk on their own. There have been scuffles and fights over turf by these aides and security details in their attempt to boost the bloated egos of their principals. I have witnessed a few that portray us as no better than barbarians. Meanwhile, official convoys in Nigeria are needlessly long and wasteful because it is seen as a projection of power. Yet what is being advertised is that the entire essence of seeking public office in Nigeria is to be able to live large at the expense of the people. Not to serve the public good.

There were no area boys or praise singers ushering people into the venue; and no intimidating ‘bouncers’ at the entrance of the hall requesting to check one’s Invite.
I understand that many uninvited guests like to turn up at events in Nigeria so having bouncers around can help with crowd control so long as they are polite. There are also cultural aspects to the issue of praise singers. I will not advocate a ban. A confession here: Like most people, I enjoy the beats that come from some of these local drummers and whether some people believe it or not, I can throw a few dance steps. But a safe distance can be created for them so that they do not become a nuisance. 

I didn’t see police escorts wielding AK-47 and asking people to give way. No chief of protocol or ADC leading the PM and showing the way as if the man was a toddler. There was no need to read out the names and appointments of all the ‘big men and women’ present as part of Protocol before making any speech. In fact, there was no ‘existing protocol’ for anybody to stand on today. 

This was the response from a senior official at the Villa to which I forwarded the message: ‘We are truly a special breed. That’s why security people outnumber guests and aides take up valuable seats and space at events. Our president entered Westminster Abbey alone and heavens did not fall’. The message here is that the gra-gra is not necessary. But this will be addressed another day when I share experiences from another life. Meanwhile, the idea that every speaker must begin with ‘His Excellency…’ and then going on to recognize (with bogus titles) all those who had already been recognized is crazy. Interestingly, in Nigeria, the MC does not work alone. They also have ‘aides’, mostly from the organisers or simply those who want to be noticed. Or even aides of our big men and women. Intermittently, they will walk to the podium to whisper to the MC, sometimes with a note. The important information being passed is the name or perhaps title of an important dignitary or their spouse who has been omitted or not correctly pronounced. The ‘apologies’ to His or Her Excellency can take another three minutes. Meanwhile, after every speech, the MC must rehash for the audience what ‘His Excellency’ had just said. In the process, they inject their own view, almost in the manner of ‘Icheokwu’ (that inimitable television drama for Nigerians of a certain generation) even when the speech was rendered in English! And talking about speech, elected public officials in Nigeria are too important to carry their own speech. Somebody must carry it for them to place the file on the podium! 
I never saw members of the media running around with their cameras, blocking the views of invited guests, and almost pushing their microphones or handsets into the mouths of the officiating ministers.  

Okay, this one is too close to home. I agree as a reporter that my colleagues can do better. But I am also aware that many of the ‘journalists’ we see at public events are touts. In any case, with social media, everybody is a journalist these days. Even this can be controlled by whoever manages the media for an event if they work with security.  

 I looked round to catch a glimpse of those hawking ‘pure water’, colanut, chewing gum, white handkerchiefs, and new currency notes inside the hall, but there was none.  

The less said about this indiscipline the better. The people here are at the margins of society trying to eke out a living and probably hoping for any crumbs that would fall from these ceremonies. There is also an economic dimension to this that we should not ignore. Knowing the way officialdom works in Nigeria, it is easy to enforce suggestions that these people be done away with, and the directive will be enforced with brutality. I have also witnessed a couple of such unpleasant situations. 

The prophets in the UK probably didn’t hear nothing from God; So, there was no single prophecy of ‘what will happen if Charles was crowned as king’.  

The commercialization of prophecy is another Nigerian invention by which merchandise is made of the name of God. We see them every election season. They will make rational (sometimes irrational) deductions of who they think would win an election, and then proclaim that God told them. Mostly based on their personal bias, their god will tell them who would die before or after election or those who would win and not be sworn in. I guess that is another lucrative ‘industry’ we can leave for today since it also provides its own entertainment. 

Overall, the issue here, as my late principal, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua reminded us in his inaugural speech on 29 May 2007, is that we will not develop as a nation until we “stop justifying every shortcoming with that unacceptable phrase, ‘the Nigerian factor’ as if to be a Nigerian is to settle for less.” We as a people must begin to demand more accountability from our leaders: They are there to serve, and not the other way round. And you cannot serve people without respecting them.  

Coming late to events and disrupting proceedings is an irresponsible behaviour that we must curb. Dr. Muiz Banire, SAN, a former Lagos State Commissioner, and erstwhile National Legal Adviser of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), last December wrote about this vexatious issue of lack of appreciation of time and timeliness in Nigeria. “A time waster is a destroyer of nature and human values. While this unfortunate attitude reflects in the personal lives of many, it has become a permanent feature of our public or political life”, Banire wrote, citing several examples to buttress his point, including during the last conferment of national honours when President Muhammadu Buhari arrived two hours late for the ceremony without any apology to the audience by the organisers.  

Now to the future. On 29^th May in Abuja, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be inaugurated to succeed President Buhari at a ceremony for which there will be many local and foreign dignitaries. Hundreds of millions of Naira will be expended on the event. The same thing will happen in the capital cities of 28 states. If the past were any guide, the ceremonies will be chaotic. But as I stated earlier, Nigeria will not develop until we begin to change some of these seemingly little things that present us to the world as unserious people.  

Osinbajo, Wunti, Elumelu, Dangote and the Road Ahead 

At the invitation of its Chief Upstream Operating Officer, Mr Bala Wunti, I was in Lagos yesterday to speak at the Annual Value Assurance Review (AVAR) of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS). My session was on the ‘Fiduciary Responsibilities and Stakeholder Communication in the Post-PIA Era’. With participants drawn from the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Plc senior management, it was also a learning experience for me, as I engaged with industry experts. 

The most insightful presentation came from Alhaji Aliko Dangote who shared his experience on the challenges he faced while trying to build the biggest single-train refinery in the world that will be commissioned on 22 May. I was shocked to hear him say, among other things, that the premises of his refinery complex is seven times the size of Victoria Island in land mass, most of it reclaimed. He also shared insights on the oil and gas industry. Without the NNPC doing well, according to Dangote, it will be difficult for Nigeria to do well. Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Mr Tony Elumelu also spoke at the session.

I am aware of the discussions around removal of the wasteful and inefficient regime of subsidy in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry (and we should). But it is the upstream sector that holds the key to our future. The developed countries are largely responsible for the carbon emissions threatening our world. But they continue to aggressively invest in the exploration of fossil fuels in the wake of the energy crisis caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine. So, it is easy to understand the hypocrisy of their renewable energy campaign. This should trigger in the developing world a conversation akin to what obtained in the seventies about a ‘new international economic order’ for which the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was a catalyst.

It is unfortunate that African leaders are not using the debate about climate change to extract concessions from leaders of developed countries who have put us in this mess yet still have the temerity to impose decisions they themselves are not committed to. For instance, Nigeria has more gas than oil, with about 208 trillion standard cubic feet projected to be worth over $803.4 trillion. Given the growing need for gas across the world, the decision to stop funding fossil fuel investment in countries like ours makes no sense. Meanwhile, huge investments are being made for oil and gas exploitation in these same countries. 

That this inequality has always been the case is reflected in the 1975 book, ‘A Hundred Million Dollars in A Day’, by Michael Field where he narrated an incident that happened at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting in 1973. According to Field, a member of the OPEC delegation had just been gifted a small bottle of whisky by the Middle East correspondent of Financial Times. Looking at the content, he reportedly asked the journalist: “Do you know that this small whisky bottle costs the equivalent of four barrels of crude oil?” The OPEC man went on to argue that the pricing system was unjust, considering that whisky is made from renewable ingredients while oil is a wasting asset. A few weeks later, a combination of events conspired in OPEC’s favour to wrest control of oil prices. 

We need such disruptions today and this is where I must commend Vice President Osinbajo who understands the issues involved and has taken a pragmatic stance on the need for a transition period on the climate change debate. In the last few years, Osinbajo has been consistent that as Nigeria charts a path towards clean energy, we must be supported (and assisted) to harness our vast natural gas resources. For Osinbajo, whose position I wholeheartedly endorse, a global transition away from carbon-based fuels must account for the economic differences between countries and allow for multiple pathways to net-zero emissions.  

Incidentally, I was also in Port Harcourt on Tuesday for the official commissioning of the 240MW, AFAM 3 Fast Power Project by Osinbajo, who spoke about the challenges and prospects of the power sector in Nigeria. He also commended Chairman of Transcorp Power PLC, Elumelu for leading the way. “The tide (inadequacy of investment) is turning with indigenous power entrepreneurs such as Transcorp Power, and Heirs Holding making significant investment such as this hundred percent acquisition of the 966MW installed capacity Afam Power Plc and Afam 3 Fast Power Limited at an acquisition cost of N105.3 billion,” said Osinbajo who reminded the audience that on Monday, the National Council on Privatization “formally delisted Transcorp Power PLC (formerly known as Ughelli Power PLC) from routine Monitoring & Evaluation by the BPE, indicating yet another successful power investment.”  

I also commend Elumelu for the investments he is making in power. But this is a difficult sector. On Tuesday in Port Harcourt, I had opportunity to interact with critical stakeholders, including the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) Plc Managing Director, Dr Nnaemeka Ewelukwa, and I can see that huge challenges lie ahead. The disclosure by Osinbajo that “in 2019 subsidies (in the power sector) reached a peak of N584 billion in an environment that was very burdensome on the Nigerian government’s fiscal position” says it all. And yesterday, I learnt even more from Wunti and the oil and gas people on the state of the upstream sector that holds the nation’s most valuable assets.  

If there is anything that I have taken away from the experience and exposure of recent days, it is that the next administration has its job cut out for it. For Nigeria to work, the oil and gas sector must work. 

By the Division of Labour arrangement in our Constitution, Nigeria stands on a tripod – the Legislature makes policies; the policies are executed by the Executive Branch; and any matter of interpretation is referred to the Judiciary.

These divisions are, however, not made into a watertight compartments – one branch occasionally performs roles that are otherwise reserved for another branch. For instance, to become Law, any Bill validly passed by the National Assembly must be assented to by the President. When Executive agencies make subsidiary regulations to facilitate the implementation of any Law, they engage in a Legislative function.

When the Courts strike down a Law validly passed by the Legislature and introduce amendments instead thereof, they carry out what is clearly a Legislative function.

And when the Legislature ousts the role of the Judiciary in carrying out the impeachment of its Members, the Legislature certainly takes on the role of the Judiciary.

Lately, we have come to hear of the nebulous Constituency Projects, under which the Legislators get money to provide projects in their respective Constituencies. This is clearly an executive function.

It is instructive to note that rather than produce a situation of total independence, the Doctrine of Separation of Powers enshrined in our Constitution introduces a situation of a healthy interdependence. The idea here is that no particular Branch of Government should be too strong to become a tyranny.

Representative Government implies that there must be periodic elections in which the citizenry determine the people to represent them in Government. This elective role is reserved specifically for the citizenry.

Party discipline died years ago and money took over. That was when we descended to the realm of what the Americans call MAKING YOU AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REGRET. When money talks, nobody walks!

Our first reflection goes to the days of our Founding Fathers – Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of Northern Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo of Western Nigeria; and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe of Eastern Nigeria, as recently as the First and Second Republics. Those men were the leaders of their political parties. They instilled discipline and commanded loyalty. The men have since played their part and left the stage. The political parties died and party discipline died as well.

The natural consequences that followed the death of the political parties and the twin brother, discipline, are what we are experiencing today.

From the formation of the so-called political parties of today, to the nomination of party officials; and from the selection of candidates for election at all levels, to the determination of winners and losers at the elections, everything is now determined by the Courts!

Party primaries at all levels, both for party and government positions, have become chance games since the final determination can be made only by the Courts!

At the election proper, 80 million Nigerians would stand in the sun and under the rain to vote for their preferred candidates, only for them to be vetoed by 5 odd fellows at the Courts and the judges would install their preferred choice. This is an aberration!

At times, the Courts have had to award victory to somebody who did not contest the election in question. This is JUDICIOCRACY at best. We have not seen its type anywhere. The rate at which we are going, we shall soon arrive at the point where the Judiciary will work directly with INEC and leave the electorate alone. The sooner, the better!

As things stand today, of the hundreds of thousands of pre-election cases in our Courts, many of the actual candidates will not be known far beyond May 29, 2023 – even granting that all the Courts in the land will be devoted to only those cases! It is a rumble in the jungle. The Courts are simply overwhelmed with election cases at the detriment of the other criminal and civil cases for which they were originally setup.

The way it was: In the era of party discipline, only a few exceptional Intra-party cases of nomination went to the Courts. Intra-party cases of the nomination of candidates were settled in-house and not taken to any court. As the saying goes “who born you to say you are taking your fellow UPN member to court when Chief Obafemi Awolowo had initialed the nomination list?”.

Look at all the imbroglio playing out today in all the parties from Yobe to Akwa Ibom; and from Calabar to Maiduguri, of cases involving the nomination of dog catchers and Counsellors as well as presidential candidates and Others! Everything must now be decided at the Supreme Court! And yet, when the entire process becomes one of Cash and Carry, we wonder why.

Let’s look at a few instances of how discipline worked in those good old days: One fateful morning in 1982 or thereabout, the late Olaiya Fagbamigbe (UPN/Akure) rushed to my office at the Red Brick Building in the House of Representatives, looking dejected and frustrated. What happened? He took an idea to Chief Obafemi Awolowo at his Park Avenue residence, Apapa. After listening to him, he said Baba kept quiet for about 5 minutes and pronounced his verdict: “I’ll rather wait to attend your send-off party. Goodbye.” Fagbamigbe knew he had been fired from the UPN!

Second Case: We were working on the amendments to the ELECTORAL BILL, 1982. Prof. Opeyemi Ola, a profound Professor of Political Science came to my office with some amendments that he wanted me to put on the ORDER PAPER.

I looked at the amendments and advised against including them on the ORDER PAPER because similar amendments had been defeated in the House the previous day and if they were put before the House, they would collapse, Mutatis Mutandis.

In a rather pensive mood, Prof. replied, “I know but that’s how Baba wants them.” Chief Awolowo was one man who believed that it was better to say this was where a man died, rather than this was where he ran into the bush. He would rather see it defeated than it was not included. Very early every morning, Baba would send somebody to the Paper Office to collect the ORDER PAPER, THE DEBATES and the VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS; and if he found traces of disobedience of his instruction, you were in trouble.

We saw that in the beginning, Political Leaders had a grip on their members and such members were appropriately whipped into line.

From that giddy height, we are now down to the ground level where polititians at all levels, both inter-party and intra-party, drag themselves to the Courts at the least prompting and on every issue.

As a direct consequence, the Courts have totally displaced the electorate and have effectively taken over the role of periodically electing the people to represent them.

The cause and effect of this sorry state will be topic for another day.

While we glide down the slippery slope, the aphorisms are steadily on the rise – Why pay a Lawyer when you can buy a Judge? Why strive for good elections when you can buy a Judgement? Is ours not a JUDICIOCRACY? It is so sad that with our own hands, we have dethroned DEMOCRACY and enthroned JUDICIOCRACY! Nigeria is still the worse for it all.

Much as the jury is out on the underwhelming performance of Buhari’s presidency these past eight years, the octogenarian never misses any opportunity for vainglorious adulation. At the unveiling of a housing project in Zuba on the periphery of Abuja the other day, Buhari sustained his predilection towards self-celebration. According to him, his “administration has fulfilled its election promise of change to Nigerians.” Really? Maybe. Buhari may be deploying instruments of obtuse appraisal, though to arrive at his conclusions. He famously told us before he came into office in 2015, that he would drag Nigeria from “top to bottom.” He has done just that and we are effectively at that basement now. He will be correct therefore to have so positively rated his aggregate endeavours in office. In his revisionist narrative, Buhari wants us to believe he is the best thing that ever happened to Nigeria. 

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), spontaneously shot down a recently released 91-page book of platitudes extolling Buhari’s achievements, as articulated by his communications office. The publication is consistent with the tendency towards the propagandist logorrhoea which has typified the night before Buhari fades from the nation’s socio-political scene. Famous and respected Kenyan professor of law, who is also a good governance advocate, Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, popularly known as “PLO Lumumba”, made a pertinent observation in one of his characteristically spellbinding public engagements. He theorised that “if a leader has to spend so much time and energy explaining what and what he has done while in office, then that leader has done absolutely nothing.” For Lumumba, “a leader’s achievements should speak for him.” Buhari’s trenchant loquaciousness on the eve of his departure from the presidency therefore is tailored to paper up his serial failings, foibles and fumbling. 

The flag bearer of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP) at the last presidential election, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is understandably hurt by the obvious and deliberate figure-tweaking and gross violations which characterised the last polls, has maintained enviable stoicism. His interventions in public discourse are few and measured, even as he pursues a legal course to unravel the jigsaw. Atiku is doing this not particularly because of himself, but on behalf of every prospective participant in the democratic process. Atiku’s triumphs in his litigations against the president and the state following his persecution by President Olusegun Obasanjo have profited several modern day political aspirants and candidates. Some of the judgments have mitigated rascality, impunity and lawlessness in the exercise of authority within the executive arm of government and various political platforms. To adapt the title of the civil war memoir written by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, leader of the defunct Biafran secession attempt, Atiku’s pursuit is “not because he’s involved.” 

Atiku is neither downcast nor depressed by the magical turn of events proceeding after the February 25, 2023 presidential election. He runs his regular routine, ever hosting guests, solving problems within his capacity, honouring engagements and doing paperwork. He recently made the rounds checking up on his close associate, Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi, owner of Raypower Radio and AIT, arguably the pioneer of a privately-owned broadcasting outfit, who was beneath the weather. He proceeded to commiserate with his protege and former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, who lost his mother. He also empathised with Orji Uzor Kalu, Majority Whip of the Senate, whose wife sadly passed on in the US. Atiku took the trouble to travel to Kano, to personally visit the family of Musa Gwadabe, Minister of Labour and Productivity under the Obasanjo/Atiku government. Atiku did all these, in person. 

Beyond the symbolism of these efforts, Atiku is demonstrating the manner of humanity and fellow-feeling which has been totally absent from the Buhari regime. Atiku’s rounds as detailed above were not driven by partisanship or ethnic considerations. Dokpesi, Ihedioha and Kalu are all southerners and Christians. Gwadabe was a northerner and a Muslim. Even as the nation spiralled into wanton killing fields on several fronts, not once did Buhari excuse himself from the cosy royalty of Aso Villa to personally and practically assess any incident. Rather, for every calamity that befell his constituents, a mechanistic “Letter of Condolence” was stereotypically the maximum expression of concern by the president. Expected to detour into Zamfara on a visit to Sokoto State last year, the alibi of “bad weather” was propounded to excuse Buhari’s presidential jet from possible attack by bandits domiciled in Zamfara. 

Atiku, by the way, is a consummate fan of the very popular, high-flying English Premier League Club, Arsenal. This indeed is one of our mutual intersections. As “Gunners,” we persevere, we are focused, we are committed. We have style, we have flair, we are systematic, we are not given to quick-fixes. We are patient enough to experience trends and developments as they evolve. At a time like this, one is reminded of that timeless Yoruba adage which translates as: “The slowness of the cat is skill, not a lack of will.” It’s game on metaphorically as legal proceedings get underway Monday, May 8, 2023. Please get a vantage seat at the lips of the play field. 

* Concluded