The Nation Newspaper

Category: Emeka Omeihe

Bread and butter politics

By Emeka Omeihe

The welter of criticisms trailing the disclosure by the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission RMAFC of its intention to review the remuneration of political office holders, is a measure of the disenchantment of the public with the conduct of the latter.

Though the chairman of the commission, Elias Mbam said the pay package of political office holders could go up or down when aligned with ‘current realities’, the general reading of the move is that it will lead to an upward adjustment. That is why the idea has attracted the ire of the Nigerian public. The reasons for this are multi-dimensional and we shall return to them shortly.

Mbam’s explanation that the review could go either way appears a subterfuge to run away from the contradictions in attempting an upward review of the remunerations of our political office holders, rated as one of the most highly paid the world over. The propriety of such exercise is further questioned by claims by the government that it is not generating enough revenue and had to embark on loans to bridge the gap. If that is the case, how do we rationalize a review that will further add to the burden of the government in delivering public goods and services?

This poser is further reinforced by the array of measures by the federal government to shore up its revenue base. These include the hike on Value Added Tax VAT to 7.5 per cent, the proposed return of toll fares on our highways and the plethora of economic measures in the recently passed legislation – Finance Act to bolster its revenue base. It remains to be imagined the rationale underlying the move by the RMAFC to review the remunerations of political office holders at this point except it is going to be on the downward side. This possibility seems a tall order.

Before now, issues have been raised with the pay package of our political office holders, largely seen to be out of tune with prevailing economic realities in the country. Questions have been raised as to the basis for such bloated salaries and allowances especially when paired against the overall contributions of many political office holders to the overall growth and development of the country.

Incidentally, the high pay package of politicians would pale into insignificance when weighed against the huge public funds regularly available to them from known and unknown sources. Even as eyebrows have been raised regarding the disparities between their high pay and the decrepit living conditions of our citizens, what politicians earn cannot account for their flamboyant and extravagant lifestyles. There exist sundry avenues still available to them to make huge money other than their advertised remuneration regime. Their oversight functions and the way many of them manipulate constituency projects for personal gains feature very prominently in this regard.

Their current salaries and allowances cannot justify the very expensive and scandalizing lifestyles that have come to be associated with many of them. The rest of it is made up through sundry contrivances that impact very negatively on public funds. It may be contended that increasing their pay package could discourage the penchant to dip their hands into the public till. That prospect appears a remote possibility in a clime; ascendancy to political offices is seen as the fastest and quickest route to opulence. That accounts for the mad rush by our young men and women into politics. It is also the reason for the rancorous and do-or-die politics that is fast assuming part and parcel of our political culture.

It is largely for the same reason that periodic elections are fast assuming the character of organized warfare with the attendant destruction of lives and properties. Something definitely has to give way if some progress is to be made in the way our politics is currently conducted. Before now, many have bemoaned the humongous amounts of resources expended in running bureaucracies with recommendations for legislative work to be organized on part-time basis as obtainable in some other countries.

But as alluring as this is, it has been met with stiff opposition as those intent in milking the government dry would not allow it happen. So we are trapped in a vicious cycle where those dependent on government revenue for survival will not allow the right measures to free government’s funds for development to have a free reign. That is where we are. And the remuneration review for political office holders which the RMAFC has embarked upon bears the imprimatur of that ruinous and self-serving culture of dispossessing the government of its funds for the benefit of the individuals, their families and members of their ethnic groups. That has been the bane of our brand of politics accounting in the main, for the retrogression and retardation in our national affairs.

More fundamentally and closely tied to this is the ease with which politicians decamp from political parties to the party in power. From across the country, key political office holders and leaders who ordinarily are to be seen as the conscience of their parties are known to have switched political camps in circumstances that have left observers bemused.

Though our constitution allows for such moves when there is a division within the party, that rule has really never been observed by our legislators as they switch camps with such ease and regularity that raises doubts as to whether they really believe in any principles. Even if we contend that our political parties are not organized on a set of clearly defined ideologies, they all have their manifestoes spelling out the major direction of their parties and the promises they hold for the electorate.

These differ from one political party to the other and constitute the guiding principles that attract and bind members together. They are expected to serve as the fulcrum for political choice and action. They denote the ideals of the parties that should be held sacrosanct and respected by members.

But that has not been the case here. Politicians do not seem to believe in anything except the lure and logic of the stomach. There is neither attachment to any set of principles, ideals or ideologies nor commitment to anything ennobling except questionable self-interest. Honour and integrity have been eaten up by the locusts as what counts now is what a politician can grab today with scant regard to what tomorrow holds.

They seem to be pandering to the observations of public choice scholars that “although people acting in the political marketplace have some concern for others, their main motive, whether they are voters, politicians, lobbyists or bureaucrats is self-interest”. There is nothing inherently wrong with self-interest as the propelling force for rational action and choice. But self-interest that regularly compromises time cherished ideals and principles gives rise to what Robert Dahl called dysfunctional politics. Dysfunctional politics can sink a system. That is the situation we are currently confronted with.

Curiously, no serious attempt has been made by either the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC or the political parties to enforce the provisions of the constitution in this regard to obviate the political harlotry and prostitution that have smeared our legislative process. We must therefore get back to the basics to initiate and enforce measures capable of saving our democracy from the increasing slide to the precipice into which it is inevitable headed.

It is time we tinkered with our laws to make the legislative job less attractive in order to discourage the rancorous politics that has become the greatest challenge of our democracy. In the same vein, concrete and concerted steps must be taken to enforce extant laws designed to strengthen the democratic enterprise especially as it concerns switching political camps.

February 3, 2020
Supreme Court judgments

Emeka Omeihe

IN the last one week or so, the Supreme Court disposed a number of governorship election cases brought before it by aggrieved candidates in the March 9, 2019 elections.

Bauchi, Plateau, Sokoto, Adamawa, Benue and Kano were among the states that had their cases finally determined. Before then, the apex court had also handed down its verdict on the Imo governorship election appeals brought before it by three aggrieved candidates.

Unlike the seeming general relief that followed rulings in the above six states, that of Imo was greeted with considerable uproar, anger and disbelief. It generated so much controversy and tension that the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) leadership had to address a hurried press briefing in which they levelled several damaging allegations against the leadership of the judiciary and the government in power.

The National Chairman of the PDP, Uche Secondus apparently sensing that a very dangerous precedent had been set by the judgment warned, “any further attempt to subvert justice in the pending petitions on Sokoto, Bauchi, Benue, Adamawa as well as Kano and Plateau states will be firmly and vehemently resisted”.

As things turned out, those six cases have been finally determined. And there appears some relief that justice has not only been done but seen to have been done in most of them. It is left to be conjectured whether the way these judgments turned out to the seeming satisfaction of the public has anything to do with the alarm and warning by the PDP.

Whatever the case, it is worthy of note that they are bereft of the protestations, anger and accusations that marked the judgment on the Imo petition. The proper reading of the serenity in public order arising from the Supreme Court’s judgments in the six states in contrast with the national anger and rejection of its ruling on Imo is that the public knows when the course of justice has been served. That is the issue to contend with.

And what are the issues? The apex court had in its ruling voided the election of governor Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP and declared Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner. It further ordered that Uzodinma should be sworn-in immediately based on its admission of results from the contentious 388 polling units which the APC candidate claimed were excluded from the total number of votes credited to him by the INEC.

The Supreme Court noted that results from the cancelled polling units amounted to 213, 295 votes and admitted them as lawful votes. The court further directed the addition of all the unlawfully cancelled votes it said were due to Uzodinma and declared that Ihedioha was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes. By the figures released by the INEC after the elections, total accredited votes stood at 823,743 while total valid votes amounted to 714, 355. But with the Supreme Court’s new additions, the total number of valid votes increased to 950, 925. This amounted to 127, 209 votes in excess of the accredited votes of 823, 743.

This singular arithmetical error raises issues as to the criteria used by the apex court in arriving at the decision that Uzodinma won the election. If we go by that figure in the strictest sense of it, what we are confronted with is over voting which cannot confer electoral advantage on any of the candidates. How the apex court generated figures over and above that duly accredited by INEC is at the heart of the absurdity of the ruling. Curiously, the contradiction arising from that arithmetic error was glossed over in awarding victory to the APC candidate.

There are also issues regarding the possibility of a candidate that came fourth in that election taking advantage of the said results to overtake all the other candidates to the point of emerging victorious. We have also been treated to the legal incongruities of tendering and admitting the results of the 388 polling units even when the electoral umpire had dismissed them as alien to them and without showing the standing of the other parties in the contest in those units.

This point is further illustrated given that in the state assembly election that was held contemporaneously with the governorship polls; the PDP won 13 seats, AA eight and APGA six seats making up the 27 local governments of the state. Curiously, the APC did not win any seat in that election. All these go to reinforce the widely held view that there is more to the ruling of the Supreme Court than ordinarily meets the eyes. It is therefore not surprising that the verdict has not been well received across the country. The general view is that it compromised the collective will of the Imo electorate as expressed at the ballot box.

The matter is not just about Ihedioha. It is also not just about Imo State. It is about the rule of law, justice and the overall future of democratic engagement in this country. It is all about the inalienable rights of a people to determine those to preside over their affairs through the instrumentality of periodic, free and fair elections. It is about the sovereignty of the electorate; the relevance of representative democracy as the most cherished construct to approximate the collective will of a people.

These are the conceptual and philosophical issues that have come under trial by the ruling of the apex court as it concerns Imo State. Above all, it is also about the relevance and integrity of the judiciary as an impartial arbiter. These conceptual and philosophical issues have miserably come under serious interrogation with a crisis of relevance to contend with.

Or are we to take comfort in Thrasymachus’ notion of justice in Plato’s Republic as ‘the interest of the stronger’? What of the Marxian perspective that the judiciary is part of the superstructure that protects the interests of the ruling class. What will be the overall impact of the increasing challenge of such notions on societal cohesion?

We raise these questions because western capitalism/democracy is an ideological construct for societal organization. The same goes for communism and its variant of socialism. These were competing paradigms for organizing statecraft. But we are all very familiar with the setting in of systemic decay in the former Soviet Union. Due to the stagnation of their economy and polity, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the policy of perestroika and glasnosts which culminated in a chain of events that led to the collapse of communism.

That is now history. But there is nothing to rule out systemic stress or decay within the capitalist economy especially if the very foundation (democracy) on which it was erected is no longer living to expectations. The point here is that democracy is an ideological construct for societal organization. It is based on a set rules and its relevance or lack of it will depend on how effective it is in living up to those rules without which its legitimacy will become suspect.

That is the dialectics we are confronted with by the Supreme Court judgment in the Imo governorship election. It is all about the propriety and legitimacy of judicial decisions. It is about the legitimacy of the electoral process as the most cherished paradigm for approximating the collective will of a people. These are the principles that have come under serious attack by the curious and inexplicable ruling of the apex court in the Imo case.

There are many unresolved issues in that judgment that will impair our judicial and electoral processes if allowed to linger. The arithmetic errors and how the Supreme Courts arrived at their decision to elevate the fourth to the first position need further clarifications if the course of justice and democracy is to be seen to have been served.

January 27, 2020
Operation Amotekun

By Emeka Omeihe

Raging controversy on the establishment of a security network, Operation Amotekun by Southwest governors has again brought to the fore all that is wrong with us as a country.

The governors last week in Ibadan, Oyo State launched the security outfit which is intended to complement the efforts of the police and other security agencies in maintaining law and order. By its details, each state is to take care of operatives within its domain, pay salaries of the staff of Amotekun and regulate their activities. But they are also to maintain trans-border cooperation to check the relative ease with which criminals commit crimes in one state and cross over to other contiguous states.

The new outfit is the response of Southwest governors to the escalating security challenges in their part of the country, though such security infractions are by no means limited to that region alone. Top among these security challenges are kidnapping, armed robbery, banditry, the insurgency of herdsmen and ancillary criminalities that have virtually reduced this country to a verity of the Hobbesian state of nature where life has become nasty, short and brutish.

Amotekun was conceived to complement the efforts of the conventional security agencies by providing them with relevant information through access to very remote areas and bushes which ordinarily, are difficult for the former to penetrate. Apparently sensing the prospects of misreading of the initiative, Southwest governors have made strident efforts to assuage fears of clash of interest with conventional security agencies. And in the words of Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, rather than a competitor with existing national security platforms, “it aims to complement them in the areas of neighborhood watch, information and intelligence gathering, detection of early warning signs and acting as liaison between conventional security and the local population”. It is therefore neither an army of the region nor a usurper of the functions of other security agencies but to fill gaps left by their modus operandi.

And these gaps have become increasingly glaring given the plethora of security challenges that are stretching the security agencies beyond tolerable limits and threatening to tear the country apart. The minimum expectation given all this, is for all and sundry to put heads together and evolve solutions that will permanently stem the tide of insecurity and save the country the bickering and accusations that arise from wanton killings.

Rather than support the initiative, vested interests seem to be working to throw spanners in the wheels of the new undertaking. Nothing betrays this mindset more than the statement credited to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami describing the outfit as illegal. He had also threatened severe action against the promoters of the outfit. Expectedly, Malami’s statement incurred the ire of southwest governors, notable traditional rulers and key personages from the region who have in unison condemned it.

There appears a general consensus that the Southwest is irretrievably committed to seeing ‘Operation Amotekun’ to its logical conclusion given that the alternative is to perpetually condemn their constituents to the insecurity that has sent many innocent ones to their early graves. They seem prepared to slug it out with the authorities since they believe every society has a way of preserving itself from undesirable elements. They are right.

But they have not ruled out dialogue even as they are prepared to challenge the government in the courts if it comes to that. That underscores how serious the region is with the initiative and there is a limit beyond which the federal government cannot possibly stretch this matter without compromising and inflicting mortal injury on the sensibilities of people of that region.

Even as the promoters of the outfit are piqued by Malami’s statement, a more disingenuous dimension to the matter was introduced by the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, the umbrella organization of Fulani herdsmen. The organization through its National Secretary, Alhassan Saleh warned Southwest governors to withdraw their support for Operation Amotekun or risk their region’s chances of securing the presidency in 2023.

Hear him: “it is best they give up on this idea because it may affect the chances of the Southwest to produce the president in 2023. The thinking is that if the Southwest, a major stakeholder in this government can be toying with this idea now, they may do worse when they get to power”.

Ironically, Miyetti Allah is one organization that the activities of its members have been a major factor in the series of security challenges that have brought about the current pass. That group has been seriously fingered by the Benue State government in the series of bloodletting, despoliation and sacking of the natives from their ancestral lands. Time without number, the Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom has called for the arrest and prosecution of its leadership for alleged culpability in the orgy of violence that has left the state a ghost of its former self. But the authorities failed to take any action.

It is an uncanny irony that this infamous group has now found itself at the forefront of faulting the Operation Amotekun initiative. It is amazing that a group which went asleep when the murderous activities of its members was tearing the country asunder, has suddenly found its voice because those at the receiving end have now risen up to the challenge. The ranting of the herders’ group including blackmailing the Southwest region with the presidency bait is totally in bad taste even as it further strikes at the fault lines of our national existence.

The presumption that the presidency is the exclusive preserve of the north which it will hand over to whoever does its bidding, is at the root of statements like this. And they are coming up rather too frequently. Not long ago, a group that purports to represent the collective opinion of northern youths bandied similar sentiments. We never heard of such tribally tainted outbursts while Obasanjo, Yar’Adua or Jonathan held sway. The fact that they have become a regular way of blackmailing the rights of sections of this country to the presidency exposes the feeling that some still nurse the warped idea that leadership is their birth right. It is the nurturing of similar feelings that accounts for the unbridled resistance to genuine innovations and ideas that hold the prospects for the steady growth, progress and development of this country.

The emerging reality is that the people of the Southwest have been pushed to a point that they have to take the destiny of their people in their hands. They can no longer afford to standby while lawlessness and anarchy reigns supreme in their region due largely to inaction and opposition to innovations by the national leadership. That is the kind of outcome you get when genuine innovations are not allowed to see the light of the day largely on account of some inexplicable and self-serving considerations.

At the point we are, it will not serve any useful purpose picking holes with Operation Amotekun. This is more so as the police high echelon was taken into confidence in the setting up of the outfit. The question to ask is whether there is merit in what the security outfit is set to achieve. If the answer is yes, then the right approach is to pool minds together and fashion out more effective approaches to make it succeed.

At any rate, such security platforms are nothing new. They exist in parts of the country and have made invaluable contributions to the relative peace we have. The fight against Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast was enhanced by the incorporation of the civilian population and many states currently maintain vigilante outfits that regularly complement the operations of the security agencies. The only innovation in Operation Amotekun is its regional outlook driven by the imperative of trans-border cooperation. It is a child of necessity!

January 20, 2020
Abuse of the siren

Emeka Omeihe

THE decision by the Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC) to commence immediate arrest and prosecution of abusers of sirens and convoys is welcome. But, its implementation may prove herculean given the ambiguity that surrounds the interpretation of those entitled to their use. This reality inexorably exposes some of the ills holding down this country from taking its proper position within the committee of nations.

Corps Marshall of the Commission, Boboye Oyeyemi said the decision was informed by the realization that most abusers of convoys and sirens are not government officials but private individuals who are not authorized to their use. The commission intends to work with the police to ensure that offenders are prosecuted and given appropriate punishments to serve as deterrent to others.

In carrying out this task, the FRSC will have to contend with the proper interpretation and application of the rules guiding those entitled to the use of sirens and convoys. This is especially so, given that many of our government functionaries and public office holders who currently bestrode our roads and highways with menacing impunity are not even entitled to its use. The first assignment of the commission, if it must succeed in this new assignment will be to give proper interpretation to those allowed by our laws to use sirens and convoys. With that, it will now be in a proper stead to confront the menace.

The National Roads Traffic Regulation NRTR specifically spelt out those entitled to the use of the siren. Section 154 states that “No person other than the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Vice President, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Justice of Nigeria, Deputy president of the Senate, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, governors and deputy governor of states shall drive a vehicle on any public road using sirens, flashers or beacon lights”. The regulation also stipulates punishment for any driver or vehicle that knowingly obstructs those entitled to sirens as well as its abuse by unauthorized persons.

But we have had situations when the police issued directives expanding the category of persons entitled to its use. At least, two Inspectors-General of Police had in the past come up with their own versions of those entitled to the use of sirens. While one of them expanded the scope over and above the stipulations of the NRTR, the other had something very close to the regulations. That may account for why sundry public officials including ministers, heads of military, paramilitary and ancillary organizations now use the siren.

All the same, it is good a thing the commission has been so sufficiently challenged by the spate of lawlessness on our roads often compounded by the use of sirens and convoys that it decided to confront the scourge. Road users, especially during festive periods have had to contend with the menace of all manner of persons using convoys and sirens.

And as should be expected, the multiplicity of these convoys and sirens raise questions as to the number of persons entitled to their use. Apart from the army of those who use convoys and siren to chase and intimidate innocent road uses out of the roads, the manner some of them have carried on has become a great source of concern to the public.

It is a standard practice for certain categories of public functionaries and those in some special services to use sirens in cases of emergency. That is also the case here. Sadly, that privilege has not only been brazenly abused in this country but exploited by all manner of persons to achieve self-serving ends. What it now takes in this country for someone to begin using the siren is the acquisition of one or two Toyota Hilux vans or similar brands fitted with the alarm systems. While some of such people proceed further to procure the services of one or two police escorts, there are a handful of others that do not. It is commonplace to see lone drivers on our highways and streets blaring siren even when there is nothing necessitating its use. What of the harassment and intimidation of road users?

Even then, these convoys (many of them illegal) have had very negative effects on free flow of traffic. The indiscriminate manner they drive against traffic at the slightest traffic delay is one of the major sources of the gridlock on our roads. There are also instances of serious accidents arising from the indiscriminate manner some of these convoy operators have carry on.

Ironically and in the face of this abuse, the government appears not to have mustered sufficient courage to stem the tide. It is therefore heart-warming that the FRSC has taken up the matter with the appropriate authorities and drastic action will now be taken to stem the tide.

We endorse the observation of the commission that the “abuse of convoys and sirens are an abuse of freedom of movement and intimidation to road users and citizens across the country and this act must stop”.

But this is not the first time the authorities would be expressing misgivings about the indiscriminate use of sirens and convoys by unauthorized persons. We have had such promises in the past without concrete results. This seemed to have emboldened all manner of characters to embark on a bazaar of acquiring vehicles fitted with sirens. For the new move to succeed, the authorities must first regulate the ease with which all manner of persons acquire siren fitted vehicles and secure the services of police escorts. The rules must be clearly spelt out on those who can move on our roads with such vehicles and the conditions for it.

For a country buffeted from all angles by all manner of security challenges, it is mortal risk allowing the indiscriminate use of sirens go on this way. Given the ease with which they move on our roads (some of them with their number plates covered), there is little doubt that they have become a source of serious security challenge. Evil minded persons: kidnappers, armed robbers, bandits and terrorists could find comfort in convoys and sirens to perpetrate their heinous acts and escape the prying eyes of law enforcement agencies. This danger is real and we can only toy with it at the risk of the escalation of the deteriorating security challenges in parts of the country. So it is the overall interest of the country that something very drastic and result-oriented is done to stem the madness which the use of sirens and convoys have become especially in some parts of the country.

Behind the indiscriminate use of sirens by persons not authorized to its use is issue of ego and ostentation. We are contending with a people who want to be noticed; people who want to show off and intimidate others even when they have nothing to offer. We are dealing with a population that revels in self-gratification, personality cult and pleasure-seeking. That is the culture of underdevelopment, a vicious cycle that will continue to vitiate efforts by this country to take its proper place within the comity of nations despite its huge endowments by nature.

The FRSC may mean well. But unless it gets the cooperation of the presidency and the National Assembly to enforce extant regulations on the issue, its new resolve may go the way of those before it. It may be able to rein in some of the private persons- businessmen, traders and the army of former office holders who regularly abuse the siren. But a majority of those in contempt of the siren are public office holders at the national and state level excluded from it by extant regulations. The solution lies in strict compliance with the NRTR stipulations. That is the challenge.

January 13, 2020
Citizen Favour Oladele

By Emeka Omeihe

The cruel murder of a 400-level female student of the Lagos State University, Favour Daley-Oladele for ritual purposes has exposed all that is wrong with our society. The despicable manner of her killing is bound to offend the sensibilities of even the most callous.

That accounted for the strong condemnations and opprobrium that trailed the incident. But for the pacification by the authorities of that institution, the outrage that trailed the killing could have snowballed to students’ unrest with outcomes that could have disrupted public peace.

According to reports, the girl who had visited her parents and was about to return to school had a sudden phone call. Unknown to her parents, the call was from her boyfriend and instead of returning to school, she made straight to see him at the designated place.

But that decision was to be the greatest mistake of her life. She did not know that her supposed boyfriend had perfected devious plans to kill her on that day. The supposed boyfriend, 23-year old Adeeko Owolabi who was said to be an ex-student of the same university, apparently propelled by vaulting ambition had connived with a white garment self-acclaimed pastor, Segun Philips to murder her for money making ritual purposes.

He lured Favor to a hotel where he drugged her. Having achieved his ill plan of getting his victim in a state of unconsciousness, Owolabi then took her to his accomplice pastor’s church where he smashed her head with a pestle given to him by the pastor leading to Favour’s instant death. The rest that followed exposed the bestiality, brutality and animalistic instincts of the said pastor.

They were waiting for the transformation to overnight rich people when the bubble burst. The police tracked them down to their evil location and arrested them courtesy of modern technology. They all confessed to their crimes. But for the good job done by the police; the parents of Favour who had been searching frantically for her for days, would never have come to terms with the circumstances of her mysterious disappearance.

Favour is not alone in the rising incidents of missing persons, many of which have remained largely mysterious. But for the tracking of her phone to that evil location, we may never have got to know that ritual killing propelled by the get-rich-quick syndrome that has afflicted our society was behind it all. It is sad that the belief that killing of humans for rituals could lead to opulence is fast gaining traction within our society.

Or how else do we rationalize that 23-year old Owolabi could easily succumb to the notion that he can become rich overnight through ritual killing and had to kill his girlfriend for that purpose? That is how bad the matter has degenerated. And it is a potent danger our society is currently confronted with. It would appear the ranks of those swayed by such weird beliefs are swelling by the day. The society is obviously at great risk if nothing is done to check the increasing class of young people who are attracted to the nation that killing people for rituals could lead to instant wealth.

It is time to dig deep into that festering obnoxious notion and practice. We need to really ask questions regarding the veracity of the claims that using human parts for rituals leads to the acquisition of power and wealth. They are mundane practices and beliefs that lack empirical verification. That ipso facto, lends them to intense research. Getting to the root of it all may prove difficult given the very surreptitious manner they are carried out.

But the reality that we live with them daily and many of our young ones are increasingly lured into such beliefs should instruct we cannot but interrogate the phenomenon. We cannot afford to dismiss the trend with a wave of the hand. It is systemic challenge any responsible government must confront if anything, to save the army of those increasingly lured into such beliefs. The said pastor who claimed to possess the powers to make people rich through ritual killings demanded N250, 000 before his voodoo chambers could do the magic and got N210, 000. If he had such powers to make people rich overnight, what business does he have asking for N250, 000?

For a person that possesses such supernatural powers, the minimum expectation is that he should have converted them to help himself first. In order words, he should have first made himself very rich. But he is not rich. That is why he still demanded that paltry sum. What an irony! Curiously also, the likes of Owolabi could not read between the lines to decode the duplicity in the entire arrangement. And he has ended up stuffing life out of an innocent girl and ended up very badly.

There is the urgent need for conversation at various levels on this subject matter with the government taking the lead. Ritual killings have become such a threat to human existence that our governments cannot sit idly and allow the ugly practice to fester. It is not just enough for the police to arrest and prosecute the culprits. It is not sufficient that those caught are jailed or even made to pay the supreme sacrifice.

The situation calls for conscious and concerted efforts by the various levels of governments to dig deeper into the phenomenon. Those arrested for such offences should be made to show the public evidence of their supernatural powers to make people rich overnight. In the case at hand, Philips should be brought to the public domain to demonstrate evidence of the claims he made to Owolabi that led him to kill his girlfriend. We will like to know if he really has such powers. If yes, he should demonstrate them and explain why he still demanded money before he could activate his voodoo chambers.

The way he goes about this, will make a lot of impression on the very impressionable segments of our society that are easy victims of such bogus claims. Besides, there should by sensitization seminars and ancillary conversations to interrogate the notion that ritual killings lead to quick wealth.

Just recently, we had a similar interrogation of the notion of witchcraft. The Prof. B.I.C Ijomah Centre for Policy Studies and Research of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka held an international conference to explore the notion of witchcraft. Though there were initial complaints as to the real intentions of its organizers, the conference still came out on a very positive note. Key discussants were unanimous that witchcraft only existed in the figment of the imaginations of the gullible.

In order words, there is nothing like witchcraft even as sundry pastors and preachers regularly deploy such non-verifiable notions to hoodwink and hold their gullible members hostage for self-serving reasons. Not unexpectedly, many families have been torn apart by allegations and counter allegations of witchcraft even when they lack empirical evidence of its occurrence. There have also been many instances of killings based on phony allegations of the same phenomenon.

Just as the centre interrogated witchcraft, the next attention should be focused on ritual killings. At a time technological innovations are in vogue, it is really disconcerting that the superior powers we crave for here are in the areas of the mundane, occult and voodoo. These issues must be interrogated for us to make real progress.

January 6, 2020
Buhari’s 2023 polls’ promise

With raging apprehension on the future of democracy following the outcome of the last elections, President Buhari’s promise of free, fair and credible polls in 2023 would seem a welcome development. But the promise curiously threw up its own challenges.

The president told some of his aides who came to felicitate with him on his birthday: “what I want to promise Nigerians is that I will work very hard on free and fair elections. All those that are going to succeed in the National Assembly and the Presidency have to work very hard because I will make sure using the law enforcement agencies that elections are free and fair. Nobody will use his office or resources to force himself on his constituents”

The issues the president seeks to cure in the 2023 elections are prominent in the list of infractions that have overtime, vitiated the collective will of the electorate. Given the debilitating rancor that trailed the last general elections and the most recent governorship polls in Kogi and Bayelsa states, Buhari’s promise gives new hope that our democracy is after all, not headed to the precipice.

Even as it may not be necessary to rehearse all that went wrong with those elections including the wanton losses in lives and properties, suffice it to say that those elections detracted substantially from the standard gauge of free and free engagement. Observers and the international community were unanimous in their ratings that the outcome of those elections was a minus from the gains recorded in 2015.

It is therefore not for nothing that the prevailing feeling is that unless very far-reaching and fool-proof measures are taken to guarantee the credibility and sanctity of future elections, the future of democracy is bleak. It would seem the president’s promise is essentially targeted at halting this slide. However, there are three strands of the statement that gave the inkling that all along he knew all that was wrong with our electoral process. Its’ corollary is an admission of the dismal performance of leadership in providing effective therapeutic responses to them.
First, by promising to work very hard to guarantee free and fair elections, he has admitted his shortcomings in previous elections. The interpretation is that it is either he did not make enough efforts previously or the energies he deployed were not sufficient to achieve the desired results or both. He could also have had other personal reasons for not going beyond those efforts.

Secondly, there are deductions arising from his admonition of prospective aspirants for national assembly positions and the presidency to work very hard as he will make use of the security agencies to ensure that the 2023 elections are free and fair. It can be inferred that many of those who had vied and won these positions in the past did not work hard enough and may have gotten their mandate due to compromise positions of the security agencies.

There is the additional suggestion that political office holders have been in the habit of using their offices and resources to foist themselves on the electorate irrespective of their popularity standing in their constituencies. No doubt about that. Buhari intends to halt all these in 2023. But some of the promises are not novel at all.

Given that security agencies had always been deployed ostensibly, to guarantee the sanctity of elections, Buhari’s new promise seems to suggest that their previous outings fell short of the neutrality expected of their offices. Or are we envisioning a new template of rules and behavior that will now ensure that security agencies do not compromise their positions in the manner we have seen in previous elections? The issue is not just the deployment of security agencies but the brief they are given by the leadership in ensuring a free playing ground for all political parties. That is what has been lacking.

In the last governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states, more than 30,000 security agencies were deployed to maintain the peace. Yet, even the rudimentary enforcement of restrictions on movement proved futile. That enabled thugs to move freely in vehicles attacking opponents and leaving in their trail sorrow and awe. And after all that transpired during those elections, we are left with a conspiracy of silence of some sort. Incidentally, this has fuelled rumors that they were actually doing the bidding of the powers above.
A government that is committed to free and fair elections should have set up an investigative panel to probe events of those elections. Such investigation would unravel who did what in the orgy of violence and sundry electoral infractions that reduced those elections to a verity of military warfare. It is vital to get at the root of all that transpired to better equip the president in his new confidence in the capacity of security agencies to ensure free and fair polls.

Beyond that however, is the suspicion raised by the president’s choice of 2023 as the commencement date for his sanitization of the electoral process. Why wait till 2023 instead of initiating immediate measures to ensure that all future elections conform to the new thinking? We ask this question because there are outstanding elections arising from the judgments of the courts on the last elections that are coming up in various states. There are other states with different calendar for the governorship polls that will definitely come up before his target date.
Governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states will come before that date. Is it going to be business as usual? We had expected the president to give immediate commitment to all the issues impeding the successful conduct of elections given the fast eroding public confidence in the process. It is strange he is only concerned with the 2023 polls.

More seriously, there are also questions on the propriety in using an election in which the president is not a candidate as a true test of his commitment to free and fair polls. Such commitment is better measured when he is a candidate in the election. We saw that in the 2015 elections he ran and won with former president Jonathan still on the saddle.

Ironically, the 2019 elections he superintended over did not show any improvement in the one that brought him to power. In fact, they detracted substantially from the gains recorded in the 2015 outing. All the same, it is still good a thing the president has given commitment to sanitizing the electoral process to restore the confidence of the people in it.

A government that has the fight against corruption as one of its cardinal programs can ill-afford to allow the do-or-die contests that are fast assuming the culture of our democratic engagement to persist. For, there is an intricate link between corruption and the sundry electoral malfeasance that have virtually robbed us of the gains of virile democracy which free and fair contests engender. If the government is serious in the fight against corruption, it must take urgent measures to stamp out corruption in our electoral process.

The bitter competition that characterize our politics; the deployment of devious means and all criminal strategies by politicians to win elections, are intricately linked to the ease of access to wealth which political offices offer. Thus, as long as this perverse culture persists, so long will it be difficult to check corruption in public places. So, it does not seem we have an alternative to sanitizing the electoral process to discourage the pervading feeling that it is the surest way to quick wealth.

More fundamentally, the president must go beyond these promises to initiate actions in conjunction with the national assembly to effect such constitutional amendments that will ensure the sanctity of future elections. It is time to dilute the huge powers of the center that accentuate bitter competition for its resources for personal and clannish interests.

December 23, 2019
NBS corruption survey

The second corruption survey by the National Bureau of Statistics NBS unveiled interesting data on the state of the war against that malfeasance in the country.

Released in the seventh month of the second term of an administration that has the fight against corruption as one of its three cardinal programmes, the report could not have come at a more auspicious time. This is especially so as some of its findings conform to subsisting deficits in the current prosecution of the war against graft in public offices.

In the latest survey, the police topped the chart as the most corrupt public agency. It posted similar unenviable record in the first report presented in 2016 though it had a drop from its 46 per cent rating then to 33 per cent in the current survey. Next to the police in this high corruption ladder are land registry officers with a posting of 25 per cent.

However, the most comforting news was that health workers came last, posting five per cent as the least corrupt officials. This is something to cheer given the critical and very sensitive roles they play in the lives of the citizenry. Thus, for the war against corruption to be meaningfully and realistically prosecuted, the government must as a matter of urgency focus attention on the institution of the police and the land registry. It is imperative to get the police institution key into the war given mounting public complaints of extortion, bribery and corruption brazenly going on in that agency.

It was nonetheless gratifying that there was a slight drop in the general level of corruption cases, particularly bribery from 32.3 per cent in 2016 to 30.2 per cent in 2019. This infinitesimal drop is a measure of the level of success recorded in the anti graft war.

Perhaps, the most revealing aspect of the survey is in the area of its rating of states within the corruption index. In its state-by-state record, the NBS rated Kogi as the most corrupt state in the country with a 48 per cent score followed by Gombe State which had 45 per cent. Rivers State scored 43 per cent and Adamawa 41 per cent. Interestingly, the report rated Imo State as the least corrupt state with 17.6 per cent followed by Jigawa, Kano and Plateau states in that order. This contrasts very sharply with the high corruption profile Imo State posted in the first NBS survey.

But, the good standing of Imo State within the corruption index has turned out a subject of claims and counter claims. This arose as aides to the former governor, Rochas Okorocha sought to appropriate credit for the current good standing of the state in the NBS corruption chart.

Their argument is that since the last survey was done in 2016, much of the timeframe covered by the current one was when Okorocha held sway. For this, they would want the credit for the good outing to go to that regime. Apparently hiding under this claim, they saw the good rating as an opportunity to launder Okorocha’s image especially given the allegations of corruption hanging on his neck.

But the Ihedioha-led administration dismissed the claims, insisting that the favorable placing of the state was a consequence of the several measures it initiated in several fronts to plug leakages and position the state on the path to steady growth by enthroning probity and accountability in public offices. Part of the measures the governor adopted on assuming office to check corruption was the introduction of the Treasury Single Account TSA. The state government rolled the TSA into quick motion by signing Order 005 which streamlined remittances into government’s coffers.

Before the coming into being of the TSA, the previous government operated over 250 bank accounts leading to scandalous leakages in the revenue accruing to the state government. All these loopholes and avenues for financial leakages were plugged with the operation of the TSA.

They also contended that the uncovering of 8,546 ghost worker by an audit committee on pensions which saved the state a monthly revenue of N280 million was a good evidence of a government with strong aversion for corruption and corrupt practices. Additionally, the sharp rise in Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, from its N200 million position when Okorocha held sway to nearly N1 billion since Ihedioha mounted the saddle could not but have earned the state good rating in the fight against corruption.

They argued that these leakages had a free reign during the last administration and bore positive link with the first NBS report which rated Imo State very high in the corruption matrix. And if all these leakages subsisted as Okorocha was leaving office, it is difficult to fathom how that regime could have posted a record different from its very embarrassing outing in the first survey report. That is as far as the arguments have been canvassed. Both claimants are entitled to their views.

But there are issues arising from the NBS survey report and other facts in the public domain that should resolve which of the two administrations should take the credit for the current outing of the state. The NBS said the second report assessed the impact of measures put in place by ministries, agencies and departments of government in fighting corruption after the first report.

Whereas we can find ample evidence of these measures since Ihedioha came on stream, there is nothing to show that Okorocha considered such measures relevant. Neither did his aides point at such measures by his regime before he left office. But then, Okorocha had boasted on many occasions that he had no room for due process.

Again, the NBS said the report covered bribery during elections while observing that one out of five Nigerians took bribe or gift to vote during the last elections. It is very evident from the foregoing that the report is largely a recent one since it captured events during the last elections. A survey that covered the last elections is expected to have captured developments since the new administrations took over.

The point being made here is that the measures taken by the current governors were critical factors in the standing of their states in the corruption ladder. So it is difficult for Okorocha and his supporters to ambush the credit for the current success of Imo State government in the fight against corruption. Moreover, there is adjunct information in the public domain that would render such claims an exercise in wishful thinking.

During the last elections which the NBS said it captured in the report, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC had seized N5 billion of Imo funds. The anti graft agency said it seized the money because “Okorocha was spending too much money in a suspicious manner on the eve of the general elections”. The agency said about N8 billion from the Paris Club refund meant for workers salaries were kept by the state government only to begin spending it ‘frivolously’ just before the elections.

Again, shortly before the expiration of his office, Okorocha had cried out that some members of his party were plotting with the EFCC to arrest him immediately his immunity expired. He even obtained a restraining order from the court to thwart his arrest. Even then, he has been grilled by the EFCC over alleged money laundering after leaving office. This is in addition to several high profile properties traced to him and members of his family that have been sealed up by the EFCC. Facts are sacred and they speak for themselves.

It is difficult to figure out how a regime plagued by serious corruption scandals, could seek to appropriate the gains recorded in the current corruption chart. If Okorocha’s aides are anxious to launder his image, they are at liberty. But they are bound to hit the rocks in this contrived revisionism, if they lay claims to probity, accountability and due process.

December 16, 2019
The Oraifite killings

Emeka Omeihe

Why an intra-communal feud turned bloody in Oraifite community in the Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State last week is a puzzle the authorities should entangle without much delay.

Was the matter escalated and given a lethal dimension because the name of Ifeanyi Ejiofor, lawyer to Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra IPOB featured in the report lodged with the police? Is it one of those instances of poor handling of a misunderstanding by the police, error of judgment or both? These are the searing posers thrown up by that unfortunate encounter.

They are further given fillip because of the losses both in humans and properties of inestimable value that were said to have been snuffed out and destroyed during that incident. In the aftermath of the encounter, the police claimed two of their senior officers were killed by IPOB members when they visited the family home of Ejiofor to effect his arrest following a report of his alleged involvement in a case of abduction, assault occasioning harm and malicious damage of properties.

But the stories making the rounds from the community had it that the security operatives drafted to the scene by the police unleashed mayhem on the family of Ejiofor leading to the alleged killing of two people even as many others received varying degrees of injury with properties of innocent citizens of the community razed down. Photographs of houses burnt down in the family home of the Ejiofors’ have also been trending in the social media.

For now, we are left with blame trading; claims and counterclaims as to the real circumstances of the event, the number of those killed, what provoked the killings and their motive. It is also yet to be ascertained between the police, the Ejiofor family and the IPOB who is responsible for the mishandling and escalation of the incident. A judicial commission of inquiry where all parties will give evidence as to what actually transpired will resolve the riddle surrounding the unfortunate incident.

Before then however, there are basic facts of the unfortunate incident that will be hard to controvert. And these must be taken in their proper perspective for us to get at the root of the matter. The first is that Ejiofor was in his home town for the burial of his late elder step-brother, Louis Ejiofor and the burial ceremonies were just being concluded when the incident happened. Secondly, there was a crisis at another funeral ceremony in the community on Saturday, November 29, between two rival masquerade groups. Ejiofor is said to be the legal adviser of one of the rival masquerade groups. The feud had resulted to fisticuffs, injuries on both sides, abductions and the subsequent lodging of a report at the divisional police office in the area by one of the masquerade groups.

Those who lodged the report mentioned Ejiofor as one of the suspected masterminds of the fracas. Following the report, the police sent some of their men to the house of Ejiofor apparently to arrest him. It is also very evident that prior to the report, Ejifor had no issues with the police authorities in that division. It is also a fact that deaths were recorded in the ensuing fracas. These are basic facts none of the contending parties can controvert. They will come handy in situating the role of the police in the turn of events that were to follow.

But there are divergences in the accounts of the police, eyewitnesses and the IPOB as to the sequence of events that followed on the arrival of the police; who attacked first and the issues that provoked that attack. This should not be surprising in matters of this nature that turned out awry. Buck passing is usually the game when issues that should have been handled more professionally are bungled. In such instances, we should expect blame game, denials, cover ups and half-truths. What are the real issues to the conflict?

Independent accounts, had it that when the police came to the family home of the Ejiofors’ the second time, they demanded to see him on account of the allegations levied against him. But on learning that he had not returned, they went furious and began to fire their weapons indiscriminately. The ensuing attacks killed two people and left many injured.

But in a statement on Monday, the police claimed that there was a report against one “Barr. Ifeanyi Ejiofor, ‘m’ (a member of the proscribed IPOB) in Oraifite on alleged case of abduction, assault occasioning harm and malicious damage of property”. They claimed when their team went to arrest Ejiofor over the complaints made against him, IPOB member immediately attacked them killing two of their men and setting their van ablaze.

Hear them: “Consequently, the command deployed reinforcements from the state headquarters comprising PMF, SARS, and special anti-cult units in conjunction with the army/other sister agencies who cordoned the area to flush out the culprits”.

The following day, the Anambra State Police Commissioner declared Ejiofor wanted in connection with the alleged killing of two police officers by members of the IPOB.

It is now the words of the police against that of Ejiofor and the IPOB. But the police admitted that they asked for reinforcement. It is not clear why they asked for reinforcement and the type of resistance they met on ground that required the aid of the army and other security agencies. Neither were we told that Ejiofor was arrested at the scene after the crisis since it was the main reason the police came to the place.

However, there are a number of fallouts from the two statements issued by the police on the matter. The first is the error in describing Ejiofor as a member of the proscribed IPOB. The second issue which evolved from his declaration as a wanted man is that he was not at home when the police visited and throughout the duration of the crisis. Had he been there, the police would have arrested him thus forestalling his being declared a wanted man the following day.

If these assumptions are right, on whose behalf were those alleged to have attacked he police team killing two of their men fighting? Who were they protecting since the IPOB lawyer was not around and who would have given them the order to attack the police?

These questions arise because the impression created was that the IPOB lawyer was at home at the time of the invasion and his resistance of arrest was responsible for the maximum force the police and its sister agencies unleashed on the community. But we cannot find evidence of this suggestion since Ejiofor was not there when the attack ensued.

There is no intention to hold brief for any of the parties to the conflict. But it is difficult to ignore the yawning gaps created by the narratives of the police on the issue. Not unexpectedly, those gaps have been at the heart of accusations that the security agencies acted the way they did because of their presumption that Ejiofor was a member of the IPOB. How they failed to make a distinction between a counsel to Nnamdi Kanu and membership of the outlawed self-determination group says a lot of the ruins that were visited on the home of the Ejiofors.

With such a mind-set, it was not surprising that excessive force was brought to bear in the attempt to arrest a man accused of abduction, assault and malicious damage of properties. It would seem the error of the police in tagging the lawyer a member of the IPOB was responsible for the level of damage wrought on that quiet community.

The incident was evidently mismanaged. And it says volumes on the attitude of law enforcement agencies in matters relating to the proscribed IPOB. That is something really to worry about. A serious inquisition into the Oraifite mayhem will unravel the riddle thrown up by the incident.

December 9, 2019
Witchcraft conference: Postscript

WAS there real justification for the controversy that threatened the recent International Conference on Witchcraft organized by the University Of Nigeria Nsukka, UNN? Or were the prejudices that led to its stigmatization by some Christian groups, part of the contradictions the conference was set to confront?

These questions are raised because of issues bandied before the conference; issues that led to the replacement of its original theme and the withdrawal of the Keynote Speaker. But for this thematic change, the conference may not have seen the light of the day given the negative meanings and coloration assigned to that intellectual harvest by some protesting groups.

What were the issues? The Prof. B.I.C Ijomah Center for Policy Studies and Research, UNN had slated an International Conference on Witchcraft with the title, “Witchcraft: meanings, factors, and practices”. But as soon as it was unveiled, there arose strident outcries from some Christian groups and students of the institution protesting the purpose the conference was meant to serve.

Interpretations ranged from allegations that it was a gathering of witches to an attempt to promote evil with some calling for its outright cancellation. There were even demonstrations within the campus of the university with some of the placards reading “we plead the blood of Jesus over UNN. We reject all forms of witchcraft overtly or covertly”.

Apparently succumbing to pressure, the management of the university directed the organizers to change the theme if they wanted the conference to go on. This was done. Thus, the new theme became “Dimensions of human behavior”. The conference has come and gone. But with its emerging proceedings, was there real justification for the hullaballoo and its stigmatization in the first place? That is the searing question. And we may find out the attacks were highly misplaced as there is ample justification for the conference and its theme as originally conceived. What is witchcraft? Wikipedia described witchcraft as the practice of magical skills and abilities – a broad term that varies culturally and societally and thus can be difficult to define with precision. A witch in the definition of Merriam Webster is one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers especially a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil.

Evident from the above is that witchcraft and witches are practices and beliefs shared across countries and boarders and therefore not just a Nigerian phenomenon. The fact that dictionaries have definitions or explanations as to what they entail shows that the white man has some knowledge of such beliefs either in their real or imaginary frame. There is also a convergence of views that what constitutes witchcraft varies culturally and does not lend itself to precise explanation or interpretation

That ipso facto, makes it a research question. Thus, a conference with the title “Witchcraft, meanings, factors and practices” seeks to dig deeper into the phenomenon with a view to unraveling some of the misconceptions that hitherto surrounded it, misconceptions that had led to the killing and burning alive of some old women on these shores on mere suspicion of witchcraft. Moreover, issues surrounding witchcraft and witches have at best, remained mysterious and contentious. A society that desires progress cannot but interrogate such issues. There was therefore, vision and foresight in both the organization of the conference and its subject matter.

Curiously, the so-called Nigerian factor soon reared up its ugly head as some groups began to cast aspersions on that intellectual inquisition. They did not want the conference to hold as they considered it a gathering of witches and the sponsorship of evil. The director-general of the centre, Prof. Egodi Uchendu was so frustrated by these misplaced attacks that she lamented how ordinary academic conference was twisted to cause confusion.

She was so piqued by events before the conference that she had to explain in a statement that the subject of the conference is on witchcraft and NOT the gathering of witches. Hear her: “surprisingly, some persons erroneously concluded that only witches can discuss witchcraft. We are not witches. We are professors and scholars intrigued by this phenomenon of witchcraft. Our conference is mere academic discussion where we shall review journals and information gathered over the years on the subject matter”. For her, the essence is the advancement of knowledge. She said it all.

But arising from her frustrations is the propriety of the attacks mounted by some Christian organizations. Perhaps, she had this dialectics in mind when she rightly observed that church pastors discuss witchcraft regularly and also preach against it all the time. If that is the case, why were they opposed to an academic inquisition on the matter? What is there in an issue they regularly preach that scholars should be barred from discussing it? And whose interest was the stoppage meant to serve? These posers are given fillip given that sundry pastors, seers and fortunetellers capitalize on the purported existence of witches, wizards and blood sucking demons to hoodwink and deceive their followers.

Could the attacks have stemmed from pathological fear that some of the antics of these preachers stand the risk of being exposed by the conference? Or were there genuine issues in the challenges mounted by the Christian bodies? As things turned out, the attacks were grossly exaggerated and misconceived. It was sheer smear campaign. The argument that only witches can discuss witchcraft makes no sense at all.

Are we now being made to believe that those preachers who regularly discuss witchcraft and blood sucking demons; sometimes setting families against each other, children against parents and wives against their mothers-in-law are witches? If that is the case, then the boundaries of witchcraft are very inelastic. We are then all witches since at one time or the other we find ourselves discussing the subject matter. That is the futility in stretching that argument further.

Those who wanted the conference scuttled could be excused on grounds of ignorance. They may also be accused of nursing some hidden agenda. But it is this culture of ignorance that nurtures and sustains the myth of witchcraft the conference was set to expose. With the frequent deployment of such mystic and magical occurrences to explain life situations and their negative effects on the psyche of the ordinarily man, we run a mortal danger if conscious efforts are not made to reverse such narratives. That in my mind was the essence of the intellectual engagement on witchcraft. We cannot just run away from interrogating such social phenomenon if we must detach our peoples from the culture of fear and superstition that has overtime stultified national development.

The conference was a success given the way the phenomenon was handled by various speakers. In his own paper titled, “The wealthy are no witches: towards an epistemology and ideology of witchcraft among the Igbo of Nigeria”, Prof Damian Opata said the way witchcraft was propagated and believed here had continued to kill the development of knowledge on the issue.

Lamenting the deployment by pastors, prophet and seers of variegated foreign religions of perceived attacks by witches and wizards to put fear in the minds of their congregations, he said the truth is that witches exist for those who believe it exists and does not exist for those who do not believe in it.

Peter Jazzy-Eze, head, Department of Sociology and Anthropology UNN, in his paper titled, “Which Witch? What anthropology knows of the adult Bugbear” argued that witchcraft did not exist but only existed in the minds of those who believe in it. For him, science and technology have overtaken superstitious belief on witchcraft which has no practical proof. He urged Africans to drop the belief in witchcraft and embrace robust knowledge in science and technology that have practical and verifiable applications.

The issue is clear. It was neither a case of witches discussing witchcraft nor a gathering of witches. It was an intellectual inquisition into the phenomenon of witchcraft. And we are better off with the conclusions that witches only exist in the imagination of the gullible.

December 2, 2019
Sanctity of the ballot box

It is worrisome that the outcome of last week’s elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states did not deviate substantially from the recriminations that had characterized our elections overtime. Neither were they devoid of the unwholesome tendencies that cast serious slur on the future of democracy on these shores.

Not unexpectedly, incidents of killing, maiming, harassment, hijacking of ballot boxes, vote buying and outright rewriting and falsification of election results were the drawbacks freely traded. At least 10 people were killed in Kogi State including the woman leader of the main opposition party who was burnt alive in her home two days after the elections by suspected party thugs.

The fatalities were less in Bayelsa State but peace still took flight as a result of electoral violence with many critically injured. International observers under the platform, ‘Diplomatic Watch’ decried the high level of violence in the two states; vote buying, killings in some polling units and credible reports on ballot box snatching. The group which included the EU, US and UK expressed sympathy for all those affected by the violence and called on the government to provide a fair and safe playing ground where all Nigerians would be able to exercise their fundamental rights to vote unencumbered.

Elsewhere security agencies have also been taking a fair share of the blame for not rising to the challenges posed by these grave security infractions. The police and the military have been fingered by the opposition for aiding some politicians to rig the elections with brazen impunity. Even with the deployment of more than 30, 000 security personnel for the elections, armed thugs still operated feely in their vehicles without being apprehended despite the usual restrictions on movement.

The Inspector-General of Police IGP, Muhammad Adamu did not help matters when he told reporters that the police had prior intelligence that the elections in Kogi and Bayelsa were going to be violent. If the police had such prior information and we are still left with this embarrassing level of killings and all manner of criminal infractions, it means either they did not take the required proactive steps to arrest the situation or where such responses were undertaken, they were not sufficient to elicit the required outcomes. Whichever the case, the police found itself wanting in providing peaceful and safe ground for the electorate to exercise their franchise without fear of harassment or intimidation. That much is incontrovertible and has been given ample credence by international observers.

Adamu also rationalized the presence of helicopters during the elections on the ground that they were meant to frighten and scare away would-be ballot box snatchers and other elements intent on causing trouble. We may have to concede this claim to that security organization. But the outcome of the elections showed that the gun-boat diplomacy of the police failed to produce the required results as electoral infractions were at an all time high during the elections. It is clear the helicopters did not quite succeed in scaring away trouble makers given the high level of violence that marred the exercise.

If one may ask, how many of those election violators were the helicopters able to detect and trace to their final rigging destinations and how many arrests were made? We ask these questions because with the superior air power of the helicopters, the police should have been able not only to neutralize the army of marauding thugs that moved with vehicles during the elections but pursued and smoked them out from their rigging hideouts. It appears none of these happened or we are yet to be told so.

The police and the military have also been fighting allegations that they aided and abetted the malfeascence. The usual thing we hear after such elections is that impersonators are sometimes misconstrued as police and military personnel. Adamu went along this line when he said the police anticipated this and made tags for its personnel. But the overall responsibility for arresting such impostors still rests squarely on the shoulders of the security agencies. So, no matter how hard they strive to exculpate themselves from the mess, they still share vicarious responsibilities.

It is the duty of security agencies to make it difficult for imposters of all hue to have a field day during elections. It is also their duty to apprehend and bring to book all those who make it impossible for the collective will of the people as expressed at the ballot box to triumph. Unless serious steps are taken to ensure the sanctity of elections, the increasing culture of violence will get to a level where the people will lose confidence in the entire exercise. And we are getting to that point.

Events of the 2019 general elections and the outcome of the Kogi and Bayelsa polls are increasingly conjuring the miserable impression that all one requires to win elections is brute force irrespective of the number of deaths recorded. Contrary to the visionary and patriotic statement credited to former president, Goodluck Jonathan, we are now being made to believe that the election of some persons is worth the blood of as many Nigerians as are perceived obstacles to election winning by hook and crook.

That is all we are contending with now. Where do we place the blame and who takes responsibility for the militarization and bastardization of the electoral process? Who do we hold responsible if things go awry during elections? We ask because of the recrimination between the main opposition party and the government on events of the last elections. The Peoples Democratic Party PDP had rejected the results of the elections, accusing the government of rigging and sponsoring the violence that ensued.

But the presidency responded by accusing it of being a bad loser. For the Senior Special Assistant on Media to the president, Garba Shehu, “It has become a standard procedure for party to challenge any poll that does not return its candidate. Elections are good when the PDP wins. The opposite is the case when any other party wins”.

Whereas one can admit the ruinous culture of not accepting defeat at elections by our politicians, often accounting for embarrassing litigations, it will be uncharitable to hide under this to cover up the monumental infractions recorded in the just concluded elections. And as evidently admitted by Shehu, democracy is not just about who wins or loses but the process. The grouse with the elections is the process. And we cannot possibly gloss over who wins or who loses when there are serious shortcomings in the process that brought about winners and losers. They are two sides of the same coin.

Those who fault the outcome of elections in the two states have serious issues with the processes leading to and culminating in the announcement of winners and losers and not necessarily the political parties or individuals that won. And there is no way we can ignore the rules for free, fair and credible conduct without compromising the sovereignty of the electorate. These constitute the lynchpin of the democratic order.

And in these complaints, the electoral commission, security agencies, the federal government, the presidency and individual politicians share the blame for reasons that are not hard to fathom. If they did their duties to the satisfaction of everyone, there would be no need for the complaints. You cannot beat a child and prevent him from crying. In verity, the overall outcome of the Kogi and Bayelsa polls fell short of the standard tests for a free, fair and credible conduct.

A voyage on dissent muzzling after the damage has been done is meaningless. The right thing is for the government to work with the National Assembly to facilitate amendments to the Electoral Act; changes that will sufficiently keep at bay the embarrassing infractions witnessed. President Buhari pleaded time constraints for not assenting to the 2018 Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill. Had that bill been assented to, we may have been saved the current pass. Now is the time for him to show good faith if he wants democracy to survive.

November 25, 2019