REUBEN'S VIEWS
“Ko ko Ko. Pon Pon, Pon. . Helloo oh”
“Who be dat?”
“Na me oh?”
“Who be na me? You don’t know your own name? I say who dey there? ”
“Na me, FEDECO”
“FEDECO? Which FEDECO? Where you from come?”
“Open door my friend…Or I break down this door now. You drink, you no know my voice again?. Lagos don turn your head? I say na FEDECO dey for door, you dey ask question?”
“Oh, bros., no vex. You know say the kin Nigeria we dey so, person suppose take caution. Anybody can just come to your door and call a known name, you open door, dem go kidnap you.”
“Don’t talk like that. Nobody can kidnap you. Have you forgotten that you are the great grandson of the greatest witch of your mother’s kingdom and the chosen spirit on your father’s side who fought the British to a standstill in the battle of… Don’t worry. I forget the battle now but I remember the story…”
“Bros, you are welcome. In this neighbourhood, people don’t talk about spirts, witchcraft and old kingdoms. I am glad to see you, Uncle..?”
“So you now know your Uncle FEDECO? You boys think some of us old folks don’t know what is going on. But we do. You met me in this Lagos. I am the Chairman of the Village Association in this town. You don’t come to my house. I decided today to come and visit you. That is how an elder behaves. Where is your wife? Where are your children? You people think you know the world, but you don’t know the world. I, your Uncle… I have decided to visit you today just to check on you. Give me something first to welcome me.”
“What do you want Uncle? I am sure I can make it available.”
“What do I want? Hmmm. Give me bush meat pepper soup! Send your people now and get me bushmeat. You can’t have money in this family and somebody cannot chop pepper soup on top of your head. My sister no born onoder pickin. My friend, bring bush meat pepper soup.”
“Brother, please, no bush meat in this house. We don’t eat pepper soup here. Let them bring you cold water and beer first. As for bush meat, no no, no. There is Monkey Pox in town. Many countries that have been non-endemic are now endemic, all the way to South America and Continental Europe. Here in Nigeria, where monkey pox is endemic, there have been over 473 cases in 27 states, 172 have been confirmed, six deaths have been reported, and that is the highest rate in this country in 6 years. Bros, you cannot eat bush meat. I can offer you any other thing.”
“What kind of monkey talk is that? Is every bush meat monkey?”
“The experts are talking about animal to human transmission that has now become human to human transmission.”
“That is white man’s talk. That one no dey here. Bush meat. Make dem boil am well well, put maggi, pepper, and all dem dem things make man chop fill belle. Once you burn am, pepper am well, all the virus wey dey the bodi go settle for stomach, na toilet everything dey go so oh.”
“Bros, let’s be serious. I think all of us should be serious. This was how Nigerians made light of Ebola virus. This is how we continue to joke with COVID-19, and yet many have died. And now everyone is treating monkey pox as a joke. Nobody is even listening.”
“My sister’s son, nobody will listen. You dey hear me? Nobody trusts these our leaders. This is how they will always come up with one problem or the other to adjust budget and provide allocation for their pockets. Do you know how many people became billionaires because of COVID? That one has gone down now, so na monkey pox be next? The next thing you will hear is that the budget has to be reviewed to accommodate monkey pox. They say it has reached 27 states. Have you seen anyone with monkey pox? Very soon, it will reach 36 states and the FCT and you will not see any evidence. The real monkey pox, they will not address, na fake dem go dey pursue”
“This is not fake bros. It is real. We are talking science.”
“I agree. You know I am not dumb. I know there is monkey pox, but is it as serious a problem? Yes, I think it is. Should it be addressed? Yes, my mind tells me so. The big problem is that the monkey pox in Nigeria is being misdiagnosed. They are looking for warts and lesions on people’s skins and talking about consumption of bush meat, and animal to human, human to human transmission. If you want to hear me, they should look at the Nigerian economy. That is where we need treatment, and the need to save the people.”
“I don’t get it”
“What don’t you get? Can’t you see, feel, sense, experience, touch the contagious, transmissible monkey pox in the Nigerian economy?”
“Monkey pox is a medical term. The economy is different.”
“You think I am dumb? And I am saying to you that I understand everything perfectly. The Nigerian economy is a monkey pox economy. Go and think about it deeply. You may not die really, because monkey pox doesn’t have a high fatality rate, but you can spread it through contact, exchange of body fluids. Look at how we are spreading poverty and agony in Nigeria from one sector to another.”
“I am lost”
“You are not lost. Let me tell you. Inflation is now 19.64 % in Nigeria. Food inflation is 20.02%. Many families can no longer eat bread, or buy tomatoes, or prepare a decent pot of soup. The last time I ate bush meat pepper soup was more than a year ago. I specifically asked for it but instead of you telling me that the country hard, ground no level, pocket empty, and I will understand, you started giving lectures on monkey pox. You think I am stupid? I know even rich people are feeling the monkey pox in this economy. The rich are crying. They can’t get foreign exchange to run their businesses. Airline operators are weeping. Foreign airlines are saying Nigeria is no longer an enabling business environment. Airline Operators of Nigeria (the local investors) are saying they will shut down. Have you not noticed that even young men do not want to marry anymore? The only girls who still get husbands in Nigeria today are the ones from rich homes. Rich men’s daughters have become insurance covers. If you are from a poor home, you are on your own. Nigeria’s social dynamics is changing.”
“It is basic social dynamics, sir. Human beings will adjust to new realities”
“You are talking textbook. My sister, your mother, is far more practical. I think the problem in this country is not just too much learning by people like you who study abroad at your parents’ expense and then you come back and start pushing ideas and theories that belong to a different society. The big problem is that we have an army of illiterates who grab political power, and have nothing to offer other than the fact that that they are in power. The only luck we have is that the Nigerian people have not yet taken to the streets out of frustration as people have done in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Ghana and other parts of the world.”
“Well, that is the point. The world is passing through a difficult season. All this shall come to pass. My daily work requires me to have a balanced view of issues. I am an intelligence analyst, on a daily basis, guiding senior personnel and institutions.”
“Then tell them, we are not seeing enough intelligence in how this place called Nigeria is managed. Your own Uncle cannot eat bush meat pepper soup? He cannot travel by air anymore? Even to go by train or road is wahala? Bachelors have stopped looking for wives? Go to marriage registries across the country, the crowd has reduced. Did we offend God?”
“That is not a problem. We are too many in any case. Nigeria has a population problem. We can’t keep condemning everything.”
“People have a right to marry.”
“Then they should marry reasonably. Bros, you see that my neighbour. You once met him.. He has just one wife and two children. His gateman has four wives and 12 children. How much is his salary? I often walk across to settle quarrels between my neighbour and his wife. But his gateman with his army of dependents living in another man’s compound, you will never hear their voice. They seem to be happy. The owner of the building is in distress. He even threatened to abandon his wife and children. I had to advise him not to do so. Otherwise, his gate man will take over the entire house.”
“You want to hear me? Your neighbour is a stupid man. I pray you don’t end up like him. Me and you go talk dat one later. People like you go and marry these women and turn them into competitors as if you are running an Olympic race and you still want to be a man. When the women begin to show you, instead of you addressing the matter, you would decide to relocate abroad. You become woman wrapper. Idiot-husband. Ode somebody. Efulefu man. But your gatemen, drivers and cooks are the real men. They collect your money, steal from you, borrow from you, live in your compound and they live better. But you – big man! - you can’t control one woman.”
“But you must admit that has nothing to do with your monkey pox theory, bros”.
“Everything is interconnected”
“I don’t think so”
“Wait. Wait. Wait. I have not talked about the strike by university workers and all the unions.
“They have been treated unfairly. Government has a responsibility to be kind to the intellectual community. They are not asking for too much. Greedy, lazy National Assembly members collect so much money and other benefits, the intellectuals who help to build Nigeria’s skills flow and intellectual base are treated shabbily, paid peanuts and asked to go to hell. What is worse, government is adopting a divide and rule strategy, playing non-academic staff against academics. I like the fact that the university teachers are saying they will not move an inch. They have the right to protest.”
“Oh, God. The kind of books you people read. Are you aware that government is already thinking of banning the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)? They will ban them now and nothing will happen. They already have an alternative – the CONUA. The Federal Government will not only ban ASUU, they will not pay them for work not done. Many of those your so-called intellectuals will beg by the time they can’t pay their children’s school fees and their wives and in-laws begin to mock them. I even hear some lecturers are beginning to sell this and that. One female lecturer now sells puff-puff. Another lecturer in the North is doing Mai Shayi work. I know one in my neighbourhood who follows his wife to the shop every day. He calls himself a Doctor of I don’t what. Business Administration or Accounting? The man is now a big-time shop assistant attending to customers in his wife’s pepper soup joint! When Nigeria happens to you, you will learn your lesson the hard way…Look, I am saying all of this because I don’t want you to be like them…”
“What is wrong is wrong. The universities teachers have a case…Even if the Non-Academic staff return to the campuses this week, without the teachers, there will be no students. Even asking students to sue their lecturers makes no sense. Government cannot simply choose to be callous towards a strategic segment of the Nigerian population. When you shut down the country’s education system at the highest level, you shut down the future of the entire country. That is the issue. Many bright academics are leaving the education sector. Terrible brain-drain. Since 2017, ASUU has been on strike for a total of 578 days. In 2020, for 270 days, In 2022, that is, this year, 189 days as of today.”
“The lecturers just want money. Everybody wants money to hedge inflation. Government should just give them enough money to meet their level of greed, and you’d see there would be peace. No be Nigeria we dey?”
“No. This is not about money. That is in fact why ASUU has refused to cave in.”
“Look, bobo, in this country, everything is about money. Those Union of Electricity Workers who shut down the power grid and feeders on August 17, what do you think they are looking for?... Money!”
“A lot more than that, a close analysis showed.”
“Forget analysis! Everybody is talking about crude oil theft, economic sabotage bla bla. What do you think those behind crude oil theft are looking for?.. Money!”
“Specifically, that is economic sabotage, organized crime and terrorism against the Nigerian state.”
“You can say what you like, but what I am saying is that the real problem in this country is that everybody is looking for money and struggling for survival. Nigeria today is a struggle for the survival of the fittest. This is what has happened to us. In the last eight years, values have collapsed. Life is so hard. People just want to survive. Why do you think the legislature is just so compliant? Once you give people their own share of the cake, they will be quiet. The only problem is that there isn’t enough to go round.”
“Looks like in this country, nobody is ready to listen. Maybe I should just return to the UK or the States.”
“You want to Japa? No. No. No. That’s cowardice. Who do you think will look after my sister if you too run away? All your siblings are already abroad. You are the only one here. Don’t mind me, we are just having a discussion. To tell you the truth, this is still the best country in the world oh, with all our wahala. You know you and I are intelligent analysts. Please don’t tell my sister we even had this discussion, I beg. Wey my bush meat pepper soup?
“No, bros, I only have your usual beer in the fridge.”
“Bring am, bring am. Wetin I bin dey talk sef.”
“We are here this evening to witness this momentous occasion as the people of Kenya restate what is in article one of the constitution of Kenya that all sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya…I want to thank God for getting us to this point. I want to thank God that today we have concluded this election. I know that there were predictions that I wouldn’t get to the ballot, there were predictions that we would not be here, but because there is a God in Heaven we are here, and I want in a very special way to say, and to confess, that without God, we wouldn’t have been here.” – William Ruto, Deputy President and President-elect, Republic of Kenya, Monday, August 15, 2022.
And thus, it is done: the people of the Republic of Kenya have elected a new President in the person of the current Deputy President William Samoei Arap Ruto, 55, who, barring any untoward developments, will succeed his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta for whom the constitutional two-term limit of 10 years has come to an end. Kenya’s Constitution requires the winning candidate to receive 50% of the vote plus one, and at least 25% of the vote from 24 of the country’s 47 counties. A keenly contested election, which resulted in six days of vote counting, much anxiety and apprehension, as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) uploaded and collated the results, ended with William Ruto, candidate of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) winning 50.5% of the vote, that is 7.1 million votes. His closest challenger, Raila Odinga, 77, candidate of the Orange Democratic Movement/Azimio One Kenya Alliance, got 48.9% of the votes, that is 6.9 million votes. There were four major Presidential candidates in this election, and the third is particularly interesting: Professor George Wajackoyah, candidate of the Roots Party of Kenya, who ran a rather unorthodox campaign, targeted at young voters, with frenzied, eccentric mobilization on social media, and what became a high-pitched political movement combined with reggae dancing and talks about the value of marijuana, and hyena testicles.
Wajackoyah’s social media sensation and populism fetched him 61, 969 votes - just about 0.44% of the total votes cast – a grim reminder of the limits of social media populism in the context of elections. The fourth candidate, David Waihiga Mwaure of the Agano Party, almost stood no chance, with 31, 987 votes (0.23%) as this was a tight race between Odinga and Ruto. Kenya’s general election 2022 is probably the most competitive so far in the history of the country. Ahead of the elections at the Presidential, governorship, senatorial, parliamentary and county levels, there were fears that there could an outbreak of violence, similar to the killings in 2007 and 2017. The two leading candidates are old, bitter rivals, forming broad alliances that were meant to give one or the other an advantage: William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza alliance (an alliance of 12 political parties) and Raila Odinga’s Azimio la Umoja. It is a measure of how this particular general election in Kenya is a test of the country’s stability - even now that the result of the Presidential election has been announced, it is somewhat difficult to celebrate a definitive end of the process. The fear of violence, litigation and acrimony hangs in the air, and the fear also, of what is next for Kenya.
Just before the chair of the IEBC, Wafula Chebukati announced the winner, violence erupted at the national tally centre in Bomas, supporters of Mr. Raila Odinga reportedly started throwing chairs and tables. There were gunshots. Diplomats in attendance had to be guided away to safety. Mama Sarah, mother of the President-elect, also had to be quickly evacuated to safety from Bomas. Two electoral commissioners were injured. Meanwhile in another location, Deputy IEBC Chair, Juliana Cherera and three other commissioners rejected the results which they dismissed as “opaque”, and even went further to suggest that the results should be challenged in court, because four of them would not take ownership of it. Thus, 4 out of Kenya’s seven electoral commissioners rejected the outcome of the August 9 Presidential poll. This was a brazen display of partisanship and rebellion on the part of Cherera and her gang. Electoral Commissioners openly taking sides with a political party is a recipe for disaster. Before now, Odinga and his supporters had complained about rigging and mismanagement of the electoral process. IEBC insiders rebelling against their own team lead may have unwittingly set the stage for conflict.
What the law in Kenya says is that if Raila Odinga chooses to challenge the results, he is allowed to do so within seven days by petitioning the Supreme Court which would in turn take a decision within 14 days. If not, the results would stand, but if the results are nullified, fresh elections would be held within 60 days. We can safely assume that Odinga will go to court. Former MP/Prime Minister of Kenya (2008 – 2013), this is his fifth attempt at the Presidential seat. This may well be his last chance given his age. Polls before the elections projected him as the winner. His Iron Lady-running mate, Martha Karua was also sure they would win. There is no way they would walk away just like that. There is also the Uhuru Kenyatta factor. The incumbent President has been at logger-heads with his Deputy, William Ruto since 2018. In the lead up to this year’s elections, Kenyatta openly backed Odinga and promised to stop his own Deputy from succeeding him.
The declaration of Ruto as winner of the Presidential election clearly humbles and humiliates the incumbent and the Odinga coalition. It also postpones the dream of a Luo Presidency in Kenya. African political leaders often like to play God, to determine who succeeds them and to impose their will on the people. It is important that the verdict of the people is allowed to prevail. Ruto has told those who opposed him that there is “nothing to fear… there’s no room for vengeance.” The international community must immediately step in to help the people of Kenya manage the new transition. The United Nations, the African Union and all voices of reason must begin to prevail on the leaders of Kenya to give peace a chance. In 2007, more than 1, 200 people died as a result of electoral violence, masterminded at the time by the Mungiki gang. After the 2017 elections, more than 100 people were killed. This time around, the international community must be proactive in ensuring that the elections do not degenerate into another orgy of violence because of the ego of politicians. And in these elections in Kenya the egos in conflict are just too overbearing: beyond the coalitions and the spectre of divisive politics, you have Ruto-Gachagua at one end, opposed with equal fervour by Raila Odinga-Martha Karua. The people must be more important than the gladiators. Kenya’s history of violence must not be allowed to repeat itself, “the hustlers and dynasties” in contention must give the people a chance.
Without much doubt, the 2022 general election was a referendum on the legacy of President Uhuru Kenyatta. He is leaving behind a legacy of high inflation, high unemployment, economic inequality, political corruption, and debt – Kenya’s public debt is more than two-thirds of GDP. Is the average Kenyan better off today than he or she was in 2017? No. Out of a total of 22 million voters, 14 million Kenyans representing about 64.6% turned up to vote in the elections in 47 counties, for 16, 098 candidates contesting 1, 882 positions. Voter turn-out was much higher in 2017 – 78% at the time, but the people are disenchanted with the political elite. Kenya’s next President must give the people hope and rebuild trust in government. Kenya is heavily indebted to China, the country’s entire debt burden of about $70 billion is unsustainable, and to prevent the country becoming another Zambia or Sri Lanka, this must be addressed. The people want food on the table. They want poverty tackled. They want to eat their ugali and mandazi without pain. More importantly they want the high cost of living and taxes reduced. They want peace. Ruto promised the people a “bottom-up economic model”. Ruto would be Kenya’s fifth President since independence. And he has made history. No Deputy President in Kenya has ever succeeded the President. William Ruto will be the first. He is also the second Kalenjin after Daniel Arap Moi’s Vice Presidency and Presidency to lead Kenya.
It is further reassuring to hear that yesterday, he placed a call to Raila Odinga and reportedly told him: “I will be available for us to have a cup of tea because there are areas we can agree on...We agreed that whatever the outcome of this election, we should have a conversation.” The race may have been close, but Ruto won convincingly in critical constituencies such as the Rift Valley, Baringo, Mt. Kenya region where his running mate comes from, Teru, Nyeri and even in President Kenyatta’s Kiambu county where Ruto’s UDA took 11 parliamentary seats! Kenya’s next President has his job cut out for him. He has an obligation to run an inclusive government. It is now time to stop the vitriol and personal attacks. The bitter quarrel with Kenyatta must stop. There is a country to run. Ruto must put his hands to the wheel-barrow and move with it! It is time to rebuild bridges. An openly religious man, he must learn to eschew the politics of hate. There have been celebrations in Murang’a, Kerugoya and Nakuru. And protests in Kibera, and parts of Kondele in Kisumu. The people of Kenya must unite. They will look up to the former “chicken seller”, and self-described “hustler” to lead this country of 50 million people with wisdom, competence and courage.
Whatever happens the day after, the just concluded elections hold some resonance for us in Nigeria as we prepare for our own major elections in 2023. On a positive note, Kenya has done much better this time around in terms of women representation. Half of registered voters in that country are women. Ahead of the elections, there were reports of attacks on women politicians and intimidation and gender-based harassment. But it has now been reported that seven women emerged as Governors in the election out of a total of 47. Six women were also elected as MPs and one as Senator. This is a major improvement since 2017 when in that year, only three women were elected as Governors. In 2010, part of the Constitutional review was the decision codified in law as a two-third rule to encourage women participation in Kenyan politics. There is probably a lesson for us here in Nigeria. To all intents and purposes, Nigerian women constitute half of the voting population but they are structurally and procedurally marginalized in political decision-making processes. Women politicians in countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia and South Africa are far ahead of their Nigerian counterparts. Nigeria pays lip service to the politics of inclusion, but what we run is a backward-looking, patriarchal system that confines female politicians to the backyards.
There was much talk about the deployment of technology in Kenya’s election. There was nothing fool-proof about it. Out of the over 46, 000 electronic voter machines that were deployed, over 200 failed. Election was even suspended in at least one county. It took a whole week to get a final tally of results, creating anxiety. The thing to note is that the democratic process in Africa is still a work-in-progress, and many countries on the continent are still learning how to get elections right. Imagine a situation where it takes a whole week to collate election results in Nigeria! I don’t want to imagine what would happen if we were to experience that kind of delay.
What has also been proven in Kenya is the perpetual conflict between incumbents and their deputies. President Kenyatta is definitely not happy that his Deputy has been declared winner. Both of them have been at each other’s throats since 2018. Ruto says he was the architect of Kenyatta’s emergence as President, for while he worked hard and held crucial meetings to make him President, Kenyatta was always busy sleeping. Kenyatta dismisses his Deputy as a “thug” and a “tanga tanga” man; so much pettiness between those two but no one should be under any illusion that one is better than the other. Ruto is as much a product of the establishment as Kenyatta is. He is certainly not a saint. Indeed, without prejudice to already stated expectations, it would be quite a big surprise if he is able to perform any magic as President. In real terms, the transformation that the people of Kenya seek, may not happen under a President Ruto. But to go back to the original point about African Presidents and their Deputies working against each other, Kenya presents yet another classical example.
The myth that the democratic process at Presidential and Gubernatorial levels offers the people two capable hands for the price of one is exactly what it is: a myth. African political leaders are superstitious power mongers and closet monarchs. They can’t tolerate the idea of a Deputy who may become a replacement. We have seen this in many African countries: in Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Most recently, in the party primaries for the 2023 Presidential election, President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria did not lift a finger to support his Vice President’s expressed ambition to succeed him. If he did, the outcome of the ruling party’s Presidential primaries could have been different. In 2015, President Ernest Koroma of Sierra Leone sacked his Deputy, Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana and expelled him from the party, the All People’s Congress. Sam-Sumana had to seek asylum in the US Embassy in Freetown. In 1995, late President John Jerry Rawlings of Ghana reportedly once kicked his Vice President in the groin, punched him in the face, and tore the shoulder of his jacket at a cabinet meeting!
Going forward, what Kenya needs is peace. The elections were generally considered calm and peaceful. On Monday, the Interfaith Council of Kenya called on Kenyans and their leaders to maintain the peace. The Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nyeri, Anthony Mheria said: “We send peace to Kenyans, our President-elect, and candidates that lost the vote count. May peace rest in their hearts and families.” Christian and Muslim clergy in the Rift Valley have also expressed similar sentiments. May it be well with Kenya…
The organizers of the just concluded 22nd Commonwealth in Birmingham, UK deserve high praise for delivering an event at the Alexander Stadium in the West Midlands that proved to be a triumph of art, culture, multi-sports glory and remarkable diversity. This was the first carbon-neutral Commonwealth Games (CWG) to be organized, thus a pacesetter for other multi-sports events hereafter. It was also like no other Commonwealth Games before it, with the inclusion of more games and medals on offer for women's sports – for the first time, women's cricket was introduced, in addition to eight para events that were integrated to further highlight the themes of inclusivity and diversity. The last time the UK hosted the “Friendly Games” as the CWG is also known was 20 years ago in Manchester, this year’s event, 10 years after the 2012 London Olympics, was bigger and coming in the year of the Queen’s Platinum, it has been a befitting tribute to the shared Commonwealth heritage, the city of Birmingham itself, and to all the athletes for whom the Friendly Games provides opportunities for self-realization beyond the thrill of participation or attendance.
Our high praise for Birmingham and the UK is not misplaced given the challenges that the hosts had to grapple with. The city of Durban was originally chosen as the next host of the 2022 Games as far back as 2015, but when Durban had to withdraw due to financial constraints, Birmingham volunteered to be the host in 2017, thus saddled with a shorter time for preparation ahead of the 2002 Games. Then COVID-19 up-ended the entire world, creating global process and supply disruptions, lockdowns and shutdowns and an inevitable re-ordering of processes with cost implications. Yet, despite this, Birmingham delivered. The opening ceremony of the Games on July 28 has been adjudged one of the most colourful ever, a celebration of diversity with prominent thematic motifs including equality of all persons and races, and properly toned reminders of culture, art and history: William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, Edward Edgar, Charlie Chaplin.
The high point of the opening was the gigantic automaton Bull of Birmingham charging into the stadium, which was eventually tamed. Duran Duran, Spice Girls. A festive musicality filled the air. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall drove into the arena. Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Laureate who adopted Birmingham as her new home, after she was shot by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2012, also gave a speech on the importance of girls’ education. The Commonwealth comprises 72 nations and territories, most of which were formerly under the British Empire, representing 2.5 billion people of the world. This year, the Games had in attendance 6, 500 athletes competing in 280 medal events. It started on a high note. It ended on an even higher note, with UB40, Goldie and other global artists performing and Australia topping the medals table with 174 medals.
History was made. I note, in particular, the record set by 72-year-old Rosemary Lenton of Scotland winning the gold medal in para women’s pairs bowling with Pauline Wilson, 58. Birmingham has the most youthful population in the whole of Europe, 40% of its population is under the age of 25, and yet at this year’s Games, Scottish ladies, Lenton and Wilson proved that age is no barrier. But of course, the bigger excitement for me was the performance of the Nigerian contingent at the Games. This was our country’s 15th appearance at the Games, we sent a total of 93 athletes (41 men and 52 women) competing in 7 sports – athletics, boxing, judo, para powerlifting, table tennis, weightlifting and wrestling, but this was our best outing ever at the CWG, a firm, redoubtable, confirmation that Nigeria is a country of champions, who only need to be given the opportunity and the enabling environment for their talents to flower. At the CWG 2022, Nigeria finished seventh on the medals table with a total of 35 medals – 12 gold, nine silver and 14 bronze medals. The last time Nigeria did something faintly close to this was at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada, when the country got 11 gold medals, 13 silver and 13 bronze, and also at the 2014 Games in Glasgow, Scotland.
This year’s performance would be unforgettable, particularly with the record-breaking performance put up by the Nigerian team. The harvest of medals began with Adijat Olarinoye setting the new Commonwealth record in weightlifting, 55 kg category, lifting a total of 203 kg, Rafiatu Lawal also set a new record in the 59 kg weightlifting with a total lift of 206 kg, Folashade Oluwafunmilayo also set a new record in women’s heavyweight powerlifting, winning the gold medal, her compatriot, Bose Omolayo, took the silver medal in the same event. Tobi Amusan whose phenomenal performance at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, US had been celebrated two weeks earlier when she set a new record in the 100 m hurdles, soon proved that her earlier performance was truly the stuff of genius when she repeated the same feat at the CWG and thus defended her title as indisputable Nigeria, African, Commonwealth and the World Champion in 100 m hurdles.! She is in addition the first Nigerian athlete to successfully defend a Commonwealth Games 100m hurdles title, having won the same in Gold Coast, Australia in 2018. Nwachukwu Goodness provided a taste of additional goodness to Nigeria’s performance when she won gold and set a new record in women's discus throw with just her first two throws! Another hero in discus is Chioma Onyekwere. Nigeria also took another gold and set another record when the quartet of Tobi Amusan, Favour Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma and Grace Nwokocha won the gold medal in the 4 x 100 women’s relay. Ese Brume placed a nice cap on it all when, on Sunday, she also took the gold medal in the long jump, breaking the record in the event twice on the same day!
It has been said that the ladies did better than the men, winning nine out of all the 12 gold medals for Nigeria. This is not to make light of the effort of the men who won medals for Nigeria: Udodi Onwuzurike, Favour Ashe, Alaba Akintola and Raymond Ekewvo won a bronze medal in the men’s 4 x100 relay. Edidiong Umoafia also won a bronze in 67kg weightlifting. Overall, it was a good outing for Nigeria. We may not have done well in table tennis – the Ouadri Aruna-led men’s table tennis team was beaten in the semi-finals by India, dashing our hopes. Our women’s table tennis team could not advance to the quarter finals, having been defeated by the English team. There was also some initial disturbance about sports kits and Nigeria having to engage a British company MG Sportswear to work round the clock to produce last-minute kits for the athletes – this is a perennial problem with Nigeria. We never manage to get ready until the last minute. Or after. Poor management is the bane of sports in Nigeria, and you can add to that - politics, greed and corruption. Nonetheless, what stands out after the country’s outing in Birmingham is the epochal performance of the Nigerian contingent, more specifically, the female athletes, and the Ministry of Sports which tried to ensure that there was no scandal. That in itself should be considered an achievement. The contingent deserves applause.
Those special moments on the podium at the World Athletics Championships two weeks ago and now at the Commonwealth Games have given us something to be joyful about as a country - at a time when everything appears dim in Nigeria: public-owned universities have been shut down since February 14, the national currency, the Naira, has depreciated so badly in value many families cannot afford to buy a loaf of bread on the family menu because it is now so expensive, inflation is about 18.6%, unemployment - 33.3%, terrorists are getting bolder by the day, they are even threatening to abduct the President and other political leaders…and just in the midst of all that Tobi, Ese, Favour, Goodness and others have made us proud, and put a smile on our lips.
Nigeria could have done better if we had participated perhaps in more events, but the starting point would be for the country to develop the existing potential in other sports. We need world-class facilities to train and build athletes. Many of the Nigerian athletes who often do well in major competitions, may have been discovered at home, but they tend to get to the peak of their potential through foreign exposure and training. It should be possible to generate and keep world talents at home by making our environment more sports-friendly. Once upon a time, Ogbe Stadium in Benin City, Rowe Park and the National Stadium in Lagos, and Liberty Stadium in Ibadan were rated as world-class sports facilities. These days, these and even newer sports facilities merely survive for about a year or two before they go into disrepair despite huge amounts spent on them. Frustrated, many of our athletes take up the citizenship and jerseys of other countries. This is why the dedicated ones who still give us podium moments at competitions are true heroes and sheroes. What remains is to ensure that our 2022 CWG patriots get the befitting reception that they have earned, and of course, nobody has talked about the ethnic identity of these achievers as we all share in their glory as Nigerians – an indication of how sports can be a strong tool for promoting national unity. .
Successful as CWG 2022 may have been, however, questions have been raised about the continued relevance and merit of the Games in its present format. There are three sides to this: politics, cost and scope. There are many who remain uneasy about the fact that the Commonwealth Games draws its identity from a legacy of monarchy, empire and colonialism. They want a clean break from the colonial past as the Empire itself has since ceased to exist as it then was. Originally established as the “The British Empire Games”, the Games has since changed its brand to the Commonwealth Games or The Friendly Games, to reflect the equality of members and the dominance of democracy. The Games thus promote partnership, friendship and the history of the shared heritage among members. Those who want a new identity refer to the fact that in terms of membership, certainly new, non-Empire members have since been admitted into the Commonwealth, the most recent being - Rwanda, Mozambique, Samoa, Gabon and Togo. If it is possible for countries that were never colonies under the British empire to join the Commonwealth out of their own volition, then it should be possible to expand participation in the Games to make it truly multi-sports and multi-nation. Gabon and Togo having become members are expected to send participants to the next Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Australia in 2026.
What is the issue about cost? Funding the CWG can be rather expensive. This is the major reason why in more than two decades, only one other country, that is India (Delhi 2010) has hosted the games outside the UK and Australia. Durban, South Africa had to opt out of its right to host CWG 2022 due to financial constraints. Indeed, no African country has ever hosted the Games since its debut in 1930. Birmingham spent about 778 million pounds to host this year’s event. Can any African country put such an amount together to host a sporting event? Outside Africa, many of the smaller members of the Commonwealth (eg. Nauru, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Gambia, Tonga, Antigua and Barbuda etc) may also face financial constraints. But if countries are admitted based on capacity to host the Games, the question is: would the CWG not begin to look more like the Olympics? Would the opportunity cost consideration not translate into a complete erosion of brand and identity? Is there a possible new model for financing and hosting the Games to reduce cost and the burden on interested host countries? Unless a new model of financing is thought up, the dream of having every member country host the Games may never be realized. The rich countries that can afford to do so, would continue to lead. Hence, countries like the UK (Manchester 2012, Birmingham 2022), New Zealand (Auckland 1950,1990), and Scotland (Edinburgh 1970, 1986), have hosted the Games more than once. Australia in fact, holds the record of multiple hosting of the Games – five times and would again be the host in 2026 followed by Canada hosting four times (– Hamilton, 1930, Vancouver, 1954, Edmonton, 1978, Victoria, 1994). The doctrine of the sovereign equality of states is a fundamental principle of international law, but in real terms countries are not equal, human beings are also just as unequal.
The assumption that Britain is using the CWG as a vehicle to divert attention away from the ills of its past, presenting itself as a more compassionate nation now making friends with former subjects, compared to other former imperial powers, does not devalue the Commonwealth Movement. The Commonwealth Games in whatever form would continue to showcase cities, and put such cities on the global map as it has done for Birmingham and other cities before now, in addition to providing a strong platform for athletes to prove their mettle in a manner that resonates throughout the Commonwealth and beyond, and a vehicle for the promotion of diplomacy, communalities, goodwill and understanding through sports. Nigeria and its athletes must begin to prepare for the next Games in 2026. For now, CWG is a good outing. At the opening ceremony, on July 28, the Nigerian contingent danced excitedly to Kizz Daniel’s song: “Buga”. By yesterday when the games ended, “E choke” to borrow Davido’s famous Nigerian slang!
I stumbled on a story in the Nigerian media which says that the National Assembly is planning to consider no fewer than 63 bills for the creation of new universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and monotechnics, and I wondered whether madness has finally descended on Nigeria’s education sector. Nigeria at the moment has about 49 Federal Universities, 59 state universities, Polytechnics - about 40, state-owned universities- 49, and private universities – 76, federal and state-owned colleges of health – 70, private colleges of health – 17, Colleges of Education – 219. So, who wants to add 63 more institutions to this array of moribund, inefficient, poorly governed and perpetually-on-strike-
Many lawmakers want a tertiary institution in their own neck of the woods. They want it said that as part of democracy dividends, it was during their term in office that a school was brought to their village, or community. They are forever desperate to be seen to be doing something that would fetch them another term in office. It is not difficult to see why community projects so called constitute such a big competition among lawmakers. Some lawmakers collude with the traditional rulers of their communities to give chieftaincy titles to their colleagues to support their plans to establish Universities of Medicine in their villages. If established. such universities would be no better than Primary Health Care Centres. Worse, actually. Higher institutions of learning should not be created on the basis of political expediency. No school should be established to massage the ego of politicians. Tertiary education should not be about quantity, but quality and capacity, not political convenience, but political interest. We do not need to have a university or a polytechnic in every hamlet of Nigeria - that would be a prescription for chaos and confusion.
Today, it would be exactly two weeks since the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari gave or did not give, the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, a two-week ultimatum, to find a solution, to the strike since February 14, 2022, of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Some other reports indicated that the Minister himself was the one who volunteered to end the strike because he had found a special formula to the matter. The two weeks is up today, so what has happened? What has happened is that by yesterday, ASUU told everyone that the union is extending the strike by university teachers for another period of four weeks. If ASUU was aware of any progress being made with the negotiations, its communique would have said so, but there was absolutely nothing like that. An academic session is about 9 months. Nigeria’s universities have been shut down for more than six months. A whole academic session has been sacrificed on the altar of nothing. Many students by now would have forgotten whatever they learnt in their other life as undergraduates. Many of the boys and ladies would by now have ended up as fathers and mothers, victims of unwanted pregnancy or adolescent sexuality, due to distraction and idleness, quite a number from privileged homes would have moved on to foreign schools or private universities, a larger majority would simply have dropped out to become a big burden unto society. When university teachers embarked on their strike in February 2022, it was just them, but they have since been joined by other unions within the education sector. For months, Nigeria’s public education sector has been on its knees. On the plain surface of it, this is not good enough. It is condemnable, because the crisis is avoidable, and speaks to the failure of leadership and governance.
The involved unions - ASUU, SSANU, NASU, ASUP - are asking for better conditions of service and a quality education system in Nigeria. ASUU insists on a number of issues: fulfilment of the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement, and the re-negotiated agreements of 2014, 2020, and 2022 in line with the sacred principle – pacta sunt servanda – that is the sanctity of agreements. It would appear that the Federal Government of Nigeria does not want to respect any agreements including the latest Nimi Briggs committee proposal. The Briggs committee is recommending an over 100% increase in salaries and allowances for university teachers. The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Chris Ngige has been heard saying the government cannot pay such money because there is no money anywhere as Nigeria grapples with a local and global season of economic distress. Well, well, well, it is true that Nigeria’s debt service profile exceeds country revenue by about 119%. Excess crude Account has been depleted. What do we have there now? Some little change above $300 million. Our foreign exchange situation is so bad, the Naira is beginning to look like toilet paper in comparison to the dollar! University teachers of Nigeria insist that they do not want the government’s payment system that places them under what is popularly known as IPPIS, they want their own payment system called UTAS. They are asking for revitalization funds for universities. They want the number of universities to be rationalized because they think there are too many universities in the country, resulting in the lowering of standards. They reject the idea that Nigerian students should pay appropriate fees. They think the provision of quality education for the Nigerian child is a sacred duty and anything to the contrary drawn from Western, neo-liberal economics is wrong-headed, human development strategy. There are more than enough hard liners on both sides, however: between those who think government must have its way, and those who think government is manned by stupid persons who have lost the capacity to think intelligently. In that middle are parents whose children have been wrong-footed, a country whose education system is being destroyed and young Nigerians whose future has been mortgaged.
It is perhaps necessary to define the context of this reflection. Once upon a time in this same country, the education system flourished. In 1955, the Western Region led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and strategic thinkers like Chief Adekunle Ajasin and Professor S. O. Awokoya introduced Universal Free Primary Education System in the Western Region. The policy promoted education in the Western region. By 1957, the Eastern Region led by had also introduced a framework for a similar promotion of education. In 1959, the leaders of Northern Nigeria had their first major summit on education with a clear intention to promote education in the North. The regional system encouraged competition and each region working on its own comparative advantage. The West succeeded with its plan, producing generations of educated persons. The East also succeeded, but the civil war truncated the growth of the East. The East has since recovered pushing forcefully ahead on the competitive plane, after the civil war, a reflection of the people’s resilience, with Igbos now having the highest number of Ph.D holders in Nigeria today. The only region that fell behind is the North where a large number of Nigeria’s out of school children is concentrated and the result has been banditry, terrorism, and illiteracy. My point is that there was a time when every region of Nigeria tried to promote education, learning, and culture, with relative differences. As a primary and secondary school pupil in this country, government gave us books. Some of our schools could easily compare with some of the best schools in England and Europe. Students came to study in this country from other parts of the world. Many of our teachers from primary to university level were expatriates, and they were very happy living and working in Nigeria, with their families.
I remember this: my secondary school got featured on the then old WNTV because we had one of the best farms in the Western region cultivated by the school under the leadership of Chief Sesan Soluade who later became Deputy Governor under Chief Olabisi Onabanjo as Governor of Ogun State. At the university level, we had access to quality. There was water. There was electricity. Hostel staff laid our beds, washed our bedsheets, and every morning cleaned our rooms. The university cafeteria was a place of delight. The food was good. The menu was heavenly. They fed us to make us study well. We drank tea every morning. Every meal came with tea and dessert. Every Sunday afternoon, we looked forward to the special chicken delicacy that we got served as a special treat. Food was so important to us, and a source of celebration that even our cafeteria had a Chairman who was so appointed and recognized by students! Only the Chairman had the right to arrive whenever he wanted and he would be allowed to go straight to the head of the queue. The Chairman was a true Chairman in any case, because he was always the first person to show up at the cafeteria, morning, noon, and in the evening. The irony was that he was a science student with all their laboratory sessions, but he seemed to have taken his reputation as the cafeteria king as his major mission in the university. Chairman graduated. Mr. Jeun Koku didn’t repeat a class! He graduated on schedule.
In the more uptown universities like the University of Ibadan, we were told that the situation was even better. Those ones wore gowns and some of the boys behaved like they were future lords. Before we graduated, everything collapsed. The cafeteria system disappeared. Nigeria under Ibrahim Babangida, had taken the IMF pill. The country went downhill and has not recovered since then. By the time I got to Ibadan for graduate studies, I met a culture of “bush attack”. There was no water. No normal environment. Boys and girls took to the bush in early morning hours to empty their bowels. Everywhere stank. Then, they brought undergraduate girls to graduate hostels and hell broke loose. Boys started behaving like girls. I ran for election as Secretary of Awolowo Hall along with others who thought we needed to save our Hall of Residence, and won, but we all ended up being very friendly with the female wing! It is now so bad that the education system has completely failed. Over 13 million Nigerian children, most of them in the North are out of school. Northern leaders have been holding meetings since 1959 to promote education and enlightenment in the North. They meet every season, every year, every electoral cycle. The number of illiterate children in the North keeps expanding. The situation has been compounded by the menace of Boko Haram, terrorism and the insecurity of lives and property in the North. Religious and ethnic dimensions to the crisis make it more terrible. Not even schools are safe. They have become targets in the hands of those who believe that western education is a sin and that anyone who goes to school must be kidnapped and eliminated.
Given these circumstances, the proposed recklessness of breathing more tertiary institutions into existence through legislation is annoying. Nigeria does not need more tertiary institutions. This is one of the major arguments of ASUU and other unions. I think they are right. Even with the Nimi-Briggs proposition, nothing will change. Has anyone even seen the Briggs paper? What the university teachers want is a quality education system. They do not want the proliferation of mushroom universities that spring up at every corner without the wherewithal to keep them going. The education system is so bad that employers of labour in Nigeria do not even want to employ graduates of Nigerian tertiary institutions. If you must employ them, you would need to set up a training school and this is why perhaps there has been an explosion in training budgets in Nigerian companies. The graduates who come out of Nigerian schools cannot speak English. They do not know the difference between a formal and an informal letter. You should not be surprised if they show up in the office wearing those rags that they call clothes. They behave so badly senior managers are the ones who now have to act in loco parentis. Some of the senior managers are themselves products of a bad era, creating a community of Nigerian managers and their staff who are totally lacking in skills and competence. They pollute the environment. Even when companies recruit foreign graduates, the ones who studied abroad, it is often difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Many of those pretty looking ladies and smart boys that you meet in banking halls who speak through their noses have actually never gone anywhere beyond Lekki or Surulere. They have international passports and have had the privilege of getting a visa and probably spent two weeks in downtown Europe, and they would have returned with such strange accents you would think that their grandmother came from Europe.
Nigeria must resolve the crisis in the education sector, starting this time from top to bottom. Having a key percentage of Nigerians in the top educational range sitting at home, doing nothing, and embracing depression, indeed some university lecturers have become petty traders, some of the women I hear, now prepare and sell nkwobi and pepper-soup, is disgraceful to the nation. Ministers of the Federal Republic abusing and threatening university teachers, will not solve the problem. The Minister of Education has missed the two-week deadline. ASUU and other unions are still on strike. As things stand, our universities may remain shut until after the 2023 general elections.
I am concerned, but not shocked in any way, that the most prominent reaction to the interview that Arise News conducted last week with the Presidential candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar has been sheer tittle-tattle about location, and format and silly ego games. It is a measure of the confusion in the land, and the failure to focus on ideas and concrete issues. The big problem that we face in this country, six months to the 2023 general election is the obsession with minutiae and the irrelevant. This must be considered a national tragedy considering the challenges before us. Thousands, if not millions of young Nigerians burn hours on the social media/internet abusing persons engaged in productive work, while they idle away in their ignorance and obscurantism. Times like this call for a greater deployment of time and intelligence, because Nigeria indeed, now more than before in the last two decades, stands at the brink of a precipice. But alas, Nigeria is saddled with a growing generation of idlers who think that their lives are enriched by pulling down others. But while these ordinary, eponymously anonymous persons need not detain serious minded persons from forging ahead, it must be noted that the emergent political elite is not in any way better. Its members are worse in terms of intellect, capacity, and character. This forces us to ask that question again: what a country! Or as the sage, Chinua Achebe, put it: “There was a country!”. The race to 2023 is a painful reminder of how the biggest tragedy that has befallen Nigeria is the absence of ideas, the collapse of good reason, and the brazen triumph of mediocrity and selective amnesia.
My concern is this: what is the central election issue as Nigeria prepares for the 2023 general elections? Where is that consensus that propels a nation? It is six months to Nigeria’s 2023 general elections, can anyone put his or her finger on any big issues of direct relevance within the context of the Constitution and the people’s expectations? I will address these same questions anon. But to get an idea of my drift, I would like to draw attention to what is currently going on in Britain. There is a bitter, blue-on-blue acrimonious fight for the seat of the Prime Minister of the UK within the ruling Conservative Party. The battle began with Prime Minister Boris Johnson losing the support and confidence of members of his own party and even if he survived two confidence votes, it eventually became clear that with the party-gate scandal and the abandonment of his government on the grounds of principle by many of his key persons, he had lost the support of his own party. From party-gate to everything else, Boris Johnson was his own assassin. He committed political suicide, damaged his own legacy and lost the moral right to lead. The practicality of his rejection is one of the reasons why I argue that Nigeria, going forward, should consider the option of a return to a parliamentary system of government or a combination of the parliamentary and the presidential, as has been robustly canvassed in the extant literature on the subject. The Presidential system creates monarchs, and that is precisely what it does in developing economies. A parliamentary system places greater emphasis on accountability and responsibility at all levels, and the people’s voice. That is what we need. But what do we have?
Nigeria’s political process is inundated with nonsense for structural reasons and what we have is a mad-house. In the UK at the moment, there is a race to succeed Boris Johnson. There is a consensus that the Prime Minister has overstayed his welcome. His party needs to get rid of him, to protect the party ahead of the next general elections. Boris Johnson as Prime Minister has desecrated the seat long enough. He has resigned. He will quit on September 5. But as his party, the Tories seek to appoint a new leader and a new Prime Minister, what we see is a focus on the issues. About eleven candidates began the race for No. 10 but after five ballots within the party the choice has been narrowed down to former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. Before this Liz vs Rishi moment, it must be noted that the arguments have been about issues and the British people – what can be done to make their lot better, what can be done to reinvent the party and deliver better dividends to the people in the face of an excruciating cost of living crisis – the cost of gas is high, the NHS is in trouble, inflation is so high, the Bank of England has had to tighten rates five times, persons in England now skip meals, confronted as they are by foodflation- so, how to save the Tory party and move beyond Boris Johnson. We have seen in that example, even if the eventual choice would be determined by a minority of about 160, 00 Tory party members, a focus on the big issues that are relevant to the people’s interests. Human beings will ways be human, I know that, but even the personal attacks that we have seen in the Tory dog-fight: on Penny Mordaunt, on Sunak’s centrism, Liz Truss’s extreme right politics have all been within the context of ideas and ideologies. The top contestants are talking about China, immigration, national security, the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, cost of living crisis, climate change, tax cuts and investments. When the British eventually make their choice at the current intra-party level, it would be a choice between definite ideas, and when they do so in a future general election, it would also be about ideas and the people’s interest.
While the British are in that mode right now, Nigeria is also looking for new leadership, from a choice of 18 political parties and Presidential candidates. Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had their first, major, one-on-one debate at 9 pm on Monday. The debate continues today, on Tuesday. Both debates matter because the candidates are spelling out their mission and vision. They will be watched closely and scrutinized by their publics, and whoever wins and emerges through the process would be convinced that the battle was truly won and lost as both candidates continue to slug it out on the battle-grounds. Here, in Nigeria, the candidates are not talking to the people. With the key exception of Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Omoyele Sowore of the Africa Acton Congress (AAC), who both run movements, not political parties, the other candidates are busy talking to their kind: godfathers, persons they think control Nigeria, and who can fix the election for them, and the party elite. When they remember the people, they throw money at them, and promise to give them more money if they are elected.
Nigeria, like many developing countries of the world that jumped on the democratization scheme in the early 90s, does not understand what it means nor have the people been able to domesticate the idea of democracy. The democratic project was imposed by the West as a one-size-fits all proposition, but the many contradictions that this has thrown up is beguiling. To use Nigeria as an example, it would be in order to say that Nigeria is not ready for democracy, certainly not in the present shape in which it is. Nigerian politicians are royalists with an undeserved sense of entitlement. They want power because power is sweet and grants a sense of control, relevance and importance. Our democracy is a democracy of terrorists, scavengers and opportunists. This is why there is a terrible gap between those at the apex and those at the base of society. Those who argue that the electorate should get their voters’ cards and make informed choices at the polls next year are all correct, and spot on, but what is anyone doing about the people’s cynicism, and the banditi-zation of Nigerian politics? In the absence of ideas and good conduct by the political elite, the people are in order to be cynical, as they have ever been, and what we see in the current lead up to Nigeria’s 2023 general election is chaotic cynicism.
Back to our original question: what are the big issues in Nigerian politics at this moment? The multiple reactions that have attended the Arise News interview with PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar simply show the lack of preparedness at the highest levels in this country. Nobody is talking about ideas. The reactions have been about peripheral issues, not ideas. Arise News sat with Atiku for a whole hour and raised issues ranging from politics to economy, relationships and other matters Nigeriana. The Nigerian social media mob took up editorial duties that is entirely not their business as they focused on sponsored and teleguided BS and in their sponsored frenzy, they failed to look at key issues. The only exception in this regard would be in my view, Farooq Kperogi, the scholar and columnist, who resisted and cleverly avoided a habitual tendency to be unkind to other people’s efforts. He focused on bigger issues. But what came from the other communities, that is, the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Tinubu Campaign Organization, the Obidient movement supporting Peter Obi, and the Wike Camp, were the usual diatribe about ego: my candidate is better than yours, you lied against me. Within 48 hours, the whole thing degenerated into an ego game. Wike is threatening to talk later and reveal mountains of truth. He should stop threatening. If he has anything to say, let him go ahead and do so forthwith. Tinubu’s people have called Atiku a liar on the subject of Muslim-Muslim ticket. Atiku says he wants Tinubu in a one-on-one, one hour debate to settle the matter once and for all. Tinubu, we are told, has a memory loss issue.
I won’t be surprised if the two candidates start talking about whose wife is more beautiful and who can still crack the best fires in the other room, or who is richer, or more energetic. The Tinubu group picked on the smallest issues in the Atiku conversation, talking about Abraham Lincoln, the politics of running mates, whereas there are more important issues about the economy, privatization, national security, education and health. The way the Nigerian process is going, nobody will talk about what concerns the people. The politicians will share money on or before election day, and given the arrest of persons during the recent Ekiti and Osun Gubernatorial, off-cycle elections, the political bandits will find smarter ways of buying votes, and the ordinary people will find new ways of collecting electoral bribe. It is safe to say that there is no tested, effective law in place yet that addresses this challenge.
So, why are ideas no longer relevant in Nigerian politics? Most of the 18 Presidential candidates have no manifesto. For more than two weeks, the Tinubu Campaign Organization, after rejecting a document that was widely circulated threatened to release a manifesto. Nobody has seen that manifesto yet. What we see are reactions to rival political candidates on peripheral issues. More serious candidates who could have been on the ballot ironically have since been pushed out of the race. Where is Kingsley Moghalu for example? And why is Omoyele Sowore being treated like a student unionist? And why has Peter Obi been reduced to a social media sensation? Ideas, Ideas, ideas. We can’t get anything concrete. Nobody listens to ideas, because the ones that are ready to promote them are not given the opportunity to do so. Those who try to generate ideas, outside partisan boundaries, are treated badly. In 2015, it would be remembered that the APC in seeking to wrest power from the ruling PDP tried to construct its gambit around ideas: security, the economy and fight against corruption. In 2019, the ruling party sustained the same mantra and asked for an opportunity to complete what it started. In 2022/2023, the main gladiators are terribly distracted.
Yet, the major issue in Nigeria’s democracy – federal and state levels today, should be ideas and specific performance. Since the beginning of this campaign, the main candidates have discussed nothing but religion, ethnicity, personal health, clothing, and personality. The 2023 campaign has been dominated by personal ambition and expectations and trivia. Many of the presidential candidates that have emerged do not even have manifestoes. Nobody knows what they stand for or what they intend to do, not even what they understand about the task ahead. Titles are fashionable in Nigeria. Power is desirable. The allure of position and influence is magnetic. Nigerians would jump at anything along this spectrum. They want titles, not responsibility. This is why I think the reaction to the Arise News conversation with Atiku Abubakar veered off from the centre to the periphery. There are issues indicated in that conversation and alive in the public domain that have been conveniently ignored.
NNPC has just been unveiled as a new, commercial entity, in an industry that accounts for 80% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. What do the Presidential candidates intend to do about that? Nigeria has a debt to revenue ratio crisis, with debt service cost exceeding revenue by about 119% per cent? The national grid continues to collapse and function epileptically. Inflation is as high as 18.6%. There is unemployment in the land. Food inflation as well. Life is so insecure, terrorists are threatening to abduct the President, Senators and Governors and either kill them or sell them into slavery, and they sound very serious about that objective. Yesterday, they even made an effort to engage the Presidential guards in Abuja. The country also faces a serious foreign exchange crisis – it is so bad that even bread makers are threatening to go on strike because they cannot access forex and raw materials. The aviation sector is down. The nation’s currency has lost everything including its integrity, the big question is how to save it. In real terms, this country is on the way to Venezuela if not Sri Lanka or Lebanon. These are important issues that should engage the attention of those who want to rule the country. But the space has been taken over by spokespersons writing platitudes and reticent candidates who piggy-back on the dominance of their parties and abdicate responsibility without negotiating the issues and a proper assessment of the chaos that is upon us. The country’s destiny seems postponed. This trend must change. Every Presidential candidate should be shown the video of yesterday’s UK Prime Ministerial debate between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.
This day, July 19 should go down as a special moment in the economic history of Nigeria – the day when the country’s main vehicle for economic survival, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is officially unveiled by the incumbent President as a commercial venture. The transition took effect on July 1, in line with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), 2021. But by noon today, NNPC would have formally made that transition from being a corporation to become a limited liability company, a company limited by shares, to be known hereafter as NNPC Limited, that is a commercial venture. In some of our media platforms in the last few days, the NNPC hierarchy has been staging a song and a dance over the fact that the NNPC was indeed about to become a new entity. What does this mean in real terms for Nigerians? While we are all obsessed with politics, the Osun Gubernatorial election being the latest menu on the plate of the commentariat and the political elite, it seems to me that the transition that is to be unveiled today at the NNPC deserves some interest. Established in 1977, 45 years ago, the NNPC manages Nigeria’s crude oil, gas and petrochemical resources, the joint venture between Nigeria and oil multinationals, and also engages in petroleum exploration and production through the country’s four refineries.
Crude oil accounts for more than 80% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. With Nigeria identified as the sixth largest oil producer in the world, and with the country blessed with the sweet, low-sulphur, top grade Brent Crude variety, crude oil was effectively Nigeria’s equivalent of manna from Heaven. In due course, we were told that Nigeria is even more of a gas producing country than an oil dependent country. Milk and honey practically flow under Nigeria’s soil. It has been NNPC’s business to manage all of that, and bring profit to the country. Nigeria is not the only country that has been so privileged. They have oil and gas in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar, UAE, Venezuela (bad reference in the circumstance), Libya, Kuwait, the United States, Norway and quite a number of other countries. Whereas oil and gas resources have brought some countries power and glory, Nigeria’s experience has been mixed and problematic. From being a resource-rich country in the 70s and 80s, crude oil in particular has turned out to be a source of agony and pain for Nigeria. We squandered the riches. A terrible economy developed over the years around oil and gas. Politics, ethnicity, greed, corruption and all the other ailments that assail the country found a home in the oil and gas sector. This should not be surprising. The easiest way to make money in Nigeria is to get into the oily business. It was a matter of time before the people would begin to agitate for reforms and a change of regime. And it happened. Oil resource became the target of seething anger within the system. Those who believe that the oil and gas that come from their soil in the Niger Delta is theirs see no reason why anyone, any group or any region that does not produce oil and gas should benefit from other people’s endowments in a supposedly federal system. Oil became political. Politics became oily and gassy. Right at the centre of this conundrum was the NNPC, and the country’s Ministry of Petroleum Resources and everything attached thereto.
To address both the sentiments and the substance around this issue, there have been calls for resource control. From Adaka Boro to Ken Saro-Wiwa and beyond, there have been calls for true federalism, secession, respect for the rights of ethnic minorities, and counter arguments along geographical lines with the North pitched against the South on the question of who owns what, who should get what, and what share – Nigeria’s main revenue being oil and gas. In due course, the Petroleum Industry Bill was introduced to address many of the issues: governance, regulatory frameworks, community relations and management. When President Muhammadu Buhari unveils a new NNPC this morning, with a new brand, logo and identity, NNPC Limited emerging in place of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, he would be giving effect to a major plank of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). President Buhari can comfortably claim the PIA as one of the achievements of his administration. For decades, Nigerians complained about the need for reform in the oil and gas sector. They asked for a review of joint venture frameworks. They wanted a new NNPC that would be organized for productivity and efficiency and not a mere government parastatal bogged down by politics and graft. Oil bearing communities also had their demands relating to justice, equity and fairness and how these have been treated shabbily within the larger Nigerian equation.
For decades, the Nigerian legislature toyed with the law. Under Buhari, the law was passed. It seeks to provide a new governance framework in the oil and gas sector. The law removes the subsidy in the downstream sector especially with regard to petrol. It decrees a transformation of the NNPC into a profit making, independent, commercial venture. Before now, the NNPC has been run as a cash cow for the Nigerian Government, as a dependent public sector agency. It manages the oil and gas resources of the country, makes money, transmits same to the Treasury. Every month, state governments carry bowls in hands, rush to Abuja and at what is called the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meeting (FAAC), collect their own share of the national cake. Everyone got so greedy, everything got so mismanaged, NNPC got to a point it started protesting that there was very little to share or add again. For months, the NPPC using the excuse of under-recovery and subsidy has not been able to contribute as much as it should to the national purse. This is one reason why its reform is imperative. The PIA has offered a window but how open is that window?
The unveiling of a new NNPC should be seen correctly by industry watchers as a positive development. The need for the transition as proposed is justified by how Nigeria’s national oil company performs badly against its peers. In the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia has been using its energy resources as a weapon against Europe which depended on Russia for about 40% of its energy needs. Russia simply turned off the Nord Stream 1 pipeline for routine maintenance, and asked for payments in rouble, to push Europe into confusion, and energy prices to the roof. Countries with high demand for energy are groaning. Countries that are rich in oil and gas are smiling: Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Middle East are being wooed as the West looks for alternative sources of energy. The United States is wooing Saudi Arabia afresh. It has tried to soften a bit on Venezuela. Sri Lanka in the Indian sub-ocean is in trouble in part because it cannot provide fuel, food and medicines for the people. Pakistan is hanging on to the IMF to bail it out. Cost of living crisis is a major issue in Great Britain. While Europe is looking towards Algeria, Tunisia, and Angola for solutions and alternatives, Nigeria has been caught flat-footed. Rather than turn the current global crisis into an advantage, we are busy here lamenting that rising oil prices amount to a curse for Nigeria. We are not befitting because we are not ready. In today’s global energy mix, Nigeria pays a huge price for its own failures in managing its main resource and the plain view reason is this: the failure of leadership.
NNPC wears a new toga today. We have made that point. Restructuring of the public sector has been a recurring decimal in Nigeria’s economic history. The question has always been: how can public enterprises be made more profitable: commercialization, privatization or liberalization? Liberalization as in the telecommunication sector has resulted in growth and innovation and the end of the inefficiency of the old, state-owned NITEL. That is one good example. In a deregulated regime, the state has no control over price. It can only regulate quality. Under a privatization regime, the state can regulate, but the entity is controlled by its shareholders. The fundamental thing is: a private entity is after the maximization of profit and minimal cost. What has happened to the NNPC is commercialization, not privatization. But don’t get it twisted: NNPC still remains in the public sector. That is why it is still called Nigerian National… The only difference is that as a commercial entity, it will now have to pay more attention to its profit and cost centres. While there is a limit to which it can dictate price and profit, it must be noted that it can no longer do business as usual.
What is also new is that while the NNPC may still have a relationship with government, the same government can no longer have control over the staffing of the NNPC. The control of the Minister of Petroleum will be limited. As a commercial entity, the NNPC is beholden to its shareholders. Competence, quality will determine recruitment. The old practice of anyone in government sending notes for NNPC allocation or positions would be untenable under the new arrangement. Nobody can send in a note anyhow. The influence of rent collectors would be watered down, if not completely eliminated. It also means that the country can no longer depend mainly on NNPC for Federation Accounts returns (FAAC). The Federal Government would be entitled strictly to returns on its shares. In all of these regards, today’s development, NNPC’s transition into a commercial entity is a laudable development. The Group CEO of the new company, the erstwhile Group GMD of the NNPC whose title has thus changed, has alluded much to this when he made it clear in the past few days that (i) NNPC going forward is responsible to its shareholders as a limited liability company, (2) whatever service it provides for the Federal Government would be for a fee, (3) subsidy is not the responsibility of the NNPC, but that of the Federal Government and (iv) NNPC is committed to transparency and accountability, and accounting rules.
At the unveiling today, the Buhari government can commend itself for seeing through the PIA. But the skeptics are unrelenting and they have raised issues that we need to worry about. They argue for example that it is indeed a good and proper thing to seek to make the NNPC as efficient and as profitable as Saudi Arabia’s ARAMCO and other peers elsewhere but the problem is that NNPC is still tied to the apron strings of government. Most of the workers are still workers of the Nigerian government. As a commercial entity, it should be possible for the company to source its own expertise, consultants and staff from anywhere without the Nigerian government imposing the constraints of ethnicity and federal character. The NNPC of old ran a Nigerian-factor regime where some characters thought access to political power and influence granted them automatic control over the resource management company. Such a system would not be acceptable under the new mode of doing business. That has to change forthwith, to send the strong signal that it is indeed no longer business as usual. Second, the much-talked about NNPC shareholders are the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MoFI) and the Nigerian Treasury, which are both government entities. NNPC says it will send debit and credit notes for services rendered to demonstrate its own accountability and commitment to EITI principles. MoFI can claim that it represents the Nigerian people. What will NNPC Ltd do if government fails to pay – this same government that does not pay electricity bills or ASUU salaries? And as things stand, it looks like NNPC truly can no longer be held responsible for monthly contributions to the Federation Account.
Nonetheless, the NNPC as a commercial entity can only succeed as much as the Federal Government wants it to. As long as the NNPC is government-linked, there will be issues. For the NNPC to succeed, it needs to function under a government that understands the meaning and implications of profit and loss. There is a need for deep reform, for the people’s overall benefit. The meaning of the new dispensation is that NNPC would have no option but to send debit notes to the Federal Government, because the company won’t be able to hide the gaps in its balance sheet. The Buhari government does not have this profit and loss orientation mindset that is required to birth a new NNPC. The responsibility for that would have to be taken up perhaps by a new government. We can only hope that the would-be next President of Nigeria, whoever he turns out to be, is thinking of this, from both an economic and national security perspective. A food for thought is the position that in the long run, the NNPC must be privatized. Its board must not be a political Board, it must be a commerce-oriented Board. The experts must be allowed to do their job, not politicians, seeking rent. NNPC shares must be sold directly to the public as a company under the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA).
There is the unresolved issue of refineries. There is nothing wrong in Nigeria having a national oil company, but to save the NNPC, it is important to keep the fundamentals in mind. NNPC’s transformation comes at a time when the world faces an energy crisis, and a cost-of-living dilemma. It makes no sense that the country’s four refineries are grounded, or running at a loss. It is shameful that Nigeria cannot meet its OPEC quota. It is scandalous that it is only just now that we are beginning to talk more seriously about transparency and accountability in the management of the country’s most strategic resource. The emergence of a new NNPC is a good idea, but it seems to me that the best that the Mele Kyari-team can do, for now, is to lay the foundation for a more far-reaching process. Under Mele Kyari’s watch, the NNPC published its first audited accounts in 43 years in 2020! The new NNPC is expected to do things differently to attract investment, promote innovation, eliminate corruption and inefficiency, and ensure clarity. It must measure up like Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, and Brazil’s Petrobras. Its business model must work for the country’s benefit. The new NPPC must represent a transition in real terms into a new style and philosophy.
The ruckus that has been generated by the announcement of former Borno State Governor, Senator Kashim Shettima as running mate of the Presidential standard bearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), for the 2023 Presidential election is a perfect illustration and yet another sharp reminder of how religion has driven a wedge among Nigerians. Religion, etymologically, is derived from the Latin word, “religare” which means “to bind together”, but rather than bind the people of Nigeria together, religion has divided them along sectarian lines. It is the oxygen of devious power politics, sectarian politics, mass murder, terror, instability, and the plague of amorality. This is ironic, for Nigeria is clearly one of the most religious countries in the world, with every street, every corner boasting of either a church, a mosque, a shrine or a temple. The business of religion is also perhaps the most lucrative in Nigeria, with many religious groups noted more for commerce, hustling and mass hypnotism rather than piety, with a yawning gap between private and public morality, as the people commit atrocities in the name of God.
The evidence abounds in the weaponization of religion, even if the Nigerian Constitution states expressly that “the government of the Federation or of a state shall not adopt any religion as state religion”, the resort to violence on the basis of religion as has been witnessed over the years in the Middle Belt, Southern Kaduna and other parts of the country, the politics of Sharia, and the cruel exploitation of religion by political leaders. The easiest way to ignite violence in Nigeria is to play the ethnic or religious card as in Kafanchan, Kano, Jos, Zango-Kataf, Maitatsine riots, Kano, the slaughter of priests, incessant attacks on churches. Many have died for no just cause: Gideon Akaluka, Mrs. Christianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin, Deaconess Eunice Olawale, Mrs. Eunice Elisha, Pastor Bolanle Ibrahim, Deborah Yakubu Samuel, all made worse since the return to civilian rule in 1999, by “the religion-inspired war” unleashed on Nigeria by Boko Haram and a band of terrorists and their international partners. Nor does it matter whether the perpetrators of violence are educated or not. Indeed, once upon a time, the University of Ibadan nearly witnessed an open warfare between Christians and Muslims within the community over the location of a Chapel Cross, which the Muslims asked to be removed because it was visible from the direction of the University Mosque, hence allegedly hindering the faith of worshippers! Between 1985 and 1986, this became known as the Cross and Crescent crisis in Ibadan. Religion is so sensitive that both Nigerian Muslims and Christians have learnt to live in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion. Such measures and groups as the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), Interfaith Mediation Centre (IMC) and Inter-Faith Dialogues have not necessarily promoted tolerance enough. The fear of likely domination by the other worsens the situation. Every election season, religion plays a major role in the selection of candidates giving rise to the need for zonal, ethnic, and religious balancing.
This is the general context of the emotions attached to the kind of ticket which politicians present to the electorate most especially at the Presidential and Gubernatorial levels. The convention is to have a balanced Muslim – Christian ticket or vice versa, to do otherwise is to exhume and oxygenate religious passion and prejudices. This is exactly what the Presidential candidate of the ruling APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done by choosing a fellow Muslim as his running mate. Virtually every Christian group in the country, including the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Arewa Christians and Indigenous Pastors Association, and the Christian Global Network has kicked against this. No other general election in this country in recent memory has attracted as much religious sentiment. Faced with unprecedented assault in the last few years, the Christian community has been vocal in seeking to defend itself physically, and by mobilizing the congregation to vote, and defend Christian choices.
Christians have been advised by some of their leaders to take up arms to defend themselves. Many churches have turned the possession of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) into an access card to church. Those without PVCs have been told to stay away. Some major Christian denominations have also set up Departments devoted exclusively to politics and voter mobilization. Out of distrust and fear of the havoc that has been wreaked over time in the name of religion, Nigerian Christians want their own men and women in positions of authority. The other political parties that have announced their Presidential running mates so far have exercised great caution in this regard, more so as the churches warned before now that in 2023, a same-faith, Muslim-Muslim ticket would not be acceptable. The Bible enjoins Christians “to turn the other cheek.” Christians in Nigeria have since abandoned that injunction. They are on their way back to the Old Testament.
Is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, APC Presidential candidate not aware of this? Of course, he is. He has been in politics long enough to know that politics in Nigeria is driven by sentiments. But in choosing a Muslim like himself as running mate, he provides a robust even if rhetorical, defence that has been questioned by members of his own party and outsiders alike. He has been accused, for example, of promoting the politics of exclusion and discrimination against Christians. An APC member, Daniel Bwala has resigned from the party in protest. Another APC member, Senator Elisha Abbo (Adamawa North) has resigned his membership of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign organization. Tinubu however says: “To re-envision and reshape the nation, I must compose the best team possible, a team put together with but one overriding purpose: to forever establish, just, capable and compassionate governance for the people of Nigeria without regard to religion, region or ethnic origin.”
The problem here is that it is impossible to do anything in Nigeria without “religion, region, or ethnic origin.” Is this part of the candidate’s statement written by a foreigner? Nigerians, Christians and Southerners, have said they don’t want another eight years of Northern leadership or any arrangement that excludes Christians completely. A few paragraphs later, Tinubu says: “A dominant theme of my political history and my personal life is my staunch belief in our diversity…My selection of a running mate comports entirely with this longstanding inclination.” So, how exactly does a Muslim-Muslim ticket promote diversity? He goes further to state that he is aware of the “energetic discourse concerning the possible religion of my running mate…today, I announce my selection with pride because I have made it not based on religion or to please one community or the other.” The counter-argument by Christians is that a Muslim-Muslim ticket will definitely please the Muslim community, and make Christians feel alienated. Asiwaju Tinubu’s attempt to discount the factor of religion is a hard sell. The Nigerian Christian community is not impressed.
Tinubu sells Shettima to the electorate: “as a man with the talent, maturity, strength of character, and patriotism” and adds that “he has my implicit confidence and faith.” He obviously feels comfortable with Senator Shettima, and that is fine – compatibility, apart from electoral value is an important consideration in choosing a running mate. Shettima was a major player in Tinubu’s emergence as APC Presidential candidate. He was director of his campaign. Both men also have a good relationship: Shettima is after all, a major exponent of the “Emi Lo Kan” – “It is my turn” - agenda. He is being rewarded for his loyalty. Tinubu further talks about “the need to place competence above religious sentiment”. There is no doubt that Senator Shettima is a competent man. He is educated, brilliant, experienced, articulate and fit. He holds a B. Sc. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Maiduguri, and an M. Sc. in the same discipline from the University of Ibadan. He has worked as a University Teacher and as a Banker. He has also served as a commissioner five times in his home-state of Borno in different Ministries, Governor for eight years and Senator of the Federal Republic for 4 years. He can read a book and understand what it says, he can even quote Shakespeare effortlessly. Except that the biggest obstacle is the question of his faith. He is a Muslim, running a ticket with a Muslim. Tinubu says that should not be a problem. He argues that “the spirit of 1993 is upon us again in 2023.” I have heard some persons in response to that saying Tinubu should speak for himself. The spirit of 1993 may be upon him as a person, but some people draw attention to the fact that we are in 2022, not 1993 and the times are different.
Tinubu is referring to the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Chief MKO Abiola and Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 1993 Presidential election. Tinubu has practically replicated the Abiola-Kingibe model. Kingibe like Shettima, to drive home the appropriation, is a Kanuri, from the same state of Borno in the North East geo-political zone. But that is only as far as the comparison should go. In 1993, the Muslim-Muslim ticket may not have mattered because Nigerians wanted democracy badly. They were tired of military rule. Besides, religious conflict had not yet assumed its current hydra-headed, octopoid shape. As Simon Kolawole pointed out earlier in a piece titled “The Awkward Muslim-Muslim ticket” (ThisDay, June 18, 2022) - “before the late 1980s, religion was not a defining factor in national politics.” Under the Shehu Shagari administration, Shagari was a Muslim, and Fulani, but the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and all his Service Chiefs were Christians. This was not an issue. In 1979, Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo, candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria ran a Christian-Christian, all Southern, Ogun-Anambra ticket with Philip Umeadi. Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Presidential candidate of the Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) picked his running mate from Southern Kaduna, Dr. Ishaya Audu, a Christian. That was once upon a time in Nigeria, but not anymore. Some observers have talked about Governor Nasir el-Rufai running a Muslim-Muslim ticket in Kaduna State and getting away with it, but Kaduna is not Nigeria. A state with a population of a little over 9 million cannot be compared to a complex country like Nigeria. In today’s Nigeria, it will be difficult for anyone to run an entirely Southern or an entirely Northern Presidential ticket with the candidates being of the same faith. Such a proposal would be dead on arrival – that is the extent to which religion has divided us. The APC proposal as it is therefore, seeks to test the established order and sentiments. It is a bold move. But what are Tinubu’s strategic thoughts? How strong are his propositions?
No 1: Electoral value. Politicians make choices in order to win not to lose. Senator Shettima is Kanuri from the North East. Would it have been better to pick a running mate from the North West which has more voters compared to the entire North East? A running mate to Tinubu from the North West would have meant picking from the same zone as the outgoing President and from a zone that had previously produced late President Shehu Shagari, late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, former Vice President Namadi Sambo and a couple of former military Heads of State (Murtala Muhammad and Sani Abacha). The North East has to date produced only Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa from Bauchi State. The Kanuris are not as populous as the Hausa-Fulani but would the Northern voter worry about that or be more concerned that the Presidential running mate of the APC is a Muslim? Besides, Senator Shettima is from the same geo-political zone as the PDP Presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar. His presence on the APC ticket could swing significant votes in favour of the party and divide Atiku’s votes. I had in fact argued in a piece titled “June 12, 1993, Running Mates and 2023” (ThisDay, Tuesday, June 14, 2022) as follows: “If Tinubu must pick a Muslim running mate as has been argued, his best choice is Kashim Shettima, former Governor of Borno State.”
No. 2: Religion. We have established that this would remain an issue. The ready argument by those who do not consider it an issue is that Christians constitute a minority in the entire North where the population is predominantly Muslim. But is that why Northern Christians should be excluded? Are there no Northern Christians that have the clout and the credentials to win big-ticket elections? Or that is “competent, reliable, capable and able?” By choosing a Muslim as his strategists advised, and as he has done, Tinubu is obviously leaving himself open to the accusation that he has no regard for the Christian community. He is nonetheless considered by many a liberal Muslim. His wife is even a Pastor in a Pentecostal Church. He also knows that whereas it would be easier for him to defeat his major opponents in the South West and parts of the South, the main battle ground for his candidacy would be in the North. A Muslim-Muslim team is an attempt to woo and win the votes of the Muslim majority in the North. Examined closely, this is a cold-blooded, Machiavellian move. But did Tinubu at any time make any effort to consult the Northern Christian leadership and try to carry them along, before making his announcement? If he has not done so, let him do so now.
No 3: Finally, does religion necessarily make our leaders good men and women? Absolutely not. Religion is that affective thing in our consciousness which may have no bearing whatsoever with our daily conduct or character. Some of the most religious people are also some of the worst human beings ever. Nigerians are looking for good leaders, leaders who can address the major issues that affect their lives, and who can make Nigeria a better and safer place for all.
The strongest value of democracy is that it offers the people an opportunity to make their own choice. In 2023, it is up to the Nigerian people to vote according to their conscience. There are options on the table. The electoral umpires must provide the enabling environment for the people to vote freely, without any form of hindrance, and every opportunity to ensure that their votes count. In the end, that is all that matters.
Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers State is the biggest issue in the politics of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at the moment. To put it differently, Nigeria’s major opposition party, the PDP, has a Wike problem. The extent of that has now been formally acknowledged by the party when the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Walid Jibrin, announced that major stakeholders in the party led by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his chosen running mate, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta, all PDP Governors, members of the BOT and other major stakeholders must go to Port Harcourt to appeal to Wike not to leave the party, not to get angry, and not to do anything against the party. Wike is the Governor of Rivers state. He claims that since the PDP lost power in 2015, he has been the one carrying the party on his back, providing resources and leadership at a time the PDP, out of power, began to behave like fish out of water. Wike filled the void. And now in 2022, he presented himself as an advocate for the shift of power to the South, and his good self as a Presidential candidate.
By some alchemy, the PDP ignored Section 3 its own constitution and decided through a 37-member committee that the party would jettison its zoning formula, the same formula, that was appropriated by the rival All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’ ruling party, and hence, the party threw the Presidency on its platform open. Nyesom Wike didn’t think that was right and so he threw his hat into the ring and decided to run for the position. His ambition has turned out to be a teachable moment and a reality check, and perhaps, in the long run, a reminder of his own naivety. Twenty-four hours to the PDP Presidential Convention, held in Abuja on May 28 everyone thought that the Southern agenda would prevail and that Wike or any of the other Southern aspirants including former Secretary to the Government Anyim Pius Anyim, and former Senate President, Bukola Saraki would get the nomination of the party.
Within the said 24 hours, everything changed. Northerners are better politicians than Southerners, be it in the PDP or any other political party. Southerners talk too much. Northerners think and strategize. While the latter think of community and group interests, the egoistic, Mercedes Benz crowd down South thinks only of ego and personal ambition. At the PDP National Convention, as it happened, Governor Aminu Tambuwal stepped forward and openly declared support for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. This was a game changer. In 2019, Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers State, supported the same Governor Tambuwal. On May 28 2022, Tambuwal disappointed him and threw him under the bus. I have not seen or heard of any attempt by Governor Tambuwal to say sorry, or reach out. Instead, he got a hero’s welcome on his return to Sokoto and has since picked up the PDP Senatorial ticket for Sokoto South.
Wike did not just suffer the open humiliation and treachery by Governor Tambuwal, he came second on that account. Tambuwal is from the North West, a zone which controlled majority of delegates at the PDP Convention. Wike’s supporters continue to blame Tambuwal for Wike’s loss. They insist that he violated the principle that “one good turn deserves another.” Wike came second in the PDP Presidential primary process. What then remained was for the party to choose a running mate, and even in that regard, Wike lost out. Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State behaving like a Wike henchman said on international television, that Wike is the best thing that has ever happened to the PDP, post-2015 and that a committee of which he was a member having selected him as the right person to be running mate to Atiku, feels doubly disappointed that Atiku chose someone else – Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, the PDP Governor of Delta State. He admits nonetheless that Okowa is eminently qualified having run the entire gamut of public service administrative experience from Local Government Chairman all the way to the top. But he thinks Atiku Abubakar has erred by rejecting Wike who was chosen by 14 out of a 17-member panel. Wike’s supporters are mourning. They think they have been short-changed. They think Wike’s contributions to the party have been thrashed to spite and humiliate him. Politics is a mad house. Wike’s supporters also want to prove that they cannot be treated shabbily. There is indeed a new brand of madness growing like marijuana in the PDP that may offer an undeserved advantage to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), or the now much identified Third Force in Nigerian Politics represented by the Labour Party and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
It is therefore, good reasoning that the leadership of the PDP is reaching out to Nyesom Wike. It also makes sense that the Chairman of the party’s BOT, Alhaji Walid Jibrin has told party members and stakeholders to stop misbehaving. There are persons within the party who have said Wike is a nobody and can be discounted. They forget that in 2019, Rivers State under his watch delivered the highest number of votes to the PDP. The big problem with the PDP is that it has too many big men, who think they are larger than life. They seem to have forgotten that the party failed to rule for 60 years as a party leader once predicted and that the times have changed. Following the BOT Chairman’s directives, Atiku Abubakar and Ifeanyi Okowa should visit Wike and make peace. The simple principle is that you cannot spank a child and not expect him to cry. Let him cry. He cries. You mollify him. But the question to ask in that regard is: why Wike? Why is he the only one weeping? There were others in that race: Anyim, Saraki, Ohuabunwa, Dele Momodu, Bala Muhammed, Mohammed Hayatudeen, Ayo Fayose, Udom Emmanuel… 13 aspirants, so why is Wike the only one crying as if he has lost his precious toy? Why does he and his supporters feel so entitled?
Atiku in particular needs to pay attention. In 2019, it was said at a point that he had chosen or had promised now embattled, Senator Ike Ekweremadu that he would be his running mate. He ended up choosing Peter Obi. In the Presidential 2019 election, he didn’t get the kind of support he expected from the South East, because he, himself mixed things up. Obi went into that election with him, with many of his own kinsmen, divided by Atiku’s choice. In 2022, Atiku has done the same thing. As former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Vice President, the same issue that Atiku faced was that of trust and loyalty. He says he wants to unify the PDP, the community and the general society. He must embark on that task without trust deficits. What is his response to the PDP BOT Chairman’s directive that a high-powered PDP delegation would visit Wike? As of the time of this writing, I have not seen or read any direct response from him, but whatever it is, he must refrain from the twin temptations of contempt and arrogance. Let him visit Wike. Politics is all about Recognition, Respect and Relevance (the three Rs). That is all Wike wants. He needs that even if all it does is to energize his political libido. Let him visit all the aggrieved stakeholders of the party too if he must.
There are some Wike extremists within the PDP who insist that Okowa must be removed and replaced with Wike. I don’t think that would happen. The party and the candidate have gone beyond that. Governor Okowa in his own right has excellent credentials, although he too, can’t find his Secondary School Leaving Certificate! He is eminently qualified and experienced, they tell us. Nobody doubts that. It would be stupid to stay that he should step down. Indeed, his own supporters claim that the furore that has been generated by Wike not being chosen as Presidential candidate and his being ignored as a possible running mate is a strong vindication of Atiku’s choice and the preference of a quiet stakeholder and partner like Okowa. Someone in fact told me that Wike has shown that he would have created conflict in the Presidency, if the party wins. I was tempted to say that Atiku did precisely so during Obasanjo’s second term, and such a future situation would have been Karmic. But I kept quiet. Politicians don’t always like to hear the truth. What we know is that compatibility is crucial, and Atiku has chosen the man he feels comfortable with.
So, what is next? Wike’s supporters argue that if Okowa cannot be dropped, then Senator Iyorchia Ayu, the party Chairman, must go. Within 48 hours after the PDP presidential Convention, Senator Iyorchia Ayu went straight to visit Tambuwal in Abuja to declare him the “hero of the convention.” I thought that was very bad conduct on the part of the party Chairman. He was meant to be an impartial umpire, but by showing his bias so openly, he courted the current enmity that has been thrown at him. But beyond that is his own promise that if the Presidential candidate of the party came from the North, he would step down and allow a Southern Chairman of the party to emerge. Balance. Federal Character. Equity. Since the Convention, Senator Iyorchia Ayu has refused to move. He is the easiest victim within the PDP leadership hierarchy, nonetheless. If there must be a sacrificial lamb that would bring peace to the party, he must be willing and ready to take the bullet. He won’t be the first party Chairman to make such sacrifice. Let him know this: Even if Wike and gang forgive Atiku and embrace Okowa, they would not tolerate Iyorchia Ayu. Bite the bullet, Senator Ayu.
Already, Peter Ayo Fayose, former Governor of Ekiti State has been saying that the PDP cannot overlook the principle of Federal Character in Section 3 ( c ) of its Constitution. And when an attempt is finally made to reconcile with Wike and others, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar must lead the group personally. It is not for him to send for Wike or to send emissaries. He is the one who wants to be President. He needs everybody on board. He has promised to unify the party, the community and the country. He cannot do so from a high horse. He must “stoop to conquer”. One of the things being said by Wike’s supporters, for example, is that they are being treated as if they do not matter. They want to prove that they matter. Candidly, PDP leaders must not behave as if they have been cursed by the trickster god, known as Esu in Yoruba mythology. They must learn from the lessons of history. In 2015 and again in 2019, they lost the Presidential election because their home was divided. The situation today is similar. The thinking that Atiku gets all his votes from the North and would do so again this time around is entirely myopic. Every vote in every part of the country matters, including Wike’s only vote and the votes of his placard-carrying supporters, and all the overlooked aggrieved members of the party of which there are many.
Nyesom Wike has since returned from his much-publicized vacation in Istanbul, Turkey where I guess he ate a little turkey and licked some ice cream. My advice to him is that he needs to chill out as they say. When a child is beaten, he has every right to cry. When an adult is betrayed, he has every reason to be angry. Wike wanted to be Presidential standard bearer. He failed. He also lost the running mate slot. He was betrayed by those he didn’t expect would do so. He has been openly angry enough. The whole world has heard him. But he must take one lesson away from it all: in Nigeria, when you want something so desperately, nobody will give it to you. There would be more than enough people who would deny you that which you crave, to humiliate and humble you. Wike is without doubt, a victim of his own hubris and expectations, but he is also a victim, for the want of a better term, of the sadomasochism of the Nigerian elite political class. He should stop knocking his head against the wall.
Traditionally, when a child is aggrieved and he starts crying, every effort will be made to mollify him, but if he keeps on crying and wailing, after a while, he would be left alone and those seeking to appease him would adopt a wait and see position in the expectation that once he gets tired, he would keep quiet. Wike should not stretch his matter to that point. He also needs to avoid a situation where he would become the easy and convenient reference in the event that the PDP loses the 2023 Presidential election or the butt of jokes if the party triumphs. No tree makes a forest, except of course you are cut in the mould of an Obafemi Awolowo. And Wike is not of that mould.
The only group enjoying all of this would be Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) Camp, and may be perhaps the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), the Kwankwasiya party and also, the Labour Party and its Obi-dient crowd who claim that Peter Obi is the answer, or that the PDP belongs to the museum of political relevance or that Peter Obi left the PDP because he saw tomorrow. They all exaggerate of course. But leaders of the PDP must be careful not to lose the election before it takes place, with their own misconduct and greed. Senator Walid Jibrin, Chairman of the party’s BOT has already warned the rank and file to desist from acrimony. He has a point. Years back, a prominent member of the party told me that the result of any election is usually known six months earlier. He predicted correctly at the time that the PDP would lose the 2015 Presidential election because the party was divided right down the middle. The PDP has found itself in the same situation today. The party is running against time and opportunity. It is mismanaging its internal politics to the advantage of the opposition. It is about time Atiku Abubakar began to unify the party as promised. He must cut short his long vacation and get down to work. More importantly, he must beware of the aggrieved who have chosen to be calm and silent. Wike is a symptom, not the real problem.
Yesterday, Nigerians before mid-day, were treated to the news that Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) had resigned his appointment on health grounds. Arise TV broke the news, and it was my lot to make the announcement, with Arise News quoting impeccable and credible sources. It was a day of excitement for me: it looked to me really as if the CJN had overstayed his welcome but at the same time it was on the same day that the Legal Practitioners and Privileges Committee of the Nigeria Bar Association, (NBA) shortlisted the name of Mrs. Abimbola Onikepo Braithwaite, editor of the Law pages of ThisDay newspaper, for the second year in a row as a potential Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) under the academic category. Mrs. Braithwaithe has been a major force in the legal profession, using her platforms in the media and in practice to advance the cause of the rule of law, to explain the law, and promote enlightenment and the cause of justice on a weekly basis through the exalted platform of the This Day newspaper law pages. Her commitment in this regard has been exemplary. I find her analysis and choice of contributors and subjects consistently on point, making her law pages a weekly must-read for the learned and the unlearned and the general community, seeking deep insights into fine points of law. I pray she succeeds this time.
The final selection of the SAN Class of 2022 should be rigorous and thorough. The Silk must be a true garment of distinction, not a chieftaincy title. But of course, the bigger news was the sudden announcement of the resignation of His Lordship, Justice Tanko Ibrahim Muhammad as CJN. I wondered after reading the news: did he jump? Was he pushed? Is this just about his health?
What has been reported is clear: he resigned on health grounds. Ordinarily that should be enough. The job of a Supreme Court Justice requires that he should be compos mentis and enjoy the agility of the highest order to lead a nation-wide body of judex, provide leadership at the Bar and the Bench and at the same time run the activities of the apex court of the land. The CJN is also the Chair of the National Judicial Council, with all of that body’s sensitive responsibilities. He is the de facto head of the judiciary under Sections 6 and 231 of the Nigerian Constitution. Any drama, change, or withdrawal at that level of government cannot be taken lightly. A change of command at the apex court in an election season that has begun and the general elections just about seven months away, is also a matter of serious national consideration with implications for the entire democratic process, the judiciary being an aspect of that. Let no one be under any illusion: Tanko Ibrahim Muhammed’s sudden resignation as the Chief of Justice of Nigeria is not just one of those events. It deserves closer interrogation.
He assumed office as CJN under controversial circumstances, he has now stepped down in an even more controversial manner. He became a Justice of the Supreme Court in 2007, from the Court of Appeal where he served for 13 years, and became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, first in acting capacity on January 25, 2019, and then substantively, on July 24, 2019. He succeeded Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen whose exit from the Supreme Court Bench is probably the most controversial ever in the history of the Supreme Court. Many believe that Onnoghen was pushed out of office more for political reasons than for his own infractions. Onnoghen himself two years after his removal had cause to disclose that he was unceremoniously removed from office by the Buhari government because it was believed that he had a secret meeting with former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in Dubai before the 2019 general elections. Atiku at the time, as he now is, was the Presidential standard bearer of the opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)
In January 2019, a month to the general elections, Onnoghen was removed from office, via the instrumentality of an ex parte order, and tried before the Code of Conduct Tribunal on a six-count charge of corruption, including false declaration of assets, and the ownership of foreign currency accounts which were never declared. Onnoghen was convicted on all six counts and banned from holding public office for 10 years. He was additionally ordered to forfeit all the five accounts said not to have been declared by him between 2009 and 2015. Thus ended the tenure of the 15th substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN). Questions were raised about procedure, especially why the CJN as he then was had to be taken before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, instead of the National Judicial Council (NJC). Onnoghen insisted that he had done no wrong. Many Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) and others observed at the time that, whereas Justice Onnoghen may have committed one or two errors of oversight, his removal was more about the 2019 election, and the attempt by the ruling party to seize control of the post-election process. Wherever he is today, Onnoghen must be having a smirk on his face. It is election season again, soon it would be time for another round of election petitions and tribunals, and another CJN has had to go.
Many in the know would readily whisper that Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed has been very scarce in circulation for a while due to ill-health, but these persons also express concern about the timing of his exit, and the events leading up to his resignation. Last week, a letter was leaked in the public domain accusing the now former CJN of mismanagement of the resources of the Supreme Court and poor leadership. Fourteen Justices of the Supreme Court accused Tanko Muhammed, CJN (as he then was) of travelling up and down with his “spouse, children and staff” while Justices of the Court were not even allowed to go on training or travel with assistants. They said they work long hours daily without adequate access to power supply or internet services, and that the state of affairs in the Supreme Court of Nigeria had become deplorable. They accused the CJN of running a one-man show and ignoring important matters of welfare. They said “this is unacceptable”. They threatened “to take further steps”.
The CJN fired back through his spokesperson, Ahuraka Yusuf Isah, who wrote that the Supreme Court is “affected by the economic and socio-political climate prevailing in the country.” It is standard practice these days for persons in leadership positions to blame climate change and the environment for their own failures. I was surprised Justice Tanko Muhammad did not blame the Russia-Ukraine war for the lack of diesel and internet services at the Supreme Court of Nigeria! He accused his brother Justices of “dancing naked at the market square”, and gave a small, incoherent lecture about how budgets are made and managed, and an additional rigmarole about deaths and transfers at the Supreme Court. He concluded: “the general public should be rest assured that there’s no hostility or adverse feelings amongst the Justices of the Supreme Court, as everyone is going about his normal duty.” Of course, that is not true. The judiciary, the third arm of government under the doctrine of the separation of powers, has never been more divided. The import of the letter by the 14 Justices was that they had lost confidence in the leadership of Justice Tanko Muhammed. The letter was so strongly worded, the tone so dismissive, it was evident that I.T. Muhammad, JSC had lost the moral authority to lead the apex court. He cited ill-heath as the ground for his resignation. It is God that heals. Anyone can fall ill, even the Constitution recognizes this at Section 231(4). We should wish Justice Tanko Muhammed speedy recovery, but it was best he withdrew himself from further embarrassment, and the Supreme Court from further ridicule.
Indeed, before he threw in the towel, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) through its President, Olumide Akpata waded into the matter and concluded that “there is a clear need for mechanisms to be put in place to ensure that the Judiciary (with the Supreme Court leading the charge) is providing the necessary template to other arms of government on transparent procurement and budgeting. This will reduce the perception in some quarters that the judiciary is not accountable to anyone and is also not self-regulating.” As if it was meant to be a follow up to this, a human rights lawyer and activist, Malcolm E. Omirhobo through his law firm, Malcolm Omirhobo & Co wrote a Freedom of Information (FOI) request letter to the former CJN asking for details of transactions of the Supreme Court from 2019 till date. The FOI Request letter demanded: (1) “proof of receipt of total funds disbursed to your Lordship from the National Judicial Council as head of the Supreme Court of Nigeria; (2) The Financial Statement of Accounts of the Supreme Court of Nigeria from the 1st day of January 2019 to date; (3) Proof of the total expenditure of the Supreme Court for the period of 1st January 2019 to date… (4) Payment vouchers for projects; (5) The total amount realized from Internally Generated Revenue…” For record purposes, Malcolm Omirhobo is the same lawyer who showed up at the Supreme Court on Thursday, June 23, 2022, to protest against the judgment of the court sanctioning the use of hijab by female Muslim students in Lagos state public schools (per Lagos State Government vs. Asiyat Abdulkareem). Omirhobo, claiming to be expressing gratitude and solidarity over the ruling abandoned his regulation dress code as a lawyer and showed up as an “Olokun” priest in court. He has since continued to show up in court in the same attire while urging everyone to emulate his example and go to work in their religious habiliments. His protest is a fine piece of satire and sarcasm.
This was not the least episode in Justice Tanko Muhammad’s histrionic tenure as Chief Justice of Nigeria. He assumed office at a time of low confidence in the Nigerian judiciary. He has left it in a worse place, further eroding the integrity of the entire system. Under Justice Tanko Muhammad’s watch, there were frequent cases of indiscipline on the Bench which the National Judicial Council struggled to address without success. Judges and lawyers openly abused court processes, with courts of equal jurisdiction violating elementary rules of procedure. Ex parte orders became so commonplace you would think ex parte was the name of a special delicacy at a fast food joint. Within three years of the former CJN’s leadership, it became difficult to tell the difference between judges and politicians in many parts of the country. Lawyers were so desperate they became forum and ambulance chasers! Many appointments to the Bench including the Court of Appeal were controversial. Judgements were delivered based on technicalities with the most notable in this regard being the mathematical conundrum in the Imo Governorship case.
The age of judicial activism and robust intellection was gone. Judges who would love to make the extra effort probably did not bother, confronted as they were, with contradictions in their place of work – the temple of justice. Justice Tanko Muhammad was the 16th Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN). In terms of ranking in that office, he would probably literally be ranked in that same position among his peers. President Muhammadu Buhari probably has a different opinion as I guess, many others. In his remarks at the inauguration of Justice Olukayode Ariwoola as Acting JSC, on Monday, June 27, 2022 at the State House Abuja, he conferred, after a fashion, the second national honour of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) on Justice Tanko Muhammad. He also said of him: “History will be kind to Justice Tanko Muhammad for his modest contributions to Nigeria’s judiciary, the strengthening of our democracy and national development.” It seems to me that time is the final arbiter of all things, and of course, time will tell.
But the point has been made in some quarters that perhaps Justice Muhammad was pushed out of the door, - and not for health reasons - but because his brother Justices who had lost confidence in him, were beginning to show signs of anger and restlessness. They even threatened to stop sitting. Imagine Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria going on strike! In fact, a Supreme Court that some people believe is rather lenient with political leaders suddenly delivered a hammer blow the other day. For example, in a recent ruling, in the matter of Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act 2022 brought before the Court by President Buhari and the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, the Supreme Court practically rebuked both the President and the AGF for seeking to use the court to violate the legislative supremacy of the National Assembly. A panel of seven Justices dismissed the suit as an abuse of judicial process! Does this have anything to do with the former CJN’s exit?
Whatever it is, there is still some unfinished business around and about his resignation. Justice Walter Onnoghen lost his position in 2019, as a result of a petition by a civil society activist, raising issues of corruption. The Federal Government pounced on this and hounded him out of office. Justice Tanko Muhammad was openly accused by his own team in the apex court, including the next person to him in terms of seniority, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola who has now succeeded him in an acting capacity, pending the activation of due process leading to his own eventual confirmation. The former CJN should not just exit like that. His colleagues, the NBA and the activist, Malcolm Omirhobo have raised questions about transparency and accountability. Those questions must be addressed. Really, how much was collected? How much was spent? What kind of budgeting and expenditure systems exist at the apex court?
Justice Ariwoola who has now taken over the mantle of leadership at the Supreme Court has his job cut out for him. The first thing is to rebuild morale within the judiciary, starting from the apex court. The second is to dispel the clouds left behind by his predecessor with regard to funds management and welfare. The third is to do everything to raise the profile and integrity of the judiciary. He has the lessons of history behind him, and the experience of his two immediate predecessors and their circumstances.
“Wahala be like bicycle” is an expression that most people familiar with Nigerian street lingo would easily identify with. It refers the unusual, the dramatic, a shocking development in the course of normal business. “Wahala” is actually a Hausa word, in terms of its linguistic origin, since incorporated into the normal run of Nigerian expressions. The phrase has also since been turned into music by UZBOI featuring TEESWAG (January 2021). It would one day get into the Oxford Dictionary of Modern English.
This is of course not the same thing as that recent bicycle event of 79-year-old US President Joe Biden getting his feet hooked in the pedal of his bicycle in Delaware, and falling down. Biden stood up and did some small jumping up and down to show that all was well and his doctors confirmed same to be true. The “Wahala” that this piece discusses is of a problematic kind: enormous “walaha” and crisis in the Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Supreme Court, here or elsewhere is the apex court of the land. It is, in defining its character, not an infallible court, but it is final because its decisions are final; per Oputa JSC in Adegoke Motors vs Adesanya (1989).
The only recourse beyond the Supreme Court is God, not even the West African Court of Appeal can overturn this apex court. Only the Supreme Court can rehearse its own decisions and reverse itself. Its word, so to speak, is law. It is indeed for this reason that the Justices of the Supreme Court and the entire judiciary, deriving their locus and powers under Section 6 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, and the doctrine of the separation of powers as articulated for eternal relevance and coherence by Baron de Montesquieu in 1748, constitute a major pillar of the balance of powers in society and the protection of the rule of law. It is not for nothing that the Supreme Court has been celebrated as the last hope of the common man, that final temple of justice where the law lords define the law, give the law and interpret the law to modulate and to ensure social justice. Years ago, I had the great pleasure of writing a long Man-of-the-Year-Essay in The Guardian newspaper of Nigeria, in which the Editorial Board of the newspaper chose the Nigerian judiciary as the most impactful defender of the people’s rights and the rule of law. It was my job to write the essay. I waxed lyrical.
It is therefore sad that the same Nigerian judiciary is now being spoken about by the same Nigerians and the same country that once looked up to it, as a victim of the proverbial Nigerian factor, a shadow of its former self, and at best a parody. The condition of the Supreme Court today, is particularly pathetic. The kind of abuse, humiliation and ridicule that the Nigerian courts have been subjected to, especially the Supreme Court of Nigeria and its justices, has very few precedents elsewhere, except may be notably, India and Pakistan. A compromised judicial system and a divided, disoriented Supreme Court is of no use to the advancement of the rule of law or the democratic process. The judex are expected to be above board and to be impartial unto death. Their code of conduct forbids them from jumping into the arena of partisan politics. They are required to be independent, utterly without bias and guided strictly by the law, and their oath of office to interpret the law and deliver justice without fear or favour.
With regard to these principles and their value in Nigeria, there is cause for worry. And it is indicated in the following shape. Yesterday, 14 Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, wrote a letter now in circulation, and addressed to their boss, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Tanko Abdullahi (CJN), titled: “The State of Affairs in the Supreme Court of Nigeria and Demand by Justices of the Court.” It is a blistering, sucker-punch, indictment of the sitting CJN. It is important to reproduce some of the stated concerns. Their Lordships, 14 of them, wrote as follows: “My Lord The Honourable Justice of Nigeria, we, the Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, carefully reviewed the state of affairs in this Court, and unanimously resolved to write formally and draw the attention of Your Lordship to our demands. As a Preamble, let it be clearly understood that the resolution to write Your Lordship was reached with sense of responsibility. We are serving this country diligently and to the best of our ability. We resolve disputes between the Executive and the Legislature including all manner of disagreements, between governments and individuals. We are responsible citizens of this country. It would be a tragedy if the Nigerian public were to know that we are unable to resolve our problems internally without going public. The decision to write you formally must be seen by Your Lordship as an effort on our part to preserve the dignity of the Judiciary and the respect accorded to us by Governments and the people of Nigeria. God forbid the day that our internal issues become a matter of National discourse.”
My take: Sorry, Mi’Lords, that day has passed. The rot in the Nigerian judiciary has since been a matter of enduring concern. The harassment of judges by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the abuse of ex parte applications by judges and lawyers, the blatant violation of rules of procedure and practice directions, and the utter disrespect for the Bench by both lawyers and litigants, with spoken and unspoken allegations of corruption, compromise and sheer abuse had served the signal that all has not been well with the Nigerian judiciary. Now that there is turmoil even at the level of the Apex Court, the country’s court of last resort, there is cause for anxiety, if not outrage. Their Lordships talk about not going public, again sorry, the matter is now public and it is a proper subject for national discourse. Whoever leaked the letter to the CJN for public consumption and attention has done so intentionally. It is however, good that we are allowed to know that the Supreme Court of the land has internal problems. Really?: The CJN has completely ignored the report to that effect since March 24? Justices of the Supreme Court claim further, that they have no access to the internet. They also do not have enough complement of vehicles, and even the ones that they have are “either refurbished or substandard”. Justices cannot go for trainings either but the CJN travels with his own “spouse, children and personal staff.” They even suggest corruption: “We demand to know what has become of our training funds, have they been diverted, or is it a plain denial? Your Lordship may also remember that the National Assembly has increased the budgetary allocation of the Judiciary. We find it strange that in spite of the upward review of our budgetary allocation, the Court cannot cater for our legitimate entitlements. This is unacceptable!”
I cringed reading the foregoing lines. But the letter is even far more damning with serious additional complaints about lack of medical care for judges, decadence of the courts, and “the implication that this arm of Government is potentially shut down”. The other day, magistrates in Cross Rivers State carried placards and went to the streets in protest. The emerging Supreme Court debacle is very much after the same fashion. What exactly is left of the rule of law and the justice administration system if justices of the land’s apex court begin to carry placards about their conditions of service? I have searched in vain so far for a denial of the contents of the letter in question, to protect myself, from the error of contempt ex facie curiae involving the apex court of the land, but I have not seen any statement by any of learned Justices disowning the damning statement that has been in the public domain so far. What rings in my head, and is beginning to give me headache, is their threat to the CJN: “It is either you quickly and swiftly take responsibility and address these burning issues or we will be compelled to (take) further steps immediately. May this day never come.” What further steps? Would the Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria stop sitting? That indeed would be the day!
The fact that a statement such as the one above, hat I have quoted in extenso regarding the Supreme Court in Nigeria, is in circulation is an indication of the rot within the Nigerian system. It simply means that no section of Nigeria is immune from violation. Nigeria, it is commonly said happens to people, classic euphemism for failure and collapse. If Nigeria happens to the common man’s last bastion of hope, routinely identified as the Supreme Court, then everything is lost. A deprived Supreme Court and judiciary as described can of course, be easily compromised. In an election season, that would be a prescription for anarchy. Those who condemn the Nigerian judiciary already observe for example, that basic civil cases are piling up at the Supreme Court while political cases are treated with the speed of light! This is all things considered, a sad development. There are critics of the Nigerian judiciary who consistently posit that the golden days of the Nigerian Supreme Court are long gone. Shockingly, it has been more than 30 years since the Supreme Court of Nigeria was considered golden.
Once upon a time in this same country, and notably, under military rule, this was the same Court on which Bench sat legends of the law like Kayode Eso, Chukwudifu Oputa, Andrews Otutu Obaseki, Ayo Irikefe, Chukwuenike Idigbe, Augustine Nnamani, Mohammed Bello, Adolphus Karibi-Whyte, Ephraim Akpata, Bola Babalakin, Anthony Aniagolu and others. On both the Supreme and Appellate Courts, these justices gave Nigeria an image of the role of the law as an instrument for nation-building. For more than a decade they spoke the law to power. They were fearless, independent, firm and robustly intelligent. They were leaders of an incorruptible court, dramatized for posterity in D. Olu Adegoke’s play, The Incorruptible Judge (Evans Publishers, 1962). The men we remember were first class jurists, with background in law and the humanities – Classics, Philosophy, Literature. Some of them could speak Latin, they could quote Shakespeare, and deploy wit, depth and wisdom in an effortless manner. They used the law as an instrument of value and as a social modulator, for the benefit of humanity. They were judicial activists whose heroism could be seen in the manner in which they stood for the rule of law and against military and civilian potentates who sought to violate the people’s rights as seen in such cases as Federal Civil Service Commission vs. Laoye; Ojukwu vs. FG; AG Bendel vs AG Federation; AG Ogun State vs. Federation; Garba vs. University of Maiduguri; Gani Fawehinmi vs. NBA. Their story has been told in a more nuanced manner in Professor Itse Sagay’s Book, A Legacy for Posterity: The Works of the Supreme Court, 1980 – 1988.
I had a more personal and direct intimation of the heroism of this class of Justices during a conversation recently with Dr. Wale Babalakin, SAN, son of the legendary Justice Bola Babalakin. I was waiting at an elite lounge of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport for a private jet, to take me to Abuja, when Babalakin walked in and asked me if I would join him, since he was leaving immediately. Don’t ask me what a journalist was doing in a private jet lounge. Na today? Nigerians like to abuse and insult journalists, wrongly and stupidly. Some useless people in fact, just recently attacked my colleagues who had gone to cover the arrival of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Presidential candidate of the ruling party, the APC, from Abuja to Lagos, and I hope those guys will be identified and punished. The whole drama was pointless anyway. Peter Obi, Presidential candidate of the Labour Party went all the way to the Land of the Pharaohs, in far-away Egypt and came back, there was peace, nobody’s skull was cracked. Asiwaju Tinubu went to common Abuja that everyone goes to, and Lagos would not rest. He was the one, not Peter Obi, that brought back a pyramid of chaos. My friend, Gbenga Omotoso, Lagos Commissioner for Information and Strategy says it is all lies. But let me go back: Here was an opportunity, the other day, for me to get to Abuja early, and Babalakin is a good guy, so off I went with him.
In the course of our hour-long trip to Abuja, we ended up discussing this and that, and the state of the nation’s judiciary was our main topic, not knowing that there would be a bombshell coming from that direction in a matter of days. He was restrained. He did not want to make comments about serving Justices. But he was ready to talk about his Dad - what he learnt from Justice Bola Babalakin and also from Chief Rotimi Williams, the first Nigerian to become an SAN, the legendary Timi the Law - who for more than five decades dominated the Nigerian litigation landscape like a colossus, and who took him under his wings. It was not yet Father’s Day, which was celebrated only a few days ago, but Babalakin could well have been singing Luther Vandross’s classic song, “Dance with My Father” (2003) before Father’s Day. Justice Bolarinwa Oyegoke Babalakin, JSC, CON, CFR, certainly made a great impression on his son. He spoke about him from Lagos to Abuja. It was a story of responsible leadership at home, in the community, and the country, a man who held his own on all fronts at home and in the outside community, a jurist who remained a shining light and reference point till the end of his life. I could feel the chemistry between father and son, even if one was dead and the other is the inheritor of a distinguished legacy. I thought Wale Babalakin, SAN, sounded like he would love to be like his Dad but the times are different. His Dad, from his own account was a simple, modest man, who shunned the glitter and just wanted to serve humanity. Generations of jurists trooped to Gbongan, a quiet, rural community to drink from the fountain of Justice Babalakin’s wisdom.
It is sad that the same supreme Court that he and his contemporaries and immediate successors helped to build into a great institution is now the same place where, if care is not taken, would be dragged ridiculously on social media and trashed unapologetically by politicians who would not allow any cheap opportunity to pass. We need to rescue the Nigerian judiciary from the pedals of “wahala.”
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Yesterday, Nigeria declared a public holiday, and marked the 29th anniversary of June 12, 1993, the day Nigerians trooped out en masse to elect Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, a South Westerner, a Yoruba man, as President of Nigeria. On that day, Nigerians discounted primordial sentiments and ignored the centrifugal forces at the heart of the Nigerian question. For the first time since the first legislative election was held in Nigeria under the Clifford Constitution in 1922, the usual divisive factors of religion, geography and ethnicity, did not matter. Abiola was a Yoruba man. He won convincingly in more than the two-thirds of the states required by the Constitution. He even beat his main opponent, Bashir Tofa, of the then National Republican Convention (NRC) not just in the pre-election debate and campaigns, with his wit, humour, knowledge, stature and charisma, he went ahead to trounce Tofa in his own ward and state in Kano. It is instructive that Bashir Tofa has remained a footnote in Nigerian history since then. He was no match for Abiola and has not even been able to match him in death.
Abiola did something unusual. He presented before Nigerians, a Muslim-Muslim ticket. His running mate was Baba Gana Kingibe, another Muslim, a Northerner. Nigerians didn’t bother about that. They wanted change. They wanted progress. They sought freedom from the shackles of military tyranny. Abiola preached a message of hope. Since the January 1966 coup led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, truncating the liberation from colonial rule, Nigeria found itself in the grips of corrosive, corrupt, and obnoxious military rule. There was a brief spell of civilian rule between 1979 and 1983, but the military seized power again, at a time when strong-man, military rulership was the mode in most African countries. In the 1990s, a wave of democratization eventually took hold in the global arena and Nigeria feeding on this, under General Ibrahim Babangida, launched a political transition programme that became an exercise in trickery and deception.
This also was the season of glasnost and perestroika, a big unraveling and the end of the Cold War and the beginning of transformations across the globe. Nigeria got caught in that cauldron of change. MKO Abiola, as events happened, won the election. But he was denied victory on June 24, 1993, with the annulment of the election. General Ibrahim Babangida, IBB as he is also known, was the head of the military junta that committed this perfidy, this subversion of the people’s will, and although he has claimed that he was not alone and that his hands were tied, the event of June 12, 1993, an election won by a man he considered his friend, will remain a day in infamy as a symbol of betrayal, insincerity and political suicide of the first rank. It must be remembered that Abiola’s victory would have marked a second liberation for Nigerians, liberation from the shackles of military tyranny, even if now in retrospect, nobody can say definitively how that denied Presidency would have turned out. It was all a matter of justice, democracy and the people’s sovereignty. It is therefore poetic justice that June 12 has remained a major signpost in Nigerian history. It is also remarkable that President Muhammadu Buhari is the one who decided to move Democracy Day from May 29, the traditional day for handing over of batons in the nation’s calendar, every four years, to June 12, to remind all Nigerians of the significance of that date. This will form a major substance of Buhari’s legacy, at the level of simple commonsense, if not any heavy substance.
What endures is the symbolism and martyrdom of MKO Abiola, and what Buhari has done is to take that phenomenon to an appropriate location in national memory in a country where it is ever so convenient to forget. For the benefit of those who may have forgotten, Nigeria became a pariah nation. The international community turned against Nigeria. Civil society groups rose against the Nigerian government. The green passport became a source of embarrassment in all parts of the world. It was a difficult season to be a Nigerian. The media, the church, and progressives of all hues took to the streets and stood at the barricades to demand an end to military rule and the restoration of Abiola’s mandate. IBB, now known as the Maradona, stepped aside. An interim government led by Chief Ernest Shonekan, better described by the Yoruba phrase “fidihe” government took over, but that government lasted only 83 days. It was eventually booted out by the dark-goggled General Sani Abacha, who imposed a reign of terror on the country. Journalists were murdered. Where the husbands could not be found, their wives and new babies – Dapo Olorunyomi’s new born baby for example, were targeted by “the wereys” that had taken over Nigeria. MKO Abiola stood firm. He had the support of committed democrats and progressives from every part of Nigeria. He led the struggle with courage and resolve at great personal risk. On July 11, 1994, he made the Epetedo Declaration.
It was a statement of defiance, bravery and heroism. He eventually paid for that with his life. What Buhari has done in this part of Nigerian history by declaring June 12 - Democracy Day, is to deal a mortal blow to the revisionist attempt to reduce June 12 to a Yoruba struggle. It was not. It was a pan-Nigerian attempt to save Nigeria. The beneficiaries of the martyrdom and the heroism of others have not necessarily been the right persons. Joe Igbokwe has written an instructive book in this regard titled “Heroes of Democracy.” There is also June 12: The Struggle for Power in Nigeria by Abraham Oshoko. Other books of interest would be those by direct participants in the saga including The Struggle for June 12 by Frank Kokori; The Tale of June 12 by Omo Omoruyi, Clapping with One Hand: June 12 and The Crisis of A Nation by Olawale Oshun; and Humphrey Nwosu’s Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993 Presidential Election and its Annulment. Nwosu was the Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) that conducted the 1993 elections. The June 12 crisis destroyed his career in the public arena.
June 12, 1993, this year is being commemorated at an auspicious moment. The Party primaries have been concluded. Presidential standard bearers have emerged. It is no longer the season of military rule – Nigerians have since said “Never Again” to that but old anxieties have not disappeared. In 2014/2015, Nigerians thought they wanted change. They asked for it. The only change they got was the change of personalities, and the worsening of the Nigerian condition. Eight years later, nobody can boast that the Buhari administration has been able to change anything or inspire hope. Rather, Nigerians are looking back to the past in anger. Many even thought former President Goodluck Jonathan should return to rescue the country that he handed over to the exceptionally clueless gang that took over from him. That has not happened, and I hope all the noisemakers who thought that was even possible in the first place would be humble enough to think twice. Where then, are we, as a country?
We are preparing for the 2023 general elections. We have 17 or 18 Presidential candidates. INEC, the electoral umpire has set a deadline of June 17 for the uploading of names and affidavits on the INEC Nomination Portal. The INEC Chairman, Yakubu Mahmood has announced the relevant conditions and guidelines. As of the time of this writing, only the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has announced its Presidential running mate; by this time next week, all running mates at the Presidential level would have been announced. Given the nature, structure and circumstances of Nigerian politics, the 2023 process has already been reduced to a two-horse race, between the PDP and the APC. Some commentators argue that attention should be paid to the Peter Obi phenomenon. Quite rightly so. He was a two-time Governor in Anambra State under the platform of APGA. He later switched to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In 2019, he was chosen as running mate to Atiku Abubakar of the PDP. In 2023, he declared interest to run on his own on the platform of the PDP. He has since gone to the Labour Party (LP) where his major challengers have turned out to be his own Igbo kinsmen, Callistus Okafor and co, at a time when Ndigbo, having been denied a top spot placement in the PDP and APC needed a platform of their own to project the idea of an Igbo Presidency.
There are about five Igbos as standard bearers in the 2023 process: Dumebi Kachikwu (Delta Igbo- ADC)..Peter Umeadi (APGA), Peter Obi (Labour Party), Okwudili Nwa-Anyadike (NRM) and Dan Iwuanyanwu (ZLP) but Ndigbo is not talking about their own. They are talking about a meeting to decide who to choose between Atiku (PDP) and Bola Tinubu (APC). Peter Obi is clearly the frontrunner among the Igbos on the list. He enjoys massive support among young people of Nigeria, particularly from the South. They call him Obi-Bangladesh, Obi-China because of the transformative ideas that he espouses. But he is at best, probably a man ahead of his time. Social media does not win elections. On the practical field of play, Peter Obi does not have Atiku’s or Tinubu’s kind of money in an election that is already a cash and carry affair. On that list of standard bearers, there is also Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), a man who is defined by Kano politics and his own politics of personality. Kwankwaso’s best bet is Kano, not Nigeria.
There is also Lateef Kola Abiola, the first son of Bashorun MKO Abiola, as flagbearer of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP). My suspicion is that LKA is just showing face, but his effort is noteworthy: The son who wants to redeem his father’s legacy! Omoyele Sowore (AAC) wants to take Nigeria back to the people who truly own it, but the established rent-collectors, “the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10 percent, those that seek to keep the country divided permanently..., the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian calendar back by their words and deeds” will not allow him. They did not allow Awolowo. They did not allow Abiola. They will certainly not allow Obi, Sowore or anyone who sounds like they want change.
This is why the two prominent figures we are left with are Atiku and Tinubu. The duo offers us, same of the same. They have both been promising change, progress and development. They are both not in a position to change anything. They won’t. Nigeria is in a difficult place, confronted with the equivalent of a Hobson’s choice. It is also perhaps why the major argument today is the choice of a running mate for Atiku and Tinubu. Ordinarily, a Vice President occupies “an awkward office” as US Vice President Walter Mondale once argued. Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson’s Vice President for eight years said “The only business of the Vice President is to ring the White House every morning and ask - what is the state of the health of the President?” The Vice President of Nigeria does not even have as much power as the VP in the United States who has a voting slot in the event of a tie in Congress. Nigeria’s VP is a creation of Section 141 of the 1999 Constitution. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Federation, also, the National Security Council, Chairman of the National Economic Council, and a number of parastatals including the National Boundary Commission. His real and relative power however depends upon the duties delegated to him by the President who within the purview of Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution is a monarch, regardless of Section 141 of the Constitution. The value of the Vice President is provided for strictly with regard to the obvious purposes of ethnic and geographical balance, federal character, inclusion and willy-nilly, as a spare tyre in the event of the President’s travel on holiday, death, permanent incapacity, removal from office, or resignation as defined in Sections 143 – 146 of the Constitution.
This matter is so important that after the conclusion of the party primaries on Thursday, June 9, 2022, the main task is now the announcement of running mates by the Presidential candidates. Everything is tied to this ahead of the June 17 deadline that has been announced by INEC. The focus is on the two main candidates: Atiku and Tinubu. For Atiku, the task is probably easier. His choice is limited to a Southern running mate of Christian extraction. He cannot choose a Muslim. He cannot choose a Northerner. To do so would be suicidal. In the last week, his choice has also been narrowed down to two names: Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers State and runner-up to Atiku in the PDP presidential primary, and Ifeanyi Okowa, former Senator and Governor of Delta State. Both are Christians. Of the two, Wike is Atiku’s best bet. He may come across as brash and intemperate, unlike the more urbane Okowa, but Atiku does not need an “ice cream seller” or “a tomato seller” who cannot win massive votes. Wike has built for himself a broad network of influence across Nigeria that can help the PDP. He has strong administrative experience: Chief of Staff, Minister of State and two-term Governor, and enough financial war-chest that can shock even Elon Musk. Okowa has issues even in his own home state. He has very little name recognition. Atiku can choose Wike and tame him to learn how to be sober.
Tinubu has a bigger challenge. He wants to win. He and Atiku are on the last mile with their ambitions. It is now or never for them. Whereas it would be easy for Atiku to narrow down his choice for a VP, for Tinubu, it is a different ball game. We understand he is better off with a Muslim from the North, preferably from the North East. There are good and bad Muslims. If Tinubu must pick a Muslim running mate, as has been argued, his best choice is Kashim Shettima, former Governor of Borno State.
“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place/Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from Heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting/They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them/All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” – Holy Bible (NIV), Acts of the Apostles – 2:2
It was Pentecost Sunday on June 5, the day Christendom celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles as seen in Acts of the Apostles: 2:2 - but in Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria, it was Black Sunday, as demons from nowhere descended on St. Francis Church, Owa-luwa Street in that historic town. It was 12 noon. The Mass for the day had just ended, but as the congregation filed out of the Church, they were confronted by a team of daredevil assailants who first detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) – so the Police Command says, before turning their guns on the hapless, unsuspecting worshippers. In broad daylight, the House of God became a war zone and an abattoir. More than 38 persons including the aged, children, men and women were mowed down, massacred. It was a most heinous scene of mass murder. Church officials quickly shut the doors to the church, and began to work their phones as the massacre continued outside. The people were helpless. No help came. It turned out that the police unit in the town did not have operational vehicles! By the time the madness was over, the floor of the church had turned crimson red. It was a gory sight of blood, tears and sorrow. St Francis Church is less than 200 metres away from the palace of the Olowo of Owo, the town’s traditional ruler. The dead and the injured were taken to the Federal Medical Centre and St. Louis Hospital, from where doctors sent out distress calls to the public, begging anyone with blood in his or her veins to rush down to donate blood, in order to save lives.
This happened a week after the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Bishop Samuel Kalu-Uche and two others were abducted in Abia State. They regained freedom only after paying a ransom of N100 million. On Saturday, June 4, at the Lugbe market in Abuja, a 30-year old member of a local vigilante group was killed for committing what was called “blasphemy”. The same day, gunmen invaded the home of a Catholic priest at St. Mary Immaculate Church in Aho Community, Owukpa in Ogbadibo Local Government Area of Benue State. The priest was not at home at the time of the attack, so his cook was abducted. It would be recalled also that in May, Deborah Samuel, a 200 level student of Shehu Shagari College of Education was also lynched and set ablaze for blasphemy. In the last two months alone, there have been reports of attacks on churches and abduction of priests and church-goers including Saint Patrick Catholic Church, Gidan Maikambo in the Kafur LGA of Katsina State – two reverend fathers and two boys, also at Saint Pius X Parish, Ikot Abasi Akpan in Akwa Ibom State – a catholic priest, and at Solid Rock Kingdom Church where the founder, clergyman John Okoriko was kidnapped.
Also, on March 28, over 100 persons travelling by train between Abuja and Kaduna were attacked by terrorists. Many died. Many were injured. Over 60 persons were abducted. More than 70 days later, they are still in the custody of their terrorist-abductors. In the South East, violence has become routine – in Anambra, in particular, where an emergent group that goes by the name of UNKNOWN GUNMEN has developed a signature style of attacking Local Government headquarters, police stations, and army formations, in open defiance of the rule of law. They also decapitate their victims, after killing them. The North East, the hotbed of terror and insurgency for more than 12 years remains unsafe. The North West is not safe either. Ethno-religious violence in the Middle Belt has reignited old animosities and sentiments. The South West which has been relatively safe in more contemporary times, has now been thrown into a regime of fear and confusion. Owo which had been a peaceful community, for example, has been robbed of its innocence forever. There are parts of the Northern flank of Yorubaland that are now regarded as the den of kidnappers. Fears have been expressed that there are sleeping cells of terrorists who have infiltrated every nook and cranny of Nigeria waiting to pounce and attack whenever their puppeteers give them orders them to do so. These narratives as reported have been horrifying: whole families have been wiped out, a couple visiting family friends was slaughtered, dreams have been shattered, hope has been damaged.
What is happening in Nigeria? The Pope has prayed for the victims of the Owo massacre and for Nigeria. Yesterday, the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Owo Local Government Area held a prayer session at the premises of St Francis Church, Owo and also held a protest over the “evil” occurrence. Owo Council CAN Chairman, Revd. Joshua Oladapo said: “This is a clarion call, to not only the Nigerian leaders but the international community that these incessant attacks on, most especially the Christian body, the peaceful communities in our nation, should not continue.” The point needs to be reiterated that nobody deserves to die or suffer the way Nigerians die, get killed, massacred, beheaded, displaced, assaulted, crushed, and endangered in a mindless manner that throws up a gory spectacle of man’s inhumanity. Human life is the cheapest commodity in Nigeria. Listening the other day, to an interview with Methodist Prelate, Samuel Kalu-Uche and his graphic description of his encounter with his abductors and their glittering, well-sharpened blades of death and the evil in their souls, was scary enough. Nigerians are taken like lamb to slaughter in the North, the East, the South and the West, because the state has failed the people. The state stumbles and falters and the people pay the price for its inefficiency, incompetence and lack of will power to do good in the form of body bags and unending jeremiad. It is ironic that even those who visit mayhem on the land justify their actions on the grounds that they too are angry with government or politicians. There can be no justification, however, for the reign of evil that we have seen. Even the unborn is no longer guaranteed any dignity in Nigeria. In the March 28 attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train, two pregnant women were abducted along with others. One of them gave birth while in captivity. The terrorists even invited their own doctors and midwives to attend to her! Terrorists in Nigeria run medical services and have access to medical consultants. The woman and her child are still in that space. The other pregnant woman was released on “compassionate” grounds. Sad.
While both Christians and Muslims have suffered the pain and misfortune of being Nigerian, living inside Nigeria – that would seem to be the collective burden we all share, in other words, the thingi-fication of our citizenship, it is curious that Christians, Catholics in particular are the main targets of the hoodlums wreaking havoc on the country. The Nigerian Constitution guarantees the right to life (Section 33), right to the dignity of the human person (Section 34), the right to the freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Section 38) and the freedom of assembly and association (Section 40). In Borno, Anambra, Kaduna, Plateau, Sokoto and Owo, these rights are violated with utter impunity, and yet nothing happens until the same rights are violated again.
The pattern is poignantly familiar: some demons show up and inflict injury on our collective psyche, the Nigerian government at all levels, issues statements of condolences and commiseration, and prayers, threats are further pronounced to the effect that the perpetrators of the “heinous, evil, grievous, dastardly, callous, inhuman act will be brought to justice.” In fact, “the government will spare no effort and leave no stone unturned, and will make sure that all resources of state are deployed to address the security challenge in the country.” Everyone says more or less the same things. The vocabulary for addressing mindless killings is so limited that it now sounds like fancy semantics. After a few days, the government and the professional mourners move on with their lives. Nobody learns any lessons. Nobody makes any effort. Shortly after, another violent event occurs and we go through the same routine again, like a perpetual Mobius Strip, in a cyclical bind. If it is possible to even benefit from the misfortune, Nigerian politicians would take advantage of it.
Empathy is important. Politicians must identify with the people whose votes they believe would bring them to power. When the same people are in distress, leaders must stand up to help them. On Sunday, June 5, when the Owo massacre occurred, leaders of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the Presidential aspirants on the platform of the party had been invited to a dinner with the President at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, ahead of the party’s National Convention scheduled for June 6 – 9, 2022. The dinner could have been rescheduled. But it was not. It went ahead. The usual, standard argument is that the business of the state cannot be hampered by any adversity or that the Leviathan must refrain from showing fear or panic. Except that this could be an academic thing to say. The truth is that politicians tend to consider their own matters more important than the people’s interests unless they can exploit the latter to promote the former.
Nonetheless, I consider the reaction of the Governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu to the Owo massacre noteworthy. He left the peppersoup and jollof rice that had been prepared for the dinner with the President at the Villa and rushed back to Ondo State, upon hearing that there was tragedy back home and in fact, in his home town and local government. Some other stomach-centred leader could have stayed back and give the excuse that it was better to have dinner with the President. Akeredolu rushed home to share in the grief and lamentations of his people, and shed a tear or two. More importantly, he struck the right notes when he told the people of Ondo state not to engage in any retaliatory attacks. Religion and ethnicity are combustible issues in Nigeria. A week earlier, it had been said that those who attacked the Methodist Prelate were Fulani. The Prelate even accused the Nigerian Army of complicity, an allegation that was promptly and robustly denied. It would have been disastrous for any responsible leader to encourage an ethnic labeling of what happened in Owo. It was such divisive politics that caused Nigeria’s civil war of 1967 -1970. With its current fragility, and the expansion of its centrifugal joints, Nigeria is in a delicate situation. It cannot afford another blow-out because it cannot survive it and that is why Nigerian leaders must begin to wear their thinking caps.
It was certainly not strange that the Governor and the people of Owo and Ondo State received so many political visitors on Monday, June 6, yesterday. The timing was auspicious. It was the eve of the ruling party’s Presidential primary in Abuja, an event that had been thrown into confusion with the party Chairman’s alleged announcement of a consensus candidate who was diplomatically thrown back into the fray by the Presidency, disowning the deed, thus raising the stakes, in what would be a make or mar Presidential primary for the APC. Owo suddenly became a last minute PR space for the gladiators. Four Presidential aspirants abandoned their last minute campaigns and rushed to the town: Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun and Ekiti Governor –Kayode Fayemi.. Amosun and Fayemi arrived together like twins – they have been twinning for a while in the public space- but Tinubu and Osinbajo arrived separately. Out of the lot, only Tinubu reportedly dropped “something” – a tidy, small change of N75 million – N50 million for the victims, and N25 million for the Church. Small change, yes, and you know why. But how come nobody else donated “something” as Nigerians would say? Osinbajo, Amosun and Fayemi could at least have donated blood at the Federal Medical Centre and St. Louis Hospital to help save lives. Nobody from other political parties, not even the PDP, was on the guest list in Owo, at least not yet. Those who visited have since returned to Abuja for the unfolding epic battle over the election of a Presidential standard bearer for their party. The APC clearly faces an existential dilemma. Even the delegates are bewildered.
Whatever the politicians of the APC decide today is their business. Those who win or lose do not deserve our tears or plaudits. It is not an accident that the APC holds its Presidential primary against the background of more bloodshed and pain in the land: it is a sad, graphic, reminder of the agony to which Nigerians have been subjected. It is why the main subject of engagement by any presidential aspirant should be the security and welfare of the people, and their happiness. Money - no amount of naira or dollars, can buy happiness for the people of Nigeria. But good, quality, responsible and responsive leadership can. The man for the job of Nigerian President must be that person who can put an end to the reign of murder, impunity and madness and make this land, whole in pursuit of the common good.
Nigeria’s 18 registered political parties have been busy, in recent times, with their primaries, in line with the schedule of activities approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the regulatory and oversight body in charge of general elections in the country. The Commission had set a deadline of June 3 for the completion of all party primaries. This was so until May 27, when INEC announced a six-day extension of the deadline, a development which in no way violates any law, but which nonetheless raised questions of bias and collusion between INEC and the ruling All Progressives Congress Party (APC). The matter is as follows: In the first week of May, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), the umbrella body for all the 18 registered parties had pleaded with INEC to extend the deadline for primaries and the submission of names of elected candidates by another 30 or 67 days which would then place the deadline in August, to enable the political parties tidy up their affairs.
The parties said they were facing serious constraints. INEC refused. Its excuse was that any extension at all would disrupt the schedule of activities and that the electoral process being time-sensitive was not something the Commission or anyone could toy with. Political parties were further admonished to develop a culture of discipline and respect for rules. Other political parties began the rush to meet the stated deadline. One party, the ruling party was the most laggard of all. It kept changing and adjusting its plans, programmes and activities. As of Thursday, May 26, the party had conducted only its primaries into the House of Representatives, the Houses of Assembly and Gubernatorial positions. It was yet to conduct Senatorial primaries and the screening of the remaining 23 Presidential aspirants that bought its most expensive nomination and declaration of interest forms for N100 million. Some of the original 28 aspirants had chickened out and forfeited their deposits. Meanwhile, the party had eventually announced May 29 and 30. It clearly faced the prospect of conducting a Presidential Primary without screening the aspirants, which was unthinkable.
On Friday, INEC announced an extension of the deadline for primaries by six days relevant only to primaries that had not been conducted, and to create room for INEC to train three officials from each party, on how to load names of candidates and their affidavits on the INEC Nomination of Candidates Portal. INEC argued that it was merely using an open window of six days in its schedule of activities. INEC may not have broken any law, but those who are suspicious about its volte face have a point. The case against the Commission is circumstantial but not without value. The extension was announced on the eve of the PDP Presidential Convention after the party was no longer in a position to shift its own programme.
So, at what point did it occur to INEC that a six-day extension was possible? This was at a point when the main opposition party could no longer benefit from the extension, and its rival, the ruling APC would have the opportunity of spying on the outcome of the neighbour’s primary. To the extent that INEC is expected to be completely neutral and independent, its decision to shift the goal-post in the middle of the game was ill-advised. Its duty is to create a level playing field, not give unnecessary advantage to any party. It may insist that it remains independent but that is enough -it must be seen to be so. No one should be surprised if this shifting of the goal post, INEC affirming its position one week, and recanting another week, becomes a measurement of its performance. Going forward, INEC must eschew the tendency to vacillate or demonstrate suspicious malleability. In politics, the law is as important as other considerations ex facie curiae- of morality, confidence and trust, and the integrity of institutions. INEC is perhaps a bit too busy at the moment to pay quality attention to these fine details, busy as it is preparing for off cycle Gubernatorial elections in Ekiti State on June 18, and Osun State on July 16, but those fine details are critical and we have seen quite a few in the primaries conducted so far and their fall-outs.
Let us begin with the excessive commercialization, the “obscene monetization” of the Primaries process, to borrow a phrase from Alhaji Mohammed Hayatudeen, who had to withdraw from the PDP primary on that account. Money has always been an issue in Nigerian politics, but the obscenity of money in the 2022 party primaries is unprecedented. Civil society groups had argued for a repeal of the 2010 Electoral Act and a new Electoral Act with an intention to correct many of the direct and indirect ills in Nigeria’s electoral process. One of the lessons we have learnt in recent days in the course of the party primaries, is that not even the new law corrects the problems. The way money – not Naira, but dollars – has been flowing up and down since the party primaries commenced is frightening. Nobody has accused the lesser known political parties, 16 in total, of money politics, maybe it is the scale that is manageable, but in the two major political parties, the process has been dictated by dollar currency. It is now popular opinion that Nigeria is an emerging two-party state, and except something else happens, Nigeria is currently divided between PDP and APC. In-between, in the last two weeks, are the monetized, over-dollarized, party delegates who make a choice on behalf of party members.
Who is a party delegate? Under Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act 2022, a party delegate is someone who is duly elected, at the local government level in a democratically organized congress, and who is eligible to participate in the congresses, conventions and meetings of the party under an indirect primary system as defined in Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act, which expressly also prescribes the direct, indirect and consensus modes of holding a party primary. The exclusion of statutory delegates – persons holding public office from the Presidency, to local councilors to party structures and the failure so far of the attempt by the National Assembly to re-integrate them, grants special advantage to delegates who are beneficiaries of that omission. The President having also so far not signed the re-amended Section 84(8), and he has not broken any law in that regard, means that in the primaries that we have witnessed so far, only elected delegates have been the major players. In one or two states, direct primaries have been adopted, but for the most part, the mode of primaries has been indirect. Getting a consensus has been very difficult, except that where we have seen certain aspirants returned unopposed, without consensus, there have been problems. The adoption of an indirect mode of primary should be noted in terms of the reduction in the number of delegates. The process so far has also been swift and manageable because of the adoption of an indirect system. The inclusion of statutory delegates would have been unwieldy and problematic. It has also meant that the aspirants have had to spend less money. But even then, the quantum of election spend has never been more embarrassing.
The extent is demonstrated by some of the melodrama on display. The best job today in Nigeria is to be a delegate at a party primary, at any level. It is a limited, time-specific assignment but it is proving to be a lucrative enterprise. In the absence of statutory delegates, most delegates are at best agents of stakeholders. They are ordinary party members who have no idea what happens within the party and whose assigned task is to vote at a primary, and for them, whatever happens after the event holds no meaning. What is meaningful to them is the fact that they get paid handsomely for the job at hand. A direct primary mode as argued for in places like Ogun (APC), and Sokoto (APC), would have prevented this to some extent, but the indirect primary has meant that the ignorant and unconcerned delegate is the king in the current candidate selection process.
He or she is available for sale to every bidder. He or she can choose to collect money from every aspirant and yet choose to vote as the spirit directs. This has created problems in many cases between the sponsor and the agent. In Kaduna North Federal Constituency, for example, Adam Namadi Sambo, son of former Vice President Namadi Sambo, reportedly gave out N2 million each to 38 delegates, and yet he got only two votes and lost. He has since insisted that his money should be returned! In Ondo state, one aspirant Senator, Ondo Central (PDP), Ayo Akinyelure seeking second term, bought vehicles for party leaders. He lost. He has since asked that his cars should be returned. In Oyo State, a serving Senator who gave out money to aspirants lost woefully. He started gasping for breath. He was revived by concerned supporters who took on the task of fanning him with paper and any available object. In Delta, a House of Reps aspirant was so shocked by his loss that he fainted! There have been reports of aspirants who sold houses and other prized possessions only to lose and end up in hospital wards.
Most delegates simply obeyed the law of the stomach – man must eat, and danced to the tune of the highest bidder. Someone I know, who took part in the primaries, seeking a Senatorial position, said he had never seen anything so absurd. “It was like an auction process at Sotheby’s”, he said. “The delegates would come to you and ask you to pay a certain amount because your opponent has offered a certain amount. If you play ball, they will leave you alone for a while only to return later to say that a candidate in another party had made a higher offer, and you are expected to add more to your bid. If you again play ball, it would not be long before they would return to ask for more money.” My friend said that at some point, he had to give up. He had not seen anything more bizarre. The delegates were not even asking for inducement in Naira, they preferred US dollars! He concluded that the average delegate was the problem. He or she would have to be transported to the venue of the primary, housed, fed, and paid. The more delegates you could bribe, the better your chances. No wonder there were very loud quarrels over delegates lists in Ogun, Lagos, Rivers and Ebonyi! However, many aspirants lost their deposits because the delegates got better offers. In Nigerian politics, things get worse, always.
It has been recommended that all the delegates who took part in the current primary process should be probed. They have made too much money and are beginning to misbehave, eyeing other people’s women, and disturbing neighbourhoods; some have even bought new cars, and thrown celebratory parties. Their bank accounts should be scrutinized. The aspirants should be probed too. On Saturday, May 28, officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) stormed the MKO Abiola Velodrome – venue of the PDP Presidential Convention in search of suspicious distribution of money to induce delegates. Their velvet vests stood out conspicuously. Many politicians are laughing at their exhibitionism. Who catches a thief by being so physically present? And in any case, election money is not distributed in the open. It is done overnight, long before the event – in hotels, government lodges and other hidden places. What may be admitted, however, is that the presence of the EFCC at the PDP Presidential Convention has sent a strong signal that the current electoral process is corrupt. EFCC should adjust its strategy. It should follow the money electronically. It should target the aspirants before the event, and be more discreet in doing so. We may well have to get to a point whereby aspirants have to declare their assets before obtaining the declaration of interest and nomination forms, and after participating in party primaries. Nobody should also be allowed to use the electoral process for the purposes of corrupt self-enrichment, or fund-raising, simply because the law is silent in that regard. If anything has been proven, it is that the Electoral Act 2022 still needs to be reviewed. There is however no law, no matter how beautifully crafted that Nigerians cannot circumvent. A law serves its purpose only if it is enforced.
The party primaries were marred by violence in many states, including Lagos, Ogun, Taraba, and Rivers. Deaths have been reported. In Taraba (PDP), the Governor’s convoy was pelted with stones during the governorship primaries. In Ogun (PDP), and Rivers (APC), there was pandemonium and gunshots as well. In Akwa Ibom (APC), Kano (PDP), and Ogun (PDP), there were parallel primaries. In Rivers (APC), the Magnus Abe faction boycotted the primaries. In Lagos (APC), two governorship aspirants were disqualified. They have since threatened to go to court. In Delta and Sokoto, Gubernatorial aspirants – Festus Keyamo, Cairo Ojougboh in Delta and Abubakar Gada and Balarabe Salame in Sokoto also boycotted the process. In Anambra (PDP), Enugu (PDP), Ebonyi (PDP) and Abia (PDP), there have been defections (Senator Enyinanya Abaribe) and protests – (Sen. Ike Ekweremadu). Whatever anyone thought a new, updated, and improved Electoral framework would bring has been shown to be defective from the start of its implementation. The National Assembly has since regretted its amendment of Section 84 (8) of the Electoral Act, the own goal it scored against itself and traditional, statutory delegates. It is also in court over the controversial Section 84(12) of the Act. The same Governors and Godfathers that the law was meant to keep at bay are ironically the ones dominating the process. The law has not checked money politics. It has also not checked the demons of ethnicity, regional politics, primordial sentiments, godfatherism and clientelism as amply seen in the just concluded PDP Presidential primary in Abuja.
Thus, there has been no stronger case made for change and renewal in Nigeria. The entire Nigerian political class is guilty. Where is that saint, with the magic spell, that would save Nigeria? We search in vain for change and progress, especially now that politicians are even trying to create dynasties for their children from Oyo to Jigawa. And who says the chosen aspirants would be good for Nigeria?
Nigeria’s political parties, particularly the two major ones – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC, are in deep crisis and there is no doubt that the smaller parties, already reduced to the level of spectators in the on-going unfolding grand spectacle of politics and melodrama are just as circumstanced as well. My observation is that Nigeria’s political process leading up to the 2023 general elections, promises to be an interesting mix of everything that is good and bad about politics. The prospects are disturbing. What we have seen so far offers little hope. The 2023 general elections may well turn out to be the most problematic since the country’s return to democratic rule in 1999. What are some of the red flags? Let’s start from last week when most of the political parties conducted their ward congresses, to select delegates ahead of the primaries holding this week and the past weekend. There have been reports of violence, uncertainty and confusion. The major political parties even tried to shift the dates, and they did.
The apparent reason was that they were waiting and hoping that the President would assent to the single-item amendment of Section 84 (8) of the Electoral Act 2022, to allow super, special, statutory delegates, that is persons holding elective positions to be part of the delegates selection process at congresses, meetings and the primaries. To the dismay of the party members and the entire political class, the President last week travelled to the United Arab Emirates to attend an event. Before his departure, he signed into law, the Nigeria Health Insurance Authority Bill. He apparently considered that to be more urgent than the National Assembly’s “expeditious consideration” of Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act 2022.
On his return to Nigeria, on Saturday, we were duly informed that the President still did not sign the re-amended Act, instead, he forwarded it to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the office of the Attorney General of the Federal (AGF) for counsel. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s main political parties have been desperate. Last Saturday, there were speculations that the President would grant his assent to the re-amended Electoral Act 2022 before the close of day. Well, that didn’t happen. Three days later, nothing also happened either. As of today, the President is still waiting for advice. The breaking news is that he has done nothing wrong! The Constitution allows him a window of 30 days to concur with, reject, or veto a legislative proposal. He is most certainly still within time.
Elsewhere, I have listened to the argument that President Buhari, obviously a beneficiary of the last minute remedial amendment, would play ball. But he has refused to do so. He is obviously not interested in any benefits. Rather, he has chosen to hide under the cloak of the law to take his pound of flesh! It should be recalled that he advised the National Assembly while giving assent to the Electoral Bill 2022, as it then was, in February, to reconsider Section 84(12) of the same Act, as it became, with regard to selection of delegates for primaries and the time frame within which appointed officials could be part of the process. The National Assembly refused. Their key objection was that the state Governors were too domineering and needed to be cut to size and that only elected delegates, democratically elected in an indirect system could participate in party primaries. The matter has since gone to court from a High Court in Umuahia, all the way, to the Supreme Court in a suit filed at the apex court by the President and the AGF who invoked the original jurisdiction of the apex Court.
I raised an objection about this last week, simply about the President and the country’s Attorney General invoking the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in their personal capacities as it seemed, but the Attorney General of Rivers State has since been joined in the matter before the Supreme Court, to give the case a cloak of authenticity. For the benefit of those expecting and pushing that the President should give his assent to Section 84(8) as amended, the President can easily hide under the fact that he is not out of time, and that in any case, other related matters are before the courts of the land. I don’t see the Attorney General of the Federation advising him to sign, as quickly as expected. INEC has also made it clear that it has no plans whatsoever to adjust the electoral timetable, and hence, that body would refrain from taking any step or offering any advice that could tie its hands.
Even if President Buhari were to wake up this morning, however, and perform the strange act of signing, impulsively, without advice, it would make no difference whatsoever. The 2023 process has already begun! Delegates have been elected and selected in all the political parties. The APC conducted its ward congresses nationwide last week. The Peoples Democratic Party has also done same and conducted primaries for House of Representatives, Houses of Assembly and the Senate. It is elementary law and a notorious fact that the law cannot have retroactive effect. The latest time any further amendment to the Electoral Act 2022 can have any effect is hereafter, at least with specific regard to the contentious, amended, late-in-time, provision in Section 84(8), which existed in Section 87 of the repealed Electoral Act 2010, but was omitted, overlooked, excluded, and expunged in the new Electoral Act 2022. By so doing, members of the National Assembly scored an own goal against themselves. They excluded themselves. What an absent-minded team of lawmakers? Nobody, not even the legislative aides, were present-minded enough to do a line-by-line check of the proposed new law.
Now, someone suddenly woke up during recess or was prompted by a third party and they all rushed back, Red and Green, to re-amend the law, during extra-ordinary sessions and so-called “expeditious considerations”. Jokers! President Buhari has just shown them that they are in fact an incompetent Assembly, and they caused the current anxiety by their own utter negligence. Let them live with it. Let them watch the primaries on television. The process in any case, has already begun. There is no way the President can lawfully or legitimately, or anyone for that matter, shift the goal post in the middle of the game. This is what happens when emotions and selfish interests stand in the way of law-making.
My fear is that Nigeria may have again lost the opportunity to have credible elections and the Buhari administration may have also lost an opportunity in that regard also. Nigerians seem to be heading into a “Wahala season”, to borrow a phrase, from the streets. The lawmakers who made a new Electoral Act 2022 shot themselves in the foot. Now, they are biting their fingers. Karma is a he-goat. The public interest must always prevail. The same Governors and Godfathers that the lawmakers wanted to curtail are now the same persons dictating processes in the states ahead of the party primaries. In more than one state, aspirants have been asked to sign Memoranda of Understanding that they would support whoever the Governor or Godfather anoints at any level. This is generating tension in Rivers, Lagos and Kano; in some states, specifically Enugu State, some characters, political aspirants, have signed an MOU to hand over the future of the state to one man, namely the incumbent Governor! In Kano, Governor Dr. Ganduje has publicly announced his successor. Democracy is being thrown under the bus right before our eyes!
Even at the Federal level, it is being said that President Buhari has an anointed successor and up till this moment, persons best identified as cockroaches and rabbits have been running around in the ruling party pretending to be the heir-apparent of the Nigerian throne. The only man that is benefiting from all of this is President Muhammadu Buhari himself. Everyone goes to him seeking his blessing. They all come to us to say that they have the President’s blessing, and the President says nothing, other than the famous disclosure that he has an unnamed candidate whose true identity he would prefer to hide. It is for this reason that the APC has a large crowd of Presidential candidates, and the party can’t even immediately screen its Presidential aspirants in a decisive manner. In the long run, these aspirants will constitute a problem for President Buhari and his legacy.
I imagine that some of them will drop out before the party’s Presidential primaries at the end of the month, most of them anyway took the forms and paid N100 million because perhaps small blood rushed into their brains and they became delusional. But they may become bitter allies. The main loser, then, when this is all over, sadly, would be President Muhammadu Buhari himself. It would be remembered how under his watch, an election turned into a long-predicted war, and the falcons stopped listening to the falconer, and “things fell apart.” He still has enough time to restrain the dogs of war: the zoning crisis, the ogre of consensus which has brought out the guns in Rivers and Lagos, the time-bomb of anointments, the devil of money politics, the ridicule of every Dan and Harry seeking to be President, and the money madness that has been unleashed on the land by desperate politicians.
It is probably safe to assume that by next week, we may begin to have a sense, and gain more understanding, and clarity, of the unfolding electoral chaos in this country. For now, it is clear that even if President Buhari signs the Electoral Act as amended, it would be entirely of no moment with regard to the current process. Otherwise, the door will be left open for a plethora of litigations with opportunistic lawyers trying to pursue both valid and frivolous cases in the process. This is why the courts need to wake up. Judges must be ready to throw out any case that looks like an attempt to waste time unnecessarily. I argued last week that this is boom time, meal time, harvest time for lawyers, let me add: but it must certainly not be so for judges. With members of the Bar and politicians misbehaving aplenty, we need the judex in Nigeria to remain sane and decorous, and be the oasis of restraint, civility and good judgment as Nigeria moves into a transition season, from now till 2023, to herald the emergence of a new set of political leaders.
Nonetheless, Nigerians are perhaps truly in trouble as alleged and reported. The emergent character of the 2023 process is that Nigeria is running a political system that is dominated by ego, ethnicity, religion and the sheer arrogance of political aspirants. This is the case from the Presidential to the local government level. For the avoidance of doubt, the main issues have been geography, religion and ethnicity – three potent and potentially combustible issues in Nigerian politics. One year to the transition, Nigeria’s political discourse is dominated by the same debilitating, primordial, and retrogressive issues. It is a bad sign. It is a cause for alarm and anxiety. In comparison with two major general elections in recent times, Nigeria comes up really short on the serious issues index in the public domain. France has just completed an election, in April, in which incumbent President Emmanuel Macron was voted in for a second term of five years, the first French President to win re-election since Jacques Chirac in 2002, defeating the far left candidate, Marie Le Pen, and the far-right candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon.
The campaign was about issues that are of direct relevance to the people. The election went into a run-off as expected between Macron and Le Pen and yet, the results showed the emphasis on ideology and issues. France is looking forward to a legislative election on June 12 but the French have made a choice based on the issues that affect them directly. The majority had their way. Please, where is the Nigerian voter? In Australia, the general elections have also just been concluded, throwing up Anthony Albanese, former Opposition leader of the Labor Party, to replace the Conservative Coalition led by now former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Albanese promised wages growth, gender equality and more commitment to climate change. And the people voted accordingly. The Greens and Independents and women groups got more votes from climate change supporters and thus enforced a change of government. The new Prime Minister was sworn in yesterday, and almost immediately, he travelled out to attend a Quad security partnership meeting in Tokyo, Japan where he is expected today to meet with US President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The issue in Australia was majorly climate change: the floods and the bush fires, and how Morrison’s government acted as if it was asleep, most of the time. When will Nigerians punish a sitting government, with their votes, for negligence and insensitivity? In Nigeria, nobody knows what anybody stands for. What are the big issues being debated in Nigeria by the political parties and the aspirants ahead of 2023?
All I hear is zoning, ethnicity, nepotism, religion and money. Nigeria is at a crossroads and it is a bad kind of confused state, where witches and wizards are already having a conclave session. Who will help President Buhari ensure that he finishes well? …“Proverbs to bones and silence” says Wole Soyinka in his book, A Dance of the Forests. Proverbs…indeed.
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