A good number of people, including me, seems opposed to Nigeria leading the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to war in Niger. In one of the most telling anti-war metaphors, a Nigerian columnist and Editor, Lasisi Olagunju, likened military intervention to rubbing buttocks with the porcupine. 

Doves everywhere are flying the flag of peace. Protesters are also waving placards reminding Nigeria’s President and ECOWAS Chairman, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, not to start a war he cannot finish.

As if he doesn’t know, Tinubu has also been reminded, among other things, that there’s already too much trouble at home – insecurity, economic hardship and a country deeply divided by the last elections – without a clear plan, so far, how to dig himself out of the mess. He cannot invite more trouble.

Tinubu is not just being told to mind his business, fix Nigeria and forget war. In what is clearly an indication that even the pacificists recognise that he cannot ignore a problem at the door, however, the president has also been advised to prioritise talks and negotiations with Niger’s military leader, General Abdourahmane Tchiana, who deposed President Mohamed Bazoum and seized power on July 26.

That is easier said than done. I’ve been forced to pause and lower my flag for talks at half-mast after reading one of Christopher Hitchens’ essays in his collection, And Yet, from which I have adapted the title of this article. 

Hitchens wasn’t writing about Niger, of course: it was about the US Middle East policy at a very difficult and dangerous time. At the height of Iran’s nuclear enrichment controversy, the Obama administration received a letter from Tehran offering “unconditional talks”, over the hostile and fraught relationship between Washington and Tehran. 

The invitation to “unconditional talks” with Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, characteristised in Washington as the devil incarnate, spooked memories of Azar Nafisi’s 2003 book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, in which she said a relationship with the Islamic Republic “is like having sex with a man you loathe.” I honestly don’t know which one is easier – rubbing buttocks with the porcupine or having sex with a man you loathe!

The instigation for talks, at all costs, with Niger’s military junta must feel that way for Tinubu. How do you talk with a man who not only despises your election and questionsthe legitimacy of other regional leaders, but one who has also spurned your emissaries and is openly rallying other scoundrels against you and the regional body? 

It’s gratifying that the latest indications from Niamey are that the military regime is prepared for talks with ECOWAS. But what, in any case, would such talks be likein light of the regional protocol by all 15-member ECOWAS countries, including Niger, against unconstitutional changes in government?  

A chapter from the encounter of regional leaders and the diaries of three regional military coup leaders in the last few years could give us an idea. The soles of the shoes of ECOWAS special envoy and former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and his team are worn out from futile diplomatic visits to Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso after soldiers seized power in these countries, and for three years, all refused to talk sense. 

Assimi Goita, Mali’s military leader, seized power in 2020 and initially promised a transitional government within six months. Before you could say Assimi, however, he sacked the figure-head interim government in May 2021 and promised elections would be held in 2024, that is four years after he first seized power.

Guinean military leader Mamadi Doumbouya, who seized power in September 2021 was careful not to commit early. After about five months in power, plenty of talk and ECOWAS sanctions which all parties knew were just about as empty as the talks, Doumbouya announced in January last year that he needed an extra 39 months to hand over power.  

And just around the corner, Ibrahim Traore, Burkinabe’s military leader and the third soldier to lead a successful coup in the region in five years, has not made any secrets of his flirtations with the Russian-backed Wagner Group. 

The hint of a transition is not even on the table, much less discussions with ECOWAS about a possible hand over date. Anyone who saw Traore’s recent red-carpet reception by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow might understand why he cannot be in a hurry to leave power. Better to talk about talk and enjoy the illegitimate fruit of power than to confront the threat of a forceful removal. 

It is in the context of this catastrophic failure of previous talks with military juntas in the last three years, not to mention the audacity of their defiance, that we must view any talks with Tchiani. It is either we have decided to shred the protocol against unconstitutional changes in government and return to the 1970s/80s by normalisingmilitary rule, or we make it clear that there would be consequences for military coups. 

The argument that we have ourselves to blame because civilian rulers have performed shabbily, wangled their way into office, or illegally extended their tenure is seductive but untenable. To adapt the Italian prosecutor Virgino Rognoni, who took on the Red Brigades in the 1908s, “in whichever way a democratic system might be sick, military coup will not heal it; it kills it. Democracy is healed with democracy.”

We can all agree that talk is better than war, but those who are willing to turn a blind eye to the futility of talks in the last three years since the fall of Mali have not said how more pillow talk with Tchiani would do for Niger what it has failed to do for the embarrassingly defiant coup belt. 

It’s been said that the “hasty” announcement of a military option by ECOWAS and sanctions by the body, especially Nigeria’s decision to cut-off electricity to Niamey, hardened the junta. Maybe. But the junta’s response to diplomatic overtures made right after did not suggest that sending flowers early on would have made much difference. 

Tchiani’s latest comment that the military government has enough evidence to try President Bazoum for high treason is a ridiculous excuse to buy time and befuddle the point. It is a measure of how unpromising the talks would be that an illegitimate government is even thinking of charging an elected president with “high treason!” 

How did we get here? By talking, of course, without any clear intention of, or will to do anything, when talks failed. Wasn’t it an embarrassment to ECOWAS, for example, that in spite of promises by the Malian military leader to hand over within a few months of the coup, the military-dominated legislature later announced that nothing less than four years would do, to which ECOWAS negotiator, Jonathan, tamely replied, “I believe ECOWAS may not accept it…we’re going to negotiate further with them.” 

Seven months after Jonathan made this statement, the soldiers in Burkina Faso read correctly that it was just another empty talk. They struck.

If, in 2016, ECOWAS had offered President Yahya Jammeh talks, instead of deploying a regional force to remove him from power after he lost elections and refused to quit, he’ll probably still be in office today, talking.  

Sure, regional leaders could do better by using institutional mechanisms such as the AU’s Peer Review to improve the quality of governance and perhaps even review the governance charter. 

Yet, there’s no evidence in Africa that the military has done any better after seizing power. It’s time to end the nonsense in Niger not by rubbing buttocks with Tchiani, but by keeping the cage-trap firmly on the table for this porcupine and his cohorts.

There is no doubt that the sanctions imposed on Niger by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in response to the 26 July military coup that toppled the government of elected President Mohamed Bazoum, are biting hard, especially the suspension of electricity supply by Nigeria,

After last weekend’s meeting in Niamey with a delegation of Muslim Scholars) Ulamas from Nigeria, the Brig.-General Abdourahamane-led junta began singing a different tune from their pervious uncompromising stance.

It was announced after that meeting that the junta leaders were now ready to dialogue with ECOWAS, having treated with disrespect a delegation from the organization led by former Nigerian military Head of State Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, and also refused to receive a joint ECOWAS-AU-UN Mission.

The soldiers were reportedly angry that ECOWAS “did not hear their side of the story before imposing the sanctions,” and also threated the use military force if detained Bazoum was not released and reinstated within seven days.

The seven-day ultimatum had since passed without any military intervention as the Niamey junta rather consolidates its hold on power by announcing military regional governors and a cabinet of 21 ministers headed by a civilian Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine. Zeine also doubles as Finance Minister in the cabinet with soldiers holding key portfolios of defence and internal affairs.

At their second emergency summit on the Niger crisis on 10^th August in Abuja, regional leaders had ordered the deployment of the ECOWAS Standby Force to restore constitutional order in Niger. They had further directed “the Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staff to activate the ECOWAS Standby Force in all its elements immediately.”

But in the intervening period, it emerged that Tchiani and his junta colleagues received the group of Muslim Ulamas led by Sheik Bala Lau.

Both sides were reported to have agreed that dialogue with ECOWAS was a better option for the resolution of the Niger impasse.

Officials of the military regime were also reported to have praised ECOWAS as an important regional organization, stressing the need for diplomacy, and appealing for lifting of the regional sanctions.

But shortly after that seemingly positive development, the junta announced that it would charge detained Bazoum with high treason for allegedly inviting foreign forces to attack Niger.

ECOWAS responded by expressing “stupefied” anger, condemning the junta move junta as provocative. The regional bloc further reiterated that Bazoum remained the democratically elected president of Niger.

Meanwhile, it is becoming obvious that while the ECOWAS threat for the use of military force might have played a part, the impacts of the regional sanctions, especially the cut of electricity supply have proved a most effective weapon that can force the junta to the negotiating table.

Apart from Niger, three other ECOWAS member States - Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso are now under military dictatorships, with Mali and Burkina Faso vowing to join forces with Niger against the ECOWAS planned military intervention.

Somehow, the use of force in Niger is growing unpopular based on the fear that it could snowball into a catastrophic enterprise. There is opposition in some ECOWAS member States including Nigeria, Niger’s key neighbour, which is expected to play a major part in such a venture.

Also, Algeria and Mauritania, Niger’s neighbours in the Sahel would prefer diplomatic initiatives.

As ECOWAS military chiefs hold their second emergency meeting in Accra, Ghana 17-18 August since receiving the marching orders for the activation of the Standby Force from the reginal leaders on 10^th August, the general expectation is that ECOWAS would stay on the message, still holding up the military card, but at the same time, allow parallel backend diplomatic efforts to continue.

Doubtless, the military coup in Niger is one too many in the ECOWAS region. But it is also true that military incursion into politics in the politically restive region, is only a symptom of the perennial systemic failure of governance systems, characterised by corruption, mismanagement, vote rigging, disregard for the rule of law and human rights violations.

Some leaders in the region have blatantly altered national constitutions to gain or retain power, amid disturbing trends of godfatherism, state capture, personalisation of democracy and undemocratic control of the legislature and the judiciary by the executive arms of government.

Soldiers belong in their barracks for the protection of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. But the hypocritical tendency of always jumping to condemn military coups, while allowing political leaders to continue with impunity, generates public anger, especially when peaceful street protests are often met with ruthless repression by the politicians.

In the case of Niger, internal power struggle between Bazoum and his godfather, former President Mahamadou Issoufou, coupled with the ousted president’s plan to carry out major changes in government institutions, including the armed forces, might have triggered the putsch, foreign interference is also playing a major part.

Niger is a major Western ally, especially the United State and France. Both have military bases in the country.

For hosting America’s key military facilities, including intelligence gathering drones, and also assisting Western countries to stop immigration from Africa, Niger was receiving foreign assistance worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In addition, the country is also rich in natural resources particularly uranium, which is very useful for nuclear power generation, although this is exploited by Western companies for the benefit of their countries.

For instance, France uses Niger’s uranium to generate about 70% of its power supply while 80% of Niger’s estimated 26 million people wallow in darkness, with the country on the bottom rung of the UN Human Development ranking.

There is also growing anti-French sentiment in Niger and other French former colonies in Africa. This has found expression in sporadic street protests, with some protesters destroying the French national flags while others hold aloft the Russia flags, in what is interpreted as an appeal for Moscow’s support.

The junta leaders have already recalled Niger’s ambassador from France and suspended Niger’s uranium supply contract with France, with every indication that like their colleagues in Mali and Burkina Faso, they are leaning toward Russia, which has expressed opposition to military intervention in Niger. Tchiani is actually reported to have had a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The head of Russia’s private military group, Wagner, has also welcomed the Niger coup as “a positive development,” although no indication that the group is ready to send soldiers to Niger.

To underscore Niger’s strategic interest to its Western allies, the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has continued follow developments in Niger, praising ECOWAS and its current Chairman, Nigerian President Ahmed Bola Tinubu for their “efforts” in Niger.

Paradoxically, while America and some Western countries have evacuated their citizens from Niger, Washington has announced plans to send its new Ambassador to Niamey at a time ECOWAS is threatening military intervention.

The more reason ECOWAS will be well-advised to continue to explore diplomatic and peaceful resolution of the Niger crisis, to avoid a dangerous backlash, especially in Nigeria, the regional powerhouse, and by extension, the entire region. Also, Bazoum’s life could further be jeopardised.

The Niger junta, too, must realise that it cannot take on ECOWAS in the event of kinetic option.

The prognosis looks rather grim for deposed President Bazoum, and France, which is losing hold in its former colonies, even as Russia continue its inroad in Africa, despite the pathological fears of the West.

The way forward is for Paris to review its policy towards Africa, otherwise, the citizens appear determined to free their countries from the suffocating and overbearing French influence.

Even if Bazoum were to escape jail sentence for alleged treason, he is unlikely to be reinstated. He has apparently lost the loyalty of the Niger armed forces and might pay for the strained relations between him and his godfather, Issoufou, assuming his erstwhile Western allies are also not done with him.

When Bazoum had the opportunity to speak out from the junta detention, he only called for his release and reinstatement, without any consideration for the long-suffering citizens, who bear the brunt of coups and bad governance.

His reinstatement will only make nonsense of whatever reason/s canvased by the junta for the coup, so a short transition period of six to nine months for the election of new civilian government seems a most likely solution to the Niger crisis. ECOWAS should not be dragged into a deadly and risky proxy war.

A major lesson from the geopolitical game in Niger and other Francophone coup countries is that solutions to African problems are in Africa and that relations with foreign countries, be they America and its Western allies, Russia, China, or any other country for that matter, must be based on equal partnerships with the interests of the majority of Africans as the priority.

Paul Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and Consultant on Peace & Security and Governance Communications

Speaking about Hadj Jakande is like trying to describe an elephant. You know an elephant when you see one, but attempting to describe it is a herculean, if fruitless, exercise! In other words, Hadj Jakande described himself. And I dare say that there is hardly anyone in this audience who would not recognize an elephant if or when he sees one!

Born July 23, 1929, at Epetedo, Lagos Island, Lagos, Abdullateef Olukayode’s parents had migrated from Omu-Aran, in present Kwara State to Lagos. Young Lateef began his elementary education at the Enu Owa Public School, Lagos Island, from where he proceeded to the Banham Memorial Methodist School, Port Harcourt (1934-43). And from there to the prestigious King’s College, Lagos. He could not finish his secondary school at the King’s College, Lagos, because of his brush with the colonial administration that did not find his activities as a student of King’s College amusing. He was, therefore, obliged to seek accommodation at the Ilesha Grammar School, Ilesha, now in Osun State.

It was at Ilesha Grammar School that Jakande began the process of cutting his journalistic teeth by editing the school’s Quarterly Mirror, a literary journal. From that rudimentary beginning in journalism, he migrated to full-blown print journalism, first at the Daily Express and later, at the Nigerian Tribune Group on the invitation of the founder, Chief Obafemi, Awolowo. And from reporter, then editor, he rose to the pinnacle of the journalism profession to become the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Tribune Group until he quit in 1979 to become the first elected civilian Governor of Lagos State on October 1, 1979 on the platform of the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, led by Chief Awolowo.

In four short years and three months, Governor Jakande set unprecedented and phenomenal records in governance to the admiration, if envy, of his peers. Brother Governors, including from rival parties, visited Lagos to see for themselves what they had read, heard on radio, or watched on television. Governor Jakande blew and confounded the minds of fellow Lagosians and other Nigerians at home and abroad by his exploits in government! And appreciating the gigantic task ahead of his government, he launched himself head-on and full blast into implementing his party’s programmes of free education, free health service, gainful employment, and integrated rural development.

A self-driven governor Jakande knew full well that to motivate his Civil Service, he needed to bring them at par with their federal colleagues who were on grade level 17 at the time. He went about doing this by upping the salaries of Lagos permanent secretaries from grade level 16 to level 17 to be at par with their federal counterparts. This is because the governor argued that state civil servants had a greater span of control than their federal counterparts. There are two examples to cite here, namely: education and health. The state has far more schools and hospitals than the Federal Government, particularly given the state’s free education and health programmes of the UPN-controlled government of Lagos State.

If state employees worked harder and longer than their federal counterparts, there was no earthly reason why they should not be remunerated equally, if not better. But that did not register well with General Muhammad Buhari, who reversed the Lagos pay to the pre-Jakande era when he seized power in a military coup in December 1983. Buhari also abolished the light rail project between the Lagos State Government and the French contractors to the project.

Governor Jakande initiated the light rail project as part of his administration’s effort to decongest Lagos traffic through a tri-modal transport system of rail, road, and water. Buhari, as military head of state, stopped all that without any explanation to Lagosians and Nigerians. The contractors went to arbitration, and Nigeria was obliged to pay the full contract sum without an inch of rail track laid. The unkindest cut of the Lagos light rail project has been the commissioning of the new project by Buhari on the eve of the end of his administration recently, 40 years after the story first began!

Governor Jakande excelled in government as he had done in journalism, his first love. As a colleague of ours once wrote of LKJ: You can never be wrong if your motive is pure. He abolished the shift system in Lagos schools by building extra classrooms to accommodate the spillover of pupils from the three-shift system to the universally normal one shift. Although criticized by many who described his schools as “poultry sheds”, the fact remains that his government achieved the transition from the double shift school system to a single shift.

Lagos school kids attended school in the morning rather than both morning, afternoon, and in some cases in the evening and in the hot tropical heat in which they could hardly absorb anything from the teacher. More classrooms were built, and children enrolment more than doubled. Like another colleague of ours once said of LKJ’s education programme, in reaction to its being derided: a classroom can be as good as being in a three or four or five star hotel as where we are now, with zero knowledge driven! In Jakande’s case, school results improved considerably. Atop the educational system, he established a tertiary institution, the Lagos State University at Ijanikin, a Lagos suburb.

On health care, LK, as he was fondly referred to by his leader, Chief Awolowo, pursued implementation of his party’s free health programme, as others, with a single-minded dedication. He built primary health centres and more general hospitals to bring health care nearer to Lagosians. Hadj Jakande undertook massive low-cost housing schemes in the state to reduce housing deficit particularly, in Lagos City, which at the time doubled as Nigeria’s capital. Among others, he built mini waterworks located strategically around Lagos to make water available to residents because the Iju Waterworks established during the colonial era was not designed to supply water to any part of the mainland of Lagos but to Ikoyi, the abode of the colonial masters, to where the pipes bearing water from Iju were laid.

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Reciting Governor Jakande’s accomplishments during his abridged tenure in Lagos is like reciting a litany of the saints. Instead of contestation by political spokespersons to detract from his achievements or blatantly credit them to others, the fact remains that nobody can take away anything from them. And LK came to Lagos, he saw and he conquered! He and his accomplishments live in the hearts of those he had been privileged to govern.

By dint of hard work, Hadj Jakande reached the top of his chosen profession of journalism. And he demanded hard work from his staff as he worked round the clock himself. The evidence of one of his reporters, who later served as his Press Secretary, is handy here: Here Bayo Osiyemi out: “As a thorough-bred journalist, he endeavoured to make an all-round reporter of all his staff. To him, the fact that you were designated an airport correspondent did not mean you couldn’t be assigned to cover court proceedings for the newspaper.

“I recall with nostalgia, my personal experience one day that he came down to the editorial room from his top floor office on Broad Street in Lagos and met me alone there. Seeing that the Labour reporter, Augustine Diagi, was not around at the time, he directed me, as Sports writer, to immediately proceed to the Railway headquarters, at Iddo on the Mainland to cover an ongoing Press conference called by a Labour leader, Alhaji H.P Adebola, on behalf of Railway workers. He didn’t care how I’d get there’, as no mobilization was provided. All he cared about was to get the job done anyhow and make your transport claims later.”

Prince Osiyemi continued his narration: “Because his word was law, which could be disobeyed at one’s professional peril, and because of my own decision to make a career and a success of the job, I had to trek from Broad Street through Ebute Ero and Carter Bridge at Idumota to reach the Railway office at Iddo. I returned to the office to file a report of the press conference, which I transmitted through the telephone to our Ibadan press for publication in the next day’s newspaper. He noted my effort and got me compensated for it eventually.”

Hadj Jakande was skilled in editorial craftsmanship such that when away from his desk, he would write daily editorials in advance for publication in the newspapers. He did that to maintain editorial quality and to set standards for his subordinates. Editorial writing was his forte, and those in government and authority looked forward to it and feared it at the same time. One of the two classic editorials he wrote on one of the governors of the Western States was to describe him as having an “insatiable appetite for real estate”. The governor in question was so piqued by the editorial that he severed all business dealings, including government advertisement, between his government and the newspaper.

The second, which got the newspaper editors arrested and detained with their newspaper houses shut, was on the crisis that erupted over cocoa prices during the military administration of then Colonel Robert Adeyinka Adebayo in the West in the early 70s. I recall some lines in that particular editorial comment: ‘There is no shortage of flatterers for any ruler in Nigeria, be he civilian or military. They are ready to lick the sputum of any ruler who happens to be in power. And when he falls, as he must, due to his bunglings which they aided and abetted, these flatterers will be the first to transfer their allegiance to the new occupier of the Government House. Colonel Adebayo is in the same predicament as his predecessors.’

Tribune’s position in the editorial opinion, authored by LKJ, was to warn of likely consequence of being indifferent to the agitation of cocoa farmers in the West for an upward review of cocoa prices, opposed and canvassed against, by his commissioner for justice, Mr Richard Akinjide. The likely consequence the editorial predicted, eventually manifested in the massive crisis that soon erupted from the farmers militant group known as ‘Agbekoya’, which made governance impossible in the West with extensive destruction of lives and properties across the region, in spite of the clampdown by the Police and the Army. The resort to supernatural means, which led to inexplicable deaths of the police and military personnel sent to quell the uprising, forced the boastful military regime to eat the humble pie and sought the Yoruba leader, Chief Awolowo’s intervention to help calm the restive farmers group before normalcy returned to the region.

Undaunted, LK, and his newspapers did not relent in their oversight function of monitoring government and public corporations with biting, if not ascorbic, editorials, which made the government uncomfortable most of the time. Hadj Jakande excelled in journalism at home and abroad. The Nigeria Institute of Journalism, NIJ, the Newspapers“Proprietors Association of Nigeria, NPAN, the NIgeria Press Organisation, NPO, incorporating the broadcast and print media, all bear the imprimatur of Hadj Jakande. He chaired the Executive Committee of the International Press Institute, IPI, the global network of journalists and senior editors who work to uphold freedom of the Press worldwide. In that capacity, he won a hosting right for the General Assembly and World Congress of the IPI to be held in Nigeria in the Summer of 1975 ‘and the first time in Africa.

The initiative was, however, aborted by the military government of General Yakubu Gowon, who refused a visa to Raymond Loew, an anti-apartheid South African journalist. Mr Loew’s membership has been mischaracterised to mean that the Republic of South Africa wanted to attend the General Assembly and World Council of IPI, disguised as Mr Loew. Nothing could be farther from the truth because only individuals could be members of the IPI and not states. IPI moved the Congress to Vienna, its headquarters. It was not until 2018 that Nigeria got a hosting right, though it hosted the board meeting at Abuja in December 1999.

You would be grossly mistaken to judge the man by his unsmiling disposition. He was simply not amused by the ordinary things that turned others on to laugh. He was too serious-minded to be smiling and laughing at will because others were doing so. He was a modest, humble man of affairs. And a good listener at that. And because God gave him two ears and one mouth, like all of us humans, he preferred listening twice as much as he spoke. LK was adept at conducting meetings. He would hear everybody out and make a summary of the proceedings, which assisted in reaching conclusions.

He was an expert in drafting communiques of political meetings. Because he had had the meeting agenda, LK would figure out what the conclusions would be and produce the draft communique usually adopted by the meeting with little or no amendments. He was meticulous as he mastered details. It is fitting and appropriate that Hadj Jakande, the pioneer Guild president, has been considered worthy of… honour by the leadership of the NGE.

As part of nurturing a culture of “appreciation, the NGE is instituting an annual lecture in honour of Alhaji Jakande, which will interrogate developments affecting the media and society”.

Being a speech delivered by Adenaike, FNGE, at the Annual Memorial Lecture of the Nigerian Guild of Editors in Honour of Alhaji Lateef Jakande in Lagos

The viral video of female law students protesting alleged sexual harassment against Professor Cyril Ndifon at the University of Calabar was disturbing. Carrying placards with inscriptions that are too obscene to be repeated here, the protesters (led by the Law Students Association of Nigeria, Unical branch president, Benedict Out) made serious allegations against the Dean of the Law Faculty. Why should that be of special concern to me? Well, Ndifon happens to be one of the central characters in my 2020 book, ‘NAKED ABUSE: Sex for Grades in African Universities’. A huge scandal which I detailed in the book involved the eminent professor, the Police, the State Security Service (SSS), the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), a female student (who alleged that Ndifon sexually abused her), parents of the girl, a prominent NGO, the National Industrial Court, the Federal High Court, and the local media. 

Before I proceed, let me state that Ndifon has countered the latest allegation against him, describing it as politically motivated. “Since I defeated some persons in an election that was keenly contested, to emerge as Dean of the faculty, it hasn’t been easy. These allegations are baselessly masterminded by my detractor, who had vowed to ensure that my image is dragged to the mud just because I won the faculty elections twice,” Ndifon told CrossRiverWatch, an online platform. “If you look at the placards, you will discover that the placards have one person’s handwriting. Again, how come the protesters know that we were holding a meeting with the Vice Chancellor if it is not the handiwork of an insider.” 

It is indeed possible, as Ndifon alleged, that campus bad losers may have been behind the protest. But something is not right if allegations of sexual misconduct continue to be levelled against the professor of law. Before I come to why resolving this issue is important for the University of Calabar and the entire university system in Nigeria, I want to take readers through the earlier sex scandal involving Ndifon (as captured in my book).  

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On 29 August 2015, in a letter titled, ‘Report of Sexual Assault and Harassment by Professor Cyril Ndifon on Me’, addressed to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Miss Nkang Akpan told of her harrowing experience when she sat for a test on ‘Law of Trust’, a class taught by Ndifon. The test was to last one hour. However, approximately 40 minutes into the exercise, according to the student, the professor ordered everyone to submit their scripts. As is often the case in such circumstances, students were making frantic efforts to write more, in the hope of properly completing their work. Nkang was unlucky. Ndifon walked up to her, took the script, tore it, and threw the shreds on her seat as he walked away. For a 400-level student, this was an academic death sentence. The implication was that she would not graduate that year. Immediately, the girl was at the mercy of the professor. As she recalled: “All my classmates who saw what happened exclaimed and sympathised with me.” 

The events that followed were captured in the story of the humiliated student who explained that when she was heading back to her hostel with friends, they passed through the faculty as Professor Ndifon was driving in. He asked if the distressed girl still had shreds of the test script. Jubilant and hoping that God had granted her a reprieve and touched the heart of her lecturer, the girl quickly produced the torn script which she had kept in her bag. The Dean then instructed her to gather the pieces of paper, get a new foolscap sheet, and go to his office to recopy it. Keen to ameliorate a situation capable of extending her academic years on campus, the student quickly went to the office of the professor as directed. Her friends waited downstairs, hoping she would soon finish the task and rejoin them. Considering how the Professor of Law later countered the allegation, it is important we first take the story as told by Nkang herself:  

‘I met his secretary and two other staff and explained to them so they could let me sit in their office and write it. He later came into his secretary’s office and told me to go to his private office upstairs so that I could be more comfortable since in his secretary’s office, I was keeping it on my lap to write. On getting to his office, five minutes into when I started writing, he came in with a glass of alcoholic wine, he told me to kiss him with the wine in his mouth and I refused. He offered me the drink and I resisted it, telling him that I don’t like alcoholic drinks. He left me and went downstairs. He came back in another five minutes. This time around, he locked the door and took the key, telling me he also had some work to do while I’ll be recopying the test. He sat on his chair doing his work when suddenly he stood up and walked up to me and asked me again to kiss him. I told him I can’t, and he pretended to let me be and told me I shouldn’t worry that I should continue with what I was writing. Not up to ten minutes after, he walked up to me again, and he tried to force me to take the alcoholic drink.  

‘On my refusal, he put the drink inside his mouth and came to forcefully kiss me. As God would have it, I tightly sealed my lips and while he tried to kiss me with the drink in his mouth, it spilled on the floor and the cloth I wore. He dragged me up from the chair and pushed me to a two-seater seat in his office and told me that he wanted to have sex with me. I bluntly told him that I cannot have sex with him. He dragged my clothes in a bid to remove them, I screamed amidst struggling but there was no way anyone could hear me because his office is on the last floor and his secretary, and two other staff were in his official office on the first floor. He removed his cloth and brought out a condom from a shelf in his office, wore it and penetrated (me) forcefully and painfully. We heard a knock on the door, he picked up his clothes and quickly wore them and acted like everything was normal then he proceeded to open the door. He left me there and went downstairs with the person that knocked.  

‘I seized that opportunity, put myself together and tried to rush up and finish writing the test before he came up again. After about twenty minutes, he came back into the office, and I just finished recopying the test and I submitted it to him. About to leave the office, he pulled me back and locked the door. At this point, my friends that have been waiting for me downstairs started calling repeatedly because they were worried why I stayed too long upstairs. This time around, he came in with a bottle of Guinness Stout which he started drinking. He once again asked me to drink it and I told him that I don’t take alcoholic drink. He told me this time it’s by force that I must drink. He tried to force the drink through the bottle into my mouth and I spat it out on the floor of his office. He dragged me, forcefully opened my mouth, and transferred the drink in his mouth into my mouth. I immediately spat it on the floor of his office again. He got angry and dragged me, telling me to strip off my clothes at the count of three.  

‘At this point, I was tired and exhausted coupled with the fact that I had not eaten since morning. When he finished counting three and I still did not strip like he ordered, he dragged me to the chair, locked my knees with his legs and started dragging my trousers forcefully and in the process spoilt the zip. As exhausted as I was, I started crying and begging him that I was weak and had not eaten since morning. He refused to hear, telling me that I was acting and that I’ll make a very good actress; that he has met a lot of my type so many times. I finally succeeded in pushing him off my body and knelt to beg him since I no longer had the strength to continue struggling. He persisted and pushed me down again, wore a condom and penetrated. When I threatened to faint, he finally told me that I can go and offered to drop me off since I was exhausted. I rejected the offer and told him I was going on my own. He insisted but I strongly refused. At that instance, as I was walking out of his office, staggering and very drowsy, he sent me to help him carry his bag to his car downstairs. That’s when one of his staff and himself locked the faculty and they drove off.’ 

Humiliated and dejected, Nkang said she sat by a new building beside the Law Library, crying. A man driving by saw the young lady in her pathetic state and decided to ask what was wrong. It was the concerned passer-by who reportedly persuaded Nkang to take the matter to the police. At the police station, after she wrote her statement, Nkang was referred to the police clinic where she underwent a medical examination. That marked the beginning of a protracted battle for justice that involved her parents, the police, university authorities and the ICPC.  

Determined to get justice for their daughter, Nkang’s parents took the case to the media. Mrs Irene Akpan also corroborated her daughter’s allegation in a letter to the management of the University of Calabar. She maintained that the lecturer forcibly had sex with her daughter after a fierce struggle. The moment the complaint became public, both the University Registrar, Mr Moses Abang and the Vice Chancellor, Prof James Epoke, described the issue as being of “grave concern to management for such an awful report to be associated with a professor of this University and the Dean of our Law Faculty for that matter.” The accused was asked to answer, in writing, the allegations against him. The university authority subsequently established a panel to investigate the lecturer; and on 11 September 2015, Ndifon was suspended.  

THE FIGHTBACK 

As is perhaps expected, Professor Ndifon disputed the allegations levelled against him by Nkang Akpan. By March 2016, he had filed a suit at the National Industrial Court sitting in Calabar, challenging his suspension. However, in a judgement delivered on 21 September 2016 by Justice Eunice Agbakoba, the suspension was affirmed. Ndifon then approached the Federal High Court, Calabar, where he joined issues with the ICPC and the accuser as respondents. In addition to asking the court to grant him an ex-parte order for the enforcement of his fundamental rights, the lecturer sought an interim injunction restraining the ICPC from “harassing, molesting, arresting, abducting, detaining or further threatening to arrest and detain” him.

According to Ndifon, he was invited for questioning on the date the student laid her criminal report against him with the police in Calabar. When he reported at the station, he was arrested, detained, and subsequently released on bail. After the police conducted a discreet and thorough investigation into the matter, according to Ndifon, nothing incriminating was found against him. Apparently not satisfied with the police investigation, Nkang’s parents petitioned the State Security Service (SSS), Calabar Office; and on that account, he was rearrested, detained, and again released on bail.

Still, in Ndifon’s account, at about the time officers were concluding their investigation, an NGO, the Nigerian Feminist Forum (NFF), petitioned the Inspector General of Police, requesting him to take over the case from the Cross River Command. The matter was subsequently transferred to the Force Headquarters in Abuja for investigation. The lecturer asserted that he was further subjected to another cycle of arrest, detention, and bail. As with previous investigations, he noted that nothing incriminating was found against him. 

Ndifon further stated that his main concern in approaching the court was that, while the parties were awaiting the official police report, the ICPC Chairman, Mr Ekpo Nta, speaking at a public function in Abuja on 17 September 2015, announced that the commission had concluded arrangements to prosecute him (Ndifon) for alleged abuse of office. The lecturer alluded to an alleged claim by the accuser and her parents that the ICPC chairman, being their relation, had assured them that the commission would deal with him. To Ndifon, therefore, the ‘hasty’ presumption of guilt and the ICPC decision to prosecute him supported the alleged threats by the Akpans. The professor alleged: “The operatives and men of the ICPC are unabatedly hounding, harassing, and threatening to arrest and detain me even upon the same incident, allegations, facts, circumstances and matters which are presently pending investigations at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, and the Department of the State Security (DSS), Calabar. I also know as a fact that the respondent’s threat to arrest and detain me under the foregoing circumstances is wrongful and unlawful.”

NTA RESPONDS 

The former ICPC Chairman has denied any relationship with Ndifon’s accuser. “I am not in any way related to the girl and never knew her until the scandal broke. In fact, the investigation by the ICPC on the alleged abuse of public office was based on a petition sent by the victim’s mother,” said Nta, currently Chair of the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission (NSIWC), during our chat at his office in Abuja in December 2019. According to him, the whole idea of fighting abuse of power on campuses started following the collaboration between the National Universities Commission (NUC) and ICPC, which led to the University System Study and Review (USSR) to address corrupt practices in the university system. “This gave rise to several students, parents and other stakeholders seeking redress from ICPC over abuse of processes, including malicious non-release of results, victimization, and sexual harassment. The petition on Ndifon was just one of such petitions received. Other similar ones came from Ambrose Alli University and the University of Lagos,” Nta said. 

Aside the petition to the ICPC by Nkang’s mother, there were other interventions on the matter. For instance, the ‘Class of 1997’ Alumni of the University of Calabar Faculty of Law, in an online petition dated 14 September 2015, demanded for Ndifon to be prosecuted. Claiming, as his former students, to know the professor very well, the alumni members, 31 in number, made several damaging allegations against Ndifon before concluding with what they considered to be the critical issues in the case. Some are as follows: 

‘It is against university regulations for a lecturer to hold a test on a Saturday in a programme that is full time. Assuming that the girl had been guilty of examination malpractice as alleged by Prof Ndifon, tearing up her answer script was not the proper course of action to take, as the university has a clear protocol for dealing with examination malpractice issues. Assuming that the girl had been guilty of examination malpractice, Prof Ndifon had no authority whatsoever to forgive her as she broke university rules, not his private rules. In asking her to recopy the answers on a fresh sheet, he therefore acted ultra vires as a lecturer; and, in covering up a wrongdoing, he fell afoul of university regulations. In fact, he broke extant law. There is no satisfactory explanation for why Prof Ndifon took the girl from his office as a Dean, where there were two or three other people, to his personal office as
a lecturer – where there was absolutely nobody. The facts reveal that the girl had been carefully chosen as a target.’ 

However, there was a contention about whether the petition was authorised. In a statement released two days after the petition went viral, Mr James Ibor expressed regret over “the embarrassment caused to all the persons wrongly named as signatories in the petition” while promising that “an authorized statement duly signed will be published soon.” 

BATTLE OF WITS 

Ndifon’s defence before the University of Calabar authorities, set out in his response to the query from the office of the registrar dated 2 September 2015, is certainly interesting. After a lengthy account as to what transpired in his two offices between him and the student, Ndifon deployed his knowledge of law and logic to argue that it was impossible for a sexually harassed female student to behave in the manner reported in Nkang’s police statement. He wrote: “According to Ms Nkang Sinemobong Ekong, I locked up the office, dragged her clothes and raped her and her screams [for] help were not heard because my office was on the last floor of the building.” This, the professor claimed, was mere fantasy. Quoting from the accuser’s statement as to how he supposedly went to open the door for someone who had knocked, before coming back to further molest her, Ndifon raised critical posers:  

‘At this juncture, certain fundamental questions beg for answers. Why will a hapless girl who a while ago screamed for help not seize the golden opportunity of the sudden presence of a third party to ask for help and rescue? Why will a hapless girl who is being raped still find the composure to complete the academic assignment of recopying the test without any fear or trauma whatsoever? Why will a hapless girl who is being raped in an office still find comfort to remain in the same office even after the assailant had left the office for about 20 minutes instead of fleeing from this ugly scene? When her worried friend repeatedly called her phones in my absence when I went downstairs, why did she not inform them of her abduction and assault in my office? As a follow-up, whilst her parents alleged in their attached petition that I seized her phones, the student is stating the contrary that she was in possession of the phone even in my absence. Why this contradiction? Who do we believe?   

‘Why will the hapless girl who had the opportunity to escape stay back until I returned for another round of un-consented sex with her? Why will the same girl who had been raped repeatedly be so ‘nice’ to carry my bag from the office to the car at the parking lot, and when she met staff at the Faculty of Law, she never seized the opportunity to report the incident to them? One is curious and will like to ask why would a person that has just been raped and traumatized choose not to report to the university’s security post which is five metres from the scene, and the Medical Centre which is also is five minutes’ drive from the scene? These first responders (security post and medical centre) are closer to the ‘victim’ than the Airport police station.’ 

THE POLICE EXONERATION 

The police exonerated Ndifon in June 2016, after completing their investigation. According to the report signed by Assistant Superintendent of Police Babatunde Lasisi of the ‘Force Gender Unit’ in Abuja, three findings were made, none of which indicted the accused. “The evidence of the complainant, according to the police report, [was] incoherent and partly disjointed; there is no material evidence to corroborate the testimonies of the complainant and build this offence of rape around the suspect sufficiently. Sexual intercourse is deemed complete upon proof of penetration of the penis into the vagina,” Lasisi wrote.  

The report added that the police officers who took Nkang’s statement after the alleged incident, observed that she looked “too calm” to have undergone such harassment. “The voluntary statement of the medical officer revealed that the complainant’s clothing was intact, no sign of rumpling nor torn pant, and she was calm as she gave her stories.” The report further noted that, upon examination: “There was no bleeding part of her body, no laceration, abrasions nor bruises on her body. On vaginal examination, her panties were not stained, normal female external genitals observed, no abrasion, bruises, no laceration. There was no hyperemia to show forceful penetration within her vulva and pineal region including her anus.” 

Nkang’s parents dismissed the police report as dubious. “The police went to the scene six days after the report was lodged, at about 8 p.m. the following Thursday, after the incident happened on Saturday, August 29, 2015. This indicates compromise by the police there,” Nkang’s parents said. The ICPC, meanwhile, continued their investigations. In March 2017, a Federal High Court sitting in Calabar ruled that the commission had the right to investigate Ndifon. In setting aside the police report upon which Ndifon had sought to restrain the ICPC, Justice I.E. Ekwo concluded that other issues had arisen which were within the purview of the ICPC to investigate. The judge added that the offence of sexual gratification was contrary to Sections 8, 9, and 19 of the ICPC Act, which refer to any public officer who receives benefit of any kind in the discharge of his duties or uses his position to confer corrupt advantage upon himself. 

However, relying on the police report that exonerated him, the University of Calabar recalled Ndifon in November 2017, along with another suspended lecturer, Mr Joseph Odok. Upon his reinstatement, Ndifon held a church thanksgiving service where a clergyman and lecturer with the Catholic Institute of West Africa (CIWA), Rev. Fr. Francis Adeyemi asked him to “forgive” the accuser and her family. “Seek not for vengeance, put your trust first in God, for vengeance belongs to God who is in heaven. For many who would have similar experience would want to seek fetish means for solution,” said the priest. 

Reputed as the first Professor of Law from Cross River, Ndifon is by no means a small man in the South-South state. This was reflected in the number of prominent personalities in attendance at the church service. “What happened was that they aimed to destroy my career, reputation, the reputation of my family, my village, state, and everything that I stand for. They took me and my family through the valley of the shadow of death, but God delivered me and did not allow their scheme to succeed,” Ndifon told the congregation. “You won’t understand that there was an unseen hand manipulating and directing the movie but, in all things, I give God thanks, I always saw the hand of God. The fact that I am alive today is a miracle. If not for God, there were many avenues to have brought me down. When the medical report came out, I was exonerated, when the police report came out, I was exonerated and they passed the file from Federal Attorney General to the State Attorney General but in all these, they gave the verdict that I had no case to answer; and to sum it up, it shows the favour of God.” 

Although the case appears to have gone cold – the Court of Appeal did not sit on 25 September 2019 when the matter was to come up for hearing again – the accuser, Nkang Akpan, seems to have moved on. She completed her Law degree with a Second Class Upper. She also made Second Class at the Nigerian Law School. 

ENDNOTE:  

It is interesting that more than three years after the publication of my book, fresh allegations of impropriety are being levelled against Professor Ndifon by his students. Even if Ndifon is innocent of the new accusation, the University of Calabar has a problem on its hands. If one of their most respected lecturers continues to face this kind of accusation from his female students, can the authorities continue to ignore it? Similarly, can a University also sanction an accused lecturer who claims innocence and there is no evidence with which to prove otherwise? This is particularly difficult considering that the last time they tried, Professor Ndifon was exonerated by the police. 

Beyond the case at the University of Calabar, we must deal with what has become a systemic challenge. The latest Ndifon allegation broke on Monday, sparking an avalanche of stories on social media by women who recall their experiences on campus at the hands of lecherous lecturers. I also detailed many cases across different campuses in Nigeria and 29 other countries on the continent in my book. Incidentally, with the controversy generated over the content of a blurb, I withdrew copies of the first edition from circulation and gave them free to Universities, NGOs, and development agencies. In my column on 30^th September 2020, I rendered account of how the 5000 copies were shared. 

Meanwhile, I was approached by the then Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Professor Eyitayo Ogunbodede for a collaboration to organize a Webinar with the theme, ‘Finding safe spaces for female students in Nigerian Universities’. The University provided the platform for the session which held on 16th September of that year. Fortunately, all the people I invited agreed to participate. And they all did, including former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, GCON, who gave a keynote speech and stayed for more than an hour after. My Governor, Mr Abdulraham Abdulrazaq, and former Governor of Cross River State, Mr Donald Duke, also joined in. And so did Harvard Professor, Jacob Olupona, and Ekpo Nta, who as ICPC Chairman started to beam searchlight on university lecturers who abuse their trust. I republished the book after the Webinar to accommodate the contributions of eminent personalities. 

The current edition, which features seven fresh chapters from the Webinar, captures the interventions by Osinbajo, then Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege, the 14th Emir of Kano, HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II, First Lady of Ekiti State, Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi (who also wrote the book’s foreword), WRAPA Secretary General, Hajiya Saudatu Mahdi and the late Director, West Africa Office, Ford Foundation, Mr Innocent Chukwuma of blessed memory who provided the grant for my research. Other interventions in the book include those by President of the Queens College, Lagos Alumni and former Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Chairperson, Mrs Ifueko Omoigui Okauru, former Head of Service of the Federation, Mr Steve Oronsaye and that by Prof. Joy Ezeilo of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Views canvassed by Lagos lawyer, Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika, SAN as well as by Professor Okey Ikechukwu and Prof. Francisca Aladejano are also reflected.  

The main takeaway from the Webinar is that in Nigeria, we are yet to deal with the challenge of unequal power and the abuse that goes with it in our university system. While the social dysfunction that encourages this misconduct on university campuses may be an aspect of a larger problem of corruption in Nigeria, the conclusion of participants was that there should be no place for sexual predation in an environment of learning. That’s why I hope that the University of Calabar will find a way to resolve what I referred to as ‘The Cyril Ndifon Palaver’ in my book with justice availed to all parties while at the same time offering female students the needed comfort for a safe campus environment. 

Interested readers can get copies of the book on Amazon: