Residents of Yola woke up last Sunday morning to the announcement of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Aisha Binani as ‘winner’ of the Adamawa State gubernatorial election. It didn’t matter to the errant Resident Electoral Commission (REC), Hudu Yunusa Ari, that the results were still being collated as of the time he made his pronouncement. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was quick to suspend Ari and reported him to the Inspector General of Police for possible prosecution and the president for further disciplinary action. The commission has also concluded the results tabulation and announced the incumbent Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the real winner of the election. 

As unfortunate as the Adamawa debacle may seem, this is not the first time we have witnessed the sordid scenario of electoral officials going rogue. That nobody has ever been punished for it perhaps explains why the problem has festered in a nation where citizens have come to accept that there are no consequences for bad behaviour. During the 2019 presidential and national assembly elections, INEC sacked one of its collation officers, (name withheld) assigned to Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State. The professor of physics at the University of Jos had attempted to abscond without declaring the results but was apprehended by some youths who forced him back to the collation centre. “We had to remove him because he was drunk and could not perform the assignment,” the then Head, Voter Education, of INEC in Plateau, Mr. Osaretin Imahiyereobo, told the media. “We are waiting for him to come to Jos and explain why he behaved the way he did,’’ he added. By the time the professor was forced back, he could only give a cock and bull story of why he needed to visit a friend. I am not aware that he has responded to the allegation of being drunk and is probably still at the university. 

Perhaps the most controversial electoral fiasco to date remains the ‘resignation’ in 2009 of the then Ekiti REC, Mrs Olusola Ayoka Adebayo during the conduct of a court-ordered supplementary gubernatorial election in the state. In the letter, dated 28^th April 2009 addressed to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (who only read about it in the media), Mrs. Adebayo caused a crisis by absconding from duty during collation of results. “Unfortunately, the circumstances changed in the middle of the process; therefore, my conscience as a Christian cannot allow me to further participate in the process” she wrote in the letter she gave the media. I detailed that episode in my book, ‘Power, Politics and Death: A front-row account of Nigeria under the late President Yar’Adua’, because I was caught in the crossfire of the dirty intrigues. 

The challenge of course must be located in the desperation of our politicians who will do anything for power. During the 2019 general election, the returning officer for Imo West Senatorial District said he had been detained at the collation centre for days while announcing the results. “My name is Ibeabuchi Izuchukwu Innocent, a professor at the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), the returning officer for Imo West (Orlu) senatorial zone. I have been held hostage here for days so I’m trying to ease off and take my life home back to my children and for the sake of that I am calling these results under duress,” the returning officer said, as he announced the name of then outgoing Governor, Rochas Okorocha of the ruling APC as winner. For securing electoral victory under duress, INEC withheld Okorocha’s certificate of return. He approached the Federal High Court which ruled that the commission had no such powers before he received his certificate of return. But to forestall such brazen acts of brigandage in future elections, a new enactment (Section 65 of Electoral Act, 2022) now empowers INEC to review results. That clause may have saved the day in the Adamawa debacle. 

Meanwhile, an issue often ignored is that RECs are appointed by the president and given the little that I know from another life, they are primarily nominees of connected people, including those in the ruling party. And because of that, many of the RECs see themselves as untouchable. I don’t know how the suspended Adamawa REC got his job, but Ari is a lawyer and retired permanent secretary from the Bauchi State civil service who has also attended the Executive Course at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). He was one of the 19 RECs sworn-in last November. 

Like some of the new RECs, I understand that Ari came with a mindset, probably aided and abetted by those who nominated him for the job. The same people may also have given him assurances of protection from any transgression in his assignment. Since the supplementary process began, Ari, according to INEC sources, has failed to respond to any official correspondence from the commission’s headquarters in Abuja. That Ari had support in what he was doing could be seen from the way the withdrawn Commissioner of Police for Election Security, Mohammed Barde, aided a brazen violation of the law. One of the security personnel who assisted Ari was also seen on television wearing a face mask, ostensibly to disguise his identity.  

Even when a total of 15 political parties contested the Adamawa State gubernatorial election, Ari made it appear as if it was between only the APC and PDP. And last Sunday, he offered no details about accredited observers or breakdown of results before pronouncing his choice of next governor for Adamawa State. Although Ari was invited to appear at the INEC headquarters in Abuja on Monday, I confirmed last night that he was yet to show up, perhaps afraid the commission would order his immediate arrest. But everything appears to have been well choreographed. Accompanied by security officials, Ari swiftly flew out of Yola in a private jet the moment he pronounced Binani as ‘governor-elect’ last Sunday morning (I have the video evidence). Who paid for the jet? That the purported winner gave an “acceptance speech” immediately after the declaration by the suspended REC is very telling. 

The swift suspension of the results collation by INEC saved Adamawa State from descending into violence. However, the REC must be held to account for his action. As Reuben Abati argued in his column, ‘Supplementary elections and the debacle in Adamawa’ on Tuesday, Ari is liable for prosecution given specific penalties dealing with electoral offences in the Electoral Act, 2022. Section 120(4) which prescribes imprisonment for a term of three years applies to Ari: “Any person who announces or publishes an election result knowing same to be false or which is at variance with the signed certificate of return commits an offence and is liable on conviction or imprisonment for a term of 36 months.” Since a signed certificate of return will now be issued to Fintiri by INEC, Ari has infringed on this provision by his fraudulent declaration of Binani as winner.   

INEC has taken decisive steps by concluding the process as provided by law and reporting Ari to the IGP for investigation and possible prosecution, and to the president for further action which should be instant termination of his appointment. The commission has also withdrawn the delegated powers that RECs exercise under the Third Schedule, Part I, 15(h) to the constitution and warned Ari to stay away from its Yola office. In any case, it would be suicidal for him to even contemplate going back to the state after such misadventure. Ari has thus effectively ended his career in INEC. 

Now to Binani. On Tuesday, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released a report on the decline of female participation in politics and decision-making in Nigeria. No woman has ever been appointed as secretary to the government of the federation despite constituting almost half of the country’s population. No woman has been elected president, vice president or governor. “Female ministers appointed in 2018 were six and in 2019, only seven were among the 43 appointed ministers,” according to the NBS report which examined female representations within the three arms of government. “The years 2018 and 2019 have the same figure of seven women and 72 men as principal officers (in the National Assembly). Only nine women out of 106 members of the House of Representatives occupied principal positions in 2019.” 

Given such lopsidedness in the distribution of political opportunities, it was no surprise that many Nigerians were rooting for Binani to win the gubernatorial election in Adamawa State. But not in the manner she elected to do it. I have been told by some of her friends that Binani is suffering from a vicious campaign of calumny from Fintiri and his supporters. That may well be true. I have also read Binani’s rebuttal to the allegation that she bribed the REC and other INEC officials. In the absence of any proof to the contrary we should believe her. But there is only one way to interpret her part in this sordid drama: She has only inverted the positive cliché that “what a man can do, a woman can do even better” into something negative: “what a man can do, a woman can do even worse”.  

The male dominated politics of Nigeria has been about desperation for power at all costs. By shopping for an order ex-parte in Abuja to restrain INEC from concluding the electoral process in Adamawa, Binani has shown that the do-or-die mentality among our politicians is in their DNA, irrespective of gender. That’s why we must commend the judiciary for not abetting the brazen illegality. If Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja had granted Binani’s request, Adamawa would have been boiling today. But the man who should be held accountable is the suspended REC.

Since we live in a country where officials tend to believe their actions are beyond public scrutiny, I will not be surprised if Ari gets away with his infractions on the Adamawa election. But it would be a tragedy if he does. If a lawyer and retired permanent secretary who goes about with the mni lapel could engage in such a blatant attempt to manipulate an election, where lies the hope of the country? Security agencies must find out what motivated Ari to act in the way he did and seek out his accomplishes. 

As I stated earlier, the Adamawa gubernatorial fiasco reminds meof a similar crisis during the 2009 court-ordered supplementary poll to conclude the Ekiti State gubernatorial election between then incumbent Governor Segun Oni of the then ruling PDP and Dr Kayode Fayemi of the opposition Action Congress (AC). For the benefit of interested readers, I have excerpted that section of my book below because there are interesting parallels to draw. 

Overall, if there is anything that has come out quite clearly from the misconduct of the suspended Adamawa REC, it is that in Nigeria today, both the codes of morality and the boundary between right and wrong have simply disappeared for many public officials. That is what should worry all of us.

Memory of the Ekiti Guber Poll and REC Fiasco 

…With the foregoing controversy as a backdrop, the April 2009 gubernatorial re-run elections in Ekiti State where the PDP and AC had equal members in the House of Assembly was bound to be seen as a real test of government’s political will and ability to reform Nigeria’s electoral system. The tribunal ruling had left the AC leading by about 10,000 votes after results from five local governments had been cancelled. This gap led to the belief in the media and civil society that the only way the outcome could be in favour of the temporarily ousted PDP Governor Olusegun Oni was if the polls were manipulated. 

As he did in every other state where there were re-run gubernatorial elections, the president was in Ekiti to flag off the PDP campaign for Oni. But in the process, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, broke into a Yoruba song that seemed to suggest the federal government would deploy troops to prosecute the election. “We will use soldiers (for this election), the other time we used MOPOL (mobile policemen), we will use soldiers,” Bankole sang to a thunderous applause from the PDP supporters at the rally in Igede-Ekiti.

Once the Speaker’s allusion to troops’ deployment had been made, I knew there would be a media backlash and not surprisingly, it was the headline news throughout that day and the next. Incidentally, other speakers at the campaign also made veiled threats about the deployment of troops. Launching an attack against former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, believed to be the backer of Dr Kayode Fayemi, (AC candidate for the rerun polls), Osun State governor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, said the PDP would deploy every resource available to it for the Ekiti election to ensure that Oni emerged victorious. “We will use the resources at our disposal to ensure that he overcomes. Whatever support he needs, we will give to him. We shall be victorious. We will win the election by all means possible.”
It was not unexpected that the AC would dwell on the faux pas in Bankole’s song about deploying troops. The Director of Communications for the Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation, Mr. Yemi Adaramodu, set the tone for this: “We wish to remind the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, that Ekiti people have never been known to succumb to the threat of armed soldiers. The ruling clique tried their luck in the act of intimidation with soldiers and police in the past and got their fingers burnt. It is still the same people that inhabit the space called Ekiti today and they are more than ready to defend their votes.” 

The party also advised the president to refrain from deploying troops which in their reckoning was for the ulterior motive to rig the election for his party. When we got back to Abuja, I was convinced the presidency had to wade in. I outlined the implications of bringing the military into partisan politics to the president and he assured me that troops would not be deployed. He had already met with the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, and directed him to increase the strength of the police in Ekiti State with additional squads from five neighbouring states, he told me. Since the election was going to be held only in a fraction of Ekiti state, the president had been assured that the police could offer adequate security. I therefore told the media that troops would not be deployed in the conduct of Ekiti election, but that security would be adequate to take care of any eventuality. This, of course, outraged many people within the PDP and some security chiefs sympathetic to the ruling party who had already labeled me “a closet AC member”. The same charge was leveled against the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Remi Babalola after openly expressing his concerns about the management of the Ekiti election crisis. 

The truth of the matter was that I was neither an AC sympathizer nor opposed to the re-election of Governor Oni. What I considered paramount was the danger inherent in unwittingly dragging the military into the conduct of election in just a section of one state. I knew the president was opposed to deployment of troops, yet I had been reliably informed that there was already a plot to send soldiers to Ekiti on the eve of the election. When this illegal order was eventually carried out, I rushed to the ADC in the presence of whom the president had directed that soldiers were not to be seen on the streets of Ekiti on the day of election. He had to speak with the Chief of Army Staff (Lt General Abdulrahman Dambazau) who was then abroad and had also not been kept abreast of the situation. Counter orders were then issued, and the troops were withdrawn immediately. 

But the AC had already released a statement that essentially highlighted the party’s disappointment on the reported presence of troops in Ekiti State, which it noted was inconsistent with the earlier assurance by the president that he would not deploy soldiers to the state. The party added that such development had called to question the credibility and integrity of the president. Knowing that the president had not ordered any deployment of troops, this was not something I could take lightly. I made another statement that troops had not been – and would not be – deployed for the Ekiti elections. Curiously, the Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier-General Chris Olukolade, had told the media that the Army headquarters was aware of the presence of soldiers in Ekiti State. “Their going there should not be politicised. It is not about elections. Their being there is purely for security reasons.” 

While some within government queried my motives, the basis for my intervention was basically because I knew the instruction did not emanate from the president who as commander in chief was the only person who could authorise deployment of troops. I also knew those behind the entire plot, and I suspected they were not doing so for altruistic reasons. Owing to the malicious campaign internally launched against me, I had to seek audience with Governor Oni to reassure him I was not covertly working against him, and that I was only doing my job. We met in Abuja, and he expressed appreciation that I would explain my role as he had been told tales about me. Oni no doubt is a very decent man, but the forces involved in Ekiti election really did not care much about him. All the cold calculations were based on PDP ‘stopping Tinubu in the South-west’ and not about the governor securing back his mandate. While I had no problem with PDP attempting to win the South-west, I couldn’t possibly stand aloof if the tactics being adopted would call to question the integrity of the president. 

Following the stalemate that dogged the election, these same people would put the whole blame on me with the argument that the election was mismanaged because of my announcement that troops would not be deployed. Without deference to my position as Spokesman to the President, I was directed to report to SSS headquarters for interrogation on my role in the Ekiti saga. When I received the letter the first emotion that I felt was rage. I called the CSO to inform him about the letter and the fact that I was going to ignore it, warning that if any attempt was made to arrest me, I would resign but not quietly. He came to my office to withdraw the letter which he said I should ignore while pleading with me not to inform the president. On reflection later, I decided I would honour the SSS invitation but at a time of my choice. I went on a Saturday and spent about two hours with the panel investigating the fall-out of the Ekiti election. Of course, I was not surprised that the question the investigators wanted me to answer was who gave me authority to announce that soldiers would not be deployed. My response was quite simple: they could go and find out from the president! 

I happen to have known most of my interrogators, some since my days as a journalist. Air Vice Marshall Moses Akinola Akinsanmi, who left the villa a few months before as Commander of the Presidential Fleet was also in the panel, so the session itself was very friendly as I used the opportunity to also extract information about the Ekiti debacle and what they considered the problem. I realized that my role became crucial because there were allegations that Tinubu had imported some Niger Delta militants and a lot of arms into Ekiti State and that only soldiers could enforce peace in the election. Even while I was not aware of this at the time, I still felt that politicizing deployment of troops could bring incalculable damage to the image of a president who had promised electoral reform. Besides, I could not have envisaged that the police would find it difficult to monitor elections in just a few wards within five local governments in a small state!  

The election itself had featured a major drama which began when the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mrs. Ayoka Adebayo, disappeared midway into collating the results and afterwards a letter of resignation purportedly written by her appeared in the media. She was believed to have rejected some of the results from Ido Osi Local Government Area, the home base of Governor Segun Oni, and was allegedly inclined to cancel election in tensed Oye-Ekiti because of violence. To rationalize the unfolding event, INEC chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu said he had been informed “that as a result of the pressure of the exercise, the REC broke down and took ill, the commission had no choice but to postpone the remaining election.” 

With this situation, it was not lost on critical observers that a government that pledged electoral reform in the country was finding it difficult to conduct transparent election in a fraction of a small state. That displeased the president. But all the briefs he was getting on the botched polls dwelt on the activities of Tinubu who was labeled the brains behind the whole controversy. Media reports were however different; but it didn’t seem to matter as the perception within government also was that Tinubu had the media on his side. With the situation, I advised the president that the wise thing to do would be to reject Mrs Adebayo’s resignation and that she be allowed to conclude the process. Since the insinuation was that there was pressure on her to declare a false result, what was needed, I reasoned, was for the security agencies to embolden her to do the right thing.

In the course of the impasse, the president summoned a security meeting and Iwu was invited to brief them. Before this meeting commenced, I had prepared for the worst because I knew that some people would still press the charge that I was to blame for the fiasco. So, when the ADC rushed to my office I was surprised when he said: “oga (the president) said he wants another copy of the letter from that your Harvard friend you enclosed for him this morning.”  This gave me some comfort. Early that morning, I had received a mail from my friend, Waziri Adio, who was then a Mason Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and had found his advice very instructive. I printed the mail and put it in the newspaper reports for the president with a note that he should read it. This was the letter he was asking me to reprint for him, which I did. 

Waziri had written: “Dear Sege, I must apologise for bothering you on this but after wrestling with this Ekiti State saga for a few days, I decided I should share my concerns with you even if you can’t do anything about them. I know the situation in Ekiti is complicated. Even from afar, I can see that neither party is completely innocent and that the struggle is beyond the interest of Ekiti people. I can see the struggle for/against dominance in Yorubaland; I can see dress-rehearsals for 2011; I can see clash of big and fragile egos.  

“For all these reasons and more, Ekiti State has become a battleground and may well become a tipping point for something quite ominous, if we allow the situation to degenerate. But I also see opportunities written all over this: to show that the talk of electoral reform is sincere; to demonstrate that votes will count in future elections; to underscore that rule of law is not a mere convenient rhetoric. More than at any other time, this is the time to show real leadership. Let the votes be counted and the winner duly declared. Who will listen to you when you talk about electoral reforms and decent elections when we needlessly bungle elections in just one state? This is not a time for dilly-dallying. It is the time for clear, forthright, and open instructions.  

“If PDP is losing (I say if), this is the time to be strategic in conceding a battle to win the war. If this is the case, let the president instruct INEC to do the right thing, and call Oni to concede and compensate him. If PDP is not losing, then let this whole process be clear and transparent. It is a tough call. But that is what leadership is all about. If well handled, I see a huge opportunity for this administration and Mr. President, as the attendant goodwill can then be spinned positively.” 

How the president used the letter at the meeting I had no idea, but the conclusion at the end was that Mrs. Adebayo should be persuaded to conclude the election. Eventually she did by announcing Oni as the winner, but the whole process had been sullied already while the image of government bore an embarrassing taint. The result itself did not endure for long as Fayemi ultimately won at the Court of Appeal but by then the president had left the scene. 

In recent weeks Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, multiple award winning writer, Chimamanda Adichie, and supporters of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 25 February 2023 presidential election (otherwise known as Obidients), have been trending. The backgrounds were an interview granted by Datti Baba Ahmed in which he was quoted as saying that whoever “swears in Mr Tinubu has ended democracy in Nigeria.” Elsewhere Dr Datti Baba Ahmed was also quoted as saying that Nigeria does not have a President-elect. The conversation took a different turn when Soyinka criticised the comments by Dr Datti Baba Ahmed, saying: “I have never heard anyone threaten the judiciary on television the way Datti did. I heard the kind of menacing, blackmailing language that we were treated to by Datti. That kind of do-or-die attitude and provocation is not what I think we have all been struggling for.” Soyinka also challenged Datti Baba Ahmed to a television debate which the latter rightly declined.

Responding to the critical responses that followed his Channels interview Professor Soyinka issued a statement entitled ‘Fascism on course’ in which he criticised the Obidients and argued that the “seeds of incipient fascism in the political arena have evidently matured.” He also called Obidients “the Republic of Liars.” Earlier, Chimamanda had on April 6 2023, published an open letter to Joe Biden in the US paper, The Atlantic, in which she urged the US President not to congratulate Bola Ahmed Tinubu as doing so would amount to legitimizing an election she thought was rigged.

There are several issues raised by the interventions of both Soyinka and Chimamanda Adichie in the contestations between the supporters of Obi and Tinubu:

One, though the outcome of the presidential and governorship elections is being challenged in court, the contending political parties rightly recognize that there is also the court of public opinion to which they are competing to sell their perspectives. In this sense the two global literary icons taking obvious sides in the contest for public opinion (which the contending parties obviously hope will also sway the judges at the tribunal) was perceived by each side as an attempt to use the echo of their big literary voices to skew the contest to their disadvantage.

Two, activists like Wole Soyinka who have spent most of their lives as system critics are often boxed in a manner that that they are not permitted to have feelings or cherish relationships that will seem to contradict their public persona. This was perhaps what Camilo Cela, the 1989 Spanish Nobel Prize winner in literature had in mind when he said that a writer should be a denunciation of the time in which he/she lives. Though Soyinka does not come out to openly admit this, one senses a tension between certain unrealistic expectations of him as a system critic and his appreciation of his friends in the APC government who have shown him love and affection. Did Karl Marx not probably face the same tension when his best known collaborator Friedrich Engels not only had contradictory roles of being a successful business man, an activist and a journalist but also had a father who was an owner of large textile factories – the same class of capitalists that Marx inveighed against? Like most people system critics also tend to become more nativist as they get older.

Three, Soyinka, the wordsmith, has always taken liberty with the English language so when he described the Obidients as a ‘Republic of liars” or Datti Baba Ahmed’s position on the inauguration of Tinubu as “do-or-die attitude and provocation”, we can surmise that Soyinka is once again taking poetic licence with language. If you add to this the fact that his literary oeuvre seems to be a fusion of anger, obstinacy and celebration of facility with the English language, it becomes easier to understand his mode of engaging both the Obidients and Datti Ahmed. For regular folks however, apart from the incorrect assertion by Dr Datti Baba Ahmed that Nigeria does not have a President elect, there was nothing “do or die” in his position on the judiciary which others do not express regularly.

Four, Soyinka also miswrote when he assumed that the Obidients are a homogenous, centrally organized group rather than a loosely aggregated movement with different tendencies which are united only by their support for the aspirations of Peter Obi. In this movement could be found sub groups like neo Endsarists, educated urbane dwellers, higher-end intellectuals, different ethnic factions of young people with their own agenda and of course irreverent keyboard warriors who seem to spoil for a fight on a whim. It is therefore misleading for many people to take the latter fraction of the Obidient movement as representative of the entire movement. Besides, this fraction of the movement is largely harmless because they operate mainly in the social media, and if you do not want their ‘nuisance’, you can lock your account from them or block them. Similarly, to pick on Obidients and leave out Tinubu’s social media trolls who seem to have been planted on several platforms where they can be even more irritating than the ‘irreverent Obidients’ exposed him to accusations of bias. In politics, once you throw your hat into the ring, people will trample on it – irrespective of the splendour around the hat.

Five, it is unfortunate but understandable given how far our social distance has widened that those critiquing Soyinka’s and Chimamanda’s intervention are introducing ethnic elements into it all. But being proud of your ethnic ancestry, supporting a candidate of the same ethnic group or having friends and benefactors of the same ethnic origin does not make one an ethnic supremacist. For one to be an ethnic bigot, one has to be guilty of promoting the conflictual elements in the ethnic ‘we-versus them’ dichotomy. Besides, Nigeria’s literary landscape, especially of old, was driven by a triumvirate – Achebe was the master novelist; Soyinka the genius playwright while JP Clarke was the admirable bard/ poet. People trying to compare Soyinka with Achebe are therefore comparing apples with oranges.

Six, what I find unfortunate is that in the quest by the contending parties to control the narrative, expressions of opinions, the bedrock of the marketplace of ideas that sustains democracy, are being criminalized. To put this in context, in the landmark case of New York Times v Sullivan (1964), it was established that opinions honestly held, even if the facts on which such opinions were formed were wrong, could be valid defences in defamation proceedings. This came to be known as the ‘actual malice standard’ or the ‘Sullivan rule’.

Seven, did Chimamanda’s open letter to Joe Biden amount to colonial mentality? Perhaps it did. But then Nigerian politicians and others are all guilty of it. In the run-up to the 2023 presidential election, did our politicians not troop to Chatham House in the United Kingdom for a validation? And when Tinubu was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, did Tinubu’s supporters not celebrate that? Whether winning an election in Nigeria is enough to make one among the 100 most influential people in the world is however left for Time magazine to answer especially given that past winners of presidential elections in the country or even most of the winners in bigger democracies have not been so honoured.

Jideofor Adibe is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Nasarawa State University, Keffi and Extraordinary Professor of Government Studies at North Western University, Mafikeng South Africa. He is also the founder of Adonis & Abbey Publishers and can be reached at 0705 807 8841(Text or WhatsApp only).

At a time of topsy-turvy comes change. And from chaos comes order. President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a man destiny has prepared for Nigeria at this time. But his task will not be easy. Governing Nigeria is an invitation to toil. The road will be fraught with thistles and thorns; gallops and bumps, but he must keep going.

Nigeria has always been divided along provincial contours. Citizens huddle together in sectional silos, protecting and defending the enclave, against the collective. Nationhood has remained a will-o-the-wisp. Claims of marginalisation, and sectional appropriation and expropriation by different groups have been a permanent deafening wail of the banshee. There seems to be no national concord on any matter or sense of unity.

What could be the problem?

I believe the absence of a leadership with a rallying quality, and with sufficient purpose and deliberateness for national unity is partly responsible for this declension. No leadership has been seminally purposive about rallying Nigerians together as a bunch under a common grail.

There is also the place of followership in this quandary. Nigerians are themselves antipathetic on the community level, but on an individual plank, they are loving, kind, tolerant, and giving. Most Nigerians have friends from across groups and religions, and most are maritally knotted from across groups and religions as well.

The average Nigerian will render help to a stranger demobilised by a flat tyre on an eerie road; pay hospital bills and school fees of total strangers without the reckoning of their religion or ethnicity. The president-elect himself exemplifies this virtue.

On the individual level, there is humanity. Our humanity shines forth. So, there is optimism. The optimism that Nigerians are capable of uniting and working together as a whole -- but with the strength of purposive leadership.

The experience over successive leaderships is that as soon as power comes to the holder, the seven cardinal weaknesses of power -- complacency, obstinacy, indolence, impunity, illusion of invincibility, brute arrogance, nepotism, and ruthlessness -- take them prisoner.

And with sycophants in the court, the king's ears become poisoned with sweet and vainglorious nothings.

No Nigerian leader has successfully and efficiently managed Nigeria's diversity and engender cohesion. But President-elect Tinubu could be the first if he exhaustively applies himself to this goal. He has to be the first for the sake of Nigeria.

Nigeria needs to heal from the pestilence of scorched-earth politics; it needs to heal from the vagaries of internal contradictions; it needs to heal from mistrust, distrust, recriminations, hate and prejudice.

I have a few suggestions on the possibilities of achieving national unity. It will not be easy. It will take patience, courage, strong will, and unflinching commitment.

1. Sensitivity to diversity

The president-elect will need to reprise his noted expansiveness -- and even much more now. Nigeria is a complex entity, and as such temperance and balance is fundamental. He will need to be seen as just, fair, and even-handed. His sacrifices may even go unsung and unrequited, but he will need to stay on his vision. In fact, he could be saying the right words, and taking the right steps; yet some may still criticise him for whatever reason. It is the burden of leadership. He will need not relent.

So far, the president-elect is choosing his words carefully. He keeps emphasising national unity, and that he will be president for all Nigerians. This is the path to iconisation. It shows he is attuned to the intricate elements of Nigeria's varied complexion. But he will need to sustain this disposition in actions and policies.

2. Deliberate policies targeted at inclusion

The president-elect's manifesto is clearly inclined towards inclusion of women and the youth in leadership. Most importantly, the manifesto addresses the specific industrial needs of each geo-political zone. The document says, for instance, in the south-east and the south-south, a new hub and dry port will focus investment on labour intensive manufacturing; in the north-west and the north-east, new industrial hubs will focus on textiles; in the south-west, fine quality sand will be turned into high-quality glass items, and in the north-central, emphasis will be placed on solid mineral exploration and exploitation.

This brilliant idea will need studied execution, perhaps, within the next eight years, so that no group will feel left out.

Also, it is imperative that policies are humanised. Nothing sets off a chain of mass hysteria like policies perceived to be targeted at any group. So, it is important that diligent impact/risk assessment is done before the implementation of any policy. Policies should also cognise Nigeria's delicate ethno-religious emulsion, including demographic and cultural character. The doomed new naira policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the associated disaster and popular outrage is something to ponder on.

3. Empower the National Orientation Agency

The National Orientation Agency (NOA) was set up in 1993 by Decree 100 -- now the Act of Parliament No. 24 of 2004. The core responsibility of the agency is communicating government policies, promoting patriotism, and developing society. But the agency has been tad effective lately, even in the heat of national discordance and tension, perhaps, owing to the challenges of funding. NOA can be the resident town-crier and national opinion moulder with the requisite funding, repositioning, and supervision. It is important to stretch the potential of the agency to full capacity, but with commensurate support.

4. Create space for dialogue

When there are no avenues for jaw-jawing, war-waring is imminent. There should be spaces for difficult conversations at any given time. Townhalls, not only for communicating government policies, but also for receiving feedback from citizens. Fora where government officials do not come to lecture, but just to listen to citizens discuss their challenges, pains, and fears. Also, inter-ethnic dialogue, like "handshake across the Niger", should be encouraged and promoted. At the state level, there should be dialogue and feedback mechanism between host communities and residents. Citizens should be encouraged to talk out their differences and settle disputes without recourse to violence or protests.

5. Prioritise diligent communication

Sometimes, how a message is passed dictates the reaction. Nigeria is so delicate a place that oftentimes good intentions are misconstrued, and fine points lost in miscommunication. There have been cases where messages meant to quench a fire only ended up kindling the furnace. Diligent communication which takes into cognisance Nigeria's ethno-religious, cultural, and demographic sensitivity should be a priority.

I admit that the path to building national cohesion and strengthening unity is a tortuous one that a few prescriptions may not smooth out. But it is more important that we get started, than not starting at all.

By Fredrick Nwabufo, Nwabufo aka Mr OneNigeria is a media executive.

Dr Mike Adenuga, Chairman of Globacom, Conoil Producing, Conoil Plc and Cobblestones Properties, is a workaholic. He has this enormous capacity for work. It is not unusual for visitors to be ushered into his office at 2am. Some visitors wait for hours to see him. He is a hands-on chief executive and he micromanages.

Nothing goes on in his financial empire that spans telecoms, oil, banking, real estate and construction without his knowledge. He works hard and drives those who work for him equally hard. It is not unusual for a top executive in his company to receive a phone call, in the dead of the night, with instructions to proceed on an assignment outside the country. Working for Dr Adenuga is a 24-hour job. There are peculiar traits about this genius. One of them is his generosity. Dr Adenuga is one of the most generous persons I know. Because he shuns publicity like plaque, many do not realize the quantum of lives he has touched through his generosity. Apart from touching people’s lives, he is also generous to friends, family members and his workers. I had the privilege of doing some media relations works for him in the past. I particularly remember the CIL days when his telecoms license was cancelled. We used to meet in the study of his Oko-Awo, Victoria Island residence with the head of the communications department of CIL at the time. When we met in the morning, he would give me money, after the meeting. We would reconvene in the evening and he would still give me money. We would meet the following morning; he would do the same thing. You cannot see Dr Adenuga and leave without being blessed. And as he was giving me money, he was also giving the CIL guy who was his staff. You may not see Dr. Adenuga for years, but when you least expect it, you would receive a phone call that would make you smile. This ability to make a remarkable intervention in one’s life encouraged people to label him the ‘Spirit of Africa’.

Two examples of his passion for generosity would suffice.

When I wanted to start my newsmagazine, Global Excellence, I took a decision that I must own it. I didn’t want partners because of my experience at Fame magazine. I needed two million naira at the time and I felt the only person that could help me was Dr Adenuga. So, I wrote him a letter asking him to give me N2m loan for me to realize my dream. I sent the letter through a friend who was a top executive in his office. I didn’t get a feedback. But as fate would have it, I was invited by Equatorial Trust Bank, at the time one of his companies, to a cocktail in Victoria Island. When I got to the event, behold the chairman was present. I went to say hello and in the course of discussing with him I asked about the letter I sent to him. “Which letter? I didn’t see any letter,” he replied. He then asked me to discuss the content of the letter. I explained to him that I needed to start another magazine and it would cost me N2m to do it. I told him that I didn’t have any other person that could help me, so I wanted him to give me N2m loan.“What is your collateral,” he asked. “My relationship with you,” I answered. He laughed heartily and said “Mayor wants a loan and he doesn’t have collateral”. My heart sank but immediately he said “you’re our person we have to help you”. He then called my friend that was his staff and told him to bring me to the house on Sunday for us to discuss. I got to my friend’s house on Sunday and he put a call to the chairman’s house to confirm if we could come over. He was told that chairman had traveled to Paris. I felt disappointed. I had to look elsewhere.

A young man whom I met through my colleague and brother, Dele Momodu, assisted me in starting Global Excellence.

To show that Dr Adenuga works like a spirit. The third week of starting Global Excellence in 1999, when things were really tough, I got a message from a friend that worked for Dr Adenuga. He asked if I was in the office, to which I said yes. He then came over and handed me a handsome cheque from the chairman as his support for Global Excellence. I thought he forgot about me, but no. Dr Adenuga always gets in touch with those he loves.

The second experience was even better. When I celebrated my 50th birthday in 2010, many top executives including Alhaji Aliko Dangote, attended the event. I was surprised that Dr Adenuga didn’t wish me a happy birthday. I thought he didn’t remember me. One day, I got a call from Bode Opeseitan who was then working with Dr Adenuga. He told me that chairman said I should come for the dinner party at Civic Centre in Victoria Island, one of the events organized for Bella’s wedding. I told Bode that I didn’t have invitation for the party. He later informed me that chairman said I should go to his house at Oko-Awo to collect an invitation card. I did as I was told but I was not happy. I wasn’t happy because chairman didn’t wish me happy birthday. I got to Civic Centre and as I was entering the hall I met Bode at the entrance. He said; “Lord Mayor, chairman asked me to give you a message, let me give it to you before you enter the party”. So I followed Bode back to his car and he handed me an envelope. I collected it, returned to my car and dropped it in the glove compartment. I went back towards the hall but curiosity was eating me up. So I turned back to my car and opened the envelope to see the content. Herein was an ETB draft a card on which Happy Birthday was written. I almost cried.The amount on that bank draft was so huge that I felt dumbfounded. For a long time, I couldn’t talk. In fact, I was dazed. I later went to thank him at the party, and typical of him, he just laughed; that deep-throat laughter and said “Lord Mayor”.

Just as he touched my life in a special way, he does same for a lot of his staff. Many received brand new exotic cars, huge amount of money, expensive wristwatches and special gifts. But he does not suffer fools gladly. He may be generous, and kind but as his staff he expects certain standards of performance from you. Failure of which would attract consequences. Again, two examples would suffice. When we used to meet with Dr Adenuga during the CIL days, before Globacom became a reality, he used to give myself and the head of Globacom corporate communications money. And the guy used to say “what kind of boss is this that gives you money every time you see him?” one day, we were to do some media works and later meet with chairman in his study at his home in Oko-Awo. We had finished the meeting and as usual, he had given us some money. We were about leaving when he asked the corporate communications guy about the remaining money we didn’t use for the assignment. The guy said “oh I’m sorry sir, this is it”. Dr Adenuga exploded in rage. “Why didn’t you hand it over before I asked you? Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I don’t know what I’m doing? This ‘baga’ has to be fired!” The guy was so scared that he almost peed in his pants. I was stunned myself. I just said the first thing that came to my mind. “I’m sorry sir, it was my fault. I felt since we’re going out tomorrow to continue with the assignment, there’s no need to hand over what we didn’t use yet.” The chairman was calmed. He looked at both of us and said the guy should have said so instead of shaking. I learnt a big lesson that day and something about Dr Adenuga. Yes, he is generous. Yes, he can give money to his staff even more that their salary, but don’t think you can advantage of his generosity to fool him. When it comes to working for him, his standards are quite high. Many of his workers are scared to have meeting with him.

There was a day he summoned me to his office in Oko-Awo. There was a conference room opposite his office where he met with his staff. I was summoned upstairs and asked to sit just before the door to the conference room. One lady who was a top executive in Globacom was invited to attend the meeting. When she arrived she greeted me and did the sign of The Cross before entering the conference room.

Dr Adenuga is a very shy personality. He doesn’t like crowd. There was one of his close aides that celebrated his birthday. The wife organized a surprise party for him in Ikoyi, Lagos. Aiyefele was on the bandstand. When the guy was informed about the arrangement minutes into the surprise party, he informed Dr Adenuga and then left for the party. Chairman does not attend parties. But, surprisingly, he decided to shock his aide by showing up at the party. Nobody knew he was coming!

Dr Adenuga got to the venue and took the lift to the floor where the party was going on. As the lift opened, he saw that it was a big party with a band. He just called for the lift, entered and went back. We were at the party when someone rushed upstairs to inform us that chairman just left. Some of us, including the celebrator, rushed downstairs. Chairman was gone. If you see Dr Adenuga at a party, even his own party, you would find him sitting alone, straight-faced. He would hardly eat or drink. He would just be playing with his gold rosary. The only time I saw him letting his hairs down at a party was during the rites of passage for his mother. There was a party at Jogor Centre, Ibadan. It wasn’t as crowded as Lagos or Ijebu parties. Chairman was at home here. He drank Crystal Champagne, and even gave money to the musician on the bandstand. He stayed for a long time at the party. Dr Adenuga is also a family man. He dots on his wife and kids. He finds time for family dinner. The last time I saw him was at his favourite Italian restaurant in Victoria Island. I had been invited to a party in honour of a journalist friend. I was leaving the restaurant and saw chairman and his family having dinner. Dr Adenuga is my hero and mentor. I’m one of the privileged few that have a plaque espousing his Philosophy on Achieving. I have it on my office desk. It is exclusively for his admirers and disciples.

It gives me great pleasure to join millions of other well-wishers to wish Dr Mike Adenuga a happy, fulfilling 70th birthday. You’re a gift to the world. Nigeria is blessed to have you. The world is a better place with you.

Happy birthday, the Spirit of Africa. Best wishes for peace profound.

From an admirer and disciple.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Eedris Abdulkareem once engaged in battle over ‘Nigeria Jaga Jaga’ song. Similarly, Abdulkareem once had a running battle with the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo for disparaging him in his new release, ‘jagajaga reloaded,’ Abdulkareem had a serious issues with former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004 when he first released his song ‘Jaga Jaga.’ Tragically, the same Festus Keyamu (SAN), was in a hurry to congratulate Aisha Binani in a shameful melodrama in infamous ‘Adamawa debacle.’

On Sunday 16th of April, Nigerians were taken by surprise with the unfolding events in Adamawa state, the home state of Atiku Abubakar the peoples democratic party PDP candidate in the just concluded general elections. Sadly, a certain Hudu Yunusa-Ari, the resident electoral commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Adamawa, has stoked controversy in the state’s governorship election.

Around 9am on Sunday morning, the ‘INEC REC’ announced Aisha ‘Binani’ Dahiru, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the election. His announcement elicited serious concerns about the legalities and the display of impunity. Hudu, was aided by the paraphernalia of state, which includes the state commissioner of police, the state director of DSS and others. The rogue ‘INEC REC’ throw caution into the wind and embarked on the kind of activities that we have not witness after the dark era of Prof Morris Iwu, supervised by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Unsurprisingly, hidden behind misadventures is self-centered mind-sets, personal aggrandizement and greed. Many are worthy in learning but unworthy in character. No values, no virtues, no integrity. It is instructive that today in the 21st century and technology age, our beloved country Nigeria is still struggling with electoral malpractices involving the high and mighty. What is more, the mind kept agitating, will the much talk about the Nigeria’s Political Dilemma continue like this? Is it a parting gift from president Muhammadu Buhari and the wife? Why the desperation?

Could it be a case of history repeating itself? I remember vividly the same scenario played out with the then ruling party NPN in the 1983 general elections, they called it “landslide victory” which inevitably led to the military take-over. Again in the current dispensation (4th republic), election manipulation, rigging and all manners of brigandage was the norm during the inglorious era of former President Olusegun Obasanjo who is the protagonist of do-or-die politics.

Incidentally, to those who are saying when we have more women in power things will get better, now we all can see what a representative of the women is doing. Engaging in fraud, malpractices and whatever is wrong is not about gender. We have bad men and women. Tragically, this is not the kind of democracy that our heroes envisioned. The woman at the center of the drama is certainly not a reflection of the likes of: Hillary Clinton, Funmilayo Ramsome-Kuti, Margaret Ekpo and Queen Amina the great Amazon.

It is against this backdrop that I will be advocating for stringent measures that will serve as a deterrent to others. Therefore, it has become absolutely necessary to strengthen our laws, so that we do not continue to reward bad behavior with plum office like the case of a current and ranking Senator who organized the stealing of the symbol of authority of the 8th NASS and subsequently was rewarded with higher office. Nation-building goes beyond a handful of greedy minds sharing political positions and offices, it is about selflessness and patriotism.

Finally, permit me to conclude this contribution with the golden words of a Spanish philosopher George Santaya, who was credited with the old adage: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Sure, it’s a little dramatic, and you wouldn’t be blamed for letting loose a loud sigh and eye roll if someone said it to you in a preachy way. But the man who wrote these words had a good point. Continuity is necessary to progress — or, in normal-people words, we must remember stuff from our past in order to do it better in the future.

Seventeen years ago, during a Presidential forum on education reform, it was asserted by one of the resource persons that “by 2020 Nigeria may have a significant population of highly skilled trained criminals if nothing is done today”. This damning verdict stemmed out of the fact that out of twenty million pupils who were in primary schools, only six million (30%) would get to high schools, and out of one million yearly applicants for university education, only 150,000 (15%) gain admission.

Out of these, about 100,000 graduate yearly, with less than 30,000 of them getting into regular employment. At this rates and lower rates from the past, our societies are increasingly been saturated with idle youths ( globally youth is pegged between 15-24 years and at the upper limit 35years) who are daily exposed to make believe, get rich quick, glorification of violent demeanor from videos and politics as the only viable career rather than a hobby. For politics remain a means to an end, a platform for contributing to a dignifying public service and not an end in itself.

In 2020, The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) put unemployment rate at 33.3 percent and according to a report in BusinessDay Newspaper, The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has projected the unemployment rate in Nigeria to rise to 37 percent in 2023, four points ahead of NBS’s 2020 data. We are in 2023 already and as matters stand today, the number of unemployed, underemployed and unemployable youths keep soaring, pointing as it is to doomsday.

The major question for the incoming government of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu will be the youth question. How can we get this army of Nigerian critical stakeholders productive? The ‘significant population of highly skilled trained criminals’ prophecy which has been rearing its ugly heads in many areas of our nation must be aborted with non rhetorical resolve this time.

To start with, Asiwaju must take a look at China over thirty years ago under the leadership of President Deng when China was confronted with an army of frustrated unemployed youths. Deng, after a thorough analysis of global trends particularly in tradable skills decided to focus on University education with emphasis on science and Information technology (IT). Today China produces over 50% motorcycles and over 30% of personal computers globally. The country churns out 350,000 engineering and computer specialists annually, registering three times more patent applications than the US; just recently their another batch of Chinese astronauts returned to earth from the moon and not too long ago too, Nigeria obtained over a billion dollar loan from China for infrastructural development.

In the 1960s Singapore and Nigeria used to be at par, with each having a $300 per capital income. But today, the gap in standard of living between the two countries is so wide. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong once declared, ‘there will be no barrier to knowledge, information and lifelong learning. Our Universities maintain open access, but rigorous academic standard, our Polytechnics impart professional expertise through a practice based curriculum, and our institute of technical education equips students with hands-on technical skills and critical thinking habits. We are also investing in upgrading the skills of the workforce, keeping older workers current and employable. On an intelligent Island, every pair of hands has to be a pair of thinking hands. None should be hewers of wood or drawers of waters’.

Nigeria was far better than Costa Rica in the 60s when our youths were productively at optimum, but today the country has successfully transited from a banana republic to a regional IT power hub just over a period of ten consistent years of planning and execution. Arias, a Nobel Laureate and former President of Costa Rica declared thus, ‘in 1998, while I was President, our government installed computers in elementary schools. Since then the program has reached over 1.5 million students, more than half of whom live in underprivileged areas. Exactly ten years after the first computer was installed, Intel, opened a $500 million micro chip plant in San Jose. Among the attraction Intel cited was the availability of an educated workforce. Today, Costa Rica’s 12% GDP comes from software sales and is the third most competitive outsourcing destination in the world after China and India vying for a piece of the global IT outsourcing market worth more than $50 billion.

Nigeria have the requisite market potentialities and is not a greenhorn in global development trends but what we have been lacking and which the next administration must tackle is dearth of infrastructure and enabling environment for businesses particularly the start ups to thrive. Luckily Asiwaju in his manifesto has promised easy access to credit, business mentorship, NYSC Reform, and business Incubation centers among other things as parts of plans to reduce unemployment from the current high to 11.9 million by 2026.

The ‘Endsars’ protest of 2020 and the recent waves of obedient movement across Nigeria are clear pointers to how disruptive to established systems the youths of any nation can be whenever they become formidable. The time is very ripe for the incoming administration to take advantage of this pool of resource to cash out heavily and produce more Dozy Mmobuosi who is about completing a 90 million pound takeover of Sheffield United Football Club in England or Shola Akinlade the co-founder of Pay stack who already bought 55% of a Danish football club Arhus Fremad. There are many of such great Nigerian youths shattering glass ceiling in various careers especially abroad. However the number is just too few; a very tiny drop in a very vast ocean. May the hope of millions of the Nigerian youths be renewed and that renewed hope rest squarely on the Presidency of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu.

Bello, PhD, a policy analyst, communication expert and member of the APC PCC Public Affairs, writes from Abuja.

The  prominence of the identity question in the 2023 politics is a great  proof that deliberate efforts  should be made by those in power to promote national integration.

It is easy to assume that any politician or political party seeking to govern Nigeria believes in national unity. After all, none of the 18 candidates who contested the February 25 presidential election canvassed the dissolution of Nigeria. Instead, items on their various agendas were presumed to be aimed at strengthening  the Nigerian nation.  Virtually all the candidates and political parties have given some space  on their agendas for issues of power devolution, restructuring, fiscal federalism etc.  All these issues are ultimately subject to constitutional resolution.

Yet, the tone and tenor of the campaigns as well as the aftermath of the elections have brought to the fore the identity question and national unity. 

This, of course, is no surprise given the content of national conversations in over  three decades  on the nature of the Nigerian federalism and multi-dimensional threats to national unity.

As German Philosopher Friedrich Hegel argues in his works on the philosophy of history, beneath all the political activities is the struggle of humanity for recognition and dignity:  “The people will learn to feel the dignity of man. They will not merely demand their rights, which have been trampled in the dust, but themselves will take them – make them their own.” It may be unwise to dismiss this as idealism in the context of the 21st Century Nigeria.

The process of promoting national unity would be greatly enhanced when the due recognition is given to each  person and every part of the whole of the nation. No amount of constitutional engineering would be a substitute for  the factor of  recognition and dignity as the identity question is being projected in the current politics.  The recognition of identity is subjective; but it shapes what objectively takes place in  the policy arena.

There is ample evidence in the record of the Buhari administration in the last 95 months to demonstrate this point.

For instance, amidst the ferment of the campaigns and  elections, President Muhammadu Buhari took some noteworthy steps  towards the amendment of the constitution to achieve devolution of powers.

Almost unacknowledged by the advocates of power devolution and restructuring, Buhari  signed into laws last month  16 bills seeking to amend various parts of the 1999 Constitution. Interestingly, the announcement of the politically important development came from the Joint Senate and House of Representatives’ Special Ad  Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution. By virtue of the new laws, 16 items have been  moved from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list in the constitution. They  include financial autonomy of  the state legislature and  judiciary,  the power sector, airports, railway, and prisons, biometric information and criminal records. Some critics of the President have dismissed the above as giving a  “last-minute” impression of doing “something about restructuring and power devolution.” The proponents of an entirely new constitution are not impressed about the whole process of constitution amendments. They are raising a more fundamental query about the origins of the constitution. President-elect Bola Tinubu should be reflecting on how to find  answers to these questions. Meanwhile, the President says he has done his best in tackling the political problems.

With 40 days to the end of Buhari’s tenure, it might be apposite to recall what this reporter observed on this page on August 26, 2020. The column on that day was entitled “A Missing Item on the Buhari Agenda.” The missing item on the Buhari agenda  identified then was national unity. It was suggested on this page on another occasion that in addition to Buhari’s three point agenda of SEA – Security, Economy and Anti-corruption- a fourth one, Unity, should be added  to make the acronym SEAU. 

The basic argument  for prioritising national unity in governance made in the piece written 32 months ago  is the same as the one of today.

The argument was made at the time  as follows:

“President Muhammadu Buhari listed yesterday “nine priority areas” for the next 33 months.

Buhari said the areas of focus would “guide policy directions” so as “to improve the livelihood of Nigerians.”

“The areas of priority include poverty reduction, food security, power and energy, fighting corruption, security, promoting entrepreneurship, quality education, and affordable healthcare…

“Essentially, the listed areas of priority are a distillation from the broad cardinal programmes of Buhari on managing the economy to reduce poverty, ensuring security and fighting corruption.

 “Doubtless, 33 months are enough for the President to make a difference in the identified policy areas given competence in governance and sincerity of purpose. It doesn’t take eternity to demonstrate competence in governance. After all, the idea of celebrating 100 days in office has been traced to the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, who took some landmark political decisions in just 100 days after arriving in Paris on his escape from Elba. In a more modern sense, American President Franklin Roosevelt launched the largely social welfare and construction programmes backed by laws, which defined his era, in the first 100 days in office. That was a period of about three months.

Here, Buhari still has good 33 months! So it would not be a misplaced optimism to insist that rather than dismiss the statement as another official gaseous talk, the Buhari administration should be put on its mettle

“There is, however, an item that is glaringly missing on the Buhari rebooted agenda. That is the imperative of working actively and honestly towards national integration. To achieve the purpose of any development agenda for Nigeria today, national unity cannot be discounted. It is a central factor. The issue has to be confronted in action and words.

The fact that Buhari did not list national unity as a priority could be an indication that the factor is taken for granted.

“Yet, all the other priorities could only be achieved within the context of a stable and united country in which people in every part feel a sense of belonging.

“In fact, the achievements in the listed areas would be gravely impaired if the conditions that could nurture warlords are created while Buhari is in the saddle. The matter is not helped by the seemingly insensitive statements by elements believed to be wielding enormous political influence in Abuja.

Such a posture on the part of those in power would amount to ignoring the realities of the nation. Nothing should be taken for granted in matters of unity. The important thing is for those who want it, especially the leadership, to make it a priority.

“It has been repeatedly emphasised here that nations are built by a committed people under a visionary leadership. Perhaps the only indispensable ingredient in the making of a nation is what a scholar calls the “collective state of mind.” The leadership should by its action and words promote this “state of mind.” It is the subjective feeling of having a sense belonging to a nation. It is more decisive than ethnicity, race, blood, geography, language or ancestry. There are people strongly committed to a nation without a state. The Palestinians are still struggling for a state. There are nations of races and ethnic groups. That is the reality of America. There are nations of different languages. Switzerland is an example. There are nations with contested territories. China once had its territory sequestered and the nation is still in the process of asserting its sovereignty on parts of its claimed territory. However, with the “collective state of mind” that a people belong to a nation all other gaps in nation-building could be filled.

“As the President spoke of his priorities in Abuja, there were reports of bloody clashes involving the State Security Services (SSS) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) that is campaigning for secession. The other day, a prominent politician in the southeast reportedly threatened: “If Nigeria tells the elites from the southeast that they would be treated as second class citizens in Nigeria, and that they can never be president, almost all of them will join (Nnamdi) Kanu to fight for Biafra.”

“The influence of the IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu must be widening for a former governor to even project that the political elite would join in the campaign for secession.

If the militancy in the Niger Delta appears to have slowed down, the discontents in the region are far from vanishing. Leaders from the unjustly treated region have taken the federal government to court over marginalisation in federal appointments. The degradation of the environment in the Niger Delta remains largely an unanswered question.

“The cry of marginalisation is almost universal in the Nigerian political landscape. It is not only the minority ethnic groups that say that they are being pushed to the margins in the management of national affairs. Every part now claims to be marginalised.

“The separatist impulse is also evident among the Yoruba of the southwest, the region that is said to be having relatively lower indices of underdevelopment on the average. All manners of maps and emblems of an Oduduwa Republic circulate in the cyberspace. Some are even talking of Yoruba Exit (Yexit), a most inappropriate imitation of the politics of Britain’s exit (Brexit) from the European Union (EU). To some of the elite the idea of national integration has become a very naïve one, if not contemptible. Such feelings should be understandable to a sufficiently perceptive national leadership, or what the inimitable Dr. Chidi Amuta calls “enlightenment leadership.”

“As in other zones, insecurity is a major reason cited by those in the southwest losing faith in the ideology of a united Nigeria. Despite the existence of the Nigerian state, people feel helpless in the face of violent crimes. Hence, the question: “which Nigerian nation are you talking about?” This trend is being given a strident voice in the media.

“The discontents might not have assumed a noticeable separatist tone in the three zones in the north. But the failure of the Nigerian state to protect people in the east, west and central zones of the north is undeniable. There are certainly ungoverned spaces in northern Nigeria given the activities of terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and other criminal elements. There have been reports that terrorists might be moving southwards. The crisis in Southern Kaduna has clear ethnic and religious tones. The toll of the dead and the scale of material destruction are such that the crisis is now attracting bitter responses from other parts of the country.

“The circumstances of many communities in Nigeria are not the type that could generate nationalist feelings.

“A noxious combination of these trends should worry a leadership that correctly reads the socio-political barometer of the nation.

Some of the statements being made in Nigeria today would be anathemas in the Second Republic. “The context, of course, was important. It was barely a decade after the tragic civil war. National unity was a big issue. The party that controlled the centre, National Party of Nigeria (NPN) always claimed with pride that one of its achievements was the commitment to national unity. President Shehu Shagari was presented as a unity president. Despite the word unity in its name, the commitment to national unity   by the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN)  was always questioned by the opponents who could not fault its social democratic agenda. The UPN leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was never trusted by his rivals on the question of unity despite the unmistakable national character of his agenda on education, health, job-creation and rural development.

“The point is that unity was at the centre of national conversations.

“So, official indifference cannot be an appropriate response given the dimensions the issue of national integration has assumed. It is also dangerous to assume arrogantly that the discontents would frizzle out.

“What is to be done?

“The greatest immunity against disintegration is the cultivation of a sense of belonging by doing justice to the people who feel inequitably treated in the nation.

“During the civil war, the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon had a battle cry relayed daily on radio : ’To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done.’ To perform the task, Gowon needed the full weight of the armed forces on the federal side. Buhari may need to adopt the spirit (if not the words) of the slogan if things are not to degenerate further. But unlike Gowon, Buhari only needs moral and political weapons to perform the task. Political engineering should be employed as no leader can force nationalism down the throats of his people.

“Buhari should rise to the occasion as a true Nigerian leader. He should disprove by body language and concrete action the perception that he is a regional or an ethnic leader. His defenders may say he is doing a lot in this respect; but looking at the national horizon his best doesn’t seem to be good enough in many quarters. It is unhelpful to ignore the cries of marginalisation from any part of the country. It is the duty of the leader to make those who feel alienated to see the beauty of integration.

“For instance, Buhari should take a nationalist look at the report of the 2014 Constitutional Conference. He should not forget what his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), promised the electorate in its programme. The political strategists of the administration should rethink the official response to the clamour for restructuring. The administration has to decide what to do with it. To do otherwise is to create the atmosphere for the continued manipulation of the people along ethnic, religious and regional lines by the elite which substitutes its class interests for the interests of the people .

“More fundamentally, the President has to intensify the implementation of programmes of sustainable development to reduce poverty and promote social justice and equity in the interest of the poor majority, the people  who are horizontally marginalised in every town and village in Nigeria.

“That is a way of winning back those who are increasingly getting alienated from the cause of a united Nigeria.”

The proposition in the foregoing addressed to the Buhari administration  remains valid 32 months after it was written. The question of national integration will certainly remain conspicuous on the national agenda  after May 29, 2023.

In the APC agenda of  a “Renewed Hope 2023,” there are provisions for restructuring and constitutional amendments for power devolution. That formulation  might  not be enough in the present national situation. In the course of governance every step taken should be tested on the basis of how it promotes national unity. This would be akin to the universal recognition of human dignity of persons proposed by Hegel.