Good News to residents of the Federal Capital Territory. They now have a new minister who has just stepped into office. The minister, His Excellency, Mr. Nyesom Wike is not a small figure in the political parlance. As immediate past governor of Rivers State, he stood out as an action-oriented, no nonsense warrior, fighter and ended up being tagged as “Mr. Projects”. He is variously described as “resolute”, rugged” and a “workaholic”. What is clear is that, he is not only bold, but fearless and a reputed pace setter. They also added that he is a man who stands by his decisions, who is out to replicate what he did in Rivers State—to right the wrongs in the society--in Abuja, the seat of the Federal Capital; to halt the systematic destruction of the infrastructure and the environment by the apparent and consistent display of lawlessness, regarding free movement of cattle’s in public roads, walkways and median. Wike not only detest stagnant conditions, he is also not a friend to barriers and limitations. If he is told that the solution to a problem lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and the only way to access it, is through the “Titan Submersible”—remember this?  Wike would go there! That’s the stuff he is made off; Wike is the archetypal “I belong to everybody and nobody”—not the ones who simply mouthed it and did the opposite.  

The news of his appointment as the honorable minister of the Federal Capital City must have been received as bad news by pretenders and defaulters. Key stakeholders agree that as part of his agenda, priority should be given to finding immediate solution to the menace of cows competing for possession of space with human beings along major highways. ‘This practice is unacceptable”, the minister charged in his inaugural press briefing. “We are not going to tolerate the issue of having cows in our public roads; yes, things are difficult, but you must not cause crises for other people”, he stated. In the heart warming news to disturbed Abuja residents, Wike promised to tackle the hydra-headed problem headlong and restore as much sanity and beauty, elegance, glittering vegetation and soothing environment to the city’s Master Plan.  A key takeaway from his speech is that there will be consequences for breaking the law, which was largely absent in the last eight years. Abuja drifted inexorably into no-man’s land with all sorts, converging in the city and making life hell for lawful citizens. “I will step on toes, the big and mighty; I will step on your toes, if you are doing something wrong”, he warned.

The truth however is that people are tired. The vision to transform Abuja into a world class environment appears to have collapsed in the face of siege of cows. When Okada riders tried the same thing, a former minister and immediate past governor of Kaduna state promptly drove them out of town. Today, they are back in full force. The same applies to the herders who graze indiscriminately on any vegetation they find and defecate on the streets in open gutters, and other public places. The bad scent and the ugly sight of dungs is difficult to contend with. The feces attract flies and therefore put children at risk of contracting cholera, not to mention mosquitoes that thrive in filthy environments—leading to outbreak of malaria. The dangers of free moving cattle’s can never be substantiated, unless we are moving towards a Hobbesian society where anything goes. This is modern age and the world is going green; and the environment is supposed to be strenuously preserved; a degraded environment knows no cultural, ethnic or religious affinity. —just the same way as the zoonotic diseases usually transferred from cows to human beings (mad cow, anthrax, bovine, etc.) does not discriminate. Abuja, ranks amongst the best cities in the world and should discard whatever amounts to an aberration.

Can anyone imagine the discomfort if owners of wild dogs such as German Shepherd, Bulldog, Labrador Retriever, Rottweiler, Irish Wolfhounds, Afghan Hounds are allowed to roam freely in the streets? What about those who owns Tigers, Lions, Buffaloes, Horses and snakes? Wait a minute; cows cannot be exempted because they may be classified as herbivores, but they have been known to be destructive whether provoked or not and develop strange symptoms of violence! Possibly, some may want to argue that this comparison is extreme or that all animals are equal but like it was in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others! Unless, the Constitution is amended to accommodate the free movement of cows on public roads, only then can their presence be tenable. We do not have to wait for them to roam carelessly in High security areas such as Aso Rock Villa, The National Assembly, the precincts of the Supreme Court and Federal Secretariat, before serious action can be taken. The situation is absurd and constitutes an eyesore. The threat to public safety and health is too much to be ignored.

If Abuja is a mega city, why not retain the status? Which mega city in the world tolerates open grazing? It makes a mockery of the government at the center, not to mention the toxic nature of their presence around human beings. To all right thinking individuals, this is an abuse of privilege and rights of other road users. High Chief Mike Ozekhome in his submission while responding to an outburst from certain part of this country, did not mince words; he described the free movement of cows as “anachronistic and primitive”. He questioned why the perpetrators have refused to grow and access modern provisions for livestock preservation. He insists that freedom of movement is only for human beings and not for cattle’s, sheep, goats. He said that if the sale of alcohol is banned and brutally enforced in certain parts of the country—even though it is the constitutional rights of the ethnic group involved to move about and sell beverages freely—why not extend the same to cows?

He frowned completely at the practice arguing that if Cattle rearing which is a private and profit making concern is tolerated as a directive principle of state policy, then other ethnic groups have the right to storm public roads with their Pigs, crocodiles, goats and perhaps Elephants, in the name of proving their rights; let there not be commotion! “Sometimes we get lost in an effort to strengthen our fault lines”, he stressed.

 Giant of Africa! That’s what we call ourselves. Should there be any doubt about comparing our city with the likes of Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cairo, Algiers, Riyadh? Should we remain stagnant and allow Kigali, Accra, Botswana to go ahead in hygienic matters? These are pertinent questions for all stakeholders to address. Keen observers say if government is able to introduce stringent laws like “Park and Pay” policy and enforce it clinically, what stops them from doing the same with regards to open grazing? Cows have been known to stray into supermarkets, Petrol stations and even homes and cause panic and fear among children and parents.

Until the arrival of Mr. Nyesom Wike, mum have been the word; everyone looks on as though nothing can be done. Much as we try, we wake up to find the same primordial and medieval setting; Who bell the cat? Read my lips—not my actions. For this degenerative ambiguity, Abuja may well now be a byword for disobedience—almost defaced by an army of youths on Okada and Keke Nape. If not controlled, one wonders what Abuja would be like in 10 years.  But the biggest worry is the obvious misplacement of goals and priories by relevant enforcement agents ranging from Vehicle Inspection Officers(VIO), Federal Road Safety Officers, AMAC agents who crudely block law abiding motorists in vain pursuit of checking particulars—regardless whether cows are roaming right in their midst. Modern countries have developed “chips” for checking vehicle particulars; but here in Nigeria, VIO’s have vehemently refused to embrace technology, preferring the decadent and corrupt means.

Experts contend that should they muster the same energy in checkmating the movement of cows, perhaps there would have been sanity.  AMAC officials have converted Abuja roads into a cauldron for crazy revenue generation. The Nigeria Police say, theirs is to offer “protection” to enforcement agencies like the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) if and when ever they go for enforcement.  What about the Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s), Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC)? They have arrogated themselves the job of running after shadows, chasing corrupt government officials; even members of the National Assembly are culpable in this tragic act. How do you drive big cars and wear starched agbada in a disorderly environment? We are all too relaxed and casualties.

This is the time for action.

In other countries, the same intractable problem exists, but they have managed with strong will and desire to stem the tide. In the United States, City Planners were able to come up with new strategies that kept abattoirs, piggeries and diaries from city limits; They also used “zoning ordinances” to locate their livestock and slaughter houses. Concerns for Public Health became a rallying point for them to create the hygienic city of their dream. A board of health was created to help monitor and abate nuisances from the movement of cattle within city limits. In India, where Cows are not eaten, a bill aimed at prohibiting movement of stray cattle within city limits titled “Cattle Control Bill” was enacted in April 2022. Cattle Herders are also licensed and require their Cattle to be “tagged”.  If the owner fails to do so, he will be instantly penalized. In Accra, Ghana, permits and licenses are introduced along with regular vaccination and inspection to handle the situation. A Bye-law of Accra Metropolitan Assembly 1995, Section 79 of the LGA, 1993(Act) 462 stipulates that “no person shall keep any cattle, sheep or goat within areas of administration without permits”. The permits are reviewed periodically. In Kigali, Rwanda, movement of cattle are restricted to outside “built-up” areas. They are confined to specific locations mostly in the Hill side suburbs. Kigali infact practices ranching full-scale! They have ensured that public places like markets, roads are declared “cattle free”. In South Africa, movement of cattle is suspended unless those designated for the slaughter house. The suspension is reviewed weekly to ensure strict compliance. Their legislation is done purely for the purpose of preserving food security and livelihoods. In Botswana, their Road Traffic Act Section 100(2)(b) states that “no owner or person in charge of any cattle or other animals to be on the main road unless they are attended to by a person in such a manner as to have proper control over them”. They followed this up with an attempt to fence busy public roads and mark them with road signs.

In Abuja, the Federal Capital, though no written law bans the practice, the problem is likened to Catch-22—a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape, because of the mutually conflicting or dependent situation. It is potentially an explosive issue, because of the violence frequently displayed by these herders.  Three examples would suffice. In July 15, 2023, at Area One roundabout, opposite the Moshood Abiola Stadium, a handful of people gathered round a spot where a Volkswagen vehicle was parked with the bonnet shattered. A dead cow lay in front apparently smashed by the vehicle owner. It was obvious the parties involved were trying to manage the situation from spiraling out of control. In Lokogoma, near an Estate by the name Peace Court, a farmer stood by in tears as cows mowed down his crop of maize. He was obviously in grief. The herders made no attempt to halt the destruction, including the motorists who hurriedly sped away. This happened on Saturday morning, August 12, 2023.

In far away Dei Dei, one of the fast springing satellite towns in the FCT, a motorist who mistakenly ran into herds of cattle as they attempt to cross the road received a dirty slap for not stopping on time. The crazy under aged herder who slapped him looked at him menacingly probably with the intention to escalate the violence. Without uttering a word, the motorists drove off.  Disturbing scenarios like this are not uncommon in our midst. Cattle business is not listed in the Corporate Affairs Commission, but Agriculturalists insist that population growth, increasing urbanization and climatic changes are factors which necessitated the continued presence and clash with human beings.

But Osi Braimah, the Director of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board(AEPB) countered in June 2023, that the extant laws and rules are clear: that no one is allowed to keep animals in his property, neither allowed to graze on the streets! This position was echoed by ex-minister Muhammed Bello who subsequently directed that herdsmen must move their cattle out of the city or face prosecution. He followed that threat by identifying a permanent grazing reserve for the herdsmen. In all 33,485 hectares of land was allocated to handle not less than 7 million cattle’s. The allocated places include Paikon Kore 8,500 hectares; Karshi 6,000 hectares; Kawu in Bwari 9,000 hectares; Rubochi in Kuje 9,985 hectares. A committee to pursue this objective was raised in 2017. As a way of carrying everybody along, the umbrella body of the Herders the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria(MACBAN) were engaged and encouraged to nominate some of its bright young men to be part of the committee. These young men were in turn mandated to educate and encourage members to discontinue the practice of sending boys under age 18 to rear cows in the streets. A public enlightenment followed to actualize that campaign.

Despite these efforts, the problem has refused to abate. The presence of mobile courts responsible for sanctioning offenders with a paltry fine of N1,000 and N5,000 has not deterred them. “Safety rules are not known to these small boys who rear these animals” disclosed a source at the AEPB. Attempts made in the past to confiscate arrested and detained cows by the AEPB enforcement has resulted in shocking revelations about ownership. Four out of seven of such disputes ended up belonging to powerful forces in high places. “We tried to confiscate some troublesome cows recently, only for soldiers to show up and demand their release”, said a source in AEPB. It may surprise readers that the AEPB Act No 10 which has not been strengthened since 1997 has only provision for stray animals in the city!

A check on the National Environmental (Sanitation and Waste Disposal) Regulation of NESREA is particular about substances that litter the environment and pollutants; nothing to do with animal control. A few members of the National Assembly spoken to argued that no one has brought any such complaint to them. Then you will probably want to ask what about their oversight function?  These anomalies are only possible in an environment where there no legal implications.

Thankfully, the new minister has promised to “step” on toes.  He has to start by revisiting the deterrent measure in place and give them more bite. Secondly, he has to send the AEPB act for overhaul; NESREA too should not be left out. They are to compliment the efforts of AEPB. Wike has to find ways to make the VIO’s, the Road Safety, Police, CSO’s, NLC and TUC’s work together, including Abuja Municipal Council (AMAC). He also has to get members of the National Assembly supervising environment on his side.

Members of the Miyetti Allah should be brought on board. It is to their credit and future generation to embrace modern trends. They should be constantly reminded that by choosing to remain traditional, in no time, they would be extinct. In visiting the Abuja Master Plan, the honorable Minister must know that Abuja is conceived in Five Phases. And of the five, only two are fully developed. Places like Karsana, Dakibiyu, Bunkoro, Katampe, Pyakasa, Ketti, Wumba, Baraji, Karmo and even Jahi are not developed. All the past ministers have only paid lip services to these other places, preferring to remain in Area One, Maitama, Asokoro. Guzape is not left out.

Remarkably, a visit to some of these places will reveal the presence of herders in the vicinity. They claim to have been displaced—and yet to be settled despite doing so for the Gbagi’s and Gwari’s who also claim to own the land. “Go to Apo Dutse, Waru, Galadimawa, Guzape, Durumi and you will see some of these herder’s settlement and their families”, disclosed an authority in AEPB. “The government still has to look at their complaints although the Gwari’s and Gbagi’s own the land, not the herders who are itinerant”, the official stated.

The point must not however be lost; if every human being should die, leaving the environment only for cows, how will the cows themselves survive?  The people committing these crimes are not aliens; they are human beings. We have to determine the type of society we want to build and put aside sentiments.  The environment does not differentiate between ethnic groups, religion or political divide. It is for everyone, including the herders. Over now to His Excellency Mr. Nyesom Wike to deliver. Let us call a spade a spade and be guided.

Nigerians were enveloped in the trending debate over the propriety or otherwise of mounting a billboard with the inscription, ALL EYES ON THE JUDICIARY, in Lagos. Those in support of the billboard argued that the message it carried was inspirationally cautionary, while those against it insisted that it was a ploy to intimidate the learned judges handling electoral cases, especially the presidential and gubernatorial proceedings, at the tribunals.

However, something jolted the  debaters out of their entrenched positions — news from abroad tended to suggest that if electoral fraud was a reptile, that of Nigeria was but a lizard while the variant practiced in Azerbaijan was a Komodo dragon.

How could that be possible? Aren’t Nigerian electoral officials supposed to be the acclaimed masters at scrutinising one political party’s scores with concave lenses while viewing the other with a convex pair? Can anyone beat that?

Well, Azerbaijan just did.

Because that country hardly gets appreciable media attention in this part of the globe, a little introduction won’t hurt. The country is a transcontinental republic located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and West Asia as part of the South Caucasus region bounded by the Caspian Sea to the East, Russia (Republic of Dagestan) to the North, Georgia to the  Northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the West, and Iran to the South.

Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991 shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan is a developing country and ranks 91st on the Human Development Index (by comparison, Nigeria ranks 163rd). It has a high rate of economic development and a low rate of unemployment.

The happenings in Azerbaijan caught the attention of Nigerians and elicited so many rib-cracking comments because their electoral leprosy seems to be more virulent than ours. In our case, we manage to sabotage the system from within and even disable gadgets installed to ensure accuracy. We have since compounded mere thuggery with scientific rigging. The combustible mix has confounded those who witnessed the ‘wet i e’ of the Wild-Wild-West in our ill-fated First Republic.

In the Second Republic, too, the winner of a governorship election in Ondo State escaped to Lagos and addressed ‘his people’ from there. Eventually, it was the judiciary that saved him from himself.

But even with all our electoral iniquities and impunities, we have never declared results before elections were held. We know how to cook and fry figures, yes! But to serve them before the ingredients are provided? No!

VOODOO RESULTS

Azerbaijan, a unitary semi-presidential republic, made global headlines last week when its electoral commission accidentally published results showing a victory for Ilham Aliyev, the country’s long-standing President, a day before voting! Mr Aliyev was said to have received 72.76% of the vote compared with 7.4% for the opposition candidate, Jamil Hasanli. The screenshot of the figures published by the app used by the electoral commission was taken by an online channel, Meydan TV. Just like the BVAS used by Nigeria’s electoral commission, the app also displayed the number of people that voted at various times during the day.

Meydan TV’s managing director, Emin Milli, said this was a new level of criminality. Many online commentators also felt that this was a new kind of electoral voodoo deserving of recognition by the Guinness Book of World Records, Mr. Milli said in exasperation: “They will stuff the ballots, and in the end they will still write the numbers they want to write,”  Although instances of ballot-stuffing have been documented in past elections, this apparent leak of the premature results shows a more serious degree of vote falsification.

President Aliyev’s electoral witchdoctors also conjured exit polls which gave him 92% of the vote. Presidential term limits were abolished in 2009 after an allegedly rigged referendum. This is Mr. Aliyev’s third term since he succeeded his father in 2003. Western political alchemists and ‘omniscient’ commentators who insist on democracy at all costs— no matter its hue, texture, or level of integrity— don’t know how to describe the sit-tight phenomenon or the turning of a democratic system into a dynasty.

In a statement published on its website, however, the agency that developed the app has claimed that it did not show predetermined election results. It said the results in contention were from opinion poll data used in testing the app and did not have any relation to the 2023 elections.

HABITUAL RIGGING

Azerbaijan has a history of ballot rigging and political repression. In 2008, for instance, the  Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the presidential election of that year suffered from a “lack of credible challengers” and “a restrictive media environment” — a euphemism for political repression of opponents and muzzling of the media. The electoral commission refused to register the unified opposition candidate, Rustam Ibragimbekov, because of his dual Russian and Azerbaijani citizenship. Mr. Ibragimbekov had applied to renounce his Russian citizenship but Russia had failed to act on his request.

As the world very well knows, there are many ways of rigging, especially in a developing country. One of them is sole candidacy. All you have to do is neutralise your opponent either by ‘deletion’, detention, incapacitation or arranged accidents, disqualification, terror-induced flight out of the country, or some other exotic means devised by the incumbent president’s terror machine.

LIBERIAN MAGIC

But Azerbaijan, in spite of its celebrated malfeasance, still doesn’t take the cake. The world record for the mother of all electoral heists is held by a West African country called the Republic of Liberia. And the Guinness Book of World Records has duly recognised the Liberian elections of 1927 as the most quantitatively fraudulent election in recorded history.

Electoral history has a long history if we bother to check. In the 1927 general elections in Liberia, President Charles D. B. King of the True Whig Party who was running for a third term, defeated Mr Thomas J. Faulkner of the People’s Party by the mathematically impossible margin of 240,000 to 9,000 in a voting population of 15,000. The landslide implied that voter turnout was more than 1,660 per cent!

The opposition made grievous allegations of slave labour and slave trade against officials of the True Whig Party following which the League of Nations set up a commission of enquiry whose findings forced President King to resign.

Liberia is Africa’s first and oldest modern republic, having been founded by freed Black people coming from the United States in the early 1800s. The country’s founders had little interest in the needs or desires of the indigenous peoples. This neglect and a host of other contradictions led to the civil war (1989-1997) which Nigeria-led ECOMOG helped to quell.

History tells us that what happened in Azerbaijan last week can only deliver pyrrhic victory as it has done. In the long run, Truth, the inexorable nemesis of all crooked stratagems, always prevails. I am glad to have Agatha Christie’s concurrence: “Nemesis is long delayed sometimes, but it comes in the end.”

It is expected that our current political leaders and those who are asking why the new cartel of emerging market leaders called BRICs…didn’t invite Nigeria to join the elite club in South Africa last week, are also following what is happening to the former President of the United States, Donald Trump. And here is why: I hope our leaders and their supporters are not just blasting the mercurial Trump without studying the strong message the trial is sending to the failing nations of the world that the rule of law is the foundation of democracy that can deliver development to the people.

One wonders if our leaders at all levels are absorbing the signal from ‘America, their America’ as the iconic J.P Clark once called them, that the current ‘Trial of Brother Trump’ is a direct attack on even a failed attempt of a leader to violate the will of his people.

Doubtless, our leaders and those who are already planning to succeed them should study carefully “the travails of democracy and the rule of law” in the United States” at the moment. Those who have been accessory after attacks on democracy and electoral processes in Nigeria should study what is happening in the United States to the extent of how to manage even the immunity clause in our Constitution.

They should know that one day ‘we the people’ will be able to prosecute our former leaders who have ruled and ruined the most populous black nation on earth. Besides, our civil society activists and members of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) who appear to have lost their old mojo should study the way the American system is teaching the struggling presidential democracies in the world that immunity clause in the constitution doesn’t mean that we cannot investigate our leaders in office.

We are now witnessing that corrupt leaders can be prosecuted for their crimes against the people as soon as they leave office. As NBA members converge on Abuja this week for their annual general meeting, I hope they will tell their newly elevated member who just assumed office as Attorney General of the Federation that we need to say goodbye to our growing culture of impunity.

Here is the lesson: Donald Trump was indicted on felony charges the other day for working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol, with the Justice Department acting to hold him accountable for an unprecedented effort to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power and threaten American democracy.

For those who have not been following the development, the four-count indictment, the third criminal case against Trump, provided deeper insight into a dark moment that has already been the subject of exhaustive federal investigations and captivating public hearings. It chronicles a months-long campaign of lies about the election results and says that, even when those falsehoods resulted in a chaotic insurrection at the Capitol, Trump sought to exploit the violence by pointing to it as a reason to further delay the counting of votes that sealed his defeat.

Even in a year of rapid-succession legal reckonings for Trump, the current indictment, with charges including conspiring to defraud the United States government that he once led, was stunning in its allegations that a former president assaulted the “bedrock function” of democracy. It’s the first time the defeated president, who is the early front-runner for next year’s Republican presidential nomination, is facing legal consequences for his frantic but ultimately failed effort to cling to power.

“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” said Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, whose office has spent months investigating Trump. “It was fuelled by lies, lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.” The Trump campaign called the charges “fake” and asked why it took two-and-a-half years to bring them.

Trump was the only person charged in that Super Tuesday’s indictment. But prosecutors obliquely referenced a half-dozen co-conspirators, including lawyers inside and outside of government who they said had worked with Trump to undo the election results. They also advanced legally dubious schemes to enlist slates of fake electors in battleground states won by Democrat’s Joe Biden to claim falsely that Trump had actually won them.

The indictment accuses the defeated president and his allies of trying to “exploit the violence and chaos” by calling lawmakers into the evening on Jan. 6 to delay the certification of Biden’s victory. It also cites handwritten notes from former Vice President Mike Pence that give gravitas to Trump’s relentless goading to reject the electoral votes. Pence, who is challenging Trump for the GOP presidential nomination, declined overtures from a House panel that investigated the insurrection and sought to avoid testifying before the special counsel. He appeared only after losing a court fight, with prosecutors learning that Trump in one conversation derided him as “too honest” to stop the certification.

The case stems from one of the most serious threats to American democracy in modern history. According to AP, the indictment centres on the turbulent two months after the November 2020 election in which Trump refused to accept his loss and spread lies that victory was stolen from him. The turmoil resulted in the riot at the Capitol, when Trump loyalists violently broke into the building, attacked police officers and disrupted the congressional counting of electoral votes.

In between the election and the riot, Trump allegedly urged local election officials to undo voting results in their states, pressured Pence to halt the certification of electoral votes and falsely claimed that the election had been stolen — a notion repeatedly rejected by judges. Among those lies, prosecutors say, were claims that more than 10,000 dead voters had voted in Georgia along with tens of thousands of double votes in Nevada. Each claim had been rebutted by courts or state or federal officials, the indictment says.

Prosecutors say Trump knew his claims of having won the election were false but he “repeatedly and widely disseminated them anyway — to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, to create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and to erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

The document carefully outlined arguments that Trump has been making to defend his conduct, that he had every right to challenge the results, to use the courts, even to lie about it in the process. But in stark detail, the indictment outlines how the former president instead took criminal steps to reverse the clear verdict voters had rendered.

The indictment had been expected since Trump said in mid-July that the Justice Department had informed him he was a target of its investigation. A bipartisan House committee that spent months investigating the run-up to the Capitol riot also recommended prosecuting Trump on charges, including aiding an insurrection and obstructing an official proceeding. Is the Nigeria’s National Assembly studying this?

The indictment includes charges of conspiring to defraud the U.S., conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding and violating a post-Civil War Reconstruction Era civil rights statute that makes it a crime to conspire to violate rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution — in this case, the right to vote. The mounting criminal cases are unfolding in the heat of the 2024 race. A conviction in this case, or any other, would not prevent Trump from pursuing the White House or serving as president, though Trump as president could theoretically appoint an attorney general to dismiss the charges or potentially try to pardon himself.

In New York, state prosecutors have charged Trump with falsifying business records about a hush money payoff to a porn actor before the 2016 election. The trial was set to begin in March. In Florida, the Justice Department has brought more than three dozen felony counts, accusing him of illegally possessing classified documents after leaving the White House and concealing them from investigators. That trial began in May.
Prosecutors in Georgia are also investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to reverse his election loss to Biden there. The district attorney of Fulton County  announced charging decisions last week.

Smith’s team has cast a broad net as part of his federal investigation, with his team questioning senior Trump administration officials, including Pence before a grand jury in Washington. Prosecutors also interviewed election officials in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and other battleground states won by Biden who were pressured by the Trump team to change voting results.

Attorney General Merrick Garland last year appointed Smith, an international war crimes prosecutor who also led the Justice Department’s public corruption section, as special counsel to investigate efforts to undo the election as well as Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. Although Trump has derided him as “deranged” and called him politically motivated, Smith’s past experience includes overseeing significant prosecutions against high-profile Democrats.

The Justice Department’s investigations began well before Smith’s appointment, proceeding alongside separate criminal probes into the rioters themselves. More than 1,000 people have been charged in connection with the insurrection, including some with seditious conspiracy.
Georgia Election Interference (State, GA)

ON August 14, 2023, Donald Trump was indicted on 13 counts in Georgia state court, including under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Eighteen additional co-defendants have been named in this case, including Trump’s former Chief-of-Staff, Mark Meadows and his attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. The allegations in the indictment revolve around these individuals’ efforts to overturn the will of voters and invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Fulton County Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis conducted a years-long investigation into Donald Trump and others’ attempts to interfere with the results of the 2020 Georgia presidential election. The indictment was based on the testimony of many witnesses, as well as the written recommendations of a Special Grand Jury, which reviewed evidence and interviewed dozens of witnesses over several months.

The indictment focuses on (1) efforts to get Georgia officials to invalidate or nullify the will of Georgia voters, including by “finding votes” that did not exist, (2) the scheme to get 16 fake electors in Georgia to cast fraudulent electoral college votes for Trump, even though Trump did not win the popular vote in the state, (3) intimidating, harassing, and threatening Georgia election workers based on false accusations and in an effort to influence their testimony as witnesses, and (4) tampering with county voting machines.

The trial and travail of Trump should send signals to our new leaders who are prone to recklessness that one day we will be able to celebrate Alfred Lord Denning’s immortal words here: “…Be you never so high, the law is above you”

As the Bola Ahmed Tinubu presidency marches unsteadily to its first 100 days in office, retired Permanent Secretary and pioneer Director General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dr. Goke Adegoroye, has called for a rejig of the bureaucracy within the State House to arrest the foundering administration from ‘losing it’ and work to actualize its ‘Renewed Hope’ mandate.

This is especially coming against the backlash of biting implications of several economic policies carried out by new administration, such as the petrol subsidy removal and floating of the naira, amid strident opposition to the bloated record-high 45-man cabinet recently inaugurated and President Tinubu’s stance as chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to the coup in neighbouring Niger Republic.
   
In a piece sent to The Guardian and titled: ‘Too Early To Say We Are Losing It: But Can The Bureaucracy Come To The Rescue?’, Adegoroye noted the worrisome trend of despondency from many of the President’s avid supporters and canvassers, who have long replaced the euphoria of the first few weeks of the Tinubu administration with dampened hopes, necessitating the refrain. “We are losing it”!
 
He said: “While acknowledging the challenge of the Niger Coup to his administration at this early stage of his presidency, many seem worried by two main issues, namely: Media posts alleging payment of huge sums of money to key individuals around the President to influence appointment into political offices and/or facilitate meetings with the President; and the new cabinet in terms of its size and composition. They point to the geo-political distribution of the portfolios as smacking of a reverse replay of what we accused the last President of, and the non-fulfillment of the promise publicly made to Malam Nasir el Rufai as both not reflecting the true Yoruba spirit.  
   
“Their ‘we are losing it’ outburst, is driven by a sense of collective responsibility and it exudes their true Yorubaness as Omoluabi who want fairness for all, the fear that their expectation of a magic wand by the President is becoming a mirage, and the urgency of a reassurance to the populace as an imperative. I am worried that the firm steps that are required to stem the tide might be gradually slipping away.”
   
He, therefore, offered a quick win marshal plan for the president to take, which is reconciling the large cabinet with the lean government promise of his manifesto and deploying the Bureaucracy to the rescue.

“This commitment concern of the populace is driven, not just by the consciousness of the usual ‘wait and see attitude’ of civil servants to any new administration and the sordid corruption cases in the print and social media by immediate past administration in which they were the drivers, but by a new apprehension from revelations of the last election results in the Federal Capital Territory, the seat of Government and the thoughts that many elements in the bureaucratic leadership are, at best, in a lukewarm disposition to the Bola Tinubu Administration pending the outcome of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT).
   
“Exhuming Dwight Waldo’s thesis of the dialectic of bureaucracy and democracy in governance, the new administration is bound to discover sooner than later that it is operating in a ‘professional environment wherein the art of pretense and, indeed, of wearing a mask has become the virtual prerequisites for a successful career.’ The million-dollar question therefore is, even when the court cases are over: How would the President be able to win over the leadership of the bureaucracy in terms of loyalty to his administration and the nation, given that the losing parties are bound to attempt to coalesce into a formidable force in the stark realization that four years is a long wait?” Other measures proffered by Adegoroye, who is the National Publicity Secretary of the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) include: How to make the new staff and visitors to the State House appreciate that the respective transitions of Bola Ahmed Tinubu from Asiwaju/Jagaban, the national leader of the topmost political party to Mr. President, and of Kashim Shettima from former Governor and Senator to Vice President, demand new sets of etiquettes and protocols; how to assist Femi Gbajabiamila to quickly transit from Speaker, the Number four in the Presidential hierarchy, to Chief of Staff to the President (CoS-P), a bureaucracy position that is devoid of his old paraphernalia of office but where he is compelled to meet up with the requirements of responding in quick time to the demands of the President; and how to identify the weaknesses and mistakes in the implementation of the organizational set up operated in the State House by the immediate past administration, and put in place new structures, procedures, guidelines and protocols to overcome/avoid them.
 
“In general, the finesse with which State House staff can handle visitors and foreign guests, and the quality of the Minutes/submission of the CoS-P on Memos and Correspondence to the President are a function of their mastery of State House etiquettes and protocols and how well the CoS-P and/or his staff understand the subject matter content of the Memos. Getting the right calibers of personnel to man the various desks in the State House and enhancing their capacity to discharge their responsibilities effectively and efficiently is also an imperative to make these happen.
  
 “There is nothing in the media to suggest that the political appointees in this administration have been taken through any induction protocols. Rather, actions that depict the absence of it are what seem to be confounding us daily and this must be addressed in the early days of the administration.
   
“There is need to manage the crowd around the President to enable him perform State duties as efficiently as possible. That “we have done it in Lagos” has serious limitations and is prone to bouts of provincial champion syndrome. The “poster boys” of Lagos now in Abuja will soon find out that Lagos is not Abuja, and that Abuja is Nigeria. The Presidency is one. Accordingly, the President and the Vice President must be seen by all officers in the State House as the snug fit parts of the presidential governance apparatus.
  
 “In this regard, the CoS-P must rise to the occasion in quelling all social media posts of unsmooth flow of communication between the Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President. Just as the Permanent Secretary must be clear in his mind that as Accounting Officer of the State House, Mr President is his CEO and the one from whom he derives authority for every spend in the State House.
   
“Watching the NTA network news some 2 weeks ago on the visit of Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), my heart almost jumped into my mouth seeing that the protocol officer that was to position the President’s chair for him to sit, by guarding it firmly like a cricketer would cover his base, abandoned the chair midway to run to position Madam Ngozi’s chair for her. In the process, the President was inadvertently left to carefully situate his own chair for himself and sit (rather, he sank into the chair) with the officer scampering back to him! Where in the world has that ever been condoned?
   
“And then just last week, we watched the Ministers resume at their duty posts. I paid attention to the FCT, especially because it was my last duty post as Perm Sec. I was dumbfounded. It was the Minister all the way and in a tone that reminded me of the Military era. If the Minister of State was allowed to utter a word, we didn’t know. The Chief Press Officer of the Ministry already has his job cut out for him, as he has swung into action to walk back on the reportage of that first meeting in the media.”

[Guardian]