The Nation Newspaper

Category: Emeka Omeihe

  • Deconstructing Benue killings

    Deconstructing Benue killings

    If the issues arising from President Bola Tinubu’s meeting with stakeholders in Makurdi are realistically followed up and addressed, the federal government may well be closer to finding lasting solutions to the unceasing killings in Benue and other states.

    The meeting which was part of the president’s interventions to restore peace in the troubled state followed the killing of about 200 innocent people penultimate week in Yelewata, Guma Local Government Area by militia herdsmen. Interestingly, the first shot on the seeming contradiction surrounding the killings was fired by the president himself.

    President Tinubu must have taken his audience by surprise when after establishing the purpose of his visit, he turned to the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun and asked, “How come no one has been arrested for committing the heinous crime in Yelewata. Inspector-General of Police, where are the arrests? The criminals must be arrested immediately”, he further ordered.

    The questions must have come against the background of an earlier order he gave security agencies to deploy to the state and arrest all perpetrators of the evil act on all sides of the conflict and prosecute them.

    Apparently unsatisfied with the progress in addressing the situation, the president further directed the Department of State Services (DSS) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to intensify surveillance, gather actionable intelligence, and collaborate with local communities to apprehend the perpetrators.

    It is good a thing the president interrogated the security chiefs in the open on the arrests made of those behind the dastardly killings. That has been the recurring but unresolved puzzle in the cycle of violence unleashed by herdsmen across the country.

    The relative ease with which herdsmen terrorists kill, maim and despoil communities and disappear into the thin air without detection has over the years, fuelled feelings of a sinister agenda. Curiously, matters have not been helped by the serial inability of the security agencies either to prevent such attacks or arrest the culprits to face the raw teeth of the law. That seems to have emboldened the attackers in their constant recourse to lawlessness.

    However, the arrests that were gleefully announced by the Benue State Police Command were those of 14 suspects who allegedly hijacked the peaceful protests by some youths against the killings. The police said the suspects obstructed a roadway in Apir, in the outskirts of Makurdi, forcefully stopped a truck driver and set it ablaze with the driver trapped inside. It is in the line of duty of the police to apprehend suspected culprits of that infraction.

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    But the promptness with which those arrests were made pales in the face of the inability of security agencies to arrest those behind the Yelewata mayhem. The criminals who poured petrol on innocent old men, women and children while sleeping in their homes and set them ablaze ought to be cooling off in the cells of the security agencies to imbue some confidence in their capacity to protect lives and properties of all persons.

    Nothing of such is of public knowledge. That was the demand the president made of the security agencies and it goes without saying. By asking those probing questions, the president seemed to have set the tone for the resolution of the puzzles that shroud the invincibility of the herdsmen each time they kill, maim and despoil communities.

    The president’s questions sat well with well-meaning Nigerians who had sought genuine answers to the herdsmen insurgency that regularly operates with an air of invincibility, undetected. It is a serious challenge to the nation’s security architecture that criminal herdsmen have continued to defy intelligence, operating at will in different parts of the country without their cell busted.

    Now the president has spoken for Nigerians, hopes are high of something very positive being done. Arresting the culprits of the Benue mayhem is imperative to decode those behind the incessant attacks and killings by herdsmen in parts of the country often attributed to clashes over grazing lands. It is not for nothing that these attacks and killings follow the same predictable pattern.

    Arrest of the sponsors, enablers and foot soldiers of these attacks holds the ace to president Tinubu’s assurance to end the cycle of bloodshed in the state, restore peace and convert the tragedy to prosperity.

    Chairman of Benue State Council of Traditional Rulers and paramount ruler of Tiv, Prof. James Ayatse, threw up another troubling dimension to the killings that calls for serious attention. He told the audience that mischaracterising the violence as “herder-farmer clashes” only masked the true nature of the conflict.

    Hear him, “We have grave concerns about the misinformation and misrepresentation of the security crisis in Benue State. Your Excellency, it’s not herder-farmer clashes, it is not communal clashes; it’s not reprisal attacks or skirmishes.  It is this misinformation that has led to suggestions such as ‘remain tolerant, learn to live in peace with your neighbours’.

    “What we are dealing with here in Benue is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocide invasion and land grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits which has been going on for decades and is worsening by the year”.

    Tor Tiv said wrong diagnosis of an ailment will always lead to wrong treatment and that they are dealing with something far more sinister and not just learning to live with your neighbour but dealing with the war. The paramount ruler may have been referring to an earlier statement by the presidency on the Benue killings.

    Special Adviser to the president on media and publicity, Bayo Onanuga had in a statement charged the state governor, Hyacinth Alia to among others, convene reconciliation meetings and dialogue among warring parties to end the incessant bloodshed and bring lasting peace and harmonious co-existence between farmers, herders and communities.

    Prof. Ayatse says these are not the real issues to contend with. He would want the president to have a proper reading of the situation for him to provide the right therapies to it.

    The presentation of the paramount ruler struck a common chord with the issues raised by a former minister of defence, Theophilus Danjuma when in March 2018, he accused the Armed Forces of aiding the ongoing killings in the country.

     He had said at the maiden convocation of Taraba State University that, “there is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in the state and of course in some riverine and rural communities in Nigeria. Our armed forces are not neutral. They collude with the armed bandits to kill people, kill Nigerians. The Armed Forces guide their movement. They cover them. If you are depending on the Armed Forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one”.

    Danjuma insisted that the ethnic cleansing in Taraba State and other rural communities must stop, otherwise Somali will be a child’s play even as he called for self-defence.

    So, the issues raised by the traditional ruler are not entirely new; that they have persisted signposts the failure of the leadership to realistically to find closure to them. Sadly, the nation continues to pay the prize for inaction, acts of omission or commission.

    If a former minister of defence could go public with similar allegations about seven years ago, then the issues are damn serious and weighty. Danjuma spoke when Buhari, a former military head of state was in the saddle as civilian president.

    There is every reason to take Danjuma seriously especially in issues of this nature. The issue has again come into the public domain with President Tinubu in charge. The way he goes about it, will determine the level of progress or lack of it in finding durable solutions to the cycle of killings that has put the nation on edge.

    There are reports of the taking over and renaming of communities where militia herdsmen sacked the indigenous populations who now live in Internally Displaced Persons IDP camps in states most prone to the attacks. Independent but unconfirmed sources had it that about 150 communities sacked in Plateau State are now being occupied by the militia herdsmen with some of the communities already renamed.

    The issues are damn serious and complex. They have gone beyond the usual skirmishes between herders and their host communities. Expansionism and land grabbing are the leitmotif. It is vital to deconstruct the Benue narrative for better understanding of the issues involved.

    Even as daunting as the allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide are, the first step to halting the scourge is to ensure that the criminals are not allowed to operate without consequences. It is the prime duty of the government to maintain law and order and protect lives and property.

    If the motivation and operational strategies of militia herdsmen are decoded, it will be difficult for them to attack, kill and maim without being apprehended. Then, the nation would have been on a sure path to consigning to the dust bin of history the cycle of bloodshed that is increasingly tilting it to the precipice.

  • Major Ajayi’s death in captivity

    Major Ajayi’s death in captivity

    Incidences of kidnapping are no longer news on these shores. The degeneration of the malfeasance in the last couple of years in the face of the inability of security agencies to get a handle to it has left Nigerians seemingly at the mercy of all manner of marauders masquerading as kidnappers.

    Even with this seeming collective surrender to fate or helplessness, our consciences are still constantly assailed by the existential and mortal dimensions the scourge has continued to assume. Chilling accounts of the fate of innocent citizens in the hands of kidnappers dot the social space. It is either a tale of kidnapping for ransom, ritual killing or to settle scores for perceived wrongs.

    Many families have lost their loved ones; thrown into sudden grief by the devious activities of callous kidnappers who take advantage of the forests to perpetrate their heinous trade. One of such incidents was the death last week of Major Joe Ajayi, an 80-year old retired army officer in the hands of some demented kidnappers.

    Ajayi was abducted from his hometown in the Odo-Ape, Kabba-Bunu Local Government Area of Kogi State in the midnight of May 21. His abductors made an initial demand of N50 million ransom for his release which the family could not just afford.

    As his incarceration lingered, the family requested the kidnappers to allow them forward his medication to him.  But the kidnappers accepted the family’s request only on the ground that it would come with extra cost. It was inconceivable to fathom how a family that could not raise a substantial part of the humongous amount initially demanded could go about the additional cost. They were unable to meet that demand.

    Without the help of his regular drugs, Ajayi’s health deteriorated. And when his captors noticed this, they quickly reduced the ransom to N10 million. In the hope that the kidnapped was still alive, the family quickly agreed to pay the reduced sum. They rallied around, raised the money in the hope of securing his release.

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    “Once the ransom was paid, the kidnappers directed the family to where they would find him, only for them to meet Ajayi’s lifeless body” a source in the community recounted in utter grief. Sad indeed!

    The circumstances of Ajayi’s death denote an uncanny metaphor for the mindless killings and atrocities our citizens have had to go through since the social scourge resonated in our national chessboard. Perhaps, his case attracted the attention it did because of his position in the society.

    Across the country and on a daily basis, many innocent citizens are made to pass through life-threatening ordeals in the hand of rampaging kidnappers, losing their lives in the process without notice. In their homes, work places, along the highways and our railways, nobody seems to be safe any longer. The matter has so degenerated that the fear of kidnappers is now viewed as the beginning of wisdom.

     Apparently pained by the death, the Bunu Leaders Forum in a statement said the gruesome manner the retired major died was on the conscience of Nigerian leaders who neglected their duties to the nation.  For them, the nation failed the senior army officer who had spent much of life in the service of the country.

    Before Ajayi’s case, a former Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, Brigadier-General Maharazu Tsiga (rtd) was also abducted in his hometown, Tsiga in the Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State. The bandits struck around 12 am on motorcycles, shooting sporadically before forcefully gaining entrance into Tsiga’s residence.

    They abducted the retired army general together with an unspecified number of indigenes of the area. But that was not before some people had lost their lives to the senseless shootings.  The incident caused considerable fear and panic and forced many residents of the community to flee for safety.

    Gen, Tsiga spent 56 days in captivity as all attempts to have him freed proved abortive until some huge amount of money was paid as ransom. A retired Brigadier-General, Ismaila Abdullahi had after Tsiga’s release said that his freedom was facilitated by generous financial contributions from fellow army officers, generals, serving and retired military officers and a wide spectrum of other civilians. In a note of appreciation shared on his Facebook on behalf of Tsiga and his associates, Abdullahi detailed the community-driven efforts that secured the release of Tsiga.

    But the statement drew the ire of Defence Headquarters. The acting Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Tukur Gusau had said in a statement that the article by Abdullahi which claimed military generals contributed money to secure the release of Tsiga from captivity after 56 days was baseless.

    Gusau was apparently unhappy with the inability of Abdullahi to acknowledge the efforts by the military, both kinetic and non-kinetic, to secure the release of the kidnapped general. This could be discerned from the catalogue of what he called the relentless efforts by the military that facilitated Tsiga’s release which he went ahead to furnish.

    To the military can be conceded its claim to series of efforts that culminated in the release of Tsiga from captivity. Nobody is denying them that. But the fact remains that huge sums of money was raised and paid to the kidnappers before Tsiga was set free. Abdullahi did not disclose the amount. But he acknowledged in the post that donations came like August rains.

    Gusau may have been worried by the wrong signal Abdullahi’s claim that military officers, serving and retired, contributed to the donation to free Tsiga could convey. This is quite understandable. But that is the reality of the fate of those who have been unlucky to fall into the hands of kidnappers. It is money or nothing. And if a friend or relation is involved, donors defy ranks and professions especially if it is the only thing that could secure the release of the captive.

    Tsiga corroborated this dimension after his release when he said that the kidnappers do not want to hear anything about God. They are only interested in money. He gave a chilling account of how shortly before they were released, hungry hyenas suddenly surrounded them and how they co-existed with dangerous snakes and scorpions. He attributed his safety to divine providence.

    That was the ordeal Tsiga is alive to tell. But Ajayi has no story to tell as he succumbed in the hands of his traducers. Given his age, one could imagine what he would have passed through without his medication.

    They refused him his drugs. They obviously did not want him to come out alive. Yet, they deceived the family to part with N10 million only to show them the dead body of the elderly man. Where has our conscience gone to and how did we get to this point where human life no longer counts?

    These searing questions highlight the contradictions in the festering criminalities across the country that pays scant attention to human life. These are military officers who served the country in various capacities. They passed through the rigors of military training and must have encountered challenging situations while in service before retiring.

    While in service, nobody dared challenge or threaten their lives. They had full security back up. After retirement, they settled in their home towns only to be taken captive and dehumanised by a band of ragtag urchins masquerading as kidnappers. One could read the minds of the officers as were tortured by these criminals.

    They would have nursed reminiscences of their career in the military; the powers they wielded and how all that could give way to their incarceration by a band of ragtag criminals. That was the situation the Okun forum referenced upon when they said the nation which Ajayi served failed him at the moment of need.

    Ajayi and Tsiga are not alone in this dilemma that speaks of the inability of the government to secure lives and property. The Defence Information reeled out the efforts they made to secure the release of Tsiga. Sadly, nothing of such was heard in the case of Ajayi. If there was such effort, the fact that the kidnappers only released his dead body after ransom had been paid underscores the role of money in securing the freedom of kidnapped victims.

    Fund raising in such circumstances knows no boundaries or professions. And as in Tsiga’s case, the Okun forum also acknowledged military colleagues ‘that also joined to work round the challenge, friends and well-wishers’.

    The issue is not about who contributed money for ransom but the steps the government is taking to roll out effective measures to make kidnapping and all manner of criminalities a risky enterprise. The lesson served by the sad fate of Ajayi and Tsiga is that nobody is spared in the scourge of kidnapping that has stretched the energies of security agencies to elastic limits. Something urgent must be done to tame this monster.

  • Fencing Nigeria’s borders

    Fencing Nigeria’s borders

    Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa last week identified two key challenges militating against the war against insecurity in the country. At a security summit in Abuja themed, “Renewed Hope Agenda: Citizens’ Engagement and National Security”, Musa rooted for the fencing of Nigeria’s borders as it will forestall the entrance of armed groups and reduce the escalating insecurity.

    He also fingered good governance at the local level as a means of tackling the root causes of insecurity.

    “Border management is very critical. We have countries that because of the level of insecurity in their country had to fence their borders”, he stated. The CDS cited the examples of Pakistan which fenced its 1,350 kilometres of border with Afghanistan and the 1,400-kilometre border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq which is completely fenced to buttress his point. According to him, it was after Pakistan fenced its border with Afghanistan that they had peace.

    And he asked, “Can we start thinking of fencing our border, we have 1,500km with Niger Republic, 1,900km with Cameroon. Chad is there, all over us, we are surrounded by francophone countries. The Sahel is heating up; if the Sahel falls, it is Nigeria that they are interested in”.

     This is perhaps, the first time in recent memory a top government official is coming up with the idea of fencing the borders with neighbouring countries. But that is not to imply that the multi-dimensional challenges facing the national economy due to the porosity of the borders have not long been recognised. Not at all.

    Not with the penchant by the government to blame the socio-economic and security challenges confronting the country on illegal infiltration by foreigners into the country. One of the key arguments raised overtime to justify the so-called fuel subsidy removal was the unabating smuggling of fuel across the borders where it sells at higher prices, depriving the government of the needed revenue for development.

    At the centre of all manner of smuggling in goods and services to neighbouring countries has been the inability of the government to effectively police the country’s extensive borders.  According to a former minister of Interior, Abba Moro, as of 2013, “there were over 1,499 irregular/legal and 84 regular/legal officially identified entry routes into Nigeria”. The number could be quite higher given that there are other illegal routes and pathways not officially known to the government.

    Even then, official knowledge of these illegal routes has not had any substantial impact on the illegal movement of goods, persons and services in and across the country. It has been difficult to effectively police the vast borders of the country in the absence of border fences, barriers and modern surveillance equipment.

    Matters are not helped by thriving corruption among officials of the Nigerian Customs Services and other sister agencies that man the identified entry points into the country. Complications in identifying certain categories of foreigners due to affinities bordering on culture, language and religion constitute another serious challenge.

    Fencing the borders is a good start to controlling the influx of aliens into the country. It is definitely an expensive venture given the vastness of the borders. But the idea is not to have all our borders fenced in one fell swoop. That could turn out a tall order.

    The first step is to identify those borders that account for the highest traffic in terms of security challenges and smuggling and begin with them. In this regard, the borders in the Northeast from where terrorists strike and run into the neighbouring countries should be accorded top priority.

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    The current war against terrorism is replete with accounts of terrorists either of the Boko Haram, ISWAP or Lukarawa variant striking communities in the northeast and northwest only to return to their bases in neighbouring countries The fact that Nigeria is currently involved in joint security engagement with some of its neighbours in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency reinforces the importance of gradual fencing of borders in those theatres of war.

    This should be followed up with the fencing of those areas that are notorious for all manner of smuggling activities. Before then, the government should take quick measures to acquire modern sophisticated surveillance equipment for monitoring what goes on at the country’s borders.

    A country unable to effectively monitor and control its borders cannot seriously lay claims to its sovereignty. Is it not sufficiently troubling that insurgency simulated and perfected in the Sahel region is easily deployed to kill, maim and destabilise the country? Ironically, our leaders are quick to blame the cascading insecurity on infiltrators from neighbouring countries as if we are helpless. Sometimes, the way these blames are traded mock the officials behind them.

    A few years ago, when killings by the herdsmen and their despoliation of host communities went out of hand, the government was quick to lay the blame at the doorsteps of foreign herders. Former president, Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018, seven years after the death of Libyan leader, Muammar Ghaddafi, blamed him for the alarming dimension insecurity had assumed in Nigeria.  He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby in London, that the arms Ghaddafi provided to his supporters had filtered into Nigeria where they are now being used to fuel killings across the north-central.

    “These gunmen were trained and armed by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram. Herdsmen we used to know carried only sticks and maybe a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons” he had said.

    Buhari may have brought the purported Libyan angle to cover up the Fulani herdsmen who have been serially accused in the killings in many communities especially in the north-central. Curiously, Libya shares no border with Nigeria and is not on record that it is destabilising its neighbours.

    So, it is difficult to fathom how Ghaddafi could be blamed for the crimes committed by Fulani herdsmen or Boko Haram that originated from this country. It is possible to encounter guns from that country smuggled into our shores from neighbouring countries. It is possible to encounter other makes of sophisticated weapons in the hands of sundry criminals. But it will be wrong to attribute the crimes committed with such guns to the country they came from just like the ones our security agencies work with. At any rate, those fighting alongside Boko Haram may have been recruited by their sponsors, enablers and financiers whom we are told can be found among top politicians, government functionaries and the military. Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum repeated this accusation just recently.

    But that is beside the point. The real issue here is that the relative ease with sundry criminals, arms and ammunitions flood the country is because of the porosity of our borders. Nigeria has vast and unmanned borders with at least four African countries. Some of these countries’ citizens share remarkable affinity with sections of the country and this blurs efforts to differentiate them. Little wonder the horde of foreigners lurking around the major cities undetected.

     Apart from the security challenges it poses, there also socio-economic dimensions to it. That is why cross-border smuggling has gone on unabated depriving the country the resources to the tackle the crisis of multidimensional poverty that has been the sad tale of our citizens.

    The CDS spoke of good governance at the local level as a veritable way of tackling insecurity. That goes without saying. The uncanny contradiction is how to actualise that high-minded objective when it has remained largely illusory at the state and national levels.

    But that does not diminish the potency of the recommendation. It only reinforces the challenges on the way to tackling the cascading insecurity in the country. And since our leaders are in the habit of rationalising the cycle of insecurity on infiltration by foreigners, it is only proper that securing the borders with neighbouring countries is key to winning the war against terrorism and cross border smuggling. That would seem the heuristic value of the CDS intervention.  Whether the leadership can muster the political will to see this through, is another ballgame.

  • Linking insecurity to 2027 polls

    Linking insecurity to 2027 polls

    The link between rising insecurity in the country and 2027 general elections dominated deliberations of the Senate during its sitting last Wednesday. A motion of urgent importance on the many cases of Boko Haram and armed banditry sponsored by Shuaibu Isa Lau, Taraba North, provided the platform for senators to reasonably suspect a link exists between the escalating insecurity and the coming national elections.

    Senators Sunday Karimi and Danguma Goje did not see the upsurge in insecurity as mere coincidence. They would rather have the Federal Government look deeper into the rising incidents of Boko Haram upsurge ahead of the 2027 elections, especially as they bear the trademark of events of the 2015 polls.

    Senator Karimi, while noting there were cases before the 2015 elections where some individuals threatened violence in case they lost at the polls, lamented that in the last two weeks, several individuals from his district had been kidnapped. “We must ask why? What is the motive behind this? What do they stand to gain? he further asked.

    “We saw similar signs before the 2015 elections where some individuals prepared for violence in case they lost at the polls. The same pattern appears to be emerging now as we approach the 2027 elections. These attacks may not be random; they may be coordinated efforts by those who feel they are losing political relevance and seek to plunge the country into chaos as a strategy to regain power by force,” Karimi further noted. He wants these people unmasked and held accountable.

    Goje supported the view that the rising cases of violence across the country are not just isolated incidents. “We need to ask questions: Why now? Why the sudden surge in violence?” He called for deeper investigations to determine whether these incidents are linked to the political build up to the 2027 elections.

    The suspicion by senators of a nexus between the current upsurge in insecurity and the build up to the 2027 elections is on point. It fits into the pattern of the puzzles that surrounded the emergence of the Boko Haram insurgency and the lethal proportions its activities assumed as the 2015 elections approached. If that experience offers any lesson, then the reoccurrence of similar trends as the 2027 national elections draw closer is bound to raise eyebrows. So, the link which the senators sought to establish between events of the two elections can neither be dismissed with a wave of the hand nor wished away. They present regularities that evoke reasonable suspicion that should compel serious inquisition.

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    Writing in this column last April under the title: “Insecurity and Partisan politics,” I had raised the question as to whether there is a link between the escalating insecurity in the country and the quest by politicians for power? It was also observed that the same question featured prominently when the Boko Haram insurgency reared its ugly head and assumed monstrous dimensions as the 2015 elections approached. The article had also observed that the link is “being talked about even in hushed tones as the momentum of the 2027 elections gathers.”

    The write-up followed resumed killings in Plateau, Benue and Taraba states by suspected herdsmen, and coordinated attacks by the Boko Haram insurgents in parts of north east. Apart from the similarity in the manner of rising attacks, the article also noted the coincidence that in 2015 Jonathan, a southerner, was at the helm of affairs when Boko Haram suddenly raised the bar of insecurity while now, Bola Tinubu, a southerner, is the current president.

    Why insecurity rises when a southern president is about to run for another election is another link worthy of serious investigation. The way it is resolved may well provide a veritable lead to unveiling the motive behind the rising insecurity as elections approach; its motive, sponsors and collaborators.

    The matter has resonated with the position of the senators. Maybe it now offers the needed opportunity to re-examine the puzzles evident in the discordant tunes from the north at the budding stages of the Boko Haram insurgency on what the fight against it really represented.

    Then, a former governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako, had told a meeting of northern governors of the Federal Government’s alleged complicity in the saga, even as he claimed that security officials were passing information to help the terrorists in their deadly operations. He had also alleged that the motive for the Boko Haram insurgency was to reduce the voting population of the north east in the 2015 elections and subsequent ones, and keep the region perpetually underdeveloped.

    Nyako was reported to have repeated the same allegations at a meeting of 12 northern governors with US government officials in Washington DC. The US meeting was organised by the US government, through its Institute of Peace, to explore how Americans can work with state governments in the north to address the Boko Haram insurgency and underlying under-development challenges.

    The claim that Boko Haram was contrived to reduce the voting population of the north in the 2015 elections spoke of the same political link. The only difference is that the blame was laid at the doorsteps of the Jonathan regime. But suspicion of political sponsorship and collaboration with the insurgents by some northern politicians was also evident from the high level of mass abduction of school children in controversial circumstances without any trace.

    The blame game they engendered, and the manner some of the school children were later ferried back without any trace of where they were taken to, raised suspicion of conspiracy rooted in the then coming national elections.

    Insecurity had such prominence that it became an election campaign issue. It became an issue of blackmail as northern governors held former president Jonathan squarely responsible for the upsurge. Suicide bomb attacks on churches and other public buildings provoked so much anger against the government in power then that its loss in the coming election was quite predictable.

    But this conspiracy dimension was not lost on Jonathan. He was later to demonstrate the enormity of the challenge when he disclosed there were Boko Haram sympathisers in his cabinet, at the national assembly and within the judiciary.

    Boko Haram backers and sympathisers are “in the executive arm of the government; some of them are in the parliament/legislative arm of the government while some are in the judicial arm. Some are also in the armed forces, the police and other security agencies,” Jonathan lamented.

    Jonathan was seemingly helpless in confronting the dangerous shape Boko Haram had assumed within the theatres of war and in government circles. Ironically, he was handicapped in dealing with the complexities of the matter, given that Boko Haram enablers, sympathisers and collaborators could be found within the three arms of the government and among the security forces. It was a delicate situation; so difficult to pinpoint those that have nothing to do with the insurgents. Then, it appeared all was fair in war because the objective was to see that administration out by every available means during the polls. And it came to pass. But the monsters are still lying in wait.

    When Buhari took over as president, hopes were high that he had a solution to the insurgency, given his military background and election promises to diminish the potency of the insurgents within a few months. After a few months in office, he gleefully told the nation that he had won the war against Boko Haram insurgency.

    In his view, Boko Haram had been so diminished that it could not muster sufficient force and capability to attack military formations. But many knew that Buhari’s claims were in utter variance with facts on the ground. His bogus claims drew caution from the outside world as he was reminded that insurgency is so rooted and complex that it is difficult to dismantle in the manner Buhari had presented.

    It did not take long before Boko Haram put a lie to his claims. It has since continued to mount serious attacks against our security forces with no signs of either retreating or surrendering. The fact that its attacks have resumed in such a manner that compelled senators to call for serious investigation of the resurgence of Boko Haram attacks ahead of the 2027 elections says all about the potency of the insurgent group.

    Just last week, Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State alleged that Boko Haram has “informants and collaborators within the Nigerian armed forces, within the politicians and within the communities.” These links are nothing new. Their motive? Sadly, despite the weight of information on collaborators and sponsors of terrorism, no substantial effort has been made to unmask and bring the full weight of the law against them.

    There are now four splinter groups from Boko Haram terrorising society. The message in that spread should be instructive. What has been lacking has been the needed political will to deal with the enablers of the cascading terrorism. Until then, the monsters the politicians created will continue to turn around and haunt them.

  • When voting can’t be mandatory

    When voting can’t be mandatory

    A bill for mandatory voting for all eligible Nigerians passed the second reading at the House of Representatives penultimate week. Jointly sponsored by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, and a lawmaker from Plateau State, Daniel Asama, the bill seeks to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make voting compulsory for all Nigerians of voting age in national and state elections.

    The proposed piece of legislation prescribes a fine of N100,000 or six months imprisonment or both for eligible voters who fail to exercise that civic duty without valid justification. When he led the debate on the floor of the house, Asama sought to justify the bill on the grounds that democracy thrives better when the people are actively involved in choosing their leaders and shaping governance.

    Hear him: “Voting is not only a right but a civic responsibility and in many democracies across the world, it is treated as such. This bill proposes to introduce mandatory voting for all Nigerians of voting age in general elections, both at the national and state levels. It seeks to amend the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act 2022, to reflect this obligation while also allowing for limited and justified exemptions where necessary”

    He cited low voter turnout and the imperative to reverse the trend as justification for the bill, drawing parallels with the 2023 general elections which he said recorded less than 30 per cent voter participation. The trend, he argued, undermines the legitimacy of elected governments and weakens democratic institutions.

    Asama further cited Australia, Belgium and Brazil among democracies that have adopted compulsory voting with positive outcomes in political participation and public accountability. Though the bill generated divided opinions among members, it nevertheless scaled the second reading.

    The issues canvassed by Asama, especially as they relate to deepening democracy and good governance through popular participation in elections, constitute the pristine ideals which representative democracy seeks to promote. Democracy, in the form it manifested in the medieval Greek City States, entailed physical participation of the people in the election of their leaders. But the sheer size of modern states has precluded direct democracy of the ancient times.

     Representative democracy evolved to respond to population dynamics of modern states. Since it is no longer possible for the electorate to gather in one square to elect their leaders, an arrangement through which they will still exercise that obligation without assembling in one particular place was evolved – representative democracy. By this, the people exercise the power to rule through their elected representatives.

    This, ipso facto, recognises the inalienable rights of the people to elect their leaders through the ballot process. Through this process, it is also assumed those who emerge as leaders during elections do so through popular sovereignty. Thus, the strength of representative democracy lies in its capacity to reflect the collective will of the people through popular participation in elections.

    So, all the issues raised by the sponsors of the bill on active participation of the electorate in enhancing effective governance and overall legitimacy are commonplace arguments. They constitute the lynchpin on which the wheels of the democratic process revolve. There are no issues with such precepts but examples.

    What this country stands to gain through popular participation of eligible voters during elections in terms of enhancement of governance legitimacy and effective leadership is not in doubt. Unfortunately, the bill targets the wrong problem. The therapy the bill seeks to administer to low voter turnout is an obviously inefficacious one. It will achieve practically nothing without addressing the systemic challenges that promote and reinforce low voter turnout.

    The issue is the credibility and integrity of elections. How credible are elections usually marred by all manner of infractions promoted by the high and low? A few years back, ballot box snatching, writing of election results in the comfort of the homes of prominent politicians and hotel rooms, were the order of the day. Results announced bore no semblance to votes cast at the ballot box. And those announced as winners were mainly not the people the electorate cast their votes for at the voting centres.

    These electoral infractions did a lot to weaken the confidence of the electorate in the ballot process, with low voter turnout as its logical outcome. It took strong agitations, protests and some reforms in the Electoral Act to restore some modicum of confidence in our elections. But as soon as these reforms guaranteeing the sanctity and integrity of the electoral process were introduced, crooked politicians went back to the drawing board to invent new techniques to subvert the new law.

    That is why the introduction of technology in election management has not been allowed to function properly. In the 2023 general elections, the hopes of the electorate for credible elections, one that satisfies integrity tests, were abruptly dashed by what the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) called ‘glitches.’ Vote buying has also reared its monstrous head in forms never seen in Nigeria’s electoral history.

    These negative responses to the advent of technology in election management are, in the main, fuelled by the morbid fear of rogue politicians that they will lose out were elections to be free, fair and credible. That is not all. Acts of violence and do-or-die politics are regular features of our elections that scare even the most patriotic.

    Thugs of all descriptions are hired by politicians to harass, main and even kill those opposed to their sponsors. There was a fair dose of these negative tendencies during the last general election, especially at the governorship polls.

    Threats were issued in some states against non-indigenes, while in some others people could not vote on account of the insecurity that has held this country down for a couple of years now. These are the real issues that incubate and promote low voter turnout. Yet, our lawmakers cannot find their voices on them even as fears of rancorous elections in 2027 hover around the political space. How the bill intends to address the systemic dysfunctions that scare people from venturing out to cast their votes holds more value for the integrity of elections than compulsory voting in hostile and life-threatening circumstances.

    The proponents of the bill cited Australia, Belgium and Brazil among democracies that practice mandatory voting with good outcomes. That could be so. But what value is there in comparing countries with dissimilar political cultures and levels of development? Yes, Australia and Belgium practice mandatory voting as well as some other developed countries around the world with varying modifications. Australia imposes a fine of $20 for defaulters while that of Belgium hovers between 40 and 80 euros depending on the number of times of default.

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    Compulsory voting has been in practice in Australia since 1924, and that country is credited with one of the highest voter turnouts in the world. Voters are given a number of avenues to cast their votes during elections. These include postal voting, pre-poll voting, absent voting at Australian missions overseas as well as voting at mobile teams at hospitals, nursing homes, remote localities and ordinary voting at polling centres.

    So there exists some sophistication in the Australian electoral process garnered from years of practice of mandatory voting. Can postal voting take place in this country? Through what means, if one may wish to ask? And if at all it is possible, will the votes not be hijacked along the line by those in control of the instruments of power and coercion?

    The array of voting avenues provided by the Australian electoral system have no place in Nigeria currently. And will be difficult to implement in the foreseeable future. It is therefore not just enough to copy practices and seek to enforce them in climes that are ill-prepared for them. One aspect of the bill that seeks to empower INEC to develop a system to track vote compliance and manage exemption requests strikes as a tall order.

    Australia and Belgium have not been able to enforce voter compliance over the years. Though lists of absentees are required to be sent to the offices of the Public Prosecutor in Belgium, for instance, the reality is that nothing gets to be done with that list.

    INEC, as presently constituted, can ill-afford to be saddled with the additional burden of compiling lists of defaulting voters and managing exemptions. And as this column argued in a previous article, mandatory voting is a thing whose time is yet to come.

    The bill is another research work that has practically no solution to the multi- faceted electoral infractions that frighten voters from venturing out during elections and diminish their confidence in the integrity of the process. The substantive issues that diminish the confidence of the electorate and scare them from venturing out to vote are the issues to address.

  • Killing power rotation?

    Killing power rotation?

    The House of Representatives, last Tuesday, rejected a bill seeking to rotate the offices of the President and Vice President among the six geo-political zones of the country. It was among seven constitutional amendment bills turned down by the lower chamber that day.

    But that was after members had singled out rotatory presidency and taken turns to interrogate that piece of legislation. Though a majority of those who spoke picked holes in rotation, some of their reasons were laden with serious contradictions.

    This article seeks to examine some of the key issues raised by members against power rotation vis-a-vis the realities of the challenges posed by the federal structure operational in this country. This is not the first time the debate on rotatory presidency is coming up in the national assembly. Neither is the bill anything novel.

    Rotation of political offices at the federal, state and local government levels was in fact, one of the key recommendations of the (not-implemented) National Political Reforms Conference (NPRC) of 2005. The fact that the issue continues to crop up is sufficient sign of a malignant systemic ailment.

    The challenges posed by the inability of our political leaders to effectively manage diversity account for the recurring decimal which rotation has assumed in our national life. Its disruptive dimensions will emerge as the views of House of Representatives’ members on the propriety of rotation are interrogated.

    Deputy minority leader Aliyu Madaki based his reservations on the grounds that existing institutions have already covered the issues the bill is meant to address.

     “The issues the bill intends to cure have already been taken care of by the Federal Character Commission (FCC). The issue of rotation should not be included in the constitution but allowed to remain the way it is,” Madaki said.

    Madaki’s argument that the challenges of power rotation have already been cured by the mere existence of the FCC is not only laughable but detaches him from the realities of the environment in which he currently operates.

    Appointments into key federal offices and commanding heights of the military and other sensitive institutions under the last administration did incredible damage to the letter and spirit of the federal character principle and balance. Allegations of skewed appointments resonated recently, and the presidency had to publish a list of political appointees. It later withdrew that list with an apology due to some errors of omission.

    Even then, the FCC has been found complicit in obeying the laws establishing it in the breach. A few years back and contrary to the rules guiding its operations, former President Muhammadu Buhari shocked the nation when he appointed both the Chairperson and the Secretary of FCC from one geo-political zone.

    It took legal action by one Festus Onifade for the Federal High Court in Abuja to nullify in November, 2023 the appointments of Muheeba Dankaka and Bello Tukur, Chairperson and Secretary respectively. Justice Inyang Ekwo in his ruling held that the former president did not comply with the provisions of the constitution and FCC establishment Act in the appointment of Dankaka and Tukur.

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    Perhaps, the public needs to know from Madaki also, the outcome of the investigations of the ad hoc committee set up by the House of Representatives to probe allegations against the FCC, including the selling of job offers. How an agency that breached the laws setting it up can in all fairness guarantee the kind of balance Madaki believes took care of rotation is left to be imagined.

    The second plank of Madaki’s argument is that rotation should be left for the political parties. That could as well be. But the rancour it generates through reluctance or refusal by political parties and contestants to agree on the modality for its implementation should instruct that constitutional backing is the needed therapy.

    The next contributor, Sada Soli, questioned the practicability of the proposal with a warning that it could compromise leadership quality and promote ethnic and regional rivalry. Rotation is practicable, no doubt. Though political parties have had issues with modalities for its implementation, the situation would have been more chaotic in its absence.

    Ethnic rivalry is primed and promoted by seclusion, which rotation will cure by giving all sections a sense of national belonging. The inability to accommodate and equitably manage our differences in sharing the spoils of public offices is the reason for ethnic rivalry and cries of marginalisation. Agitations for restructuring and power devolution are propelled by the same considerations. Inclusiveness, through rotation, will, in part, address the challenges of power centralisation.

    The claim that rotation could compromise leadership quality is patently tenuous as it assumes that quality leadership for those offices may not be available in some geo-political zones. It is a sweeping statement that seeks to suggest that those who have over the years been elected to lead the country in various capacities are the best the country can produce. If that had been so, Nigeria will not be still trailing in all development indices despite its huge endowments.

    The population of all the geo-political zones in the country is far bigger than that of many countries across the globe, and it confounds how anyone could nurse the feeling that quality leaders cannot be found within them. It is rather a speculative proposition that should not be assigned any value.

    Shina Oyedeji supported rotation principle as it would address longstanding agitations for fairness among ethnic nationalities. But he cautioned that zoning could create new challenges. “If you adopt zoning and it comes to the South West, for example, which state will take the first position. Is it Ogun or Oyo”, he queried?

    Another member raised issues on the possible death of the president while in office and whether he would be required to vacate office to maintain the zoning arrangement. The state that should take the first slot when it comes to their zone should not be a serious issue.

    The fact remains that whichever state takes it first will not take it the second time when it comes around. It could also be similarly asked which states take the slot first as the presidency rotates between the north and south going by the internal arrangements of the political parties.

    What happens when a sitting president dies in office should not be a problem since it can still be taken care of through the same constitutional amendment. The right thing is for the Vice to take over. The constitution can reflect that to avoid the kind of situation that emerged when former president Umaru Yar’Adua died in office.

    Perhaps, the views of Minority Whip Ali Isa and that of Clement Jimbo captured more succinctly, the feelings of Nigerians on rotation. Not only did Isa lend support to all the six geo-political zones deserving a fair chance to occupy the presidency, he would want rotation extended to the state levels with the governorship position rotating among the senatorial districts. That represents the current feeling across the country. Even without constitutional backing, rotation among the three senatorial zones in the various states has been a burning issue.

    While some states have evolved ways to rotate power between the three senatorial districts, some others have not had the luck of finding a permanent answer to it. You may also find some stability in the states that have successfully handled power rotation among the senatorial districts as against those that have not. Political instability and security issues that are more pronounced in some states have, in part, been linked to the inequities of power sharing.

    The uniqueness of Jimbo’s contribution does not just lie in his support for the bill to address historical injustices against minority groups, but in his proposal for a sunset clause to end rotation principle once all zones have had their turn. His position may have been informed by how sections of the country that have had the privilege to occupy that high office have used it largely for the benefits of their ethnic groups and members of their family.

    So, let it go around. When all sections would have used it for the benefit of their ethnic groups and members of their families, then rotation can stop. Then also, we can collectively begin to salvage whatever remains.

    That captures the dialectics in the inability of our political leaders to effectively manage diversity. Inequity, politics of seclusion and marginalisation are variables that accentuate agitations by all sections to have one of their own in that high office. And it will be foolhardy to fault that urge.

    Since we find it hard to address the systemic dysfunctions that propel such agitations, giving constitutional teeth to rotation would appear the needed therapeutic response. It is a more heuristic piece of legislation than the superfluous bill for mandatory voting.

    Those rooting for mandatory voting should first address the credibility and integrity deficits that discourage the electorate from participating in elections.

  • NYSC challenge

    NYSC challenge

    Given mounting criticisms on the continued relevance of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, the inauguration of a committee to comprehensively review its operations is a welcome development. This is especially so as the objective is to make the scheme stronger, more useful to national development and better suited to the needs of our youths.

    Minister of Youth Development Ayodele Olawande touched the crux of the matter when he said at the inauguration ceremony that issues of corps members’ safety, infrastructural challenges and the broader question of the scheme’s relevance in an increasingly dynamic socio-economic environment are among the key concerns. But he was quick to add that these also present opportunities that demand urgent, visionary and determined efforts.

    Part of the mandate of the committee is to look into how the NYSC works, and suggest ways of making it safer, more creative and more impactful. The committee will also review current NYSC policies, talk to people and suggest changes to laws, policies and the operational modalities of the scheme.

    “The outcome of this review must align with broader national development objectives, positioning the NYSC as a strategic tool for youth empowerment and nation building,” the minister further charged the committee. These are, no doubt, high-minded goals that if realistically addressed will position the scheme to meet the challenges of the times.

    The NYSC programme was established by the Gowon administration in 1973, three years after the civil war. In view of the exigencies of that war, the programme was part of the efforts to rebuild and reconstruct Nigeria, imbuing participants with a new sense of national belonging and identity. NYSC was envisioned to promote national unity and integration, inculcate discipline, patriotism in our youths, obliterate extant prejudices thereby promoting national development.

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    By mandatorily requiring corps members to serve in cultural areas other than their own, the scheme’s target was to foster better understanding and harmony among participants as leaders of the future. In the early years of its establishment, the scheme was very popular among the youths and commanded considerable respect as fresh graduates were deployed to rural communities for their primary assignments.

    The local communities were equally appreciative of the contributions of the corps members, offering them any assistance that could enhance their stay. That uniform commanded respect and was the pride of participants. Then also, the number of participants was quite limited and made for easy and effective management.

    When the first batch of members were deployed, there were about five universities in the country. It is estimated that the first batch of participants were about 700 participants. The number has since continued to grow. And with the exponential increase in the number of universities (federal, state and private), prospective participants have grown in geometric progression. These have also brought in their wake peculiar challenges.

    Instead of the single batch, we now have about three batches and many streams due to the astronomical increase in the number of participants and attendant management constraints. The national environment has since changed with information technology, increasing civil strife and cascading insecurity across the country. Issues are not made any easier by the reluctance of employers to accept corps members in their establishments.

    Even then, the federal government has been finding it difficult to fund the scheme. It took several months for it to implement the N70,000 minimum wage approved last year for corps members. The number of universities in the country is still growing with the recent licences given to more private universities by the federal government. This will further bloat the number of participants. All these are bound to adversely affect the effective functioning of the scheme unless far- reaching measures are taken to align it to the dynamics of the times.

    That is where the recent inauguration of the review committee comes in handy. Before now, there have been calls for either a radical review of the scheme to align it with the demands of the times or have the programme scrapped outright. Attahiru Jega, former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had at a lecture marking NYSC’s 50th anniversary called for drastic pruning of the number of participants or have the scheme operate on a voluntary basis.

    Jega’s position stems from rising concerns about the increasing inability of the scheme to manage the high number of graduates churned out by our universities. He seems to admit the continued relevance of the scheme but wants the number of participants pruned or make it voluntary for willing participants. That is not the only grouse against the scheme. Many have questioned the continued relevance of the programme vis-a-vis the goals it was set up to achieve, especially in view of evolving national dynamics.

    There are changes and fundamental alterations in our national life that

    interrogate the objectives for which the NYSC exists to serve. Issues of national unity, integration and the inculcation of a common sense of national identity have suffered incredible reverses in recent times. Nigerians have become more divided along the fault lines of our national order due largely to the inability of political leaders to manage our diversities.

    Not only is the country confronted by an assortment of insurgency groups, non-state actors have been having a free reign. The lure of primordialism, ethnic ascendancy and self- determination is on such a high scale that the NYSC scheme can do little to ameliorate.

    Nigeria is more divided now than ever before and the signs are palpable. So, there is a disconnect between the objectives the NYSC exists to serve and contemporary developments in our national life.

    These can be seen from the constant recourse by sections of the country to the issuance of quit orders to non-indigenes in their zones. And such quit notices, over flimsy and sometimes contrived excuses, have been coming quite regularly. They reinforce our differences and forewarn corps members serving in such areas that they are at risk because they do not belong.

    The damage such quit orders does to the psyche of corps members counters any lesson on unity and patriotism which the scheme is meant to instill in them. That is the reality of the environment in which the NYSC scheme is expected to foster national unity and integration.

    The grim reality of the danger corps members face was brought close by events following the 2011 presidential elections when more than 800 persons were killed in the northern states. Corps members were among those selectively targeted and killed because they were non- indigenes.

    Kidnapping of NYSC members for ransom while travelling to their places of posting has also been on the rise. In August 2023, eight corps members from Uyo in Akwa Ibom State travelling to Sokoto were kidnapped in Zamfara State. Some of them languished in captivity for between five and 11 months before they were released after paying millions of naira as ransom.

    Managers of the scheme have been compelled by insecurity to deny some local governments in the country the services of corps members. In some other instances like Benue State, they were withdrawn as their safety could no longer be guaranteed. All these should instruct that NYSC cannot continue in its present form.

    The programme has a serious place in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society where primordial proclivities are in ascendancy. It is still relevant to our needs but the number of participants have to be drastically pruned to align with the developmental objectives of the country. Even as the committee was charged to address the issue of funding, the fact remains that the federal government is hard put to fund the programme in view of extant economic realities.

    Pruning the number of participants should be followed up with making the exercise voluntary. It makes little sense carrying a huge programme the government cannot fund. When the Peace Corps started in the United States of America, it was a voluntary scheme. But due to changing realities and funding cuts, it pruned its membership from a peak of 15,556 in 1966 to 8,500 in 2011. According to data from its website, it currently deploys between 3,500 and 4,00 annually.

    That is the way to go for the NYSC scheme. At the current trajectory of the country, national unity, nation building and the inculcation of a common sense of belonging among our youths should be addressed from the top. Effective management of the country’s diversities, inclusion, equity and fairness to the constituents hold the aces.

    It is doubtful whether the bottom-top approach to nation building which the NYSC scheme represents can still serve that need in the face of the polarisation of the country. The leadership should show the direction through their actions.

  • Anyaoku’s true federalism alert

    Anyaoku’s true federalism alert

    The urgent need to institutionalise true federalism in the country resonated last week in Enugu during the 14th Chief Emeka Anyaoku Lecture Series on Good Governance.

    Speaker after speaker took turns during the lecture titled, “The Imperative of Good Governance: Nigeria in a Global Comparative Perspective,” to draw attention to the link between the practice of true federalism in a plural society and political stability. Anyaoku took the lead by renewing his appeal for Nigeria to adopt true federalism with a warning that the country risks disintegration if it continues its current centralised structure.

    Drawing parallels with other multi-ethnic societies that collapsed under similar strains, the former Secretary General of the Commonwealth and elder statesman said only a new democratic constitution that reflects Nigeria’s diversity can save Nigeria from such fate.

    “Other multi-ethnic countries that failed to address their pluralism through federalism have since disintegrated. Nigeria must not continue along this part,” he warned.

    The line was also toed by former Foreign Affairs Minister Ike Nwachukwu who said Nigeria’s centralised system is fundamentally flawed. Nwachukwu said it was for this reason he has been “advocating the restructuring of Nigeria into a proper federation.”

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    For him, state autonomy is critical as it brings governance closer to the people, enabling them to harness their local resources for development.

    In his keynote address, Nigeria’s former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, called for a radical rethinking of governance, starting with structural changes.

    “There is an urgent need to significantly devolve power to the people through restructuring,” he said even as he called for a rejig of the leadership recruitment process, retooling of the state to serve as a guarantor of security and unity to foster new elite consensus.

    There is a common thread around the issues raised by the three speakers. They revolve around a new constitution that reflects Nigeria’s diversity to save it from disintegration, diluting the centralised system of government and power devolution through restructuring. They speak of the same challenge from different angles. But the issues are not entirely new.

    Agitations for restructuring to guarantee true federalism both in its spirit and practice have been a recurring decimal in the country’s political journey over time. They were intense during the early years of Nigeria’s return to democratic governance in 1999 and have further been accentuated by events of the recent past and the present. And they will continue to be so, assuming dangerous dimensions until they are realistically and genuinely addressed to the satisfaction of the constituents.

    The response of former president Obasanjo to agitations for restructuring and true federalism was the setting up of the National Political Reforms Conference (NPRC) in 2005. Its purpose was to strengthen democratic institutions, and address issues of national unity and stability.

    The conference made far-reaching recommendations in the area of political party reforms, decentralisation of election management and integrating technology for transparency in election management. Other recommendations included state creation to ensure parity between geo-political zones and ensure the stability of existing ones and power rotation for executive positions at the federal, state and local government levels.

    Equitable revenue sharing process, the establishment of constitutional courts to handle presidential election petitions and serve as an appellate court for gubernatorial, national and state assembly elections were also some of the highlights of the recommendations.

    These recommendations could not be implemented before that administration wound up. It is speculated that events surrounding the purported tenure elongation moves of the Obasanjo administration were largely responsible for the non-implementation of the high-minded recommendations of the NPRC.

    The tempo of agitations did not abate when the Yar’Adua/Jonathan administration came on board such that Jonathan, after the death of his boss, inaugurated the National Conference (NC) to address the contentious issues of our federal order and advance Nigeria’s unity, progress and development.

    The recommendations of the NC included the scrapping of the 774 local governments in the country with states granted autonomy to establish their own local government structure, a modified presidential system, power sharing and rotation (rotation between the north and the south and among the six geopolitical zones), a reduction of the federal government’s share of national revenue with a corresponding increase for states and reversion to the old National Anthem.

    Jonathan was unable to implement the recommendations before he left office. He rationalised his inability to implement the conference recommendations, blaming it on mass defections in the then national assembly. According to him, the mass defections led by the then speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, made it impossible for him to send the report to the national assembly. This may be correct.

    As could be seen, all administrations since the return to civil rule in 1999, except that of Muhammadu Buhari, empanelled national conferences to address nagging issues of our federal structure accentuated by the way the constitution heralding civil rule was put together by the military. These agitations were also very potent as Buhari held sway.

    But he had a different attitude to them even as some of his policies which were heavily skewed in favour of the north did a lot to reinforce the imperative for true federalism and restructuring.

    Today, the issues are still as potent as they were when Obasanjo and Jonathan organised conferences but failed to implement their recommendations. All the key issues – revenue allocation, devolution of powers, state creation, electoral reforms, power rotation between the north and the south and among the six geo-political zones – are still with us. As a matter of fact, some of them have assumed such dangerous proportions that they now pose serious threats to the nation’s corporate existence.

    These can be located in the cascading insecurity across the country with some of the non-state actors professing weird ideologies that do not make for national cohesion. It can be seen in mass defections to the ruling parties at both the federal and state levels. It is more pronounced at the federal level because of the huge resources at the command of that level of governance and the lure to share from it.

    It is evident in the increasing slide to prebendalism (the struggle to capture political power for members of one’s ethnic group and his family). Prebendalism is reinforced when allegations of nepotism and skewed appointments at the federal level are freely traded.

    Dearth of serious opposition and intolerance to dissent leading to increased fears of a slide to a one-party state and the fad of gravitating to the party in government so as to ‘belong’ are clear evidence of the inability of our leaders to manage diversity. It therefore serves no useful purpose to leave issues fundamental to our national existence to the whims and caprices of leaders without constitutional safeguards.

    Even then, allegations on the flouting of such constitutional issues as the reflection of the federal character principles in appointments have overtime been freely traded. All these point to the inevitability of a new democratic constitution that truly reflects and guarantees the diversities of the constituents.

    The recommendation that the presidency should rotate between the north and the south and among the six geo-political zones is reinforced by rising accusations of nepotism and favouritism in appointments. It is a key constitutional change that will stabilise this country. Let it go around! By the time all sections must have had a taste of it, maybe the right lessons on how to manage a plural society would have been learnt.

    What the country requires now is not the piecemeal and largely uncoordinated amendments of the constitution which the national assembly is currently into but an entirely new constitution that properly reflects the diversities in the country through true federalism.

  • Insecurity and partisan politics

    Insecurity and partisan politics

    Is there a link between the escalating insecurity in the country and the quest by politicians for power? This question has been seeking for answers since the reign of terror was officially unleashed in the country about 15 years ago.

    It featured prominently when Boko Haram insurgency reared its ugly head and took monstrous dimensions as the 2015 general elections approached. It is also being talked about even in hushed tones with the rising security challenges across the country as the momentum of the 2027 elections gathers.

    The suicide bomb attacks at St Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla and the United Nations building in Abuja and other security infractions that peaked as the 2015 elections drew closer had raised suspicion as to whether a nexus existed between these events. But by far, the abduction of 276 Chibok Secondary School girls in Borno State, the circumstances surrounding it as well as the blame game it engendered were issues that accentuated this suspicion further.

    Attempts by the then government of Goodluck Jonathan to tame the monster curiously generated so much opposition and vile allegations from the north. The acerbic letter written by the then governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako in which he bandied wild allegations including an attempt to depopulate the north as the reasons for inventing the Boko Haram ‘phantom’ cannot be forgotten in a hurry.

    That letter injected so much complications to the Jonathan administration’s resolve to wage a decisive war against the insurgents such that today, Boko Haram has not only remained active and strong, but metamorphosed into some splinter groups with vague ideological leanings.

    The Islamic State for West Africa Province (ISWAP), an offshoot of Boko Haram reported to have acted as an umbrella organisation for Islamic State (IS) factions in West Africa including the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS) has been involved in terror attacks in the country. It largely operates in the northeast where it has been engaging the military is serious fight.

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    The federal government blamed ISWAP for the bloody Catholic Church suicide bombings in Owo, Ondo State. The military are reported to have thwarted their plans to establish bases in Plateau and Bauchi states.

    There is also the Ansaru terror group said to be active in the northwest and north-central where bandits and kidnappers add to the reign of terror. Ansaru is said to be a faction of Boko Haram that rejected the leadership of Abubakar Shekau after the death of Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram.

    Towards the end of last year, a new terror group the Lukarawa emerged in the forests of Sokoto and Kebbi states. The group which is said to have affiliates in Mali and Niger was said to have been initially invited by locals in those states for protection against attacks by bandits from Zamfara State. But it turned into a Frankenstein monster when they began to haunt the very communities they were engaged to protect.

    The federal government has since declared the Lukarawa a terrorist organisation following its atrocious activities in some states of the northwest. In the list of terror organisations is yet, another called the Mahmuda. It is said to be a breakaway faction of Boko Haram with suspected links to extremist cells in Niger and Mali.

    The group last week, killed 15 vigilantes and villagers in an attack on Kemaanji, a community in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State. Mahmuda is reputed to have been carrying out attacks including killings and kidnapping in rural communities around the Kainji Lake National Park which spans parts of Kwara and Niger states. It also attacked some communities in Baruten LGA of Kwara including taking control over areas within the Babana and Wawa districts of Borgu LGA in Niger State. Mahmuda is the latest addition to terrorist organisations operating in the country.

    It is significant to note that perhaps, apart from the Lukarawa terrorist group, the rest have their roots in Boko Haram. From one terror group, the country is now contending with five. This does not include such other terrorist groups as militia herdsmen, bandits and sundry criminal kidnappers.

    In the last two weeks or so, militia herdsmen unleashed a reign of terror in Plateau and Benue states leaving in their trail humongous destruction in human lives and property. Plateau alone had 52 innocent people murdered in their homes with about 2000 others displaced in the Bokkos Local Government Area of the state. The well-coordinated attacks saw no less than 20 communities in the LGA attacked by the terrorist herdsmen.

     Benue State also lost 51 people when killer herdsmen attacked the Logo and Gbagir communities in Ukum Local Government Area of the state penultimate week. The attacks followed the pattern of previous killings that led to the displacement of people from their ancestral homes. Ironically, the two states in the northcentral were the epicentre of constant killings and despoliation of local communities before the 2015 general elections.

    So, the attacks by the militia herdsmen are not entirely new. But why they peak each time national elections draw closer must worry all those genuinely committed to the peace, progress and development of this country. Mass abductions of secondary school girls including that of Dapchi and their suspicious return did a lot to inject political angle to the insecurity in the northeast then.

    Insecurity was a major campaign programme of Muhammadu Buhari as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC). It can be argued that it played a significant role in the swing of votes against Jonathan especially in the north. Buhari had promised to tame insecurity within a few months of assuming power.

    After about six months in office, he gleefully announced to the nation that his regime had significantly diminished Boko Haram. According to him, Boko Haram was so degraded that it can no longer muster the capacity to mount serious onslaught against military formations.

    But events were soon to put a lie to that claim. Though the military has been fighting hard to contain the spread of Boko Haram, the reality is that it is far from being defeated. Series of events since Buhari’s claim of its degradation in December 2015 bear eloquent testimony to this. Not only there have been complaints of their control of some local governments, they have continued to engage our armed forces in deadly combats. Their attacks have resonated in the last couple of weeks.

    Again, its splinter groups continue to terrorise parts of the country. Perhaps, Boko Haram was able to give birth to splinter groups and spread because of the dissonance between and among politicians regarding what interests it really represented when it emerged in the Nigerian scene. Then Jonathan, a southerner was in power and the north was hell-bent in capturing political power from him.

    It was a verity of war situation and all seemed fair in that encounter. Then also, his attempt to raise the price of petrol was massively resisted through mass protests and arguments that today betray the true intentions of their canvassers. Ironically, such disagreements threw spanners in the wheels of a collective fight against the threat of terror and economic progress.

    President Bola Tinubu is about to enter the second lap of his four-year tenure and election manoeuvres are about gaining considerable momentum. He is a southerner just like Jonathan. The question the upsurge in insecurity raises is whether history is about to repeat itself? In other words, is there any connection between the rise in insecurity in the country and the coming elections? Is insecurity going to play a role in the unfolding political campaigns as the jostle for the 2027 elections heats up?

    The Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s position on this could be helpful. She had at the 2024 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association said the country’s insecurity is weaponized by politicians for political and selfish reasons.

    “We have politicians who believe that the best way to make their opponents look bad is to instigate insecurity, making it look like they can’t govern, regardless of whether this leads to loss of lives and property of innocent Nigerians” she had said.

     This may well be the reason insecurity peaks each time general elections drew nearer especially with a southerner in the saddle.  The solution to the festering insecurity in the country may in part, be located in this angle.

  • One Ponzi scheme, too many

    One Ponzi scheme, too many

    When some Nigerian investors took to the social media to lament how they were locked out of their accounts in the CBEX digital financial platform, it was apparent they had fallen victim to another Ponzi scheme. Trending videos from some of those affected showed frustrations with their inability to withdraw their investments highlighting fears that their money may have been lost.

    Some of the investors who complained on the private messaging service telegram of the CBEX were told by the digital financial platform that the problem was as a result of hacking and that things would soon be restored.

    Concerns on the fate of CBEX mounted when a popular X user wrote about an individual who reportedly invested $1, 000 and withdrew $5, 000. He further wrote, “Having done all the checks, the platform flies all the flags of a Ponzi scheme”.

    But instead of normalcy being restored as promised, the platform was quick to crash. CBEX locked its telegram channels and restricted WhatsApp groups. It also curiously introduced a verification fee where users were asked to pay $100 or $200 to supposedly unlock $1, 000 and $2, 000 respectively.

    These measures left investors without further doubt that they have been scammed of their hard-earned money by the phoney financial platform. Frustrated by the turn of events, some of them attacked the offices of the financial platform in Ibadan and Lagos, carting away chairs, air conditioners and solar panels in utter despair.

    The crash of the CBEX platform yet adds to the list of fake digital financial investment platforms that swindled Nigerians of their hard-earned money and left sorrow and misery in their trail. CBEX launched in Nigeria in July 2024 promising investors 100 per cent returns on their investments within 30 days

     It came with the usual strategy of encouraging users to refer others with promises of bonuses and rewards based on the size of their referral network. Early participants are paid from the contributions of new investors and those who benefitted become the mouthpiece of the scheme. The objective of this strategy is to spur spurs more investments and before you know it, the platform crashes with the funds of investors trapped. That was the ploy deployed by previous Ponzi scheme before the CBEX. And that was the pattern it adopted, followed and crashed out.

    It is estimated that the CBEX may have carted away over N1.3 trillion from their wallet after crashing penultimate Monday.

    Sadly, Nigerians are not new to this manner of investment scam.  The Mavrodial  Mondial Movement (MMM) had similarly debuted in 2015 promising mouth-watering returns of 30 per cent within 30 days. But in 2016, it abruptly froze its transactions leaving its investors estimated at over three million people stranded.

    Of the N911.45 billion which the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) estimated in 2022 to have been lost to Ponzi and other related fraudulent activities in the last 23 years, MMM alone accounted for N18 billion. Before the CBEX scam, Nigerians had severally fallen victims to other Ponzi schemes such as Twinkas, Ultimate Cyber, Givers Forum and Get Help Worldwide etc.

    As I write, the running of similar fraudulent schemes cannot be ruled out. And the possibility of future victims looms large. Why this is so despite the bitter experiences of our people and in spite of warnings from relevant government agencies to investors to be wary of offers that look too good to be true will continue to divide opinion.

    But much of the answer can be found in the bogus, unrealistic and quick returns to investments which the schemes offer prospective investors. That is the prime motivation. That is why those who opt for such schemes shun the conventional banks with their low returns on investments. The Ponzi schemes came with 100 or 30 per cent return on investment within 30 days.

    So, it made better investment sense albeit foolishly, if they can reap such huge returns especially so when they can point at someone who had so benefitted. But the question such prospective investors failed to ask is the type of investment that will double returns in just 30 days. They should have interrogated the type of business that would enable the digital financial platform to double returns on investments within 30 days and still make its own profits to remain in business. That is where greed met ignorance.

     Given the experiences of our citizens with such Ponzi schemes in the past, one had expected that some lessons would have been learnt and precautionary measures taken. But the experience of the CBEX crash does not bear this optimism out.

    Curiously, most of those who patronised the CBEX scheme are urban dwellers as indicated by the pattern of attacks at the Ibadan and Lagos offices of the phoney company. The MMM scandal occurred barely nine years ago. There has been little change in demographics to suggest that most of the victims were not of age when it froze its transaction and shattered the future of its investors. Neither can it be claimed they had no information about the past.

     Greed pushes Nigerians into investing in such supposedly high interest-yielding ventures without figuring out the impracticability of any business yielding such profit within that short time frame. It is possible a few of the victims may not have been privy to the previous experiences of Nigerians with such scheme. But then, the lure remains the quick return to investments in manners that defy economic and rational calculations.

     This disposition is not entirely new. It tallies with the pervasive culture of corner cutting and quick fixes. You may even be surprised at the manner experts who are more versed in such investment matters may be dismissed if they try to discourage those eager to invest in such schemes. That shows the value we place on knowledge and expertise.

    That is not to diminish the importance of sensitisation programmes from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other relevant agencies of the government.

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    In March, the EFCC warned on the activities of about 58 illegal Ponzi scheme operators in the country. It said these companies were operating without registration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or the SEC and have been identified as potential threats to the financial wellbeing of unsuspecting Nigerians. But CBEX was not listed among the 58.

    A breakdown of the list showed their activities spanned various sectors such as agriculture, finance, oil and gas, books etc.

    From the diverse fields they operate and the activities they purport to engage in, it will be very hard for investors to draw a line between the genuine and fake ones. In this list is a preponderance of agricultural companies that do not promise quick returns on investments but are still out there to scam the people. That is the real danger facing genuine investors. And that is why serious sensitisation programmes have to be called into quick action.

    SEC said its long-term goal is to launch a capital market radio to educate investors and ensure that Ponzi schemes are completely taken down. This is heart-warning. But the time for the capital market radio is now. We cannot continue to harbour the huge losses Nigerian investors incur each time their money gets trapped in the vaults of Ponzi schemes due to their inability to differentiate between the fakes and genuine investments.

    The N10 billion that the Senate approved for the commission to embark on market education programmes should be quickly deployed to the desired end. The relative ease with which Ponzi schemes operate within our shores, scam investors and disappear, point to something untoward about the monitoring roles of the relevant agencies of government. The SEC, EFCC and the CBN should publish dedicated telephone lines through which Nigerians can ask questions on future investments.

    CEBX had offices in Ibadan and Lagos. People manned those offices for the period of their ill-fated operations without detection by any of the government agencies. That says a lot. It is good a thing that SEC is considering the establishment of more offices across the country to get closer to the people. With such offices and effective monitoring, it will be easier to detect the existence of fake financial investment companies before they scam unsuspecting investors.

    But these fraudulent activities thrive because of the ease with which they evade justice. Nigerians lost huge sums of money to MMM and till date nothing came out of it. CBEX is following the same line. The EFCC said it is working with Interpol and other development agencies to bring to book those behind the scam. We wait for the outcome.

    But the psyche of our people needs serious rejig. The pervading culture that wealth can be procured through quick fixes-money doubling, ritual killings, Yahoo, organ harvesting, kidnapping and sundry criminalities is behind it all. Public celebration of huge quantities of cash is part of it. That is the war Governor Chukwuma Soludo is currently waging in Anambra State. That war against moral atrophy requires national dimension.