
REUBEN'S VIEWS
“Happy Independence Day, my brother. I hope you had a great Independence Day?”
“No. I didn’t. This country don tire me.”
“Tire you how? How can you get tired of your country when the other day, you and I still went to Ngozi’s place to enjoy nkwobi and isi ewu with better orisirisi? Where else in the world can anyone enjoy the kind of special things we enjoy in this country without cutting an arm and a leg?”
“You tend to take everything as a joke. I can’t blame you. I guess someone already said that the great thing about Nigerians is our ability to laugh when we should cry and dance when we should be still and sober. We make light of every tragic situation. We wake up the following morning and pretend as if all is well. If it rained overnight, we manage to forget and forge ahead.”
“Ït is called resilience, my brother. We are a resilient people. We are like the Beetle. No matter how bad the road is, there is no killing the Beetle. We keep going. I am not going to allow some stupid leaders mess me up. They can do all the things they want, I am not going to give up. If they like they can turn the Naira note, the national currency into a meaningless piece of paper, I am going to keep going. Soldiers come, soldiers go. Let me tell you something bro. This too shall pass and Nigeria shall be great again.”
“Your problem is food and drinks. And I understand. There are people like you. Once you can eat and drink, you are fine. But there are some of us who want more from life, and we don’t think Nigeria is working. We think at 61, this country is thoroughly messed up and if I have my way, I will argue that the celebration of October I should be suspended till further notice in this country,”
“Omo, chill. What are you suspending? You can’t suspend history. Nigeria gained its independence from Britain on October 1, 1960. You can’t deny that. Don’t go about suspending things you can’t suspend. Jaiye ori e, bobo”
“But your President suspended Twitter? And even in his 61st Independence Day anniversary, he couldn’t lift the ban on Twitter. He said he had given directives that Twitter should be allowed back into the country based on conditions.”
“Leave Twitter I beg. Jack Dorsey is doing his own business. What has Twitter got to do with Nigeria’s independence anniversary? 61 years of Nigeria. Before Twitter, Nigeria was, after Twitter, Nigeria will still exist. I don’t even know why the President of Nigeria will choose to talk about Twitter on Nigeria’s Independence Day. That speech just went on and on. Good flow but too many unnecessary things inside. I was surprised President Muhammadu Buhari didn’t talk about Evergrande and its troubles and the fuel crisis in the UK.”
“Looks like the weed you smoked is beginning to clear from your head.”
“Which weed? Na drink I dey drink, I no dey smoke. You know say my Mama don die. If I go smoke now, the thing turn my head, who go take care of me? But what I am saying is that Nigeria is not a place you wake up in the morning and you begin to worry yourself? This life itself is not worth worrying about. Just live, and be yourself. Be happy. Don’t expect too much from anybody. This world is full of evil. Government. Government. Government. Who government don help? Can you believe there is power outage in Northern China? If they told you a day will come when white people in England will struggle with fuel scarcity, and beat each other up at fuel stations, struggling to get fuel, and that the streets of London will be filled with fuel queues, would you have ever agreed? But it happened bro. If not for COVID-19 and all these red list, green list things, I was tempted to go to London to make quick business. You buy, hoard, you sell. And make good money. I was looking at those people in London, fighting at fuel stations and for once, I felt good. If that happened in Nigeria, we would have been calling for a revolution, and the end of government. Every country has its own crisis. Let the Heavens fall, life will continue.”
“You are comparing apples and oranges. China does not have an electricity problem. Britain does not have a fuel scarcity problem. They have supply chain issues, and the fuel queues you are jubilating about are beginning to disappear. Britain and China have the capacity to fix their problems. Who will fix Nigeria? Can anybody fix Nigeria? Has anybody been able to fix Nigeria?”
“You like to praise white people. Anything a white man does; you will rationalize it. But you won’t rationalize anything for your own country. Which China? China where government is breathing down everybody’s neck, regulating everything including what time children should go to bed and what games they should play? With all our problems here, I don’t think any Nigerian leader would ever be mad enough to dictate what kind of food I should eat. You are praising the UK? Please who are you praising? Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister who does not know his right from his left? Supply chain problems? Are you saying I did not see those fuel queues? And the punch ups at the fuel stations, sorry, they call it forecourts? I have been telling you, don’t worry yourself. Nigeria is fine. Nigeria is great. If you are not happy, watch a Nollywood film. Listen to good music. Nigeria is the biggest entertainment centre in Africa. The home of pure genius in culture and the arts. The land of diamonds and resources.”
“I see you love escapism. You eat and drink. Watch movies. And you think all is well. That is actually the problem with most Nigerians today. They are so used to suffering, they don’t care anymore. A nation of depressed people.”
“Who is depressed in this country? Me or Davido and Whizkid who are selling out Arenas all over the world with their talent? Or Oluwaburna who is winning big international awards for his genius? Or Chimamanda Adichie who is lecturing European leaders about how to do the right thing in a world in need of justice and humanity? Your problem is that you worry too much about government.”
“Governments dictate how we live”
“And I say leave government alone and focus on yourself to avoid high blood pressure!”
“How? With all the bad roads, and poor infrastructure? And insecurity? When many Nigerians wake up in the morning, they are afraid to leave their homes because they are not sure whether they will make it back home in the evening or end up in the mortuary or a kidnapper’s den?”
“You must have been reading too many newspapers, and those things they write. This is a country of 210 million people. What do you mean people are afraid to leave their homes? Have you not seen the rush at bus stops every morning? And the queues at garages across the country, people moving up and down?”
“Nigeria should not be at that level 61 years after independence. In 1960, it was widely believed that the Nigeria of the future would do better than Japan and Malaysia within a decade. We messed it all up. A 61-year old person in the UK, Japan, and Malaysia is better off than a 61-year old in Nigeria today.”
“Na lie. I know Nigerians who are 61 years old who are on the Forbes list of the wealthiest people in the world.”
“And their names are probably listed on the Panama and Pandora papers, and America’s Wanted List. You will never find my name there.”
“Because you spend your entire life criticizing others. You don’t ever see anything good in anything or anybody. You must change your mind-set. You praise other people. You condemn your own. A 61-year old man or woman in Nigeria is better off than a 61-year old in Malawi or Zimbabwe and Guinea Conakry. How about that?”
“But they don’t kidnap people or kill them like flies in those other countries. What is the worth of a Nigerian life, 61 years after independence? All good things Nigeria destroys them all. The other day, they killed Dr. Chike Akunyili, Dora Akunyili’s husband in broad daylight in Anambra State”
“Yes. Sad. Sad.”
“For days, I kept remembering how the innocent man writhed on the floor, and nobody tried to help him. Instead, by-standers brought out their phones and recorded videos of his agony as life ebbed out of him. Something terrible has happened to this country, both the government and the people. If I had my way, I would ban the use of any phone with a video recording device in this country. Those phones are robbing Nigerians of their humanity and the old values we cherished.”
“Be careful. A few minutes ago, you were condemning the ban on Twitter. Government will hear you now, they will think it is a good thing to ban everything else including Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.”
“No society should be this cruel. In one day, in Anambra, the offices of the Department of State Services (DSS) was burned down, same with the office of the Federal Road Safety Commission and the country home of Joe Igbokwe in Nnewi and all you hear is that unknown gunmen did it. Unknown gunmen. Unknown soldiers. Unknown terrorists. Nigeria is a country of unknown citizens. Even the government is unknown. What tragedy can be bigger than that? Please tell me.”
“Ah well, Nigeria will survive. I have faith. According to my Pastor, he was telling us this Sunday…”
“Please can we leave your Pastor out of this? I am not interested in what your Pastor has to say… Religious leaders have done too much damage… They are part of the problem…”
“I just know that Nigeria will survive… My Pastor knows a lot...”
“What do you yourself know? What does your Pastor know about the unending insecurity in the country, the hundreds of children who have been victims of kidnapping in the North and have been scarred for life. What do you yourself know about the failure of the state in major parts of the country? The entire North is a killing zone. The Middle Belt is unsafe. Now the South is also in turmoil. Do you know that things have gone so bad in Anambra State, people are even afraid to go out, every Monday? That state is scheduled to hold a Gubernatorial election on November 6. A month to the election, many of the candidates have suspended their campaigns and fled the state. In fact, it is now being suggested that the Anambra election should be held in Abuja.”
“You like to exaggerate things. How do you hold a Gubernatorial election in Abuja, hundreds of miles away? Will the women and voters of Anambra travel to Abuja to make a choice about their own future?”
“Nigeria’s Theatre of the Absurd. As some of you celebrated Nigeria at 61, some of us spent our time reflecting on these things. In Niger State, a Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport was abducted along with his granddaughter at an event in Zungeru. In the same state, in Kachive Village, 20 persons were killed, houses were razed down by bandits. In Sokoto state, terrorists kidnapped 20 persons and then freed one of their victims to deliver a letter to the traditional ruler of the affected community, to demand a ransom of N20 million. In Nigeria, human beings have become commodities traded on the Kidnappers Stock Exchange (KSE), which is fast becoming far more profitable than the Nigerian Stock Exchange. That is how bad our situation is.”
“Na wah oh.”
“One of these days, we would all be here and we would all hear that a State Governor has been abducted or maybe his wife.”
“Na lie. That can’t happen. A whole Governor?”
“Are you not aware that many Governors no longer spend the night in their states. That is why they all have private jets. They show up in the state to attend events, and as soon it is over, they go to the nearest airport and fly to Abuja to spend the rest of the week. And yet these persons are called Chief Security Officers of their states.”
“Make you no blame them my brother. Who wan die? Everything for this life na destiny. Na where you find yourself, you go manage.”
“Even the economy is in tatters. Our debt service to revenue ratio is frightening. 97.7%. And that is why I don’t understand why there is so much scramble over who should become President of Nigeria in 2023. North vs South. The next Nigerian President will inherit chaos. A broken country, if not physically, but certainly spiritually.”
“Don’t worry yourself, Nigeria won’t break. Did you not hear the President when he said that the Nigeria the British gave to us is indivisible and non-negotiable?”
“I sort of liked the speech. I thought it was a significant improvement on the terrible prose they used to write as Presidential speeches. But a second reading revealed the false claims in that speech. Fine prose yes, but don’t use fine turns of phrase to deceive the people. In this business, that is a form of corruption. In normal life, they call it “toasting”. Those fine things you say to seduce a woman.”
“Omo oor. The thing choke!”
“You heard woman now, see how you are excited like a child. Are you okay? The thing to note is that Nigerians today are beyond seduction. That is why we have all these problems around the country. I just hope that in the next round of elections, Nigerians will shine their eyes, and vote wisely.”
“Shine ya eye! Big Brother Naija. You too watch am? Odogwu, my man, Mazi White Money. The money white e be like snow.”
“I am not talking about Big Brother Naija. The obsession with a group of young men and women living in a cage defined by dissoluteness is a reflection of the state of the nation.”
“Nigeria sef na Big Brother Naija. Discuss. Mazi, White Money, na you biko.”
“I won’t discuss that with you.”
“Leave this Nigerian matter I beg. Na who go remain go remain, make we go drink, clear head. Buhari sef fit dey the other room, we dey here dey drag plenty matter.”
Every step must be taken by the Governor of Delta State, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, the DElta State Government, and the security agencies to prevent what appears to be another emerging round of crisis over the ownership of Warri. For more than 50 years, the Itsekiri and the Urhobo have fought over ownership of land in Warri municipality, and the appropriateness or otherwise of the traditional title, Olu of Warri. The battle has been fought in the law courts in Nigeria and the United Kingdom in such cases as Suit No. W/44/57, Suit No. W/121/57, Suit No. W/41/57, The Supreme Court in SC67/1971, Ometa vs. Chief Dore Numa 1934 11 N.L.R 18. Agbassa land, for example, is one of the most contested areas of Warri, namely Ejeba, Oteghele, Ogunu, Ekurede Urhobo, Igbudu and Ikpokiti. But the Itsekiri insist that they are the true owners of the land and that in fact the Agbassa are customary tenants to the Olu of Warri as determined by the Privy Council in 1941 and the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1971 and 1972. The Itsekiri further insist that the Agbassa Urhobo will remain their tenants forever.
Beyond the law courts, this conflict over ownership of land, tenancy and customary rights has resulted in bitter feuds between both groups. There is also an Ijaw dimension to a three-way aboriginal confrontation in Warri. In 1997, the relocation of the Warri South Local Government Headquarters from Ogbeh-Ijoh (Ijaw land) to Ogidigben (Itsekiri land) resulted in absolute chaos and the death of more than 80 persons and the destruction of lives and property. The Ijaws believe that the Itsekiri always try to marginalise them. The Itsekiri, less populous than the Ijaws made early contact with European traders and gained a relative advantage in education, commerce, and even subsequently in other areas of life. This has caused over the years, great resentment against the group from their immediate neighbours: the Ijaws, Isokos, and the Urhobo. The sovereignty especially of Warri is a source of unending irritation between the Itsekiri and Urhobo. In 1997, there was war on all fronts: Itsekiti vs Urbobo, Itsekiri vs Ijaw.
In 1952, when the area now known as Delta State was part of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s government reversed the title of then Olu of Itsekiri to Olu of Warri, the original title of the Olu for more than 400 years. Other ethnic groups kicked. The main conflict between the Itsekiri and the Urhobo may have been over land, but there is politics involved too. And it is ironic: both groups have lived together for centuries. They inter-marry and have children together. Most Urhobos are half-Itsekiri and vice versa prompting the popular quip that the inter-ethnic conflict between them does not get to the bedroom. In 1999, a dispute over land in Ajagbodudu resulted in bloodshed between the Urhobo and the Itsekiri. The mutual distrust among the ethnic groups in Delta State and indeed, the entire South-South is not merely about land or the politics of domination, but how certain stakeholders at various times, seek to exploit these differences for their own advantage. The Niger Delta Basin accounts for about 90% of Nigeria’s oil and gas. Oil was first discovered in an Ijaw community in Oloibiri in 1957.
Whereas the people of the Niger Delta are all marginalised relative to other parts of Nigeria, which feed on oil and gas proceeds, the in-fighting among the same people is accentuated by personal and group needs for access to a per centage of the raw wealth that runs through their communities. It is trite law that whoever owns the land, owns whatever is attached to it. South South Land owners and other stakeholders are entitled to a share of the oil largesse, no matter how small, and to patronage from oil establishments. My suspicion is that the problem is the opportunistic elite in the Niger Delta. They take advantage of everything. They project personal interests as group concerns. They deploy foot-soldiers who have never heard of the Willinks Commission, or derivation, resource control, the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to kill and maim over primordial sentiments. They are at it again.
The trigger this time is the emergence of a newly installed Olu of Warri, Atuwatse III, Emitshola Emiko. One of the fall-outs of the Coronation has been the resurrection of an Urhobo group known as Waado. The group has been very active on all social media platforms. It is not a new group, but it has re-invented itself to throw up old and volatile issues of sovereignty in Warri. The group’s message is simply that there is no such thing as an Olu of Warri but an Olu of Itsekiri and that the way to settle the matter this time around is to change the name of Warri to Waado City. “Waddo”: is an Urhobo word, a generic term which means “gentleman.” Urhobos ordinarily great each other at a gathering: “Ürhobo Waado” or “Mimi Waado”, accompanied by a native, responsorial call. The major towns in Waado City as outlined on Facebook by one Omonire Isaac Ovwigho include Edjeba, Ogunu, Okere, Ughotor, McDermott, Igbudu, Ibo market, Main Market, Iyara, Deco Road, Esi Layout, Okumagba Layout, Enerhen, Ekpan, Jedo, Jakpa, Effurun, Osubi, Udu, Eekte, Ovwian, Aladja, Oko-Okuoko, Otokutu, Ugbomro, Agbarho, Airport Road, Ekurede Urhobo and all surrendering (sic?) areas” whatever that means. The Waado group has also posted audio messages online urging Urhobo youths to stand up to the Itsekiri. They are threatening to organise an anti-Itsekiri protest on October 1.
I have seen at least a petition against this “Waado City Group” by an Itsekiri Group – the Itsekiri Interest Group (ING) titled “RE: Promoting Inter-Communal War, A Felony: Contrary to the Provisions of Section 42 of the Criminal Code Law CAP C21 Laws of Delta State of Nigeria, 2008: A Formal Petition Against Dr Ejiro Imuere, Omonire Ovwigho and His Cohorts, Self-Styled “Wado City Group”. The Itsekiri Interest Group (ING), like the Itsekiri Renewal Movement (IRM) before it, is opposed to the request that Warri be renamed Waado City. They claim this is illegal, provocative and an attempt to breach the peace. They want Governor Okowa, in his capacity as Chief Security Officer of the State to nip what may end up as a “deadly crisis” in the bud.
Nobody needs a bloodbath in Warri. Both Governor Okowa and the relevant security agencies should wade into this matter and prevent a certain breakdown of law and order. As we have seen in Ife-Modakeke, Tiv-Junkun, Aguleri-Umuleri, Southern Kaduna, the authorities tend to act too little too late, and when pundits cite the failure of intelligence, they claim innocence. Such an excuse would be foolish in this case. The threat is well known. The dangers have been communicated in advance. Any form of leadership failure will be unreasonable.
Hadi Sirika, Minister of Aviation has since announced the proposed concession of four of Nigeria’s major airports: Murtala Muhammad International Airport Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt International Airport, Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. Despite huge investments in these airports, they have continued to operate at sub-optimal levels, and have emerged as poster units for gross inefficiency. The concession which could last for 20 to 30 years, extendable on the grounds of good performance, would involve only the non-aeronautical assets of the airports. It is essentially a public-private partnership, with the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) still in control of the aeronautical operations.
In August 2021, the Transaction Advisors for the new model issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ), a call for interested parties to submit their bids. Sirika argued that the concession of the airports will boost the country’s revenue and grow the country’s air transport value chain. He assured industry workers that there will be no job losses on account of the concession. Private sector involvement was expected to raise the capacity and profile of the airports. Every company interested in the aviation sector PPP was expected to have a minimum net worth of N30 billion. Interested international parties were asked to partner with local companies in line with Nigeria’s local content development policy. Private investors will own, upgrade infrastructure, operate and recoup their investments - a win-win “Nigerian Airports Concession Strategy”.
Airport concession is a popular private public partnership option in the global aviation industry. In Brazil, Japan, France, and Eastern Europe investors engage in similar deals. In 2009, the London Gatwick Airport was subjected to the same process. Other airports around the world in this class include the La Guardia in New York, the Western Sydney Airport in Australia, Clark Airport in Manila, Sangster International Airport in Jamaica, and Sofia Airport in Bulgaria. Back home, Nigeria had its first experience of airport concession in 2003 when as part of the early efforts of the Nigeria Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the Second Terminal of the Murtala Muhammad International Airport, the Domestic Wing in Lagos was handed over to Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL). Concession agreements require diligence, certainty, integrity and the sanctity of contracts.
But what we observe is that the current Airports Concession Strategy is about to end up like that other big project under Hadi Sirika’s watch as Nigeria’s Aviation Minister: that is, the proposed launch of a national carrier called Nigeria Air. The national carrier was unveiled in 2018 at the Fanborough International Airshow in England. The National Assembly approved money for it. We were told aircraft had been ordered. Minister Sirika continued for a while to tell us that the national carrier would be airborne before 2023. Hmm. Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, reportedly said the project was not getting off the ground, and had to be suspended, due to “investor apathy.” We seem to be travelling the same route with the concession plan involving the aforementioned four airports. Sirika must be worried that he is fast becoming the promoter of big ideas that die and end up as a waste of state resources and everyone’s energy and time. As someone who has had significant experience in the aviation sector, he should know better, and can do better, but we have not yet seen any concrete evidence of his “expertise and experience.”
It is particularly striking that no investor of serious concern, except maybe one or two, has responded to the RFQ issued by the Federal Government in August for the four airports under concession. Last week, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Aviation announced an extension of the deadline by four weeks, now ending October 25, 2021. Will the investors seize this new opportunity and rush in to make their bids? No. I suspect we would end up at this same point by that same deadline. There are international investing groups that are strictly interested in airport concessions around the world. They jump at every opportunity. It is their field of play. For them to have ignored Nigeria so blatantly says something about our country’s business environment and the intelligence profiling of Nigeria’s aviation sector. It has nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic. What we are dealing with as in the case of the suspended Nigeria Air project, is simply investor apathy. There is Adebayo Ogunlesi, a Nigerian who bought three UK airports, including Gatwick. in six years. Has he shown interest in Nigerian airports? Why should investors snub Nigeria’s aviation sector? The evidence is in full sight.
Nigeria is an uncertain and unstable business environment. Nigerian authorities also do not respect agreements. Aviation requires humongous, long-term investment. It is not a portfolio, the-tree-branch-breaks-the-bird-flies kind of investment. In the Aviation sector with regard to concession, a major trigger of apathy among other investors would also be the maltreatment of the Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), the first company to run, upgrade and sustain an airport in Nigeria under a PPP arrangement. Bi-Courtney is a Nigerian Company. It is a veritable demonstration of the workability of the Federal Government policy on local content development. But the same Government has been at war with BASL over the concession for more than ten years. Under the agreement signed with the Federal Government of Nigeria, BASL was meant to maintain the MM2 as it is known for 36 years. A new government unilaterally reduced that to 10 years without reference to the agreement. BASL was also in 2003 granted the concession to run the GAT terminal of the Murtala Muhammad Airport, the old domestic wing of the Lagos Airport. A new Nigerian administration also blocked that. Bi-Courtney went to court and won, all the way, to the Supreme Court. Nonetheless, the Federal Government of Nigeria has pointedly ignored its own Supreme Court. And on top of it all, Bi-Courtney which has “a right of first refusal” over the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) in Lagos is not even being given a chance.
I can understand the obsession with the fact that foreign investors are not forthcoming – who wants to do business in a country and a sector where no one respects agreements and things can change overnight? I also understand why the Federal Government says state governments of Nigeria should not submit any bids – those who mismanage Nigeria know and understand each other. The sub-nationals are even worse than the Federal Government. State governments should in fact also concession their own airports, and the airlines that they have set up. There is no guarantee that those investments will live beyond the particular Governor who put them in place.
Extending the deadline for the submission of bids for the concession of the four airports under reference may not change anything. The Federal Government must review its strategy and be seen to be prepared to act in good faith. It must ensure a level playing field for every interested stakeholder in the private sector. It must respect the judgements of the Supreme Court in the matter between it and Bi-Courtney and demonstrate respect for the sanctity of contracts and agreements. It must also show political wisdom. With the current tone and flavour of Nigerian politics, it would be an invitation to crisis to concession an airport in Lagos without Yoruba involvement, the Aminu Kano airport without the major or minor investor being a Northerner, or the Enugu Airport without Igbo representation, or the Port Harcourt Airport without the people of the South South being in charge one way or the other. This may not be ideal but it is nothing unusual in this context. In some other parts of the world, community-based stakeholders and their interests are prioritised. What Nigeria’s Airport Concession Strategy needs is a re-think, a re-set, transparency and a heavy dose of common sense, the lack of which has so far hobbled Minister Sirika’s plans.
Civil society groups, including Non-Governmental Organisations are a positive force for change and progress in society, oftentimes helping to bridge the gaps of alienation between government and the people. In developed parts of the world, CSOs and NGOs have been in the forefront of making our world a much better place by helping to fight injustice, man’s inhumanity to man, environmental abuses, global health challenges, gender discrimination and the evolution of a rules-based international system. Ordinarily, power figures succumb to the temptations of power, they get carried away, they trample on the people’s rights, they subject everything and all things to the caprices of politics, civil society organisations help to pull such delusional figures back to the real world of blood and flesh. The academic distinction that is often drawn between CSOs and NGOs may well be quite frankly a matter of nomenclature and the fine distinctions quite blurry, for both are linked by the service that they offer, rather than profit, and their devotion to the common good, and the fact that both are outside the state, working in the interest of the community.
In developing and underdeveloped countries, civil society organisations have similarly helped to advance common causes, and in Africa, they are as old as the communities themselves. Since the 70s however, there has been an explosion of those groups that go by the name NGOs, a label that seeks strictly to differentiate the activities of such groups from the state and business. Most of these NGOs are described as charity organisations, or not-for-profit, or philanthropist efforts. They rely on donations, mostly foreign and are meant to be seen as voluntary organisations making a contribution to the human community. Nigeria certainly has a positive history of CSOs and NGOs role in its development.
I can attest to that having had an insider view of the CSO/NGO community in Nigeria. I was once a consultant for an international agency where my job was to help rewrite and review proposals from Nigerian NGOs. I also worked for other international agencies on public communication processes, change projects and development ideas. At a time, I was co-founder and director of an NGO. I also co-wrote the political agenda of a major NGO. I later sat on the board of an International NGO which decided funding for many projects in Nigeria. I travelled around the world attending conferences on health, population, environment, women empowerment issues, democracy and good governance. I cannot disclose the identities of these groups, but there was no doubt about the quality of the NGO community in Nigeria and how that construct called “the third sector” could propel societal development for good. Nigeria has indeed been a major beneficiary of the efforts of men and women who stepped away from the state and business and tried to give back by devoting time and energy to key issues of our time.
Within the general civil society community, churches, community-based groups, professional associations, labour unions, volunteer groups have also done so much in the making of Nigeria. For anyone who may have forgotten, the Nigerian civil society led the struggle against military rule in this country, and fought valiantly to demand a return to civilian rule. Many died. Lost their loved ones. Hundreds of persons fled into exile. Many more were hauled into detention and jails on trumped up charges. The Nigerian media was courageous. Journalists stood at the barricades along with human rights activists and resisted oppression, at great risk to their lives. At a time in this country, it was a crime and an attempt at suicide to write or tell the truth, yet many spoke the truth. Nobody thought of profit or gain. The only gain was the common good. Many persons and groups went to the streets and shouted “Never Again”. Of course, there were opportunists who profited from the people’s anguish, but my point is that in the 80s and 90s, the Nigerian civil society had its golden moments. We are all beneficiaries of the heroism of those who made the sacrifice in the political arena, regardless of what ails us today.
So, where is that same civil society today? Its complexion has changed. And that is a source of concern. With return to civilian rule in 1999, civil society, praised for its commitment to the major task of saving Nigeria, more or less relaxed. The explanation we offered at the time was that having won the battle over the authoritarianism of the military and the violation of the people’s rights, it made sense for civil society to catch its breath and allow the new democrats to settle down as Nigeria’s Fourth Republic began. This new phase in national development coincided however with an explosion in the number of Non-Governmental Organisations in the country. Having seen the power of civil society, setting up an NGO became a special kind of enterprise. There is nothing wrong in anyone electing to help promote the frontiers of law, human rights and democracy but the lines became strikingly blurred: between NGOs that were truly non-profit and an emergent phenomenon known as NGIs: Non-Governmental Individuals: special purpose, one-man organisations with neither structure nor organisation, but a fanciful name, a business card, an indeterminate address and a fancy-dresser who goes by the name of Chief Executive with a talent for peripatetic conduct in NGO circles and the larger society. In due course, someone took the trouble to prepare a directory of NGOs in Nigeria. Our finding: Many states in Nigeria have more NGOs than companies and direct investments. Each NGO looks for funds from international agencies and local donors. Most of them are vehicles for gaining access to government departments and agencies.
The result was the emergence of the NGO chief as an entrepreneur. And some of the guys really live it up. Loud fashion. Big cars. Opulent quarters. Like everything Nigerian, the NGO community, once a haven of good, became a vehicle of access to the good life. The legacy of the early heroes has since been overtaken by many who are out there to make a quick buck, or offer special services to the highest bidder, no matter how shady the deal may be. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the Nigerian Government has been trying to control the NGO community, has been very suspicious of it, and continues to attack the civil society community. The contempt is mutual. Between 2015 and 2016, the National Assembly proposed three different bills to regulate CSOs and NGOs viz: A Bill for the Registration and Coordination of NGOs in Nigeria and for Connected Purposes (2015), the Civil Society Commission of Nigeria Bill (2016) and A Bill for the Establishment of the Non-Governmental Organisations, Civil Society Organisations in Nigeria and for Related Matters (2016). The sponsors of these Bills argued that the objective was to ensure transparency and accountability in the NGO sector to the extent that while freedom to act on behalf of the people was important, such freedom must come with responsibility. The big problem was that the phrasing of the bills was adversarial. Most of the provisions sounded like a deliberate attempt to shut down “the third sector” and free speech. In September 2017, 23 NGOs went to court to demand that the Bills should be declared unconstitutional. The hashtag #NoNGOBill dominated Nigerian social media. The Bills died a-borning.
The matter of the NGOs in Nigeria came up again last week when the Federal Inland Revenue Service speaking through one of its directors, Temitayo Orebajo announced that Civil Society Organisations in Nigeria that are involved in “trade and business” must pay tax, obtain a Tax Identification Number (TIN) or get sanctioned in accordance with the law. This has generated mixed reactions among stakeholders. There is nothing new really. The relevant laws for NGOs are the Companies and Income Tax (CITA) 2007, the Personal Income Tax Act No 104, 1993; the Value Added Tax 2007 (as amended). Under the extant law, NGOs in Nigeria are required to pay the PAYE tax, Withholding Tax on goods and services, Local taxes and fees such as parking and garage levies, Capital Gains tax where applicable and Income Tax on passive income. I do not see what the furore is all about. It is not every NGO that is non-profit in the real sense of it. Every NGO is required to be registered by law. The tax exemption that is enjoyed by an NGO is conditional. It is not absolute. Any NGO that wants an exemption can apply to the Minister of Finance through FIRS.
Once an NGO begins to engage in “trade and business”, it must be prepared to pay taxes. This includes those churches and places of religious worship that run travel agencies, schools, bakeries and that manufacture water and other items, including anointing oil, from which they make huge profits. Some of the most lucrative businesses in Nigeria today belong to churches. In God’s name, people are cashing out and claiming that they are NGOs. I am of the firm view that some level of regulation, accountability and transparency is required. There are too many NGOs out there that are merely fronts for other businesses. Nigerians are too busy trying to break or evade the law. Too many individuals parading as non-profit organisations. The usual tendency is to see every attempt at control or regulation on civil society groups as an assault on the civic space. While it is true that the Nigerian government has been complicit in this regard, it is also true that civil society in Nigeria is problematic and cannot be placed above scrutiny.
I recall two instances and with the following illustrations, I will rest my case. I was shocked when during the crisis involving the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a member of the Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei-led interim management committee, Dr. Cairo Ojuogboh appeared on international television to claim that the civil society community in Nigeria, so-called CSOs and NGOs were part of the problem because these were groups on the payroll of the NDDC. At the time, the NDDC had come under heavy fire from persons who justifiably condemned how a development agency had been turned into a rent collection point by those who were expected to use provided resources to develop the Niger Delta and improve the people’s lot. Cairo Ojuogboh argued spiritedly that if anybody collected contracts, most of them were lawmakers in Abuja and NGOs from the Niger Delta Community, including groups that offered media services. It may be argued that these may have been phantom groups created by the thieves within the system as vehicles for self-enrichment. But they went by the title of NGOs nonetheless, claiming to be non-profit entities! They collected contracts and funds! In Nigeria, anybody can set up an NGO and buy newspaper space and make all kinds of claims. Half of the NGOs out there are not even registered. Just grab a name, design a logo and recruit an online team, generate a fanciful title and you are in business. Nobody double-checks.
I was also particularly alarmed when recently an NGO known as HEDA Resource Centre and its Chairman, Olanrewaju Suraj wwere both accused by the Police ,in a report, of having made false accusations against Mohammed Bello Adoke, former Attorney General of the Federation in the OPL 245 case involving Malabu Oil and Gas Limited. Suraj and his NGO accused Adoke of using an email address belonging to a company owned by a certain Aliyu Abubakar to engage in corrupt activities. Adoke was also accused of having had a phone conversation with an Italian journalist in 2017 where he admitted that the OPL 245 deal was a scam. Adoke has since denied the claims made against him by HEDA. He petitioned the Nigeria Police and asked for an investigation. The Police investigated Olanrewaju Suraj’s claims and wrote a report stating clearly that this was a case of blackmail, and that the information shared on social media against Adoke was unverifiable. Suraj responded by saying the Police Report was fake. The Nigeria Police Headquarters has since responded with the rebuttal that its report is authentic. To worsen matters, we are told that Olanrewaju Suraj’s Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) is “an unregistered organisation.” The Police invited Olanrewaju Suraj but the police in their report said “he feigned sickness, jumped bail and resorted to issuing press statements maligning the Police, writing frivolous counter petitions and filing suits in Court against the IGP Monitoring Unit, Force Headquarters and the Police…” Olanrewaju Suraj, the report states, has foreign partners!
I have cited these two examples to show just how in our context, “the third society” is very much like government and business – the two other major societies in Nigeria. The NDDC Audited Report has shown the extent of the rot in that body, over 13, 000 abandoned projects and N6 trillion down the drain over the years, with nothing to show for it. The Board that Dr Ojougboh defended may not be innocent, but why would NGOs be part of the loot-sharing at the NDDC? Does the NDDC Audit report include an opinion on these NGOs turned contractors and rent collectors over the years? As for HEDA and Suraj, Mohammed Bello Adoke was maligned. His reputation was dragged in the mud of social media. Although the Italian Court threw out the entire Malabu/ENI trial, Bello Adoke, who was not on trial in Italy, was continuously maligned by HEDA, trying to influence the Nigerian Courts. Our people believe the worst about anyone who ever served in government. NGOs are supposed to be change agents not tools for untruths and blackmail. The Nigerian Government however overstretched the argument when in the wake of the #EndSARS protests in 2020, it made an attempt to descend on the civil society groups in that protest. That was a clear case of lumping the pigeons with the chickens. The main spirits behind the #EndSARS protests meant well, they wanted the good of all, but their ranks were infiltrated by a group of “chicken” forces in civil society who changed the colour of the protest.
The time has come for soul-searching within the Nigerian civil society community. It is not everyone that carries placards that means well. It is not every loud-mouthed, fist-clenching character that is a revolutionary. It is sad that the Nigerian Revolution is a gathering place for anyone at all who can shout loud or bold enough to show up at the barricades. Not even NGOs should be above reproach or the law. But who will guard the guardians? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
On Thursday, September 9, I participated in a Colloquium titled “Osun at 30: Celebrating a Milestone, Building a Prosperous Future”, which as the title indicates was a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the creation of Osun State. On August 27, 1991, the Babangida administration created nine additional states: Abia, Delta, Enugu, Jigawa, Kebbi, Kogi, Osun, Taraba and Yobe, bringing the total number of states in Nigeria to 30. The states were carved out of existing states, Osun for example was part of the old Oyo State, Delta was carved out of the defunct Bendel State, Jigawa used to be part of the old Kano State, Yobe state was carved out of Borno State, Enugu State from Anambra, Taraba state from old Gongola. Kebbi from Sokoto state. Four years earlier, the same Babangida administration created two states: Akwa Ibom and Katsina.
The politics of state creation has been one of the most volatile issues at the heart of the national question in Nigeria. From Gowon who created 12 states in 1967, to General Murtala Muhammed who added seven more states in 1976, General Ibrahim Babangida who increased the number first to 21 and later 30, and General Abacha who added six more states in 1996, giving us the present 36-state structure, the argument has always been anchored on the need to bring government closer to the people at the grassroots level, address the concerns of ethnic minorities who feel marginalized or dominated by numerically stronger neighbours, promote national unity, and ensure a more equitable distribution of national resources. Today, there are still many groups demanding the creation of more states. A cost-benefit analysis shows that states creation may have created more problems than it has solved. It has heightened the politics of difference, disunity and protests about the distribution of resources and advantages. But for me the bigger challenge is the viability or non-viability of the states.
The invitation from Professor Niyi Akinnaso, the moderator of the Colloquium was accompanied with an explanatory note about objectives and expectations. The keynote speaker was identified as Chief Bisi Akande, former Governor of Osun State. Panelists, 10 in all, from the UK, USA and parts of Nigeria were asked to interrogate issues raised in the keynote address and feel free to go beyond Chief Akande’s submissions. The chair of the occasion was His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto. It all looked enticing enough more so as Professor Akinnaso made it clear that the Colloquium will be by both physical and virtual participation. I opted for the latter.
In his keynote address, Chief Bisi Akande, who had been part of the history of the development of Osun State, as a Local Government Councillor in Ila Orangun, Secretary to the Government of Old Oyo State, and as Deputy Governor of Oyo State, and later, Governor of Osun State (1999 – 2003) provided a historical background to the creation of the State. But his central argument was about the concept of “the Optimum Community”, with emphasis on people-oriented development using education: primary and secondary schools in rural and urban centres as catalysts for the creation of optimum communities, even, all-round, development within the state, and the provision of basic infrastructure: potable water supply, electricity and energy, health facilities, housing, agro-allied activities. Chief Akande’s submission was a subtle reminder of the original purpose of state creation in Nigeria as earlier defined and the imperative of people-centred development.
There were echoes in this regard of the concept of “OptiCom” developed by Professor Akin Mabogunje, Africa’s first Professor of Geography and his friend, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, the renowned economist. In the 80s, Mabogunje and Aboyade launched “The Awe Opticom Plan” in a rural community in Oyo State called Awe. Their focus was access to credit. It was an attempt by the two scholars to move beyond classroom theory to demonstrate that there is indeed a connection between theory and praxis, and between ideation, abstractions and quotidian reality. Their key message was that development energies should be redirected in a manner that would result in the empowerment of the people through decentralised governance and poverty reduction initiatives. The Awe Opticom Plan was later adopted for the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure, a rural development framework established in 1986, in which Mabogunje was a major player. It also inspired the establishment of community banks by the Babangida administration. Professor Mabogunje was Executive Chairman of the National Board for Community Banks (1991 -1994). Years later, Professor Mabogunje in his autobiography, A Measure of Grace would state that he felt the Opticom development option met with “minimal success”. But the problem was not with the concept. The problem is with Nigeria itself: our tendency to politicise everything, the lack of continuity in governance, policy somersaults, and endless opportunism about the common good. Chief Bisi Akande did well to remind us all of the value of optimum development for the people’s benefit. Most of the discussants took their cue from his keynote address.
I was in no doubt that Osun State had a lot to celebrate not simply because it emerged as a state, but for its historical significance and enormous resources. Osun is the heartland of Yoruba history, the home of so many landmarks – Ile Ife, the cradle of Yoruba civilization, Osogbo, a cultural epicentre and a global destination for tourism, Ilesa, Ede, Igbajo, Oke Ila, Ila Orangun, Iree – major theatres of war in Yorubaland, especially the Kiriji War (1877 – 1893), and home of iconic legends: Timi Agbale - Olofa Ina of Ede, Ogedengbe Agbogungboro, Ogunmodede of Ilesa. Oduduwa, the eponymous progenitor of the Yoruba race is from Osun State. In more contemporary times, Osun state has also produced some of the most prominent figures in Nigeria in virtually every field of human endeavour: it is the state of Pastor Enoch Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, General Alani Akinrinade, civil war hero and pro-democracy activist, Chief Bola Ige, Orlando Owoh, Duro Ladipo, Justice Bolarinwa Babalakin, Davido, Christopher Kolade, Femi Fani-Kayode, labour leaders, the Sunmonu brothers. Stepping on every piece of land in Osun State is an imprint on the sands of history.
It is also a state rich in culture: the Osun Osogbo grove, the Erin Ijesha waterfall, the annual Olojo festival in Ile -Ife. There was so much talk about education and the development of the human potential. Osun State is where the Obafemi Awolowo University formerly University of Ife is located. Other institutions of higher learning in the state, many of which were established post-state creation in 1991 include the Osun State College of Education, Ilesa, Osun State Polytechnic, Ila Orangun, Osun State College of Technology, Esa Oke, Osun State University, Adeleke University, Ede, Bowen University, Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Oduduwa University, Redeemers University, Kings University …I pointed out that given the milestones of Osun State in the education sector and its reputation as an incubator of skilled labour, there is no reason why going forward, the state should not continue to invest in human development through education as pointed out by Chief Akande. Incidentally, while the COVID-19 pandemic raged in 2020, the first major genome sequences research in Africa was carried out at the Redeemer’s University in Ede, Osun State by a team led by Professor Christian Happi.
The Colloquium took place at a time in Nigeria when there was great “war” between states and the Federal Government over the collection of Value Added Tax. Revenue sharing has always been a problem in Nigeria. Nobody talks seriously about adding value or the value chain or a serious commitment to GDP growth at sub-national levels, the people just want to share any part of the proverbial national cake be it proceeds from crude oil sale or multiple taxation. Compared to the other states created along with it in 1991, Osun State gets a comparatively low share of Federal Revenue. Internally Generated Revenue in the state may have increased over the years, currently about N13 billion per month, owing perhaps to increased population and economic activity but whereas a State like Akwa Ibom gets more than N34.8 billion, Osun could receive something as low as N1. 7 billion due to deductions at source for inherited loans. While the controversy over fiscal federalism, restructuring and VAT rages on, I argued that there is no reason why a state like Osun, blessed with abundant natural resources should be at the mercy of the politics of the national cake. Beyond its rich agricultural space of over 9, 000 km, Osun is also rich in mineral prospecting potentials: Gold, Kaolin, Talc, Iron Ore, Columbite.
The people of Osun have “riches beneath their feet” including over 15.3 million ounces of minimum gold deposit. But all the resources beneath their feet in Atakunmosa East and West, Ife East, Ifewara, Ibodi, Iperindo have been left at the mercy of illegal and artisanal miners, I said, at great cost to the state. I was aware of a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the present Adegoyega Oyetola administration in the state and a company called Badger Mines. I wanted to know the status of the MOU. I also drew attention to tourism as a major revenue earner for the state, post-COVID. The resources are available as low-hanging fruits but they have not been properly harnessed. Nigeria is one of those unlucky countries in the world where the people sit on great wealth that can transform their lives but they are happy doing nothing about it. They talk about it, they quarrel about it, but they lack the motivation to act. Governor Oyetola would be seeking a second term in office in 2022. I wanted him to pay attention to the take-aways from the Colloquium. We had very useful conversations
I had hardly signed out of the event when my phones began to ring. It was Funke Egbemode, Osun State Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation on the line. Before going to Osun to serve her state, Egbemode was Managing Director of the New Telegraph newspaper, and President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors. She wanted me to join other participants at the Colloquium and some media stakeholders for a physical inspection of how Governor Oyetola was already addressing some of the concerns raised and the significant progress made. After much persuasion about the security situation in Osun State, I agreed. And so, I spent a part of the weekend in Osun State.
Very early in the morning, we joined the Governor, and some of his key staff, on a journey. I am often reluctant to praise a Governor for constructing roads for his people. It is part of his job to do so. But I saw in Osun state, an unusual level of commitment to infrastructure development. From Alekuwodo in Osogbo, to the Olaiya flyover Bridge at the centre of the town (which the Governor said was prompted by an accident scene that he witnessed and on the spot decided to address the problem), to the newly rehabilitated Osogbo- Kelebe-Iragbiji road, Ada to Igbajo, Ikirun to Eko Ende and other roads in the state, the Oyetola touch was evident. We visited the Osogbo General Hospital, now being reinvented and expanded, and primary healthcare centres across the state that have been revitalized, transformed from being abandoned units into new facilities, which are now being used for COVID-19 vaccination in the communities. The Commissioners of Works and Commerce and the Chief Press Secretary were very detailed in their explanations. We also visited the Dagbulu International Trade Centre/Customs Bonded Terminal, a dry port/free trade zone initiative by the Oyetola Government. Everywhere we went, the Governor was received by crowds chanting “Leekan si, 4 plus 4”. If that was meant to be a road show or show boating, it worked.
For me however, the high point was our visit to the Omoluabi Badger Mines Gold Buying and Refining Centre at Osu. Osu in Osun state is known for its special bean cake - Akara Osu. But today, it has been turned into a gold refinery centre by the Oyetola administration. Osun State has always been known for its vast gold deposits in the Segilola Gold mines, the Ife Schist Belt, Iperindo and the Eastern Ilesha Belt. About 25 years ago, Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola (as he then was) got 17 mining titles from the Obasanjo Federal government – 12 of which are for exploration. For 25 years, the licenses were kept in the files. One month left for the titles to expire, the Oyetola government waded into action. In 2019, it entered into a Joint Venture with Badger Mines. Twenty months later, Badger Mines working on 73 exploration belts, has found gold at between 200 - 300 metres. Badger Mines CEO and his officials took us through the gold refining process. High grade technology at work! And right there in our presence a 25 kg gold bar worth about 120, 000 dollars was produced. We asked all the necessary questions: alignment with the Federal Government, community and regulatory issues, derivation, and security for the gold refinery. I was impressed.
But I was also worried. The moment Osun State begins to talk about its gold refinery, its future elections could become war by another name. Everyone would struggle to lay their hands on the gold. Oyetola, a man of few words and a quiet mien, seemed to be more interested in development, job creation, making sure salaries are paid and his continuous affirmation that he has not borrowed a penny. We asked him to talk about his reported conflict with his predecessor and former boss, Rauf Aregbesola. He refused. He said they are brothers! Oyetola wants a second term of course. But he should be ready to put up a serious fight to achieve that 4 plus 4 ambition. You can’t build a gold refinery and expect your opponents or the Federal Government not to show interest. And that is how politics spoils everything. On our way back to Osogbo, we saw the Osogbo Steel Rolling Mill, now in a decrepit state, overgrown with weeds. We also saw the Nigeria Machine Tools – now a shadow of its former self. The Gold refinery was an indication of new possibilities and a statement about the future of Osun State, but the once flourishing industrial efforts now in ruins are painful reminders of the past.
On my way back to Lagos, I could not but get upset seeing the poor state of the Ibadan-Ife road, a Federal Government road leading to the heartland of the South West, in such terrible condition
“We don’t believe in cheating or rigging elections but also we don’t want other parties to cheat us, and that was why we encouraged the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission to come up with a fool-proof voting process.”
– Nasir el-Rufai
The prefatory statement above belongs to Nasir el-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna, one of the few Governors who have consistently demonstrated faith in the deployment of technology to protect the integrity and credibility of the electoral process in Nigeria. He is the only one who has given effect to his conviction. In 2018, Kaduna state under his watch, conducted elections with an electronic voting system. This was the first time anyone in Nigeria would adopt electronic voting, and the second case of electronic voting in Africa, after Namibia. That year, the then extant law namely the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission Act No. 10 of 2012 was amended, to establish electronic voting in Section 16 (3) thereof. There were allegations of multiple voting and other challenges. But this did not deter Mallam Nasir el-Rufai.
On September 4, 2021, his administration repeated the same “offence”, if the adoption of modern technology by African electoral umpires can be so described, by ensuring that the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (KADSIECOM), again conducted elections in the state’s local government areas in line with Section 16(3) of the KADIESCOM Act. At the end of the exercise, it was reported that the challenges observed in 2018 had been addressed. Multiple voting was no longer possible. The software had been upgraded to deny any voter an attempt to vote a second time. About 18, 000 ad hoc staff were deployed whose main assignment was the verification of the voter’s register. The Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was a computerized box with simple Cancel and OK buttons that could be used even by the illiterate and the elderly. You select the logo of the party you want to vote for, and simply tap either OK or Cancel - a simple Yes or No choice. The Cancel button in fact allows you to change your mind. Each EVM was powered by a battery that could last up to 16 hours. KADIESCOM worked in collaboration with the telecommunication companies to provide the network for the immediate transmission of results. Voting took less than a minute.
The LGA election in Kaduna State on Saturday, September 4 was by no means perfect however. About 11 electronic voting machines were vandalised by suspected hoodlums. This should not be surprising. Violence is part of the sociology of Nigeria’s electoral process. Those who do not trust the system would always find a way to violate it. No matter how fool-proof a measure may be, Nigerians would always find a way to disrupt it. Oftentimes, out of raw scepticism. In the course of the elections in 19 LGAs, 41 EVMs were snatched across Kaduna State. Should anybody be surprised? The EVMs looked like boxes. In regular, manual, elections, the ballot box is the main victim in the hands of those who want to manipulate results. The only difference with an EVM is that it is electronic and has a digital footprint. Stealing or snatching it is pointless. The Kaduna State LGA elections have now ended. The APC won in 15 area councils. But the more interesting outcome was the disclosure that the Governor, Nasir el-Rufai lost to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in his Ungwar Sarki Polling unit in Kaduna North Local Government Area. It is a major dent for a politician to lose in his own polling unit! It makes no difference if his party wins across the entire state. He will be constantly reminded that he could not even get the endorsement of his own immediate neighbours.
With electronic voting, it may be difficult to manipulate results, stuff ballot boxes or thump-print multiple ballot papers. It should be noted however, that voter turn-out in the Kaduna Local Government elections of September 4, 2021 was very low. This is a nationwide pattern, and it is one of the ills that must change to properly deepen participatory democracy not just in Nigeria, but across Africa. The big gap between inputs and outcomes in the electoral process in Africa has alienated the people from the system and from democracy itself. Why go out to vote when there are no guarantees that your vote will count or translate into improvements in your circumstances? Why vote for people who will get into positions of privilege on the wings of your efforts and end up forgetting you? The biggest threat to democracy in Africa is this trust deficit and the disconnect between the people and the actual value of elections.
This however should not discount the value of credibility, integrity, transparency and accountability in the electoral process. This is the objective of those who support the idea of electronic voting and the electronic transmission of results. Twice now, in 2018 and 2021, the El-Rufai administration has shown that it is doable. There may be hitches and challenges but these can be identified and fixed in subsequent elections. It may be argued that Kaduna state is relatively small (population – 6- 1 million) compared to Nigeria with a population of over 200 million and 774 local councils). But we have it on record that should Nigeria decide to adopt electronic voting, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) can deliver on that score. The GSM operators in the country have also openly said that they can provide the necessary services. There are certainly lessons that can be learnt from the Kaduna experience, and from other countries including Namibia and the West. The only problem we have in Nigeria is the refusal of Nigerian lawmakers at the Federal level to see the value of electronic voting. The adoption of electronic voting by Kaduna State sends a strong message to those members of the National Assembly who conveniently rushed to the toilet, or were absent, or lied shamelessly that there was no mobile telephony in their village when the National Assembly voted on the proposed Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2021.
Getting the right electoral framework for elections in Nigeria has been a major concern since the return to democratic rule in 1999: the 2001 Electoral Act, 2002 Electoral Act, 2006 Electoral Act and the 2010 Electoral Act. It has been majorly a trial and error process. In 2018, ahead of the 2019 general elections, the 8th Assembly passed a Bill which was forwarded to the President for his assent. The President rejected the Bill, four times, on the grounds that the proposed amendments to the law could not come into effect due to time constraints. We held the 2019 elections, which again expectedly threw up issues about the integrity of the electoral process and the need to modernise elections in line with global best practices. When the 9th National Assembly assumed office in June 2019, its Chairman, Dr. Ahmed Lawan promised Nigerians that the Electoral Amendment Bill would be treated as a priority assignment. Indeed, Lawan kept his word, as he did also with the Petroleum Industry Bill. But it is one thing to make a law. It is another thing to do so in public interest.
What was meant to be an opportunity to provide Nigerians with a progressive, forward-looking electoral framework ended up as a farce. In the second week of July, a bewildered electorate watched as Nigerian lawmakers created an ugly scene over Section 52 (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill which stated that INEC “may transmit results of elections by electronic means where and when practicable.” The Senate passed the bill on July 15. The House of Representatives did so on July 16. Both chambers of the National Assembly later resolved that the electronic transmission of results would be allowed only with the express clearance of the National Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Assembly.
Thus, Nigeria’s lawmakers took away the independence of the country’s electoral body, a blatant violation of Section 78 of the 1999 Constitution, and a brazen attempt to sabotage the law. It was most disgraceful that even opposition politicians in the National Assembly could not vote in the people’s interest. There were other concerns: the decision to increase campaign expenses: to become President, you would need a minimum of N15 billion, Governor – N5 billion; Senator N1.5 billion, House of Representatives member N500 million and State House of Assembly member N50 million. In other words, you have to be wealthy to aspire to any important elective position in Nigeria. If this bill becomes law as proposed, only armed robbers and internet scammers would probably end up in high places in this country. President Buhari should not sign the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021. It takes the country backwards, not forwards. It is the handiwork of cowards and a backward National Assembly. In Kaduna State, Governor El-Rufai has shown that it is possible to try new options and possibilities, and deploy modern technology to leap-frog the process. The navel-gazing lawmakers in the National Assembly should be called out. One of the errant ones has since apologised to her constituents for going AWOL when she was most needed, but there are others, so pompous and confidently ignorant, they just don’t get it.
On Sunday, September 5, 2021, President Alpha Conde, 83, of Guinea Conakry was deposed by a team of former elite military forces led by Lt. Col. Mamady Doumbouya. Conde does not deserve anyone’s sympathy and that does not necessarily amount to an endorsement of the military coup in that unfortunate country. Indeed, Conde is the architect of his own misfortune, a greedy African leader who thought he was invincible, untouchable and supreme. The photos that were released on Sunday showing him in a humiliating position, surrounded by the same soldiers who used to protect him was a loud reminder of the ephemerality of power and the unpredictability of human circumstances. The once great Alpha Conde looked very sober. The leader of the coup used to be his bodyguard. He used to hold an umbrella over his head. Today, Conde is at the mercy of Lt. Col. Dambouya. One wrong move, he, Conde could lose his life. He wanted to remain in office for life. He denied the people of Guinea Conakry the opportunity to make their own choice. What the people of Guinea could not do, the military have done it for them. Except that the unconstitutional take-over of power in Guinea is completely unjustifiable. The people of Guinea may have trooped out unto the streets of Conakry and other parts of the country to celebrate the downfall of a man who held them down, but that is no justification for a return to military rule. Many of them removed their shirts and screamed: “Doumbouya! Freedom.” But what next for Guinea?
In the 70s, African political scientists pushed the idea of the strong man as leader and messiah, and hence accommodated militarism as a vehicle of development. But by the 80s, the wave of democratisation led by the ideological politics of the United States created a new momentum. By the 90s, democracy was the new sing-song in most African states. The challenge however has been how to consolidate the gains of democracy and its value chain. It is most unfortunate that in recent times, rather than have a consolidation, Africa is beginning to experience a backward trajectory. The coup in Guinea fits into this pattern.
Before now, since 2010, there have been coup attempts in Niger (2010, 2011), Guinea Bissau (2010, 2011) Madagascar (2010), DR Congo (2011, 2013), Sudan (2012, 2019), Benin (2013), Libya (2013), Egypt (2013), Gambia (2014), Gabon (2019), Ethiopia (2019) Central African Republic (2021) and successful coup attempts in Niger (2010), Mali (2012, 2020, 2021), Sudan (2019), Burkina Faso (2015), Egypt (2013) and now Guinea-Conakry (2021). Military interventions in African politics constitute a major setback for democracy. The coup in Guinea Conakry can only add to the instability in the Sahel region of West Africa and provide further stimulus for the agents of destabilization – the Jihadists and the terrorists operating in the Sahel. ECOWAS Presidents Nana Akufo Addo of Ghana and Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, and the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gueterres have condemned the coup but the international community must go a step further and ask Doumbouya and his gangsters to hand over power immediately to civilian authorities. They have suspended the Constitution and all institutions as part of an attempt to launch a transitional government.
It should be made clear to them that their rebellion violates the ECOWAS protocols on Democracy and Good Governance and the Constitutive Acts of the African Union. ECOWAS and AU need not worry too much about what France thinks. The relationship between France and its former colonies in Africa is at best opportunistic. The direct victims are the long-suffering people of Guinea.
Guinea is one of the most blessed countries in the world in terms of natural resources: the biggest iron ore deposit in the world, gold, diamond, bauxite but in typical African fashion, this has not translated into prosperity for the people. Guinea is effectively one of the poorest countries in the world. And the problems are not far to seek: corruption, nepotism and bad leadership. Alpha Conde spent his early career as a radical, progressive, opposition politician. He challenged the government of Lansana Conte in 1993 and again in 1998. In 2010, Conde led the RPG to victory and was thus elected President of Guinea for a first term of five years. He was re-elected for a second, final term of another 5 years in 2015. In 2020, when he was supposed to step down from office, Conde chose to amend the Constitution to enable him extend his stay in office.
Despite spirited opposition to this gamble, Conde imposed himself on the people. He was 82 at the time. He even increased the Presidential term from five years to six. In October and November 2020, there were protests on the streets of Conakry. Still, he held the election, which he won of course, and began a six-year term in office, illegally and unconstitutionally. That gamble came to an end on Sunday with the coup in Guinea-Conakry. It would have been better if he was removed by the people themselves in a democratic process. He promised to be Guinea’s Mandela. He was Guinea’s Caligula. Nonetheless, the cowboys looking like they don’t know their left from their right must not be encouraged to remain in power and office. The creeping collapse of the democratic ethos as seen in Chad, Mali and Guinea-Conakry is an ugly burden for the whole of Africa. Other African leaders who are tempted to sit-tight in office should learn from the disgrace of Alpha Conde.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s main opposition party, is currently in the throes of a commotion that threatens to destroy the party’s capability to put up any strong showing in the 2023 general elections. Party stakeholders argue that there are enough strong internal mechanisms that would rescue the party and restore it to good health, but those mechanisms do not seem to be working. It may not be too long before the party finds itself on oxygen support, as it struggles with a self-inflicted ailment that is threatening to become a pandemic.
At the height of its power, the PDP was in charge of Nigeria as the dominant political party for 16 years: the party that produced Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 -2007), Umaru Musa Yar’Ádua (2007 -2010) and Goodluck Jonathan (2010 -2015). In 1999, with the return to democratic rule, the PDP held 214 seats in the House of Representatives. This increased to 263 in 2007, but dropped to 208 and later 137 in 2011. As of 2007, the party controlled 28 states, and 87 seats in the Senate, this dropped to 71 seats in 2011. That same year, PDP was left with 23 Governors. Up till 2011, it controlled 23 states of the Federation out of 36, plus the FCT. Today, the PDP is a minority party although it bears the comforting title of Nigeria’s major opposition party. The changing fortunes of the PDP in terms of its scope of control over the legislative and executive arms of government indicated a greater crisis.
The best illustration of this was how the party lost the 2015 general elections to an emergent Special Purpose Vehicle called the All Progressives Congress (APC) – an association of strange political bedfellows whose only ambition was to put an end to the Jonathan administration and the PDP’s continued stay in power. By the time the 2015 elections ended, PDP lost the Presidency. It was down to 13 PDP Governors. It also lost its majority status in the National Assembly. Many of its leaders abandoned the party. They include Alhaji Adamu Muazu, then Chairman of the PDP, former Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and former Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mr-Fix-It, Chief Anthony Anenih. In 2015, the PDP could not fix anything. Much damage had been done earlier to the party when former President Olusegun Obasanjo who served for eight years as President under the platform of the PDP publicly directed that his party membership should be torn into pieces.
There have been many theories as to why the PDP lost steam and eventually the 2015 General elections. The commonest submission is that after 16 years in office, the party could not manage its success, or that the party had been taken over by those who wanted a Northern President and no-second-term for Jonathan or nothing. But whereas one side of the story does not usually capture the full scope of a manifold experience, it was true that the PDP was sabotaged by the crisis of internal democracy, and the many tendencies within the party pursuing their own narrow interests without a thought for the future. The eventual pain that the party suffered was self-inflicted. The party played into the hands of both fifth columnists and the opposition. It will be recalled that in August 2013, the Convention of the party at the Eagle Square in Abuja witnessed an unusual spectacle.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and the governors of Adamawa, Kwara, Sokoto, Jigawa, Kano, Rivers, and Niger and all their delegates walked out of the Convention in anger. They later reconvened at the Yar’Ádua Centre to address a press conference. The issue at stake was the election of persons into the 17-member National Working Committee of the party. The Convention continued, but the party was already split down the ranks. This was the incident that led to the emergence of a new PDP, which became a partner in the APC Coalition, and it was widely believed that other aggrieved persons that did not walk away on that occasion, chose to remain within the party to wreak havoc. Alhaji Bamanga Tukur who was Chairman of the party at the time, lost his position to the crisis and was replaced by former Governor, Adamu Muazu who was hailed as “the game changer.” Indeed, the game changed for the PDP. But could the party have survived the 2015 election if there was greater cohesion among its ranks?
It was perhaps in sober realization of this and the fact that many PDP candidates who initially won during the 2015 general election eventually lost their positions at the election petition tribunals and the courts, that the party now decided to do an audit of the 2015 general elections. In November 2015, the party held a National Conference in Abuja on “The Sustenance of Democratic Ideals in Nigeria.” As the party grappled with its post-election crisis, Prince Uche Secondus from Rivers State, emerged as the party’s Acting National Chairman. Still, the party was not yet out of the woods. Secondus was challenged in Court by Hon Ahmed Gulak who asked the court to remove Secondus because the position he occupied had been zoned to the North East. Justice Hussain Baba-Yusuf who presided over the case ruled in Gulak’s favour and sacked Secondus - who along with the PDP appealed the judgment. The party was under heavy pressure on all fronts. It lost the Kogi Gubernatorial election to the APC. It had issues with the Gubernatorial election in Bayelsa state. Key officials of the party and those who served in the Jonathan administration were subjected to heavy harassment, policing and interrogation by the new APC government. The APC accused the PDP and the Jonathan administration of being the cause of Nigeria’s woes. Oil prices had dipped. The country faced both revenue and debt crises. It would soon slip into recession.
Later, in 2016, the PDP held a National Convention at the Sharks Stadium in Port Harcourt. It was an exercise in chaos as the party was before then divided between supporters of the incumbent Chair of the National Working Committee Ali Modu Sheriff and other members of the party. Sheriff left Port Harcourt in a huff, brandishing a court injunction that was ignored. It was the same Port Harcourt Convention that produced former Governor Ahmed Makarfi as Chair of a National Caretaker Committee. The party never recovered from the tussle for legitimacy between the Sheriff and Makarfi factions. In December 2017, the PDP held yet another National Convention which led to the emergence of Prince Uche Secondus as Chairman of the National Working Committee. But the seeds of discord and division that had been sown within the party had germinated, and grown leafy branches. Each time there had been a conflict within the party, the leaders tend to focus more on the party at the national level. They overlook the damage that had been done down the line, all the way to the wards, states and local councils. Before 2015, PDP was the party of choice for many Nigerians. The crisis at the Eagle Square in 2013, the loss of the 2015 general election, and the inability to pull the party back from the brink merely created greater tension from top to bottom. In 2019, the PDP practically donated the election to the APC. The APC won in many states, not because it could boast of a better record of performance but because the PDP was yet to wean itself from the politics of ego and personality conflicts.
Less than two years to the 2023 general elections, the party’s leaders have started again. They seem not to have learnt any lessons from the past. At a time the party should be organizing and strategizing to take power from the APC, and provide Nigerians with an alternative that they badly need now more than ever, they are busy promoting the perception that there isn’t much difference between the PDP and the APC. The way the PDP is managing its politics, it will end up donating the 2023 Presidency to the APC. Governors are major stakeholders in every Nigerian political party. They control the constituencies. They are overlords in charge of the wards and organs of the party in their states. They do and undo. And that is why in the PDP today, the main conflict is between a governor (Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers) and the party Chairman, (Prince Uche Secondus). Once upon a time, they were bosom friends but not anymore. Party members are taking sides. Some are defecting to other parties for both personal and pragmatic reasons. The future of the party as a dominant vote-winning machine hangs in the balance. The party is back to where it was in 2013 before the 2015 elections, and where it was in 2016 before the 2019 election.
I make these comments as someone who experienced and witnessed first-hand in 2014/15 and again in 2018/2019 how the stubbornness of political gladiators can sabotage a political party’s chances. I was the Deputy Gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in Ogun State in the 2019 elections. A year to that election, it was widely believed that the State Gubernatorial election would be won by the PDP. The APC in Ogun State was practically in disarray. It had split into factions. The incumbent Governor did not support the candidate of his own party. The PDP, was also similarly divided, a victim of the Modu Sheriff/Makarfi factionalisation of the party at the centre. Both factions were in and out of court till three days to the election. When eventually the court ruled in favour of the Buruji Kashamu faction, it was expected that other stakeholders would respect the agreement that was reached earlier that whoever won in court would be supported and outstanding matters would be resolved after the party had achieved the objective of beating the APC at the polls. Meetings were held. Leaders of the various factions waved the olive branch. But as it happened, within 24 hours after the court judgment that favoured the Kashamu faction, those who swore that the party was more important to them than their own interests had dissolved into either the APC or its break-away faction, the Allied People’s Movement (APM). Their conspiracy cost the party dearly.
The point cannot be overstated that politicians in Nigeria do not believe in anything other than their own ambitions. In our political parties, the Machiavellian ethos reigns supreme. Nigeria’s political party system is underdeveloped, driven as it is by all the ugly narratives of the Nigerian experience. Today, in the PDP, after the cliché that the party’s internal mechanisms would be used to resolve the crisis, the other thing you hear is that the APC is trying to sabotage the party, and yet no one can say exactly how the APC is responsible for the collapse of amity between the Chairman of the party and the Governor of Rivers State and others. Secondus is a tested fighter. Wike is a man of courage who likes to win wars. Both gladiators know each other too well. All the persons taking sides in their matter are actually the ones who want to destroy the party. Secondus and Wike are allowing themselves to be used by forces that they met in the course of their political journey from the creeks of the Delta to the blinding heights of Abuja. They both owe themselves a duty to resolve whatever differences they may have. They have both helped each at various times in the past. They can both help the PDP now by burying the hatchet! What does Wike want? Does he want to be a President or Vice-Presidential candidate in 2023 or a Godfather? What does Uche Secondus want? Does he want to have a say in who becomes the standard bearer of the PDP in 2023? Or does he want to succeed Wike as Governor of Rivers State? They should not allow their personal ambitions to ruin many years of friendship and brotherhood and should not drag down the party. Enough damage has been done already. Although APC leaders have more serious problems of their own, they must be in one corner laughing with all corners of their mouth. The worst legacy Secondus can leave behind is to hand over the 2023 general elections to the APC on a platter of gold.
The other problem are those lawyers running from Port Harcourt to Kebbi and to Calabar, all in one week, to secure orders ex parte to ensure the removal of Secondus from office. For many Nigerian lawyers, every election season, before, during and after, is the season for them to eat, to make money. They forget the standards and ethics of the profession and transform into ambulance chasers, looking for any desperate politician who needs an injunction from the courts to gain advantage over a rival. Lawyers are trained to be officers in the temple of justice and respect established procedures. It is one of the reasons why since 1985, every Chief Justice of Nigeria and virtually every Chief Judge of the Federal High Court has warned against the abuse of interim orders ex parte, which is a remedy in civil law procedure that is expected to be given under circumstances of a real urgency. But many judges have turned such orders into an opportunity to jump into the ugly arena of dirty, partisan, politics. They promote personal interests in the process and bring the judiciary to ridicule.
In the on-going PDP crisis, judges presiding over the same courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction have been granting injunctions with appellate import which amounts to an abuse of the justice system. It is shameful and reprehensible. I understand, however, that the CJN has now summoned about six Chief Judges whose courts have been involved in this abuse with regard to the PDP case and election matters in Anambra, Jigawa and Imo. Judges must be restrained and lawyers must be called to order. The judiciary is the last hope of the common man. If it is turned into the playground of profiteers and desperate politicians, the heavy cost will be borne by the entire society. But while it is good to hear that CJN Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed is making efforts to remind the judges involved of established directives, is it not the case that the CJN himself emerged as a beneficiary of a controversial ex parte order on the basis of which the Federal Government removed Walter Onnoghen, CJN (as he then was) before appointing him in his place? Nigeria is never in short supply of ironies.
From what we have seen and heard so far, it seems most likely that the race for the 2023 Presidential position would end up as the fiercest, most contested, and perhaps the most controversial since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999. We all must keep an eye on 2023. In 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo emerged not because he was a known, seasoned, politician but because the country needed a pair of steady hands and a strong character, with the right connections and experience to save the faltering ship of state, and move the country beyond the evil annulment of the 1993 Presidential election. Obasanjo delivered. But he ran into troubled waters with his succession plans: the politics of Third Term, the bitter quarrel with his Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his open endorsement of Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, whose health status and eventual death in office defined the highest office of the land. President Goodluck Jonathan who succeeded his boss, Yar’Adua was a collective product of the law, and the majority insistence on what was right. His presidency was a turning point and a major historic landmark for Nigeria, an affirmation that Nigeria could also be a land of dreams where a man of humble beginnings could rise to the top.
By 2015, the forces of elite conspiracy and ethno-religious myopism, organised an acidic campaign against the Jonathan Presidency and got him out of office. He was succeeded by President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military Head of State, who had sought the Presidency of Nigeria as a civilian three different times – 1999, 2007 and 2011. In 2015, he was propelled into office by an electorate that had embraced his managers’ promise of change and hope. He was yet another rallying point for great expectations. In 2023, the circumstances would be different. There is no coalescing, propelling force, at this time behind any aspirant, on such a national scale, and of such a momentum as we saw with Obasanjo, Jonathan, and Buhari’s cult-like popularity. And this is why the 2023 Presidency is fast becoming a desperate gamble, a ‘try-your-luck’ kind of proposition, without any core basic agreements. A kind of anybody’s game, generating tension, so early, so far from the commencement of the 2023 electoral process.
There is no consensus on any issue. The people of the South East argue, rightly that, it is their turn to produce the President of Nigeria. No Igbo man has been President since 1999, although Igbos have helped to put others into office. They want the marginalisation of Igbos to end. They want it on record that the Igbo race is not inferior to any other group in Nigeria. Igbos are the third largest ethnic group in the country. They have been told by Northern spokesmen that nobody will offer them the Presidency on a platter of gold, and that in any case, they should go and organise themselves and reach out to other Nigerians especially now that there is an internal debate in the South East about identity politics – who is Igbo and who is not and who is more Igbo than the other? Many persons consider this suggestion, an insult! The people of the North East and Central zones also insist that it is their turn to have their kinsmen inside the Presidential Villa and that after the Presidency has gone round the six geo-political zones, we can then begin to talk more seriously about those principles of merit, competence, knowledge – the same issues the other privileged geo-political zones never stretched when the Presidency fell into their laps.
Constitutional provisions on eligibility for the Nigerian Presidency are stated in the 1999 Constitution. There is no mention of ethnicity or geographical zone, although Section 14(3) and (4) mention Federal Character, diversity, unity and justice. The two major political parties have since agreed on an unwritten code of Rotational Presidency, but this is beginning to look more like a tool of political expediency. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, Nigeria’s two major political parties – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) are both engulfed in crises that could be counter-productive. There is no clarity on both sides about how the 2023 process could be used to address the people’s concerns. Not even the National Assembly is serious about the provision of an electoral framework that can inspire trust and confidence. In 2021, Nigeria’s 9th National Assembly, dominated by the ruling party, voted to prevent the adoption of electronic transmission of election results. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is possible and doable, the politicians disagree. In smaller, neighbouring African countries, electronic transmission of results is not a problem. In Nigeria, it is a source of crisis.
But what I find even more disturbing is the bad rhetoric that is beginning to build up, the high velocity intolerance and the threat of violence that hang dangerously in the air, and the refusal of some emergent “stomach democracy activists” to engage in decent conversation. This has been a bane of Nigerian politics. But it is getting worse. It could even become more frightening. The professional political class must seek counselling for its growing mass psychosis. The right of Nigerians to choose, to express their differences and choices must be respected. Nobody has a monopoly of the right to Nigerian citizenship, or the corridors of power. The way some interested parties are carrying on is deplorable. I recall writing once in this column about likely candidates for the 2023 Presidency titled “The South West Presidential Hopefuls” (April 20, 2021). I made some categorical statements about the chances of those who were in the news at the time: Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Senator Ibikunle Amosun and Dr Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State. It was my own review of the political situation and the possibilities. But what did I get in return? Those who felt I was critical of their masters went after me with a sledge hammer. I read one reasonable piece in which the author tried to respond to the issues raised but the others were so poorly written, I couldn’t waste my time reading till the end. Bad writing gives me migraine and there seems to be a large supply of hacks around many of our political figures. In the 80s and 90s, we used to have quality debates in Nigerian newspapers. Today, the space is dominated by hacks without brains. Well maybe I was lucky. They didn’t abuse my parents.
Since that piece, the conversation about 2023 has gained greater momentum, beyond zoning and possible Southern candidates to a full-blown obsession. This reached a peak recently with the prescriptions by former Head of State and President, General Ibrahim Babangida during an interview with Arise TV, ahead of his 80th birthday on August 17, 2021. I wrote a review of some of his submissions in the context of what marked his 80th birthday: an attempt at revisionism on certain key historical points, but again I got thoroughly abused by one of the key organizers of the IBB white-wash. I have made my point. (See Reuben Abati, “IBB’s Birthday Interview”, ThisDay, August 10, 2021). The IBB interview, considering his own stature added oxygen to the 2023 Presidential debate. ThisDay newspaper followed up with a front-page list of 31 likely candidates, and a review of those who can lead Nigeria in 2023. I take all of that as a healthy promotion of public conversation. But it merely ended up showing a certain trait that I think can pose a threat to the journey towards 2023: the thinking by some people that the Presidency of Nigeria is already an acquired right. How? When? Where?
One of the immediate reactions to the ThisDay list came from Dr. Doyin Okupe, veteran politician, spokesperson to a political party, the defunct NRC, and media adviser to two former Presidents. Dr. Okupe, appearing on Arise TV Morning Show, said there are only three possible candidates: Senator Bola Tinubu, his good self and incumbent Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in that order. We later hosted Mr. Sonny Iroche, Chairman of the Anambra League of Professionals, who thought that Dr Doyin Okupe must have been joking, and that he, Iroche, would make a better candidate. Before Iroche, Malam Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, President of the Kings College Old Boys Association, and Chairman of the Board of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) also appeared on the Arise TV flagship show to discuss the state of the nation. He had kind things to say about Tinubu, leader of the APC but he made it clear that he, Kashim-Imam, would be the best man for the job.
Somehow, within the South West and the APC, every man who considers himself a potential President manages to defer to just one man: Senator Bola Tinubu. Those who say anything that is off-key in that regard or fail to pay homage get knocked no matter how sensible they may sound. This then, reminds me of the case of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State who has been a target of heavy pummelling for having the effrontery to have told Senator Tinubu in an interview with the Daily Trust newspaper that the senior politician should allow his “children” to take over the Presidency of Nigeria in 2023. Yahaya Bello obviously considers himself a Tinubu “son”. Whereas the leader of the APC has not yet announced formally that he wants to be President, there is already an army of Tinubu Support Groups out there pushing the 2023 Tinubu for President agenda. As far back as May 2021, Governor Bello had announced in a television interview that “Nigerian youths, women and all Nigerians, including very objective elites” were asking him to run for President in 2023. Bello was immediately dismissed by Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, who reminded him that the Presidency in the APC had been zoned to the South, and that being a youth cannot be an automatic qualification.
Indeed, much earlier, Eniola Bello in his ThisDay column – “Yahaya Bello: The Ugly Face of APC” (March 8, 2021) had made even more damning remarks about the Governor. But Yahaya Bello has been resilient in saying he wants to be President. His latest effort must have been prompted by the renewed debate about age and 2023 Presidential politics. His reported interview in the Daily Trust newspaper of August 22, 2021 is titled “2023: Buhari, Tinubu Pact not Binding on APC Members – Kogi Governor.” Having confirmed that he would run for President in 2023, Governor Bello said of Tinubu: “Senator Tinubu is one of our leaders and I respect him so much. He has played a very significant role in Nigeria’s democracy and has built a lot of people. He has paid his dues, and with all respect, as a son to him, my simple advice is that it is time for him to allow his children take over the mantle of leadership and do it to the glory of God and his admiration. He should see that those children he raised are now doing well. Let him see how we manage this country in his lifetime. However, he has a right to run, nobody is questioning that. I always urge everybody to respect him for the role he has played in this country’s democracy. He is a man of integrity, to be candid.” He was then asked: “Do you think the APC would survive if Tinubu is denied the party’s ticket and he pulls out with the South West?” Bello, who says he believes it is the turn of the North Central to produce the next President responds: “You don’t build a house and destroy it. I don’t think he will do that. He has grown past that. As an elder statesman, he will not say that the country should be destroyed in his lifetime, not even after his demise, so I don’t see him doing that.”
These are the words Yahaya Bello said, except he was otherwise misquoted by the Daily Trust newspaper. But for these respectful, almost subservient expressions of admiration for the party leader, and the affirmation of his own future ambitions within the APC, Yahaya Bello has been severely rebuked by the Tinubu Support Group. In a statement signed by the Director-General of the TSG, Umar Ibrahim, Yahaya Bello has been called a “disgrace, a failure and a betrayer.” He is advised to channel his efforts into “begging and praying for forgiveness for all the sufferings you have inflicted on the good people of Kogi State, rather than eyeing the Presidency.” Ibrahim insists that Tinubu is the most qualified person for the Nigerian Presidency in 2023.
I have never met Governor Yahaya Bello personally. I don’t need to. I have in fact been very critical of him: his re-election in 2019, and his many gaffes about COVID-19. But I think he, like every Nigerian, of eligible age, can aspire to the Presidency of Nigeria, and that the rest of us have the right to express an opinion and an interest without being mauled by any group that claims a monopoly of insight about the future of Nigeria. There is nothing that Yahaya Bello has said that was not implied in the Babangida criteria for the 2023 Presidency. Where was the Tinubu Support Group? Why didn’t Umar Ibrahim go after the elder statesman? Given the level of interest that the 2023 Presidency has generated, there would be more persons expressing views. How many views and expressions of interest will the TSG shut down? It may be possible to intimidate persons in the South West and the APC, but there are enough Nigerians who will also lay claim to the Presidency of Nigeria. The Tinubu Support Group does him great disservice. This is a leader who made great sacrifice to promote democracy in Nigeria. He invested a lot in building a generation of leaders. He earned a reputation as a master political strategist. Today, he appears to be surrounded by a group of political vultures and hacks on the question of 2023. Whoever and whatever they may be, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu owes us a duty to call the TSG, as presently constituted, to order. They are damaging his brand. Their campaign should be more focussed on selling his ideas, not motor-park politics.
Going forward, two key questions are pertinent: Is there a dark horse and a third force in the political space who may emerge as President in 2023? And is there enough time for such an alternative to make any meaningful impact, timing being a major factor in politics?
One of the first things I picked up very early in this business of public affairs analysis is something senior colleagues referred to as Afghanistanism. If you were told a column, story or essay, you had submitted for publication reeked of Afghanistanism, it was clearly a subtle kind of condemnation. It meant dabbling into a remote subject that was not of immediate consequence whereas you could have chosen a better topic of greater local value and relevance. In other words, the phrase “Afghanistanism”, was not a compliment. It was a label for absent-mindedness, an obsession with far-away places and events, sounding eloquent about other people’s issues while overlooking the same problems at one’s doorstep. Afghanistanism was thus projected as a perfect exemplification of parachute journalism. But here we are, at this time, in the past two weeks, and in the past few days, Afghanistanism is now suddenly no longer a flight of fancy. It has become the symbol and the very definition of much that is wrong with our world. It is the news of the moment, not so distant anymore, but a source of worry for the entire world. I guess it is now possible to indulge in Afghanistanism without being accused of an idle journey to distant places.
Over the weekend, Afghanistan imploded. Its President, Ashraf Ghani abandoned the Presidential Palace and fled towards the direction of Tajikistan. The Vice President went in another direction. Security agents including the police and the military dropped their weapons and fled too. Ordinary citizens headed towards every available border to become refugees in neighbouring countries. The United States which had been involved in the politics of Afghanistan since 1999 is also on the run out of the country, as it shuts down its embassy in Kabul, burning down sensitive documents, and rushing to airlift its citizens out of Afghanistan. The British, and NATO soldiers who had both supported the US in Afghanistan, are also on the run. It is an unfolding chaos and tragedy, the exact end of which no one knows, and that is precisely what makes all of this a sad day for the rest of the world. The fate of the people of Afghanistan hangs in the balance. Their future is uncertain. Their government has collapsed. A bunch of radical extremists, terrorists, ideologues and tribal warlords, known as the Taliban, are now in charge. They have taken over the Presidential palace and the entire country. In the 1990s, they were in charge of the country. The people of Afghanistan have just been taken back to the 20th Century. That country has turned full cycle to the age of fundamentalism, the oppression of women, disdain for education and abuse of human rights. Tragic.
The crisis in Afghanistan speaks to the failure of American diplomacy and specifically of US foreign policy. Diplomatic relations between the United States and Afghanistan dates back to 1935. In the course of that relationship, the United States was responsible for setting up in that axis, a bunch of extremists known as the Mujahideen as part of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and China, two countries with which Afghanistan shares borders. The Mujahideen would later become the Taliban. They gained control of Afghanistan. If America thought it was exporting its Western style democracy to Afghanistan, a majorly Muslim country with strong ethnic cleavages, and that the people would adopt American ideology, it was grossly mistaken. The Muslims of Afghanistan were not willing to abandon their religious and ideological beliefs, and many resented the Western way of life. It did not take long before Afghanistan became the home of religious fanaticism and the headquarters of the Al Qaeda. Matters later took a turn for the worse when the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1267 which created the al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, and the classification of both groups as terrorist groups with sanctions over their funding, travel and activities.
Osama Bin Laden in the face of this rose to the top. In 2001, Ahmad Massoud, commander of the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban coalition was assassinated by the al-Qaeda, which by then had grown in strength and scope. As it happened, later, on September 9, 2001, terrorists struck in the United States, in the tragedy now known as 9/11. The US and its allies promptly launched a retaliatory offensive: Operation Enduring Freedom, and later, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel against the Al-Qaeda. The Taliban and its totalitarian government fell in the face of this offensive and hence resorted to a guerrilla warfare against the West and the government installed by the US in Afghanistan. Over 2, 400 US soldiers have died in the war against the Taliban. Over 20, 000 were wounded. Washington has spent over a trillion dollars. The British have also lost over 450 soldiers to the battle. But even with the negotiations over the years, and America’s training of Afghan soldiers to keep the Taliban at bay, the intervention in Afghanistan by the US and NATO has proved futile and unwinnable. With the return of the Taliban to Kabul, the war against terror in Afghanistan has proven to be a colossal failure. America has been humiliated. What we are witnessing is two decades of bad judgment and miscalculations. In July, President Joe Biden boasted that Kabul would not fall and the day would not come when the Taliban will overrun the country. It took the Taliban just ten days to overrun the entire country. America and its allies were overwhelmed. The now deposed Afghan government and the US have been trading blames. But after the initial denial that this is not another Saigon in South Vietnam, 1975, it is interesting to see American diplomats eating their own words. Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, and other Washington policy wonks, have now come to the realisation that this is a failed mission for the United States as was similarly the case in Vietnam, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, and Libya.
America did not need to stay in Afghanistan forever. It is simple and direct logic that the Afghans would have to clean up their own mess, at some point, but the leaders of Afghanistan failed to govern properly, and America’s hasty withdrawal plan was a mistake. America misread the politics of Afghanistan. It underestimated the Taliban. It also overestimated the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF). The US spent loads of dollars training what became known as the Afghan Special Forces. It was thought that they had received enough training to be able to secure their own country against the terrorists. But that was pure fiction. The ANDSF lacked real capability. The Forces were mismanaged by the local authorities. When the Taliban launched an onslaught, the ghost army that the US and other nations thought they had set up took to its heels. The disaster that has now occurred was long in coming. It was a disaster foretold. In February 2020, the US struck an agreement with the Taliban in Doha. That has failed too, in part because even the Afghan leaders were excluded from it.
The regional warlords who both the US and the Afghan government thought would resist the Taliban did not raise a finger as The Taliban overran the provinces all the way to the Capital. The US thought Pakistan would help. Instead, Pakistan became a sanctuary for the Taliban. The US may well claim in the end that in 20 years it helped to reduce the scope of terror and the growth of terrorism in the world, but the failure in Afghanistan, spanning about four US administrations, looks ironically as a reinforcement of terrorism. The return of the Taliban is bound to embolden terrorist groups across the world. It will grant them confidence and hope that they can also achieve the same kind of triumph. Twenty years later, the US may have lost so much but it is the entire world that is at risk. The thinking that the US and its allies can save humanity, or that any country at all can rely on the omnipresence or the “indispensability” of the United States has been exposed as one of the biggest lies of the century. When it suits its purpose, the US will review its own priorities and it would not matter to the average American taxpayer whether you sink or float.
And it is at this point that the prompt intervention by Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari becomes relevant. In an article published in the Financial Times of London, the same day Kabul fell to the Taliban, Buhari placed his fingers rightly on the threat that the fall of Kabul poses to Africa. He referred to Africa as “the new frontline of global militancy” and called for global action to fight terrorism. He says: “We must not complacently assume that military means alone can defeat the terrorists. If Afghanistan has taught a lesson, it is that although sheer force can blunt terror, its removal can cause the threat to return.” Indeed, there are many lessons to learn from the Afghan debacle. He would go on subsequently to say that “a lack of hope is the chief recruiting sergeant for the continent’s new brand of terrorism.” This commentary was on point in every regard. I am tempted to suspect they just recruited someone with a sharp brain into the Nigerian Presidency. When the President returned from the UK, we were told he and his delegation would go into isolation in line with official regulations. And then from isolation, the President has just signed the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law. I digress. The big point about Afghanistan is the need to realise its implications for the global war against terror, US Foreign policy, and the balance of power in the world. Professor Bolaji Akinyemi on Arise TV, analysing the dilemma that the world faces spoke about the “clash of civilizations” (an apt reference to Samuel P. Huntington) and the likely emergence of “a new world order.” But is Africa prepared?
The failure of US policy in Afghanistan has occurred under the watch of President Joe Biden, even if it is an inherited crisis. Will it affect his rating? Is the average American bothered about whatever happens to the people of Afghanistan? What does the future portend for Afghanistan? The international community would probably make the usual noise about the need to protect human rights and refugees and the rule of law, and perhaps the UN Security Council would threaten to impose sanctions, but in the end, it is only the Afghans that can determine their own future. There is no way the Taliban can overrun Afghanistan, chase away a sitting government and seize power without the people’s tacit compliance. America must learn not to dictate ideological choices to others, in a diverse and complicated world.
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As a secondary student, one of the compulsory literature texts that my set read for the West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) was a book titled Zambia Shall Be Free by Kenneth Kaunda. Our teacher had a funny way of pronouncing Zambia. He would turn Zambia into “Zam-bi-u Shar-lll -Be Friii” by Kerr-nnerthi- Kar uuun dar”. Till today, some of my old classmates in that literature class still refer to Zambia as “Zam-bi-u”. Fond memories of those old days. Kenneth Kaunda, the author of that literature text, in which he documented the independence struggle in his country, died recently at 97. He was Zambia’s President from 1964 – 1991. There have been six Presidents in Zambia since 1964. The seventh was elected this past weekend, August 12, and it was the third time power has shifted peacefully from a ruling party to the opposition since independence. It is unfortunate that Zambia like other African countries gained flag independence from colonial rule, but the dream of concrete freedom articulated by Kaunda and other African leaders has not yet been realised. Zambia in particular has been unfortunate. Rich in copper but poor in leadership. I see the election that was concluded on August 12 as an attempt by Zambians to take back their country. They made a powerful statement about people power. They resolved that Zambians deserve to be free from the grips of corruption, nepotism, neo-colonialism and the forces of retrogression. The just-concluded parliamentary and presidential elections in Zambia offer an indication that the people’s voices and choice should matter most in a democratic process.
It was a referendum on President Edgar Lungu’s languid leadership. When Lungu succeeded Michael Sata in 2015, he promised to put an end to nepotism and inefficiency. He was hailed as a reformist but he ended up as a hypocrite. As recently as last month, when he went to London for a Global Education Summit, he had three members of his immediate family in his entourage and he shamelessly tried to defend himself. He even forced an amendment of the Constitution to allow him have a third term in office. He is leader of a Pentecostal Assembly with a Ph. D in Theology but he ran Zambia like the chief priest of a local cult. He readily boasts about the infrastructure that he has provided, but Lungu sold the soul of Zambia’s commodity sector to the Chinese. He incurred debts. The country went into recession. Ahead of the August 12 elections, he deployed the military to intimidate the opposition. He shut down the internet. He threatened to jail Hakainde Hichilema, Presidential candidate of the main opposition party, the United Party for National Development (UPND). In 2016, Hichilema lost the Presidential contest to Lungu by a mere 100, 000 votes.
Last week, and as announced yesterday by the Zambian Electoral Commission, this time around, Lungu lost to Hichilema, 1.8 million votes (39%) to 2.8 million votes (59%). The defeated incumbent President is now saying the election was not “free and fair” and that his supporters were intimidated. The same Lungu is condemning an election that he controlled by every means possible. Zambia has a registered voter population of 7 million out of a total population of 19 million citizens. Voter turn-out was 70% on election day, mostly youths who have now sent a strong and clear message that Lungu has overstayed his welcome. Hichilema, 59, has his job cut out for him: to ensure the freedom of Zambia from the forces of neo-colonialism, economic failure, nepotism, cronyism, incompetence, COVID-19, and elite stupidity. Above all, he must learn from the mistakes of Edgar Lungu.
General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), Nigeria’s military Head of State, 1985–1993 is arguably the most controversial person to have ever led Nigeria since independence. He turns 80 next week, August 17. Ahead of that birthday, he granted an interview to Arise TV, aired Friday, August 6, which has understandably generated considerable interest. It has been a while since Nigerians heard directly from IBB. More recent stories about him focussed on speculations about the state of his health. Given the controversial nature of his place in Nigerian history, many also obviously waited for that interview out of curiousity. There have been reactions from different quarters. The most telling reaction for me was someone making the remark that she was pleasantly surprised that IBB is still alive. I was shocked.
She added that no other Nigerian President has been more abused by Nigerians, and if curses could kill, IBB should have been long dead and forgotten. In the wake of the annulment of the 1993 Presidential election by the Babangida junta, activists in the South West rained curses on IBB. Old women stripped themselves naked, based on the general cultural belief that if an old woman curses anyone with her exposed chest, such a person is doomed for life. Hurriedly- made wooden coffins were paraded on the streets of Lagos, and mock funerals were conducted. IBB’s offence was his annulment of the 1993 Presidential election. The lady remarked that her only take-away from the Babangida interview is how God has a way of preserving the wicked. That is the kind of man IBB is. He evokes extreme passions of opposite variety with near-equal intensity. For me, the very idea of the interview alone was useful. Getting IBB to talk at all was an achievement for Arise TV, and a special career moment for Ngozi Alaegbu, the anchor.
At 80, IBB has aged quite well. His faculties remain sharp. He was articulate, and witty as ever. His responses showed maturity and diplomacy, but a closer interrogation reveals that he is still the same foxy manipulator of public perception. Nonetheless, there were parts of the interview that one could easily agree with and others that sounded rather fishy. IBB was right to have complained about how the major problem with Nigeria today is the “tyranny of the elite”. Other countries are able to move forward and achieve more than their potential, and inspire the people to greatness because of a certain elite consensus in that direction and the impact of responsible leadership. But here in Nigeria, “there is a disconnect between leadership and followership” as IBB argues. The people do not trust their leaders. The leaders themselves do not care enough. IBB blames them for sowing the seeds of disunity in the country. What I did not hear him say is how he is one of the same leaders that he blames.
On the question of the economy, IBB expressed the view that there is too much control in running the economy and that there is need to open it up further. Perhaps he is right. Government tends to ruin every investment it manages by itself in the long run. He says the Nigerian military is overstretched, and that for Nigeria to make any difference in the war against insecurity, our soldiers need to do more, believe in what they are fighting for, they must be well-trained, well-led and well equipped. He also talked about inconsistency in government policies. Well, that didn’t start today. There are critics who would trace that inconsistency back to the Babangida era. On the state of the Nigerian economy, IBB says the fact that the economy has not collapsed is an indication that the government is working. If the economy were to collapse, we would all be dead, the way we died a little when the Babangida administration introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in the mid-80s. It was also interesting to see the senior citizen defending the supremacy of the rule of law, when he said “nobody should disobey lawful orders in a democracy.” But should anyone do so at all, at any time? Under the Babangida junta, the courts were routinely disobeyed. IBB is now a democrat defending the rule of law!
The more common-sensical aspects of his interview should be easier for many Nigerians to deal with, but there were a few controversial points made by the retired General, and elder statesman, which have set the tone for public discourse in the last few days. He does not consider zoning or rotational Presidency a good idea, rather he defends merit and competence, and that the democratic process must produce a candidate of merit, regardless of where such a candidate comes from. The problem with this is that there are Nigerians whose geographical zone in the country has never produced a Nigerian Head of State since the return to democracy in 1999. They want the Presidency zoned to their own area also, in line with Sections 14(3) and 14(4) of the 1999 Constitution to ensure a sense of common ownership and to allay fears of marginalization. Is IBB aware of the conversation around this? Is he aware of the Igbo agitation for Presidency? Or the position of the 17 Southern Governors in the South who have specifically demanded that the Presidency of Nigeria in 2023 must be zoned to the South? The future of Nigeria depends in part on how the matter of common rights under the law is resolved democratically and not through the mechanism of the tyranny of a minority elite.
He thinks that a “one-party state” cannot happen in Nigeria because Nigerians “will not allow it to happen”. Fact-check: the country is already drifting towards a one-party state system with the gale of defections from other political parties into the ruling All Progressives Congress, and the looming implosion within the major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The relevance of the two-party system that IBB recommends as the best option for the country is belied by the crisis in the country’s two major political parties. The view that the various other political parties do not really matter contradicts his other views about the need to practice democracy the way it is done elsewhere. In the United States, two political parties may be dominant but there are so many other political parties representing the views and beliefs of others, including minority groups and it is the existence of such pluralism and diversity that democracy is all about. We should understand where General IBB is coming from. He was the architect of a political system that limited Nigeria’s democracy to two political parties: the SDP and the NRC, but that experiment failed because the reduction of Nigeria’s political system to a vague synecdoche: “a little to the left and a little to the right” made it possible for the military and civilian elite to manipulate and violate the people’s will in the 90s. Nigeria is yet to recover.
General IBB struggled to use the interview to defend his legacy and rewrite history, and he made quite a spirited effort in that direction. His repeated references to the importance of democratic rule and the supremacy of the rule of law are at best ironic and revisionist. He tells us that the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of 1986 was a sound economic policy and that his administration has been proven right. When his attention was drawn to how SAP created problems for the country, his quick response was that “other people took advantage of what we did.” SAP was the beginning of our economic woes and the root of other ills in the Nigerian society. After the introduction of SAP, which was meant to be a life-saving economic policy, Nigeria began a journey towards the precipice. The first major fuel price increase in Nigeria was under SAP in 1988. Three decades later, IBB speaks of SAP so proudly. He can do so because Nigerians tend to forget so easily. We are so tied to the present, and so troubled, memory is a burden. But anyone who lived through the period of the 80s should not forget the SAP riots of 1989. The many, including students and unionist that were murdered in cold blood. The collapse of the education system, and the gradual impoverishment of Nigerians. By the time IBB decided “to step aside” in 1993, Nigeria was no better than an accident victim on life support, with broken limbs.
It is again one of those ironies that IBB can boast that he and other members of his junta were saints compared to the present administration. He talks about how his government fought corruption. “So tell me who is better at fighting corruption?” For the benefit of those who may have forgotten, once upon a time in this country, General Babangida was considered a villain. In fact, the 1989 riot was in part a protest against institutionalised corruption! It is a sign of how bad things have become since then that the same leader can look straight into our faces and tell us that the epithet, Maradona that was used to describe him was an acknowledgement of his “deft, political moves”. He even laughs at the oxymoronic description of his persona: “the evil genius”: “I marvel at that. The contradiction – you can’t be evil and then a genius.”” To tell ourselves the truth, yes, a genius can be evil in the deployment of his talent, and the corresponding impact. The term “Maradona” referred to his foxy and manipulative tendencies. In the quarter final match between Argentina and England in the 1986 FIFA World Cup, Argentine football genius, Diego Maradona scored a goal with his hand. He later called it “The Hand of God” goal. In these days of VAR technology in soccer, that goal would have been disqualified, but he got away with it. IBB as Nigeria’s leader was infamous for such devious manoeuvres.
But perhaps the most astonishing part of the retired military ruler’s revisionism is his excuse for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. He says “If it materialised, there would have been a coup d’état – which could have been violent. That’s all I can confirm. It didn’t happen thanks to the engineering and the “Maradonic’ way we handled you guys in the society. But that could have given room for more instability in the country.” Afenifere and NADECO chieftains and others have appropriately taken up General Babangida to remind him of the truth. Nigerians elected Bashorun MKO Abiola, as Nigeria’s President. The election was free and fair. For the first time in Nigerian history, a Presidential candidate secured majority votes in virtually every part of the country. It was a truly historic, myth-defying election with a high voter turn-out. But IBB and his friends truncated the process because of the fear of a coup. These were Generals who were master coup planners. IBB was so good at planning coups it was said he had taken part in every coup in Nigeria since July 1966. In 1985, he decided to take charge directly by removing Major-General Muhammadu Buhari from power.
IBB himself would not tolerate any such act of treason and treachery. When his friend, the soldier and poet, General Mamman Vatsa was implicated in a coup against the Babangida administration, IBB got him killed. The same man now tells us, he was afraid of a coup so he annulled a people’s election. He staged a coup against the people of Nigeria. MKO Abiola was his friend too. MKO died in that struggle. And now IBB dances on his grave. And on the graves of many other Nigerians who lost their lives, leaving behind widows, widowers and orphans. If this is meant to be another Maradonic move, it is important to call it out for what it is: cruelty. It would have been better if MKO Abiola had been allowed to claim his mandate. Even if a coup was organised against him, IBB owed him and the people of Nigeria a duty to make that coup impossible. Even if MKO Abiola died in that imaginary coup, it would have been on record that he died in the palace of democracy not in the hands of tyrants. How does IBB feel today, now that Buhari has recognised June 12 and MKO Abiola?
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Today, General IBB is the same man now prescribing criteria for Nigeria’s next President in 2023. Hear him in his own words: “I have started visualising a good Nigerian leader. He should be a person who travels this country and has friends in every state of the country; a person who is very vast in the economy, a person who is a good politician who is ready to talk to Nigerians. I have seen about three already. The person should be in his 60s and I believe if we get such a person, Nigeria will get it right.” I disagree with his emphasis on an age bracket. It amounts to needless politics of exclusion. The problem with Nigerian leaders is not their biological age. It is the age of their ideas. In the United States, Bill Clinton became President at 47. President Barack Obama at 48. But after Obama, Americans elected Donald Trump, a 71-year old man. Current President Joe Biden came into office at 78.
We need a mixture of every demographic category to move Nigeria forward from the old order to a new place. But IBB is right about the knowledge of economic issues and the need to have a bridge-builder and a nationalist in office. My only worry is that Bashorun MKO Abiola met all the criteria outlined by IBB. In 1993, when he won the Presidential election, MKO was 55. He was also a man who had a great knowledge of the economy having established himself as a global entrepreneur. He was in addition, a Chartered Accountant. He also had friends from all parts of Nigeria and the entire world. No Nigerian before now fits IBB’s criteria better than MKO. As the General turns 80, is his conscience beginning to prick him, hence he recommends a future President in Abiola’s image?
The story of Abba Kyari, the Deputy Commissioner of Police and erstwhile head of the Nigerian Police Intelligence Response Team speaks to the fate of all men who are overtaken by hubris, that flaw of character from which tragedies have been written from Sophocles to Shakespeare. Every tragic hero or anti-hero soon begins to create illusions of his or her own importance and then soon faces unexpected nemesis. Oedipus in ancient Greek mythology solved the riddle of the Sphinx, but fate caught up with him and he ended up killing his father and he married his own mother. Medea, a woman of extreme jealousy, and pride killed her own children in order to prove a point – one of the earliest feminist figures in classical literature. Agamemnon was King of Argos and also commander of the Greek army, but he was immature, unwise and emotional. This was his undoing. He was a great warrior but he was impetuous. Coriolanus, the Roman General could not become Consul in Ancient Rome. He waged war out of vengeance after he had been banished. Consumed by passion and vengeance, he led an assault against Rome. He eventually lost his life. Julius Caesar was one of the most decorated leaders in ancient Rome, but he became a dictator, evoking the envy and conspiracy of his own associates.
I have taken these examples from classical literature and mythology and from Shakespearean tropes detailing an important aspect of human experience and cultural identity: how glory does not guarantee a happy ending, how man experiences the mystery of suffering in order to learn, how what is called happiness is culturally relative. Modern fictive and interpretive representations have also shown that tragedy is not only for great and well-placed persons, but that all men are flawed, and many have fallen due to hubris, not necessarily fate, but error of judgement, pride, or wrong choices. Managing one’s temptations could be the best protection but then what is life if not the rising and ebbing of the tides of time? Life ends as a comedy for many, but for others, it is a tragedy.
DCP Abba Kyari is facing a tragic moment in his career as a policeman. Like all tragic tales, he would attract the pity of friends, fear among colleagues who may well imagine that they too could suffer the same fate, as well as the empathy of a few. But the majority should draw lessons from his experience. He was arguably the most honoured police officer of his time. They called him the Super Cop. He led the Police Intelligence Unit and was acclaimed for his prowess. He was a celebrity cop too. On one occasion, he was specially recognised by Nigeria’s House of Representatives. Not many police officers in Nigeria have enjoyed such privilege. Given the trajectory of his career, no one would have been surprised if the super cop ended up as Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police. But now all that is ended. Whether Kyari is eventually extradited to face trial in a US District Court or not, the white garment of honour that he once wore has been tainted, soiled, splattered all over with palm oil. Even if he is cleared of all wrong doings, the perception that he was fingered by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in a matter of conspiracy to commit electronic fraud and abet criminal behaviour is bad enough. This same officer who used to be the subject of saccharine panegyrics, is now the butt of internet memes. Those who wear immaculate white attires should stay away from retailers of palm oil. The case against Kyari is that he failed to do this.
His nemesis is a certain Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, aka, Ray Hushpuppi, who is now facing a likely jail term of 20 years for engaging in high tech organised crime. Arrested by the FBI in June 2020, Hushpuppi has been singing like a canary and yelping like a puppy. He identified Abba Kyari as one of his allies, an influential police officer in Nigeria who helped him, Hushpuppi, to arrest one of his gang members with whom he had a dispute over a deal. The FBI in the deposition that was unsealed in court on July 26 provided copious and embarrassing details of conversations between Hushpuppi and the senior police officer. It is alleged that Kyari sent a bank account number into which money was transferred to take care of “the team” for services rendered. What service? One Kelly Vincent Chibuzor was arrested and detained for more than a month by Abba Kyari’s team. Even when it was discovered that the allegation by Hushpuppi against Chibuzor was incorrect, there was no evidence to indicate that the Super Cop took any step to get Hushpuppi sanctioned for misleading the police and for wasting the time and resources of the Nigerian State. The FBI document further indicates that Super Cop Kyari even visited Hushpuppi in Dubai as a special guest. Since these details became public, Kyari’s strongest defence is that he is completely innocent and that the only connection between him and Hushpuppi is that he helped him to sew some native wears. How on earth did a cop in charge of Nigeria’s Police Intelligence Response Unit become a tailor and fashion consultant to a man of international security interest, who by the way, flaunted obscene wealth on social media pages? Certain associations are not good for a person’s brand. The association with Hushpuppi in any form whatsoever was bad for the senior cop. Hushpuppi knows clearly that he is down. The same way he used the Nigerian Police to “discipline” one of his gang members, he has also shown no scruples in dragging policeman Aba Kyari along with him. Yesterday, matters went further South when the FBI released more information to confirm that Kyari collected N8 million in that hire-a-senior-cop case.
Whatever anyone may say, this is not good either for the country’s image. Ordinarily, Nigeria has been labelled a prolific source of potential or actual fraudsters, even when this same country has produced some of the brightest and accomplished persons in all fields of human endeavour. Few foreigners give us the benefit of the doubt. What has happened to DCP Kyari is also not good for the image of the Nigerian Police. Even before the October 2020, #EndSARS protests, the average Nigerian policeman was routinely criticised for bribe collection, brutality and abuse of human rights. It is for this reason that Kyari may not have too many people out there who are ready to sympathise with him. Since the FBI incident, there have been remarks not just about Kyari but the Nigerian Police Force: how, it is said, Nigerian policemen work with criminals, how they extort money and how any one can hire a police man to violate other people’s rights. Those who have an axe to grind with DCP Kyari have also been all over the social media further rubbing salt into his wounds. When a man is down in this life, there are many who would kick him where it hurts most. Kyari must be wondering what is happening to him. Every tragic hero eventually experiences anagnorisis and catharsis. But it is not always that a tragedy ends as a comedy.
The US District Court of Central California has issued a warrant of arrest for DCP Kyari. But it is not as easy as that. Nigeria is a sovereign state. A court in the United States cannot simply order the arrest of a Nigerian living inside Nigeria, and expect that Nigeria, as a sovereign state would simply hand over the person. The relationship between sovereigns is governed by rules and due process. Given the weight of the allegations, and the attention the case has generated, the Inspector General of Police has ordered a probe by a 4-man Committee. The Police Service Commission which is responsible for appointments, promotion and discipline within the Police has sent Abba Kyari on suspension. Fair enough. The investigation must be thorough and transparent. Nigeria has every reason to take up this matter with all the seriousness that it deserves. Kyari committed the alleged offence in his privileged position as a Deputy Commissioner of police, and Head of Police Intelligence Response Team. Did he abuse his office as alleged? Did he conspire to commit wire fraud as an officer of the law? The “Team” referred to in the FBI document, who are members of the team? Whose bank account received the N8 million paid by Hushpuppi? Did Kyari and his team violate the Police Code of Conduct, especially with regard to Principles Six and Seven dealing with integrity and conflict of interest? What lessons can the Police itself learn from this in terms of its internal oversight processes and how police officers conduct themselves in society? Those questions would be useful for a reform of the Nigerian Police. There should be no cover up. If DCP Kyari is found guilty, he should be sanctioned accordingly and handed over to the Americans in line with extradition processes. DCP Kyari should have his lawyers on standby. Everything that he represents is at stake.
I find it completely odious however, that there has been a useless attempt to read ethnic and political meanings into Kyari’s travails. The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) was reported in the newspapers yesterday as saying the FBI’s plan to arrest Kyari is “totally unacceptable”, and that “nothing must happen to him”. The AYCF further said “all Nigerians who are truly patriotic should stand behind a man who has made an unrivalled mark on the sands of time by diligently serving his fatherland” … because the FBI’s proposed arrest is “an attempted intimidation of a police officer right inside his independent fatherland”. The statement is credited to Alhaji Yerima Shettima, described as AYCF President. Such drivel coming from anyone at all is shocking! If that doesn’t shock you enough, then consider the more laughable intervention of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN). MACBAN is accusing the US FBI of colluding with some leaders in Southern Nigeria to indict police officer Abba Kyari and the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) of folding its hands and failing to defend “sons of the North who have distinguished themselves in different fields (and) are constantly being persecuted and maligned at the height of their careers.” One Dr. Garus Gololo speaking on behalf of MACBAN added that “The United States is the most dishonest country in the world. What they are doing to Kyari, they did it to Al Gore. Let him stand firmly and defend himself because he is Nigeria’s future Inspector General of Police, and he mustn’t allow himself to be rattled.”
Dr Garus Galolo’s garrulousness on a subject he knows nothing about is absurd. He should shut up. Ethnicity is not the important issue in the Kyari case. The FBI does not care about whether he is from the North or the South. Apparently, the leaders of the NEF are more discerning and that is why they have been silent and watching. Dr Galolo may well be accused of trying to incite cattle breeders against the US and the NEF. The security agencies have a duty to investigate his claims. What has Kyari’s travails got to do with cattle rearing? The AYCF should also be reminded that the FBI is not interested in the dangerous little games we play here in Nigeria with ethnicity. Kyari does not represent the North. He is a police officer being accused of roguish conduct. And that point about some Southern leaders colluding with the FBI: How?
If this would be of any comfort: there was actually a semblance of Federal Character and diversity to the names mentioned in the Hushpuppi/Kyari case. The affidavit sworn to by Andrew John Innocenti, special agent with the FBI mentions the following names: Ramon Olorunwa Abbas (Nigerian/Yoruba), Abdulrahman Imran Juma (Kenyan), Vincent Kelly Chibuzo (Nigerian/probably Igbo); Abba Alhaji Kyari (Nigerian/ Kanuri), Rukayat Motunrayo Fashola (Nigerian/Yoruba) and Bolatito Tawakalitu Agbabiaka (Nigerian/Yoruba), all accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. At paragraphs 23 -30, the investigator identifies Abba Kyari and establishes his connection with Hushpuppi with copious references to phone numbers, conversations, newspaper articles and account numbers. So, where is the collusion with the FBI to ridicule a “Northern star?” But that is Nigeria. We play politics with everything. Instead of focussing on key issues, we reduce everything to ethnic identity. We need to know that when persons conspire to do wrong things, they don’t operate on the basis of their ethnic origins. They are united by a common purpose that is beyond ethnicity or religion. In this matter, a Ramon is caught in the same web with a Vincent and a Rukayat and Tawakalitu. They are united by a different purpose.
This cautionary point is also meant for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The party’s spokesperson has launched an attack on the Buhari administration over the Kyari matter. Must we play politics with everything? No. It is enough to insist that nothing should be swept under the carpet and that due process must be strictly followed. This is not a Buhari matter. Kyari must answer his father’s name.
There are more lessons. The Nigerian Police can learn a lot from the diligence and professionalism of the US FBI. The depositions were first taken to court in February, again in April, but the contents were only unsealed in July. Nothing leaked. The document did not suddenly vanish from where it was kept. There was no reported case of arson that would have led to the destruction of valuable evidence. The FBI monitored conversations across long distances and gathered evidence. Young Nigerians for whom the indecent display of wealth is a major attraction should remember the stories of Hushpuppi, Invictus and all such characters and have a glimpse of their own future undoing. Hushpuppi was so popular on Instagram; many young Nigerians wanted to be like him. He wore Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Versace and displayed exotic cars. Today, he is in a lonely place. He is so lonely. He is singing and sinking. Let the law take its full course then. We hear DCP Kyari has been promptly replaced by DCP Tunji Disu as Head of the Police Intelligence Response Team. That’s life.
“Ore, I looked for you yesterday? Where were you?”
“I dey for house now? Where I for dey?”
“I actually thought you had gone to a court somewhere to do amebo. You know you like to poke-nose into other people’s matters? And yesterday was a special, historic day, with four court cases that generations yet unborn will read about”
“You have started again. You are actually the real Mr. Amebo of Nigeria. Every little thing you are ever-ready like Ever Ready Battery to do chor chor chor. Don’t you ever get tired?”
“Ever Ready Battery. Ha. You don’t forget things. Do they still make such batteries? That was when Nigeria was Nigeria and the manufacturing sector produced so much locally, and people had jobs and the country was prosperous. My uncle used to go to London almost every weekend. Money was not a problem. Nigeria itself was ever ready. But now see see…the country is a shadow of its former self. That is why you have so many angry youths all over the place. They have no sense of values. They have no memory of Nigeria’s greatness. They have been brought up on a diet of Satanic negativity.”
“Ï know. I know. I still hear some people talk about Ever Ready though. But do you know when I tried to look for Ever Ready Batteries the other day, it turned out what they now call ever ready was some sort of aphrosidiac, some kind of herbal concoction that is supposed to increase your libido, result in instant enlargement and give you unimaginable joy of celestial proportions. It was actually a woman that recommended it to me.”
“Ha. A woman. Your battery failed, and they recommended Ever Ready. I know. I know. Nigeria has become a house of sin. You are talking about a multi-billion-dollar business, by the way. From Suruka to Surutu, Kolagbo, Osomo, Koboko, Techno, Monkey Tail. Pasa-Bitters, Erujeje,..”
“Ëx-cu-se me?”
“Wafekulaleyi, Ali Baba, Wasalaye, Baby Oku, Kick and Start, Oga Nla, Jeko mo, Agbara, Dorobucchi, Opa Eyin, Dadubule, Pakurumo, Bajinotu, 301, Stone, Jabra, Japata, Jakomu….”
“Can you stop? I don’t want to talk about aphrodisiacs and the obsession of Nigerians with sin.”
“That is your problem. It is not every thing that is about big grammar. I am giving you an idea of how Nigeria has failed. How a country that used to produce scientists and intellectuals is now producing a generation of celebrities and heroes who are making billions from selling sex or beer and pleasure. We have become a nation of consumers of all sorts of depravity. We are no longer a nation of producers of ideas or executors of grand schemes. Old money in Nigeria was represented by the productive class. New money is dominated by a generation of consumers, exhibitionists and their mad, bad agents.”
“Look, this man, leave me alone. Whoever wants to drink whatever with their mouths should go ahead and do so. Our only point of agreement is that something terrible has happened to this country, and things could get worse, morally, politically and socially if we do not exercise caution and care. We need to remind ourselves of basic normative values and have a conversation around that. You see all this your beer parlour, street talk, won’t help.”
“Dey there. Dey there dey form. We are all human beings at the end of the day, I beg. You mean you don’t know that it is the entire world that has gone mad? Humanity has crossed the point of no return. That is why some wealthy men are already planning to relocate to outer space. Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. When the human planet fails, they will enter their space jets and escape. Na you and me and people like us go remain for this Earth. Our only problem is that we will be stuck in this place called Nigeria, in the midst of rapists, kidnappers, bandits, terrorists, corporate thieves, drug barons, yahoo masters, and vote-riggers.”
“Not even Alvin Toffler was this pessimistic in The Future Wave.”
“Toffee what? Who is that?”
“Never mind. Never mind. You are not likely to know someone like that. You were talking about court cases before you digressed in your usual manner. You need to see a therapist. What about the courts?”
“I told you there were four major court cases yesterday that were of historic and significant interest, and I wanted to know whether you attended any one of them?”
“Why should I? I told you I was at home. Which cases are these?”
“You don’t mean it? Don’t go and say this in public please. People will think you have a problem.”
“I don’t get it”
“Okay let me help you out because you are too young to have dementia. Yesterday, in Abuja, Nnamdi Kanu’s case came up again at the court of Justice Binta Nyako. He was not produced in court. The security agents did not allow his supporters to even approach the court premises. At a point the Court was even closed. Lawyers were shut out of court. Imagine! His lawyers were not even notified according to due process. There were security men all over the place, harassing journalists and every one. People were arrested.”
“Hen Hen.”
“I thought you would have been there to observe and analyze the situation”
“To get involved in a matter before the court? How? That would be sub judice”
“That is not the issue here. This is a political trial. The issue is self-determination which is recognized under Article 1 of the UN Charter.”
“I am sorry, I can’t discuss this matter with you. Whatever I say will be misinterpreted by an illiterate, rampaging, insecure mob. We have lost the culture of reason and debate in this country. Every one is in their own ethnic capsule. A country that has destroyed its intellectual class is in real danger. This is what has happened to Nigeria. You were looking at Nigeria from the perspective of human libido, I am sorry, the bigger tragedy is the apparent death of ideas and the failure of capacity to think even among the most educated.”
“Who needs education anymore in this country? Just make money. Take aphrodisiacs. Dominate women and men and recruit idiots with all sorts of fake certificates and titles to worship you. That is the new Nigeria. What do you think of self-determination?”
“Ï have nothing against self-determination. It is a universal right recognized under Article 1 of the 1949 UN Charter. Many countries have broken up: India in 1947, Pakistan broke up in 1971 to produce Bangladesh, in 1776, the United States emerged out of the UK, in 1965, Singapore rose out of Malaysia, in 1993, the old Czechoslovakia became two countries: Czech Republic and Slovakia. Sudan and South Sudan used to be one country.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Ï am not saying anything. Read my lips. It is in a neutral mode. The way this country is today, you won’t know what you’d say it will be misinterpreted. That is what I was telling you earlier: the bigger tragedy in Nigeria today is the triumph of intolerance and abnormality. There is a supremacy of the lunatic fringe at work, playing all kinds of games: ethnic, political, cultural and opportunistic. When you say something, they twist it. When you don’t say anything, they put words in your mouth and use that to blackmail you. They are so energetic, the only conclusion you can reach is that this is now a country in the grips of mass psychosis. We need help.”
“So, is that why you didn’t go to Abuja?”
“Ï cannot answer that question. Did you go there yourself? Too many of you want other people to act and speak on your behalf in the public space but you are all busy acting like cowards and paid hacks. Many don’t even have the courage to bear their own father’s names. I am all in support of justice, fairness and due process, but nothing beyond that.”
“But what of Cotonou? Did you follow the court trial of Chief Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho?”
“Yes, I did, as an observer”
“You mean you were there, physically?”
“No”
“Why not?”
“Ï don’t have to be anywhere physically to know what is going on. Every revolution is on television.”
“But you know, I think it is a shame that Nigeria that used to be described as the giant of Africa is now having such domestic issues that every body is now talking about how Kenya got involved in Nigeria’s affairs, and how Republic of Benin, the same Benin that is generally regarded as the 37th State of Nigeria is now a major factor in Nigerian matters. How are the mighty fallen?”
“Kenya and Benin are sovereign states. They are independent jurisdictions. I know there are many rich Nigerians who go about boasting that the President of some African countries are their boys and Personal Assistants but it is important to know that at critical moments those same countries will assert themselves as sovereign states.”
“You mean the Republic of Benin next door will disobey the Nigerian government?”
”The last time I checked Kenya and Benin Republic are sovereign states. Nigeria is not in a position to dictate to them. Benin even has a different justice system. Its leaders would rather listen to France, their former colonial masters, certainly not Nigeria.”
“If they misbehave in Benin, common Benin, we can shut down our borders against them.”
“The last time you did, what happened? Did Benin disappear as a country?”
“You are supporting Benin Republic against Nigeria? You are one of the hidden secessionists?”
“I am not going nowhere. I am here. Na inside Nigeria I go live and die. You push me, I push am, na inside Nigeria I go live and die.”
“The more reason you should take a stand.”
“Äre you deaf? This country is becoming very tough. We all have to be very careful”
“The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.”
“You try. Too many Nigerians quoting statements they know nothing about.”
“You are professing cowardice. We must take our country back.”
“Why not? Go ahead. Just let me be.”
“With the way you are talking, I am sure you did not even bother to show interest in Baba Ijesha’s case on Monday? The rape case involving the Nollywood actor who was accused of raping an under-aged girl and who is now facing trial?”
“The case is now in court. It is before the judicial system. I don’t support rape or violence of any sort. But why should my going to court be an issue?”
“As a concerned citizen”
“Me?”
“Yes”
“No. Were you there yourself? Marketer of Surutu and Suruka? Is that not the same case where one Babalawo predicted the death of one actress and he, the Babalawo died before the trial began and the actress whose death he predicted was all over the court yesterday?”
“What has that got to do with you?”
“Everything. I am a Christian. I don’t walk near the valley of the shadow of Death. Those Nollywood people, their own matter na aye mo juba.”
“You are just a coward. But how about the fourth case? Yesterday Uduak Akpan, the killer of Iniobong Umoren was arraigned before a State High Court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. He pleaded guilty.”
“Am I a spirit? You want me to be in Abuja, Cotonou, Lagos, and Uyo in one day. Look at this way: Inside Buhari’s Nigeria, everything don spoil”
“I hear say him don travel sef. He don go London.”
“Can you see now that you are a bad person? With all the things you have been saying, the man that Nigerians elected as President decided to leave town the same day, and you are asking me to put my head.”
“He went to London for medical check-up and a virtual conference about how these matters can be addressed.”
“Wh-a-at nonsense is that? How can a President go to London for a virtual conference? Don’t we have internet in Nigeria?”
“He is not alone. The President of Malawi also travelled to London with a 10-person delegation for the same virtual conference because the internet in his country is bad...”
“You are not making sense. Okay, me I dey here for Nigeria.”
“Doing what?”
“Keeping safe. Chopping isi ewu. And watching the Olympics”
“Olympics? You think Nigeria can win anything?”
“The Olympics is not about winning. It is about participating and the spirit of being part of it. Team Nigeria does not need to win anything”
“Don’t write them off. It is too early to do so.”
“But the country is not in a winning mode. That is why the other thing I do these days is to watch Big Brother Nigeria Season 6.”
“I thought you used to criticize the programme.”
“Yes. But the kind of girls that are on that programme this time around, e be like say dem get special craze. I need some therapy. Watching them alone calms down my nerves.”
“You see you are also a sinner like the rest of us. You dey watch Abeg and Patricia.”
“I confess, bros. Go see those girls first. Something dey there, no be small.”