The danger posed by political violence to the current electioneering campaigns was brought to the fore by the Inspector General of Police IGP, Usman Baba at a recent meeting with leaders of political parties.

The IGP took time to identify all forms of political violence with a view to highlighting how manifest intolerance of opposing views and violent infractions negate virile democratic engagement. But he left a damning verdict when he unequivocally accused unnamed state governors of being the main sponsors of electoral violence across the country.

“We have been receiving reports of some state governors who encourage political thugs and sub-national security outfits under their control to disrupt seamless and statutory campaign activities of parties and candidates with whom they hold opposing political views,” he told his audience.

Before the IGP’s parley, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, Mahmood Yakubu had alerted on the dangers of rising political violence across the country warning that such tendencies run against the electoral law. He was pique by the denial of access to campaigns facilities and attacks on political parties campaigning in states of opposing political persuasions. Similar alarm was also raised by the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN and the Sultan of Sokoto,  Sa’ad Abubakar 111.

The issues raised by the IGP are two folds. The first speaks of the deployment and use of political thugs by governors to attack, harm and disrupt the campaign activities of opposing political parties. The other which is a concomitant of the current state of insecurity across the country is the deployment of sub-national or regional security outfits under the control of the governors to partisan political purposes.

Both manifestations are serious as they portend danger to the unfolding political competition; free, fair and credible elections. Political violence is not an entirely new story as the history of elections in this country has been a tale of sordid infractions. Since the commencement of electioneering campaigns on September 28, 52 cases of politically motivated inter-party and intra-party violence have been recorded across 22 states. This is in addition to other unrecorded election-propelled violence in various parts of the country.

In Maiduguri, Borno State, the campaign train of the People Democratic PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar was attacked even as a similar act of pre-meditated violence was re-enacted when he campaigned in Kaduna State. Though the Borno State police command initially denied the incident, events were later to show clearly that many vehicles in his convoy were damaged with people sustaining degrees of injury.

There have also been reports of disruption of campaigns and damaging of campaign billboard in Enugu, Ebonyi, Rivers and some other states. The state office of INEC in Ogun State was also burnt and electoral materials destroyed. All these have raised fresh fears of violence as the elections get underway.

It is good a thing the security agencies are seriously challenged by the rising tempo of political violence and have pledged to stem the tide. Ours is a system elections are prosecuted as a matter of life and death because of the easy access to wealth and unlimited opportunities they offer.

Each round of elections has remained a tale of sorrow and awe as lives and properties of inestimable value are lost due to the inordinate desire by politicians to undo their opponents by all means.  More than 1,149 persons including INEC staff were reportedly killed in the three elections held in 2011, 2015 and 2019. INEC was estimated to have lost 9,836 smart cards readers in more than 42 violent attacks on its offices in three years.

A former IGP, Hafiz Ringim said 520 persons including nine National Youth Service Corps NYSC members died in Niger, Jigawa, Bauchi, Kano and Kaduna states following the violence that trailed the election of Jonathan in 2011. These are just a fraction of the unmitigated harm wrought on lives and properties of innocent citizens by political intolerance incited and promoted by cut-throat politics sustained by the refusal of political leaders to accept defeat.

With this sordid political past, the alarm by the IGP and other concerned citizens can be better contextualized. The danger of escalated violence is even more potent now given the governors’ angle to election violence and the unceasing insecurity in many parts of the country that has overstretched the capacities of security agencies.

The observation that some governors deploy regional security outfits to attack and disrupt the campaign activities of those who hold opposing political views should not be taken lightly. In the wake of the escalating violence that has defied reasonable handle, some state governors were compelled to set up security outfits ostensibly to protect their people from the violent attacks of sundry marauders.

While some of these have been performing on their mandate, in some other states, the story has been a different kettle of fish. Copious allegations of the deployment of regional security outfits to serve selfish political objectives have been rife in the southeast. We have seen one or two governors in that zone accusing the opposition of being behind the cycle of unending violence in their states. With such a mind-set, the attitude and disposition of those security outfits to opposition can be better imagined. They may get even more deadly during elections.

There is the temptation to view the IGP’s statement as part of the ploy by the police establishment to suffocate the rising demand for state police. Ironically, the action of the governors seems to lend credence to the abuse of the mandate of the regional security outfits. If they can deploy these security outfits to partisan ends, they are ipso facto confirming some of the fears of those opposed to state police.

In all, the danger of heightened violence before, during and after the general elections can only be ignored with dire consequences. Even with the Abdulsalami Abubakar National Peace Committee which committed the parties to a peace agreement at the commencement of the campaigns, there is nothing to indicate the parties are prepared to take that undertaking seriously. Their actions are beginning to convey the miserable impression that the accord is not worth more than the piece of paper on which it was signed. Or how else do we account for the escalated violence in parts of the country on account of hate speech, fake news and political intolerance?

Other incubators of violence are built in the pattern of the unfolding political competition, the actions and inactions of the electoral body as well as the ruinous culture by politicians to deploy hook and crook to sabotage and frustrate innovations aimed at enhancing the overall credibility of elections. Such negative tendencies are already manifesting.

They are evident in the manipulation of the voters’ register by inserting fictitious names, underage and double registrations among some other high-wire infractions. They could also come in the form of denying registrants access to quick collection of their voters cards under sundry guises. Some officials of INEC have been found complicit in these manipulations and we are told they will face the full weight of the law.

It is imperative to figure out how they intend to deploy those fake and fictitious names during the elections proper. Allegations of high wire vote buying and sundry strategies to compromise the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS have been copiously traded. These should be interrogated further.

The success of the coming elections will hinge essentially on the determination and commitment of the electoral umpire and security agencies to play by the rules. INEC must work with security agencies to arrest and prosecute all those bent on inventing devious strategies to compromise the integrity of the coming elections.

Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire must have underestimated the gravity of the challenge when he rationalized the emigration of Nigerian doctors as just part of the global trend.

Answering reporters’ question, he said his contacts with health authorities in the United Kingdom, UK, indicated that their doctors were leaving for Canada, New Zealand and other countries that pay better. He further cited Ghana and Egypt as countries facing similar experiences even as European doctors move to countries in Europe where salaries are better. That may well be. Ironically, Nigeria does not witness the same influx of foreign doctors into its territory.

The minister shocked many when he said Nigeria has a surplus as it produces 3,000 doctors every year while those leaving are just about 1,000. When this is juxtaposed against Nigeria’s doctor per patient ratio which stands at one doctor per 5,000 in contrast with World Health Organization (WHO)’s recommended ratio of one doctor to 600 patients, the claim of surplus turns out a tall order.

How this statistics qualifies the country as having a surplus of doctors is left to be imagined. Why our leaders prefer medical tourism abroad in the face of the touted surplus, is part of the puzzle in justifying the mass exodus of our doctors on the mono causal explanation of the lure of high salaries.

Perhaps, the minister tangentially touched on some of the other factors propelling the exodus of doctors when he said the federal government was only concerned with experienced medical doctors who leave the country. Hear him: “At a very senior level of those who have post graduate training, we are doing everything to improve their conditions of service. We are also talking about engaging those who have spent many years abroad; who are specialists and who know a lot of high tech medicine to work with us even if it is virtually, to do virtual consultations”.

That would suggest other angles to why our doctors leave in droves to other lands. Obsolete healthcare facilities and equipment, poor conditions of service and job insecurity coupled with incessant strikes as governments fail to meet their obligation to health workers are some of the other reasons that encourage the flight of medical personnel from this country.

It is not for nothing that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) rated Nigeria as one of the three leading African sources of foreign born physicians. The reason goes beyond the world migration trend for medical personnel and points to systemic dysfunctions in the political economies of countries prone to emigration of its doctors.

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Off course, remuneration is a key issue. But we run the risk of ignoring the complex web of socio-political and economic challenges that generally add up to swell the urge by Nigerians to flee the country in droves if we just focus on that singular factor. Doctors’ emigration is just a tip of the iceberg of the large number of our citizens both young and old, professionals and the unskilled, regularly seeking all manner of means to flee the harsh living conditions in the country.

According to a report published by the African Polling Institute in 2021, seven out of 10 Nigerians were willing to leave the country if given the opportunity. Back in 2019, the same report showed that only 32 per cent of Nigerians wanted to leave. That should be instructive of the roles played by government policies and a host of socio-economic factors in facilitating migration to other lands. We shall return to this.

The above has a lot in common with a report by Afro barometer- a pan African and non-partisan research network which in 2018 showed that one in every three Nigerians considered emigration for better economic opportunities.

Yet, the Federal Commissioner for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons NCFRMI, Sadiya Farouk revealed that over 17 million Nigerians are currently living in various countries of the world. Out of this, he said 36,000 arrived Europe by sea risking their lives through dangerous routes, long treks across the desert resulting in many cases to deaths.

If these are not enough to demonstrate the desperation by Nigerian citizens to migrate to other countries in their numbers, emerging statistics from the government of the UK will drive this further home. Nigerian citizens are said to account for 40 per cent of all dependants who accompanied foreign students to that country in the 12 months to June.

Incidentally, Nigerian students make up only seven per cent of all foreign students over the same period. On the average, Nigerian students bring in one dependant each compared with an overall ratio for foreign students of one in six. This has seen the authorities in the UK mulling the idea of placing restrictions on foreign students bringing dependants to the country.

It is instructive that the new policy to limit the number of dependants brought into the country by students is borne out of the seeming abuse to which Nigerian students subjected the previous regulation. Does that say something about the desperation of Nigerians to flee their country through all manner of guises?

Yes, citizens of countries including doctors are bound to emirate for one reason or the other. Nigeria may not be alone in this. Yet, emerging statistics on the rate of this emigration in the last couple of years speak of citizens in serious existential distress.

Scorching unemployment, job losses, debilitating poverty and high level of insecurity are some of the factors propelling the lure to leave the country. This is a country with many of the youths qualified and ready to work but cannot find anything to lay their hands on. Those who are lucky to find something doing, live on subsistence as their salaries can barely feed them.

In the face of high level of unemployment, employers have become tin gods. The mood they wake up each morning, determines who retains his job and who does not. So even those that manage to secure jobs are not even sure how long they will last in those jobs. It is no longer news that Nigeria is rated the poverty capital of the world.

Just last week, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released a damning report in which it said of the about 200 million Nigerian population, 133 million are multi-dimensionally poor. The report further revealed that 63 per cent of Nigerians are poor due to lack of access to health, education, living standards, unemployment and insecurity.

That in essence, captures the combination of factors that diminish the confidence of the citizens in the capacity of the Nigerian state to cater for its burgeoning population. And they account for the urge to flee the country in the hope of finding some respite on other shores.

So we are left with the role of leaders past and present; their inability to turn around the great potentials (both human and material) which Mother Nature endowed this country bountifully for the good of her citizens. That is the crux of the matter-the failure of governance. That failure swells desperation in all ranks of the citizenry forcing them to seek both legal and the illegal means to exit the country even at the risk of death.

It is the failure of leadership that accounts for medical tourism by those in positions in authority. Sadly, these are the very people with the responsibility to reverse the trajectory. The same explains the high preference for foreign degrees as our universities have become former ghosts of themselves due to incessant strikes on account of the inability of the government to fund them properly.

The same top officials of the government both state and federal have been scandalously flaunting the graduation pictures of their sons and daughters from foreign universities. The message we get from this is a loss of confidence in the capacity of our educational and health institutions to provide quality goods and services.

This country has passed through this route before. Faced with similar situation in the mid-80s, government’s response was to mount serious campaigns to restore the confidence of Nigerians in the capacity of the country to survive. We are at the same trajectory again. It is doubtful whether such campaigns can discourage the army of Nigerians seeking refuge abroad in the face of debilitating challenges constantly tilting the country to the brink.

Certainly, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila played uncommon role in seeing to the suspension of the eight months strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU). Though the National Industrial Court (NIC) had ordered the union to go back to classes, Gbajabiamila and his colleagues were quick to give hope to the striking teachers that mutually acceptable grounds could still be reached on some of the issues in dispute.

A number of meetings were subsequently held between the union and the House leadership on the one hand; the presidency and the House on the other. The meetings inspired so much hope after the court ruling that even the counsel to the union, Femi Falana, publicly expressed reasonable confidence that its outcome would yield positive results in the overall interests of ASUU and students.

Equally upbeat at the prospect of the new engagement to resolve the “no work, no pay” debacle, the speaker had after a meeting with President Buhari said “the House has done its part to end the months long ASUU strike and Nigerians will hear the outcome of the deliberations from the President”. That raised hope.

But the president was yet to be heard before ASUU announced suspension of the strike; acknowledging the efforts of President Buhari and well-meaning Nigerians including the speaker of House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila. That perhaps, was indicative of the level of confidence they had on the outcome of the meetings they had with the house leadership on behalf of the government. ASUU president, Emmanuel Osodeke showed that much while commending the speaker when he said, if those in charge of education and labour had handled the matter the way he did, the strike would not have lasted more than two weeks or so.

That was the mood of the union as it looked forward for the payment of the backlog of salaries of member withheld during the period of the strike. But this optimism was jolted when Falana called on Gbajabiamila and all those who pressurized ASUU to call off the strike to mount similar pressure on the government to implement all the agreements reached with the union. He gave no details of those agreements. But behind the call lay the suspicion that all was not well with the agreements brokered by the House leadership.

The payment of October salaries ‘pro rata’ was all needed to prove conclusively that nothing really changed as the government was bent on extracting a pound of flesh from the lecturers for daring go on strike. That may have been the foreboding signal Falana got before his exhortation. And he has been proved right.

ASUU has complained bitterly that her members are being treated as casual workers by the manner of that salary payment. And this has again stirred up a crisis of confidence between its members and the government. For a group that has been without salaries for eight months, it was not funny receiving partial payment for work done.

This prompted an emergency national executive committee meeting of the union to take a position. Though the union has ruled out another round of strike, it feels sufficiently betrayed that all the assurances that its members would be paid backlog of their salaries were after all, a subterfuge to get them back to classes in the face of the court order.

And if the government could not pay then fully for their services in the month of October, further hope of getting the eight months arrears would amount to an exercise in wishful thinking. So what was the benefit of the intervention of the House leadership? Was the speaker really sincere in his dealings with ASUU or he got betrayed by those on whose behalf he engaged the union? How did things get out of hands such that the union failed to get any reprieve on the issue of salaries?

These searing posers beg for reasonable answers given reports that, the speaker said during the negotiations there was no need to sign any agreement on the promises he made on behalf of the government because it was all about trust.

So where is that trust now?  That is the burden Gbajabiamila will have to live with for now. The speaker was not under any compulsion to wade into the ASUU crisis as it was not really within the purview of the National Assembly. But he must have been spurred by the effects of the lingering strike in the face of the inability of the labour and education ministries to find mutually acceptable solutions to issues in contention.

Unfortunately, the turn of events has begun to raise questions as to whether anything was really gained from that intervention. It was nonetheless good he intervened. But such intervention will only have meaning if it is a marked improvement on the status quo. That has failed to happen.

Apparently to save his name, Gbajabiamila was quick to issue a statement in which he sought to give hope to ASUU that decisions on issues to the strike are getting appropriate hearing.  He spoke on increased allocations to the education sector in the 2023 Appropriation Bill, the progress in UTAS/IPPIS payment systems and their intention to organize a National Summit on Tertiary Education. Though some of these are not anything new, the speaker’s plea for calm is noteworthy in view of the bad blood generated by the salary payment pro rata.

But he must have disappointed many when he sought to justify the contentious pro rata salary payment thus, “the executive’s position that it is not obligated to pay salaries to lecturers for the time spent on strike is premised on the law and government’s legitimate interest in preventing moral hazard and discouraging disruptive industrial actions”.

The legal dimension on “no work, no pay” is nothing new. That was the basis for not paying the lecturers during the strike. It is not also in doubt that the government has very strong aversion to strikes. These positions were there before the intervention of the House leadership. It is preposterous to turn around and deploy them as justification for not getting any concession from the government on the lecturers’ salary payment.

The speaker’s claim that interventions have been made to explore the possibility of ‘partial payment to the lecturers and he looks forward to a favourable consideration by Buhari who manifested desire to what is prudent and necessary to resolve all outstanding issues’ is full of sound and fury but signifies little. The mind-set of the government has already been exposed by the partial payment of the October salaries and reasons to justify it.

The government has taken a position. That seems to have foreclosed any hope of partial payment to the lecturers. The president has had sufficient time to take a decision on the issues presented to him by the House leadership. If after all these, he approved the pro rata payment, what is there again to repose hope on?

The impression is that of a government bent on playing for time with the agenda of throwing the union under a moving bus for daring to go on strike. It may have been buoyed by the ruling of the NIC which ordered ASUU to resume classes. But that is not all there is to issues of this nature. Viewing the crisis from the prism of a zero sum game misses the point and could prove counterproductive.

We are dealing with human beings; intellectuals for that matter. Yes, the court can compel them to go back to classes. But the same courts have no way of getting the best out of them. A highly demoralized, hungry, frustrated and unmotivated teaching force is all that is needed to finally decapitate the university system in this country.

It is doubtful if that is what the government wants of our university system. The government has also registered two other university unions to possibly supplant ASUU. Their effect on labour harmony is a matter of conjecture. The posturing and temperament of the government may provoke another round of crisis with devastating effects on the future of this country. We shudder at such prospects.

A responsive and patriotic leadership would go beyond legalism; muster the necessary will to save the university system from the precipice into which it is irretrievably headed. The law on ‘no work, no pay’ should be made to wear a human face. After all, the lecturers are already covering up for lost grounds.

The third quarterly meeting of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and political parties threw up issues with profound implications for representative democracy. First was the disclosure by INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu that Nigeria’s voting strength now stood at 93.5 million. The figure was arrived at after successful registration of 12.29 million Nigerians in the recently concluded continuous voter registration exercise.

Its breakdown showed that of the 12.29 million newly registered voters, about 8.7 million representing 71 per cent are youths between 18 and 34 years of age. The statistics also showed that about 2.4 million of those successfully registered are between the ages of 35 and 49 while the number of women was higher than that of men.

The new voters’ strength is as interesting as it is a veritable statement on the perception of Nigerians of what the coming elections hold for their future. For one, it shows increased civic awareness and determination by youths to have greater say in the affair of the country.

They may have come to terms with the reality that the surest way to enthrone good governance is to exercise this basic civic right during elections. This is particularly so for the younger population to whom the future largely belongs. And given the events of the recent past, it is little surprising that the youths posted a very impressive record of 8.7 million voters in the last continuous voters’ registration exercise.

It does not only denote increased interest by the youths to influence the direction of affairs in their country but also an expression of dissatisfaction with the way the ship of the nation had hitherto been piloted by leaders past and present. The serial squandering of vast opportunities and huge resources of this country has had the net effect of alienating the youthful population while sowing seeds of serious resentment and frustration.

They seem determined more than ever before to take their collective destinies in their hands. If this enthusiasm is a measure of their burning desire for genuine change, then there is hope for the future.

For this optimism to be fully realized, the youths must rise above primordial predilections by focusing on developmental issues with higher prospects of extricating the burgeoning population from debilitating poverty and hopelessness. This enthusiasm should reflect in the choices they make of the policies and programmes of political parties that offer the greatest prospects of promoting common good.

But for them do this, their votes must count. And that takes us to the other key issue raised by Mahmood during the session with the leadership of the political parties. He had told his audience that after a rigorous clean-up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System, ABIS, that more than 2.78 million names were identified and removed as ineligible registrants.

He said the commission identified 23 of its registration officers for sanctions for engaging in multiple registrations. Some of them were said to have even made more than 40 attempts to enrol a single ineligible registrant. That is how far some officials went to compromise the voters’ register.

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It is good a thing INEC was able to clean up a whopping 2.78 million fake names from the last registration exercise. This figure consists of double/multiple registration, underage persons and outright fake registrations.

Given the high number of the names delisted, it would appear somewhat curious that only 23 officers were identified for such infractions. It is highly improbable that only 23 staff members could register 2.78 million of the removed names. INEC may have other reasons for this ambiguity.

It is also amazing that INEC remained silent on the motive of the offending officials. Were they acting for themselves or induced to do what they did for pecuniary promptings? That brings in the issue of collaboration. Since the said officials are not contesting elections and may not be from the areas they sought to bloat the voters’ register, it is safe to conclude that they did it at the behest of some interests.

Identifying those interests and what purposes they intended to put the fake registrations to are equally important in getting at the substance of the matter. Definitely, the officers were not acting alone. INEC should get at the root of those who influenced and financed the fake registrations.

Before INEC came out with its findings on fictitious registrations, the spokesman of the Coalition of United Political Parties CUPP, Ikenga Ugochinyere had alerted that the national voters’ register is filled with fake, fictitious and foreign names. He had said at a press conference that some of the names were sourced from foreign countries while some registrants were captured from passport photographs and other event-related pictures in the public space.

He had fingered Imo State as a typical case of states where fake registrations took place. Imo State government denied the accusation and called for the arrest of the CUPP spokesman. But the reaction of INEC was somewhat different.

INEC spokesman, Festus Okoye commended the group for their concern but cautioned against such interventions being done in a manner to create doubts and diminish the integrity of the electoral process. Okoye clarified that INEC will only add new names to the register after conducting ABIS clean-up  of the registration data which it was yet to do at the time CUPP spoke.

So when the commission later came up with the high figures removed from the register, identifying 23 of its compromising officials for sanctions, it became obvious that the CUPP was not just crying wolf. It was on a voyage on whistle-blowing for which it should be commended.

The electoral law also mandates the commission to publish the register for public viewing; identification of errors and corrections. So the voters’ register is a public document that should ordinarily be available to all and sundry.

Curiously, Ugochinyere is now alleging an attempt to arrest him for speaking out on the monumental infractions in the voters’ register. In a trending video, he alleged a plot by the police in Imo State to arrest and arraign him for the source of his information on fake registrations before INEC cleaned up the register. He is piqued that the police are more interested in probing the source of the information rather than those who perpetrated the fraud.

If it is true that the law enforcement agencies are more interested in unravelling the source of the information leak rather than the perpetrators of the fraud, then there is something to worry about.

And we ask: when has credible whistle blowing become an offence? The essence of the intervention of the CUPP was to sanitize the voters’ register by ensuring that duplicitous manoeuvres are kept off it. That task is a patriotic one as its overall goal is to enhance the credibility and integrity of elections. Turning around to hound those who volunteered credible information sends wrong signals of official compromise.

It is important that we get at the root of the fictitious names and their sponsors given that politicians go at lengths to compromise the outcome of elections. INEC has serious work to do to ensure the overall credibility of the coming elections given the high interest it has generated. The sanctity of the voters register is vital but not the only source of election compromise.

Much would still depend on logistics-the deployment of voting materials and conduct of security officials on the day of election. Even with the enthusiasm in the capacity of technology and direct transmission of election results to enhance outcome, all will still depend on the adequacy, timely deployment of materials and the functionality of the BVAS during elections. Nothing should be done to compromise the collective will of the electorate to determine leaders of their choice this time around.

It will be grave national risk to ignore the alarm by former defence minister, Theophilus Danjuma of a possible re-colonization of Nigeria by rampaging bandits.  Danjuma’s latest allegation fits into a similar one he raised in 2018, accusing the military of bias and harbouring an agenda in ethnic cleansing.

He had then alleged: “Our armed forces are not neutral. They collude with the armed bandits to kill people, kill Nigerians. The armed forces guide their movements. They cover them. If you are depending on the armed forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one”. He called on those facing such attacks to defend themselves.

The ministry of defence took the allegations seriously with a promise to investigate and bring to book any personnel found culpable. But it accused the Taraba State government (Danjuma’s home state) of not writing it on the alleged infractions by security personnel.

Taraba State government was to deny the claim when it came up with documented instances the federal government and the military were informed of security breaches and soldiers’ misconduct but were utterly ignored.

The issue has lingered such that compelled Danjuma last week to reinforce his earlier position. In his latest outing at an installation ceremony in Wukari, Taraba State, he recalled that when he warned a few years ago that the armed forces are either not capable or unwilling to protect the citizens and called for self-defence, the ministry of defence denied there was anything of such. Then also, the same defence ministry had accused him of lying as there was no evidence to support the allegation. But now, ‘there is evidence’ he said.

“The whole country now is being overrun and one very clear thing happening now is that these foreign invaders are destroying everything and our government allowed them to come into the country. They are trying to re-colonize us and take over our land. This country with the largest population of black men is being brought to ruin by absolutely useless criminals”, he lamented.

These are no doubt, very weighty and serious statements. Their weight is further reinforced given that Danjuma now seeks to deploy them as evidence that the alarm he raised a few years ago, were after all, not a hoax. He is entitled to that view given the realities on the ground.

Danjuma is a very influential and respected Nigerian who rarely comments on national affairs. As a former chief of army staff and defence minister, he is no doubt, deep rooted in the dynamics of the country’s security operations. So, he is in a familiar turf to draw attention to events within the country’s security architecture. He deserves to be taken seriously. 

When he spoke in 2018, the insurgency of the herdsmen was only very pronounced in the few states of Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Kaduna. That was the period farmers in those states alleged that even when reports of impending attacks were made at military posts around them, such attacks eventually take place without the military coming to their aid.

‘Operation Cat Race’ designed to halt wanton killings in the north central arrived with a barrage of criticisms. Benue and Taraba states openly alleged that herdsmen who fled after the killings in some of their communities, made triumphant return with their cows when the military exercise began and have since resumed attacks on vulnerable communities. They cited continuing killings in the face of the military exercise as evidence of its failure. That was the subsisting environment Danjuma spoke in 2018.

Four years thereon, he now has cause to say that the alarm he raised then was after all, not a wild goose chase. He says there is now ample evidence to countermand claims by the military that he had no evidence for what he said then. He has even upped the ante by assigning motive to the killings and why they have festered.

For him, the motive is to take over the lands of vulnerable communities and re-colonize them. And he holds the federal government liable for allowing foreign invaders to come in and destroy the country. These are very serious allegations coming from no less a personality than Danjuma.

There is yet no reaction from the federal government on this dimension to the unceasing insecurity in the country. But if the seeming desperation of the current regime to press on with such policies as grazing areas, grazing routes, Ruga and the national livestock transformation plan are anything to go by, the issues raised by Danjuma can only be wished away at our collective peril.

When he spoke of re-colonization, it was not a reference to the return of the British imperial masters. No! Neither had he in mind its new manifestation in neo-colonialism which Kwame Nkrumah characterized as the last stage of imperialism. He had none of such in mind.

Rather, he is concerned with the displacement of local populations by well-armed bandits and herdsmen both local and foreign in the face of the inability of the government to tame the monster. The issue is quite well spread now across the country contrary to what obtained when Danjuma spoke some years back. So he has serious grounds to be unhappy with government’s handling of the deteriorating security situation in the country.

It is the same apprehension that accounts for stiff resistance to all attempts by the federal regime to force down controversial polices on herders’ resettlement on lands that belong to other people. And that agenda will remain explosive and controversial.

The north central zone has tasted the pudding of settler occupation and they are in a better stead to say whether it is sweet or sour. So when Danjuma spoke of re-colonization, he should know what he is talking about. It is difficult not to agree with him on the motive and agenda of rampaging bandits/ herdsmen and terrorists across the country in the face of the inability of the Buhari government to rise to the challenge.

As Danjuma spoke, the US and UK governments sent out warning advisory on terror attacks at the country’s capital city, Abuja. Even as the federal government attempted to downplay the warning, the US went ahead to evacuate some of its staff from the Abuja embassy. Is that not a big statement on the dire security situation in the country?

Chief Justice of Nigeria CJN, Olukayode Ariwoola raised a challenge fundamental to the impartiality and credibility of the justice system when he was sworn in last Wednesday. He had while answering reporters’ question called on politicians to stop mounting pressure on the judiciary and allow it to perform its functions.

“Politicians should allow the judiciary to function. Law is not static and that’s why you have seen that the National Assembly continued to amend the laws and it is the laws that the courts apply to the facts available. We shall continue to do justice if only Nigerians will allow us to perform and function without any pressure,” he said.

Given the experience of this country especially as campaigns for another round of national elections gather momentum, the issue raised by the CJN can only be ignored at the peril of our democratic engagement. Ours is a system where elections are fought as a matter of life and death hallmarked by outright refusal by politicians to accept defeat even when the verdict is very clear.

It is a system characterized by the unwillingness or outright refusal by politicians to accept electoral outcomes on very flimsy reasons. Petition arising from the 2019 elections so attracted the attention of the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa that she had to lament: ‘no matter how well elections are conducted, there are bound to be complaints’.

Altogether, there were 786 petitions from those elections across the country with Imo State recording 76 – the highest filed by a single state. By contrast, Jigawa recorded not even a single petition. The distribution of election petitions showed zonal disparities even as it threw some insight into the temperament and reactions of the various groups to electoral matters.

Whereas there are those with genuine grievances to be resolved, some others who had no business challenging election outcomes still sought to secure through the back door, what they were clearly unable to get through the ballot process. And they found the judiciary pliable.

In this category, you find sundry personages from both the executive and legislative arms of government deploying the weight and instruments of their high offices to influence the course of justice. There is also the dimension of the well connected, the very influential and wealthy politicians seeking to induce the judiciary for one reason or the other.

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That is how political pressure or judicial corruption raised by the CJN creeps in. In its Global Corruption Report 2017, Transparency International made two classifications of judicial corruption. The first relates to political interference in the judicial process by either the executive or legislative arm of the government while the other deals with bribery. We are concerned with both.

In 2019, the then CJN, Walter Onnoghen was suspended by President Buhari as he was preparing to swear in members of the various election petition tribunals in  circumstances that raised suspicion of political interference. Buhari was to rationalize his action on an order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal. But proceedings at the Code of Conduct Tribunal were still on-going when the president took the action. Partisan motives were quickly read into the action and the speed with which the president swore in a new CJN.

Before then, some masked officials of the Department of State Services DSS invaded in a commando-style, the homes of some judges across the country arresting and detaining seven of them on allegations of corruption. This was in utter disregard to extant regulations that vest the disciplining of judges on the National Judicial Council NJC. The sting operation drew the ire of the NJC and it disagreed with the claims adduced by the government for their action. But the deed had been accomplished.

These are just a few instances of direct interference in the judicial process by the executive arm of the government. There are others not as glaring as these that pose serious constraints on quick, effective and impartial dispensation of justice. When Ariwoola asked politicians to allow the judiciary to perform its duties without undue pressure and interference, he was referring to instances like these and more.

Beyond this, the issue is not as much with the pressure mounted by politicians on the judiciary as with the ability of that institution to resist some of the ones they can. In the two instances cited, the judiciary was virtually helpless. But there abound a litany of others where the traditional impartiality and independence of the judiciary as a check against the excesses of other arms of the government should have been called into quick action but the judiciary was found wanting.

It is not just enough for the CJN to raise alarm on the incalculable harm done to the justice system by politicians in their rabid ambition to influence the course of justice. All that should be expected. But the judiciary should be able to rise above partisan pressures and do its job in a manner that commands the confidence and respect of the people.

There is now the feeling among politicians that they can win elections through the courts even when they had very abysmal outing at the ballot box. Such a ruinous mind-set cannot subsist if politicians do not easily find willing accomplices within the judicial system.

The conduct of the judiciary in some election petitions has not helped to imbue confidence in the impartiality and independence of that institution. Take the case of Imo State that had 76 petitions in the last elections, the world is still stunned that a candidate that placed fourth and could not win a single local government was able to procure victory through the Supreme Court.

And when the arithmetic of the figures summed up by the apex court to award victory in that case were found to be more than the number of accredited voters and challenged in a review, the apex court still stood by its decision, apparently citing precedence. But the apex court was at liberty do justice to that case even if it was under political pressure.

That did not happen such that Justice Centus Nweze in a dissenting judgment said the decision of the Supreme Court on the Imo governorship election was wrong and “will continue to haunt Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence for a long time to come”. He said it all.

The CJN has promised judicial reforms. He has a lot to do to restore the waning confidence in the judiciary as the last hope of the common man.