Category: Emeka Omeihe

How can terrorists organize, have weapons, attack a security installation and get away with it”? This question was raised by President Muhammadu Buhari when he visited the Kuje Medium Custodial Centre, Abuja attacked by a band of terrorists.

Mystified that a very sensitive facility at the seat of the government could be so brazenly compromised, he sought to know the number of security personnel on duty during the attack, how many of them were armed, and what they did to forestall it among others.

A common thread runs through all these; had the various security agencies effectively done their jobs, it would have been impossible for the terrorists to succeed. So what really happened: a failure of intelligence, dereliction of duty or conspiracy of some sort?

One could read Buhari’s disappointment with the inability of the country’s security architecture to square up to the challenges of the attack. Perhaps, the information he requires will only aid in determining the level of culpability of the various security agencies to that national disgrace.

That was the story of the Kuje Medium Custodial Centre, Abuja as it succumbed to the onslaughts of a group of terrorists. Accounts of the attack vary. But terrorists numbering about 300, armed with sophisticated weapons attacked the facility at about 10 pm last Tuesday.

It is still hazy how they manoeuvred the various security checks before getting to the usually well-fortified facility. Some accounts have it that they separately converged there on foot with their weapons concealed only to take the facility by surprise.

They blew open the central gate and the perimeter fence with high calibre explosives to gain entry. They proceeded straight to the cells of Boko Haram detainees calling them by names and seeing to it that they all left in an operation estimated to have lasted three hours.

By the time the dust settled, an official of the NSCDC, three terrorists and four inmates lost their lives according to the spokesman of Nigeria Correctional Services.

Both the Minister of Defence and the interior ministry placed the blame on Boko Haram insurgents. They based this on available records, the pattern of the attack and the escape of all the 64 Boko Haram insurgents held in the facility.

But the Islamic State West Africa Province ISWAP added a new dimension to the theory of possible masterminds. In a 30-second video, ISWAP claimed responsibility for the attack even as those freed were commanders and members of the Boko Haram sect.

If the claim by ISWAP is correct, could it be the beginning of a new alliance between the two terror groups? And what does the alliance of two fundamentalist religious groups bent on institutionalizing a theocratic state portend for the country?

Boko Haram and ISWAP share the same doctrinaire promptings. While Boko Haram is poised to impose an Islamic state in Nigeria, ISWAP’s territorial coverage targets the West African sub-region. Their difference only lies in the scope of their weird ideological state coverage.

Increasing association of Boko Haram and ISWAP with acts of terrorism in parts of the country is beginning to send dangerous signals especially given claims by the government on its purported success in the war against terrorism.

For a government that claimed technical defeat of Boko Haram insurgency after three months in the saddle, the continued escapades of the group a few months to the end of the regime is a sad measure of the success of that war. The rising association of Boko Haram and ISWAP with acts of terrorism in areas outside their traditional strongholds should be a matter of serious concern. It increases the suspicion of a hidden agenda.

A few weeks ago, the federal government had also blamed ISWAP for the massacre of 40 innocent worshippers at St Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State. Many others received varying degrees of injury in that wicked, dastardly and inexplicable attack.

One question that has come to agitate minds in the face of these terrorists’ attacks on institutions and persons is the issue of motive. ISWAP or Boko Haram attacked the Kuje Centre to free their commanders and member possibly to give their weird religious agenda a further boost. ISWAP could not have had any other reason for attacking the Catholic Church at Owo except to actualize its religious agenda.

Questions are also being raised on the escalating abduction and killing of Catholic priests from their churches across the country. Could the abductions and killings be part of the agenda of the terrorists to silence the church and make it easy for the imposition of their brand of religious ideology? Why the focus on the Catholic Church?

These issues are raised because they constitute the instances cited by five United States of America US senators for asking President Joe Biden to re-enlist Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern. Nigeria was delisted last year.

But in the petition, the senators cited the massacre at the Owo Catholic Church and others arguing that such killings have become too familiar for Christians in Africa’s most populous country. That is the perception of foreigners of the situation in the country. The attribution of responsibility for the Kuje attack to Boko Haram and ISWAP will definitely reinforce this perception given their weird religious agenda.

Do the terror groups really have the need to attack the facility to free their members given government’s policy of de-radicalization and re-absorption of their so- called repentant members? Or could it be that the facility easily succumbed to the insurgents’ firepower due to the conspiratorial and collaborative efforts of such insiders?

The Kuje incident highlights the pitfalls in government policy on de-radicalization and re-absorption of touted repentant terrorists. We face the danger of the Taliban strategy in Afghanistan if the ease with which terrorists compromise national institutions and installations is not quickly halted.

Mob justice! That seemed the figurative response former deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice got as reports filtered on their alleged trafficking of a 15-year old boy to the United Kingdom for organ harvesting.

Their arraignment at the Uxbridge Magistrate’s Court for the same alleged offences further incensed the mob of social media commentators and writers. They would stop at nothing to get instant justice for the alleged victim even as the circumstances of the case remained largely hazy.

All manner of narratives took over the social media space with some writers even confusing the matter with the cankerworm of ritual killings that have of late, become rampant on these shores. Ekweremadu’s high standing in the government of a country that is unable to get its bearing right seemed to have whittled down whatever public sympathy he would have got.

The imagery of a very prominent and rich man attempting to compromise the life of a poor man’s son to help his daughter survive did not help issues. It was an opportunity for the disadvantaged, the swelling army of the poor and even the envious to take vengeance on those in the corridors of power.

Little wonder Ekweremadu became instant victim of transferred aggression as all manner of blames for the inability of the leadership of this country to develop our health facilities to world class standards were heaped on his shoulders. The common feeling was, had he used his several years in the National Assembly to ensure that our health institutions are developed to handle organ transplant, he may not have found himself in the current entanglement. That is an angle to it.

Poor Ekweremadu in custody, battling metaphorical mob lynch at home even as his daughter is down with kidney failure and in dire need of transplant! This threw up the dilemma of what becomes of the ailing lady in the circumstance. But that did not seem to bother the army of critics bent on extracting a pound of flesh from him.

It was indeed a very challenging period for the family as they faced unfavourable public opinion at home with no access to their ailing daughter. But the unfavourable public reaction to the incident was in the main, activated by the way the authorities in the UK presented the matter.

The thought of a highly placed Nigerian public officer’s involvement in human trafficking involving an underage boy to the UK for organ harvesting was bound to ruffle sensibilities. So the reaction of the public was not entirely out of place. But the situation called for great caution as nothing had been heard either from the Ekweremadu’s or the alleged victim.

The veil on the circumstance of the incident is gradually lifting. And it is getting increasingly clear there are obvious gaps in some of the facts of the matter as presented by the UK authorities.

The first evidence came from the Nigerian Immigration Services, NIS, which after thorough investigations of the person at the centre of the controversy, David Ukpo Nwamini’s application forms for Nigerian international passport, confirmed he is actually 21 years old. That addresses the controversy over his age.

With this, the charge of child trafficking has been punctured. There is also the issue of consent especially given the dimension the issue has taken. Initial reports had it that Nwamini is a homeless boy taken off the streets of Lagos by the accused and brought to the UK.

That was the basis for the charge of “conspiracy to arrange or facilitate the travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting”. But in an affidavit deposed to in a suit by the Ekweremadu’s at an Abuja High court, his elder brother, Bright gave details of events leading to the incident in the UK.

He deposed that the applicant has a daughter, Sonia suffering from kidney failure for about five years that needed urgent transplant to save her life. Nwamini he said, offered to donate one of his kidneys if it is compatible with that of Sonia and that he had also informed them that he was 21 years old having been born in 2000.

Bright said Ekweremadu supported the visa application of Nwamini to the UK with a letter to the British High Commission in Nigeria explaining the purpose of the visit which is to enable him undergo medical examination so that he and Sonia can get the best of medical attention. After the tests, the hospital decided that Ukpo was not a suitable donor as his kidney was not compatible with that of Sonia.

He was asked to return to Nigeria but rather than do so, he approached the authorities in the UK for protection claiming he is 15 years old. The Ekweremadus are asking the court for an order directing the National Identity Management Commission and the Nigerian Immigration Services to respectively bring out the Certified True Copy of the biodata of David Ukpo Nwamini and the documents and application forms he presented to obtain his international passport.

The documents are required for the purposes of criminal investigations and tendering same before Uxbridge Magistrate’s Court in the UK. Hopefully the applicants would secure these documents to aid them defend the charge that Nwamini is 21 years contrary to 15 years he gave the UK authorities.

But they have a task proving that Nwamini’s consent was explicitly secured for the kidney donation notwithstanding the medical examination stated in the letter to the British High Commission as the reason for the travel. They may require further evidence to get through that irrespective of the new evidence showing that he is not underage.

Overall, the picture is not as bad as it was initially painted. It is probable Nwamini lied to the authorities in the UK to evade his imminent return to Nigeria. He may have yearned to escape from the harsh conditions of life in this country after being exposed to prospects of a better future abroad. That may have been the crux of Ekweremadu’s current entanglement. Who to blame?

Ekweremadu may have been a victim of Nwamini’s obduracy and indiscretion. It is hoped he can soon extricate himself from the current challenge to save his daughter struggling for survival.

The linking by the National Security Council of Islamic State’s West African Province, ISWAP, to the massacre at St Francis Catholic Church Owo, Ondo State threw up more puzzles than it is intended to resolve.

Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola who made public the position of the federal government, created room for initial doubt when he said security agencies have been directed to apprehend the perpetrators. What this meant is that no arrest had been made as at the time the minister spoke.

Yet, the government concluded that ISWAP was culpable for the heinous killings. The question that immediately begs for answers is – on what evidence did the federal government base its conclusion? Is it on a priori assumption; material evidence gathered before or after the heinous crime that left sorrow and awe on innocent citizens who went to church to commune with their creators?

The fact that the basis for linking ISWAP to those killings is yet to be availed the public, accounts for the welter of doubt that has since trailed that disclosure.

It was not for nothing that Governor Rotimi Akeredolu in whose state the mass killings occurred, was the first to pick holes with the conclusions of the federal government, describing it as ‘hasty’. He equally faulted that angle on the ground that ISWAP did not take responsibility for the killings as is characteristic of the terror organization.

As if the reservations of Akeredolu were not enough to impugn the integrity of the conclusion, a more fierce cynicism came from the Ekiti State governor and chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum, Kayode Fayemi when he described the claim as mere speculation.

Fayemi said as chief security officers of states, governors are privy to all manner of intelligence: “I don’t want to jump the gun as far as this is concerned and that is why, I am not going to go into any detail as to what intelligence we had and at what point we had it”.

In sum, Fayemi vehemently disagreed with the linking of ISWAP to the Owo killings. He would not want to be dragged into specifics at this point, but available evidence does not corroborate the ISAWP angle.

This raises the further question as to what the federal government intended to achieve by the link and why it was in a hurry to point accusing fingers on ISWAP. Are there footprints of the attack that bear close similarities with the modus operandi of that terror group? Or was the conclusion targeted at damage control to foreclose loose speculations and possibly stave off possible reprisal attacks?

Ondo State government has had a running battle with killer herdsmen following its enforcement of the anti-open grazing law. There have been skirmishes in the forests between herdsmen and enforcers of the anti-open grazing law. So the first group to suspect should have been herdsmen militias that lurk around the forests in the state.

There is the issue of proximity given the relative ease with which the killers disappeared into the thin air. Equally relevant is the close semblance of the attack with similar killings in parts of the country where herdsmen had issues with the local population. Benue State is a typical case of the Ondo situation where worshipers were mowed down while celebrating mass.

So it would not have been difficult suspecting the herdsmen. But the federal government would not have that angle either. They may well have reasons for the conclusion. But it is one thing to come out with conclusions on an issue and another altogether for such to command popular appeal and acceptability.

In the instant case, vital ingredients that would have accorded some credibility to that theory in the absence of any arrest were virtually missing. That is why both Akeredolu and Fayemi faulted the conclusion. And with them are legion.

By linking the attack to ISWAP, the federal government has inadvertently opened up another discomforting chapter in the war against terrorism in this country. The inevitable impression conveyed is that contrary to claims that the war against terrorism is on the decline, it is now rather spreading.

ISWAP, as the umbrella organization for all factions of Islamic State IS in West Africa, is primarily active in the Chad Basin. It fights an extensive insurgency against such countries as Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

It is also known for setting up an administration in territories where it is present; collecting taxes on trade and agriculture even as it also provides some security in return. In Nigeria where they operate in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states this characterization is largely true of their activities.

There is no known case of ISWAP presence in Ondo before the senseless attack on the church that left more than 40 people (children, men and women both old and young) dead and several others seriously wounded. Ondo State is far removed from the war theatres of ISWAP for any possible conjecture of spillover action.

For the claim associating ISWAP with the Ondo massacre to be credible, there has to be proof that the group maintains substantial presence in that state or evidence showing where they came from and ran to after the attack. There is also the issue of motive. What could be the grouse of the group with the Catholic Church in far-flung Owo? Could it be that ISWAP terrorists also take refuge in adjoining forests taking advantage of the activities of the herdsmen?

Perhaps, this angle looks more plausible. Those who masterminded the attack were very familiar with the Owo terrain. The choice of the Catholic Church was not just mere happenstance. It was carefully selected to get maximum impact given to its mixed attendance. And it worked out for them as many indigenous and non-indigenous worshippers were victims of their murderous attack.

The Owo attack has again elevated the imperative of re-examining the activities of those hiding in the forests under the guise of herding.  As long as our forests are inhabited by sundry criminals and terrorists, so long shall the Owo experience be a recurring decimal. It says a lot about the government that these killings keep going on and on, seemingly undetected.

The emergence of presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and that of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Atiku Abubakar has set the tone for the unfolding political competition.

This is more so, given the fact that the APC is the government in power while the PDP constitutes the main opposition party. Events in the two parties are bound to have profound influence on the character, shape and direction of politics as we enter the next phase of the electoral struggles.

But that is not all there is to the emerging competition. Other political parties in the fray could also exert tremendous degrees of influence on events as the campaigns unfold. There is the Labour Party, LP, with Peter Obi as its presidential candidate, the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, led by Rabiu Kwankwaso amongst others in the race to secure the endorsement of the electorate for the highest elective office in the country.

The primaries have come and gone; but they have left footprints that are bound to shape the future of the country in more fundamental ways. Though the primaries were tasking and competitive for the two leading parties but the influence of money and alleged manipulations did some damage to the sanctity of the process. Delegates, as card carrying members of their respective parties have made their choices.

But that is just the first leg of the electoral journey. Candidates thrown up will still have to face the verdict of the electorate. The voters as the ultimate sovereign will have to make the final choice from the competing candidates thrown up by the parties. And what they make of them will largely depend on their perceptions, preferences and envisaged benefits from the eventual swing and direction of the pendulum of political power.

Given David Easton’s perspective of politics as the authoritative allocation of values; the material inclusive, the constituents would be concerned with what they stand to gain from the location of political power especially given the primacy of primordial influence in political behaviour on these shores.

The main concern should be the political relationship to expect from the way the presidential candidates of the parties emerged? Is it one that will lead to the building of national consensus and inclusiveness or one that will precipitate a relapse to the old order of politics along ethnic and sectional divide? To what extent do we expect strict adherence to party loyalty/principles or the ideology of the parties on issues of common interest to influence the pattern and direction of voting?

These questions arise given the manner the agitations for power rotation were handled by the two leading parties. Though it was envisaged that both the APC and the PDP would select their presidential candidates from the southern divide, the PDP chickened out at the last moment citing exigencies of time even as they claimed zoning remained a cardinal policy in their party constitution.

The situation was somewhat different in the APC. Division on this cardinal issue culminated in throwing the contest open with aspirants from both the north and south contesting. Tinubu emerged in a keenly contested primary notwithstanding the support he got from many northern governors.

With the outcome of the primaries, we now have a southern presidential candidate from the ruling party and a northern counterpart from the main opposition party. But the envisaged outcome ought to be a semblance of the arrangement we had in 2019 when the north presented the two candidates of the leading parties for the rest of the country to shop from.

The situation on ground is not in conformity with the Asaba accord in which southern governors re-asserted their demand for power rotation to the south. It is also against the stance of the southern and Middle Belt pressure group that has been strident on the shift of power to the south.  We are presented with a scenario where power could swing to any direction.

Does the south have any organized response to the scenario or will the constituents be left to go about it in their own ways? Is there anything like southern consensus, solidarity or unity? And can we count on the southern bloc to rally round a common southern candidate in the coming elections. These are the questions to ponder.

If events at the primaries of the leading parties are anything to hold on to, such a consensus this time around is a remote possibility. What appears obvious is a gamut of disenchantment with prospects of ruffling whatever progress made in erecting southern unity. That was why Peter Obi left the PDP. Ogbonnaya Onu re-echoed the same sentiments when he asked during his speech at the convention, ‘Where is the justice?

Southeast leaders should take a larger chunk of the blame for the position the zone found itself after the primaries. The conduct of some of those purporting as their leaders who posed as campaign managers for candidates outside their zone, left much to be desired.

Through their action or inaction the turn of events has almost side-lined one of the tripods on which the foundation of this country was erected. And this is bound to have a defining impact as events unfold. Much will however, still depend on the measures taken by the leading parties in the days ahead.

Beyond this however and given the configuration of the electoral equation, sectional lure is bound to play a major role in the calculations of the various groups. With the dearth of any binding ideology and serious commitment to party loyalty as evidenced from the recklessness with which elected officials jump ship, primordial loyalty is bound to assume ferocious ascendancy. Where that takes us?

That tendency is higher now than at any other time in our political history given extant realities. Votes may end up being largely cast along ethnic and sectional lines such that a clear winner may not emerge at the first ballot. Though such a scenario will not be the first of its kind in our electoral history, it will foreshadow the level of progress in nation building or lack of it.

It seems incredible that N100 million could be raised and paid to kidnappers within 15 hours to secure the release of victims. But the account should not be easily faulted because it is verifiable. The above should be the right attitude to the shocking experience of the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, His Eminence Samuel Kanu Uche in the hands of kidnappers in the notorious spots of Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State, penultimate Sunday.

It all happened within 15 tortuous hours when the prelate and two of his bishops were proceeding to the airport around 2pm. Their journey was cut short by kidnappers who blocked the Port Harcourt-Enugu expressway in three groups and shot sporadically before abducting the senior clergy men.

The kidnappers marched them into the bush to begin a winding trekking that lasted several hours. Prelate Uche said their captors were Fulani herdsmen of about 18years old apart from their leader whose age was put at 35 years.

He gave a lucid account of their discussions with the herdsmen/ kidnappers- their initial demand for N150 million later reduced to N100 million, the beating they received, how the kidnappers instructed that the money should be arranged and delivered and the stench of decomposing bodies of earlier victims murdered by them.

Prelate Uche observed that military men were around the place where the hoodlums operated and their cows were seen around the same vicinity. He accused the military of complicity in the kidnapping in that area by the herdsmen. They were released at 5.30am after the receipt of the money.

The Nigerian Army has raised questions with the alleged complicity of their men; wondering why the church neither reported the incident to the unit covering the area nor took them into confidence during negotiations with kidnappers. They picked holes in the possibility of that amount of money being paid in less than 24 hours.

But as the army was disputing the claims, residents of adjoining communities went on spontaneous protests against the festering kidnappings, rape and killings in the area, demanding the withdrawal of the army unit posted to the area and relocation of the cattle market that is suspected to harbour the marauding kidnappers camouflaging as herdsmen.

In a viral video while addressing the protesters, the Commander of the Rapid Response Squad RRS in Abia State, CSP Johnboo corroborated the narrative that Fulani herdsmen were responsible for the kidnapping in the area. He fingered the cattle market for providing safe haven for the kidnappers, adding “the army are not helping us” in our efforts to rid the area of the criminal herdsmen.

But the police distanced themselves from the views credited to CSP Johnboo for going against the rules and casting aspersions on other security agencies.

The Nigerian Army is on point to raise suspicion on the speed with which the N100 million was raised by the church and paid to the kidnappers. But that is not to say the money was not raised and paid. They went off the mark when they sought to discredit the encounter on the grounds that the incident was neither reported to the army unit there nor were they involved in the negotiations.

What time did the clerics have to make such a report when their captors warned them not to involve security agencies or they kill them? Even then, security agencies often rationalize their inability to rescue kidnap victims on the ground of minimizing the casualty level that usually follows such confrontation.

Would they have acted contrary to tradition in this singular instance? It is doubtful. About last December, my late childhood friends’ widow returning from the market was attacked an abducted around the same vicinity together with five occupants of the Sienna commercial bus they boarded.

The kidnappers made contact with the woman’s undergraduate daughter and demanded one million naira ransom or they harm her. They later reduced the amount to N500, 000 and insisted it must be paid that night. That money was somehow raised that night. The little courageous girl, fearing for her mother’s fate hired a cab from Owerri that night and travelled to the same axis as directed, dropped off the money only for the mother to appear from the bush shortly with bruises.

This incident is cited because it followed the same experience of the clergy men. The reason for the quick fixes can be located in the fact that the herdsmen operate in an environment that is not theirs and may not have the luxury of keeping victims for long without detection.

With this in mind, it would appear the main grouse of the army is with the accusation of complicity in the kidnapping saga in the area. The prelate may be hard put to produce evidence of the alleged complicity given its very nature.

But that does not in any way rubbish the allegation. Not with the audacity and relative ease these criminals operate daily without challenge. The protesters who demanded the withdrawal and dismantling of the military checkpoint in the area made the same allegation. I guess that was also what the commander of the RRS meant when he said the Nigerian Army is not helping them in the quest to rid the area of kidnappers.

It is not just enough to pick holes with the allegations of the prelate. Neither are we much concerned with the reservations of the police on the propriety of Johnboo’s statement. As relevant as the observations by the army and the police are, they are no solutions to the festering insecurity in the area. What should be of utmost concern now is how to erect effective responses to smoke out the criminals and secure the area.

There is little doubt the cattle market is the oxygen for the festering criminalities in that axis. The market should be properly searched for arms and ammunitions and put on serious security radar.

The nation’s highest security echelon must investigate these allegations with a view to smoking out all criminals terrorizing the area under sundry guises. That is what will dissuade speculations of complicity and hidden agenda.

It is not in doubt the Nigerian state is assailed by crises of multifarious dimensions.

Even as security infractions exert much pressure on the resources and capacity of the government to live up to its statutory functions, emerging tendencies raise suspicions as to whether there are contrived plans to push the country further into unmitigated disaster.

The presentation of certain reports on alleged criminal activities and security breaches in sections of the media especially the (ubiquitous and unstructured social media) is beginning to raise suspicion of an attempt to play up ethnic and religious sentiments to further divide the people and precipitate chaos.

This concern was shared by the presidency in its reaction to the killing of a lady identified as Fatima and her four innocent children by gunmen in Anambra State. The government had while condemning the atrocious act “cautioned against indiscriminate sharing of posts on social media so as to deny vested interests who seek to divide us and create disturbance the chance to do so”.

Fatima and her four children were killed while being conveyed on a bike after she visited her sister. Though no arrests have been made, media reports have largely fingered the IPOB for the senseless killings to which the organization has denied. Media reports have also tended to assign ethnic coloration to the killings prompting the Anambra State government to deny there is ethnic killing in the state notwithstanding the general insecurity across the country.

The incident created so much tension that a coalition of northern groups apparently believing that the killings have ethnic prompting, threatened reprisals. But the presidency cautioned against precipitate reaction, disruption of lives and livelihood or even retaliatory violence as its experts are “verifying the factuality and veracity of the claims accompanying the horrid pictures”. It urged citizens to avoid hasty steps or conclusions that could exacerbate the situation.

The position of the federal government on the horrific and dastardly killing of the poor woman and her four children is in order irrespective of the provocative tone of whatever claims made by those who recorded the scene. This is more so given the high tension generated in the public space by face value interpretation of the motive of the killings as well as the group suspected for it.

Since no arrests have been made and the group being fingered for the killings has denied it and others attributed to it in the past, it is only proper that our security agencies should investigate the regularity with which such potentially divisive posts are making appearances in the social media. They should not rule out the possibility of fifth columnists intent on simulating cataclysm of unimaginable proportion having a hand in some of them.

With sophistication in technology and the linkage of the National Identification Number NIN to all phone lines, our security agencies should by now, have the capacity to decode and trace the original source of such posts and have the culprit arrested. That is what is required to prove very conclusively those behind these posts and their motives.

This line of action is further dictated by a recent post attributed to a purported official of the Department of State Service DSS claiming to have resigned his position because of alleged swapping of motorcyclists arrested in connection with the killing of a sound engineer, David Imoh.  In a widely circulated post, the purported DSS official said he was the team leader of security operatives that arrested 11 suspects, mostly northerners in connection with the murder.

According to him, after the 11 suspects were handed over to the police, they were replaced with six southerners who were paid N100, 000 to admit guilt. But the Lagos State police command denied the allegation tagging it “a cunningly- crafted work of fiction ill-intended by some unpatriotic persons and warmongers to cause disaffection and possibly ethnic war”.

The correlation between the position of the presidency in the circulation of the horrid pictures of the murder of Fatima and her four children and that of the Lagos State police command is very clear. They all speak of clandestine attempts to create bad blood; divide Nigerians and possibly precipitate ethnic and religious upheaval of unimaginable proportion.

That would seem the undertone of those two incidents irrespective of their repulsive and bizarre nature. Inexorably, we run a mortal risk each time we take such post on their face value. You will be shocked to know how divisive such posts are from the comments of Nigerians each time they appear on Facebook. They create fear; divide Nigerians along ethnic and religious lines and heighten the atmosphere of insecurity around the country.

It is an ominous trend that should be carefully watched in the management of the festering insecurity. The above incidents are not alone. Across the country, killings tainted with ethnic and religious imagery abound.

The recurring divisive messages and posts are indications of the regularity of heinous crimes that have reduced the worth of human life in the face of the inability of the government to stem the tide.

There is also the dimension of false alarms in ruffling peace and tranquillity in the country. A case in point was the recent allegation by the leadership of Miyetti Allah in Anambra State on the rustling of 300 cows and kidnap of 10 herders who were each asked to pay N4million ransom and one gun. But the accounts of the Anambra State police command and the local government chairman where the incident was said to have occurred put a lie to that narrative. The way the incident was painted including the fictitious demand for guns would suggest the alarm had a veiled agenda.

It is vital the authorities are circumspect of what use they put to some of the horrid posts in the social media purporting to have emanated from targeted groups and individuals. Such posts must be subjected to the weight of empirical validity for them to command credibility. But it says a lot about our security agencies that they get to know of such heinous crimes from media posts.

 

There are salient issues from the purchase of nomination forms by presidential aspirants that should worry keen observers.

First is the unusual high number of aspirants especially from the All Progressives Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The APC parades about 28 aspirants that paid the N100 million fees for the forms while the PDP has about 10.

This high number and huge amount of money raked in by the APC has fuelled speculations as to whether the party was not into a fundraising ceremony in another garb.

The other discernible feature is that nearly all the aspirants had their nomination forms purchased by sundry interest groups; some of them of very questionable hue. The phenomenon of proxy forms and unwieldy number of aspirants trivialized the process with suspicions that highly placed interests are behind it for hidden and self-serving objectives.

But there are aspirants who personally paid for their forms. This article is concerned with the phenomenon of proxy nomination forms; the objective behind it. It also seeks to interrogate the reasons adduced by these interest groups for buying forms for their preferred aspiring candidates.

It is not possible to interrogate all of them; their claims and motivations in this essay. A random sample would suffice. But the investigation will be eclectic; deploying paired constructs for ease of illustration.

There are aspirants that carry serious weight, enormous political war chest and penetrating influence that make sense when you speak of interest groups buying forms for them.

But there are others that make one begin to wonder what purpose proxy forms will serve them. Is it to showcase a non-existing popularity profile or cover up for the source of the humongous sums paid for obtaining nomination forms or both?

For APC, five aspirants would be on focus in no particular order. The aspirants are: Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, APC national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former president, Goodluck Jonathan, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele and Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba.

Tinubu stands out here. He is the only one that personally paid for his forms. James Faleke who led a team of support groups to pick the forms said, “we are here as team on behalf of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to pick the forms he has personally paid for and because he is out of the country, he paid for his forms directly and asked us to come and pick them”.

His was a clear demonstration that he has enough personal funds to buy the forms irrespective of his huge support base. The case of Osinbajo was different. His media aide, Laolu Akande said “a passionate team of support groups and individual Nigerians from across the country raised funds to support the purchase of APC nomination forms for the vice president’s 2023 presidential bid”.

It is unclear how much financial support Osinbajo got from the groups and individuals and whether he made any personal financial commitment for the purchase of the forms. Two clear messages: it would seem Osinbajo wanted to show he has large political following across the country while at the same time avoiding questions as to the source of the money if he were to pay for the forms personally. He is entitled to his claim of large following given his current office.

Jonathan’s case is as interesting as it is comical.  A group of Fulani herdsmen and Almajiri ostensibly raised the funds to buy the forms for him. Spokesman of the two groups, Ibrahim Abdullahi explained their action on the grounds that Jonathan initiated a comprehensive policy of reformation and integration of Almajiri into Nigeria’ mainstream education system.

He said Jonathan also gave the Fulani community, the nomadic pastoralists, a sense of belonging by setting aside N60 billion for livestock development in the country. Can you beat that? There is some truth in the nomadic education policy but it is doubtful whether the herdsmen and Almajiri actually bought the forms. The leadership of Miyetti Allah has dissociated the group from the claim.

It is also doubtful if Jonathan is in the goods books of the northern tendency to deserve support from its downtrodden. Events of the 2015 elections do not bear this out. If the claim is to demonstrate Jonathan’s acceptance and popularity in the north, it definitely cannot fly. Not with the gang up by the northern elite (that controls and manipulates the herdsmen and the Almajiri) that wrested power from him. Jonathan claims the development does not have his blessing. But his actions speak to the contrary.

Emefiele had his forms bought by rice farmers and two other support groups while Nwajiuba’s Project Nigeria pooled resources to buy his. Rice farmers? Why should rice farmers be at the vanguard of Emefiele’s ambition?

If it is on account of enhanced income due to recent advertisement of questionable rice pyramids, should the credit go to him or the government? It is also disconcerting that Project Nigeria is pooling resources for Nwajiuba to seek the presidency with our education system in disarray. It is good he has resigned his appointment. Definitely, the inability to resolve the ASUU debacle that has shut down our universities is not a good credential for higher leadership.

For the PDP, we have former vice president, Atiku Abubakar who had his forms bought by North East Business community while former Anambra State governor; Peter Obi had his purchased by Like Minds for Peter Obi. A group, Northern Progressive Elements and friends of Wike purchased the forms for Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike.

PDP presidential nomination forms are sold at N40 million and could be afforded by Atiku and Obi but they opted for support groups as a show of their wide acceptance. Wike would have no difficulty raising the funds but progressive northern elements had to come to the rescue to show his acceptability in the north. Whether these support claims are contrived or real will become evident during the primaries.

But the unwieldy number of persons seeking the presidency of this country in the midst of debilitating national challenges trivializes that office and reflects how low it is now viewed.

Nigeria is again back to the seemingly settled issue of rotating the presidency between the north and south. A number of recent events brought us back to this avoidable trajectory.

First was the decision by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to throw open the presidential contest to all zones in the country. Though the party re-affirmed its commitment to zoning as contained in its constitution, it rationalized the decision on what it called the exigency of time.

This has seen motley of aspirants jostling for the PDP primaries. Some leaders from the north have even gone an inch further to select consensus candidates even as the exercise was marred by intense controversy.

But the decision has not gone down well with the south as groups and individuals have continued to insist it is their turn to produce the next president after President Buhari. For now, the race is open to all the 15 PDP presidential aspirants screened and cleared by the party.

As if this was not enough to resurrect the rotation argument, the newly elected national chairman of the All Progressives Congress APC, Abdullahi Adamu threw petrol into a raging fire when he declared that the party has not zoned the presidency. Before Adamu’s statement, all was going on well within the party as there seemed an understanding the post had been zoned to the south. The assumption accounted for the emergence of nearly all presidential aspirants of the party from the south.

The situation became somewhat confused with Adamu’s statement such that the chairman of the southern governors’ forum and governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu had to call on the party to come clear on zoning as equivocation could throw the country into crisis of unimaginable proportion.

Akeredolu insisted it is the turn of the south to produce the president in 2023 in keeping with the spirits of equity, fairness and progress of the country.

Within the same week, a pressure group staged protests at the national headquarters of the APC and PDP insisting the two parties should zone their presidential tickets to the south. With these and emerging views from the north objecting to rotation, the zoning controversy is once again before us.

Adamu’s statement has seen more northerners joining the fray with more likely to enter the race before the extended closing date for the sale of nomination forms by the party. And unless the APC makes a categorical statement zoning the presidency to the south, theirs promises an open contest as is the case with the PDP. If that happens, then zoning would have been thrown overboard.

But we have been through this troubled route before and some lessons ought to have been learnt from the altercations of the 2015 elections. It does appear no lesson has been learnt as we have gone back to our old ways.

Have we forgotten so soon, events of 2015 and the heated arguments by the northern elite to have power ceded to that part of the country? Then, secretary of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, Ango Abdullahi, had drawn attention to how rotation was arrived at during the 1987 National Political Reforms Conference as a way of giving a sense of belonging to tendencies that make up the country.

Abdullahi had then said, “the north was determined and insisting that the leadership of the country will rotate to it in 2015. If it is on the basis of one man one vote, demography shows that the north can keep power as long as it wants because it will always win elections”. Though the north had genuine grounds for its agitation for power rotation then, not many were comfortable with the claim that it can always win elections because of the touted demographic advantage.

As events of that election were to show, the north did not win the contest against Jonathan without clear support and collaboration from the south. Curiously, the same line of warped argument has surfaced as part of the considerations by the PDP for throwing its presidential slot open.

The PDP was said to have cited voter turnout in the 2019 elections in which out of the 10 states that ranked highest, nine are from the north as part of the reasons for its decision. This curiously falls in line with the argument canvassed by Ango Abdullahi in 2015. The purport of this is that elections will always go the direction the north wants because of their touted numerical advantage.

It seems so on the surface. The truth is that neither the south nor the north can win the presidential election if all southerners vote a southern candidate and vice versa. So the issue of voting advantage should not be taken too far.

More fundamentally, arguments like this constitute serious challenge to southern solidarity and consensus building. It is also a serious test for the Lagos declaration during which southern governors affirmed their unflinching support for the president of the country to emerge from the south in 2023. Though southerners across the divide have been most vocal in calling for power rotation, each of the zones seeks to take maximum advantage of such a reality.

But that is exactly where the problem lies. Is it possible for the three zones in the south to apply the same reasons of equity and fairness in micro zoning the slot to one of its three constituents? That is the big question; a big test to southern solidarity. And what is the likely outcome of each pursuing their ambitions separately?

For now, it does not appear southerners have any answer to this question. Both the parties and contestants are enmeshed in a mind game. It is a game situation involving payoffs. They are concerned with rational calculations on the choices open to each other and their possible payoffs. They are contending with options that will minimize their losses in the event of the worst outcome.

That seems the idea behind the PDP decision. The same reason may account for the recent position of the APC. The real issue is not as much with where the office is zoned as with the determination, commitment and capacity of southerners to resist any attempt to thwart the process in the same fashion northerners did in 2015. Can they?