The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Spoilers and associates

    Spoilers and associates

    About two months to Nigeria’s presidential inauguration on May 29, alarming allegations of machinations against democracy have intensified.

    In the beginning, it may have looked like alarmism. But it is beginning to look unlike alarmism.  The spokesperson for the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), made disturbing allegations, saying there are people engaged in “treasonable and subversive acts,” and involved in “the many plots being contrived to undermine the transition in particular and democracy in general.”

    The director of public affairs in Tinubu’s campaign organisation’s media team, Festus Keyamo (SAN), who is also Minister of State for Labour and Employment, said in a statement that these people were “fixated” on “an Interim Government.”   According to him, “Some have made treasonable insinuations and openly called for military take-over. It is for these reasons that they are desperate to incite the people against the incoming government.”

    He also said: “We know these persons and their sponsors from within and outside Nigeria and we shall be working closely with the security agencies to apprehend them and bring them to book.”

    The Department of State Services (DSS), in a statement by its spokesperson, Peter Afunanya, apparently corroborated these weighty allegations, saying it “considers the plot, being pursued by these entrenched interests, as not only an aberration but a mischievous way to set aside the constitution and undermine civil rule as well as plunge the country into an avoidable crisis.”

    Describing the alleged plot as an “illegality totally unacceptable in a democracy,” the security agency added that “The planners, in their many meetings, have weighed various options, which include, among others, to sponsor endless violent mass protests in major cities to warrant a declaration of State of Emergency. Another is to obtain frivolous court injunctions to forestall the inauguration of new executive administrations and legislative houses at the federal and state levels.”

    “While its monitoring continues, the DSS will not hesitate to take decisive and necessary legal steps against these misguided elements to frustrate their obnoxious intentions,’’ it warned.

    Before the country’s February 25 presidential election won by Tinubu, the DSS had questioned the director of new media, presidential campaign council of APC, Femi Fani-Kayode, concerning his alarming tweet suggesting a possible coup plot. It turned out that his tweet was based on an unverified report attributed to an unreliable medium.   

    After this incident, the Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai of APC, in a state broadcast on the Federal Government’s controversial currency redesign policy, said it was meant to ensure that the 2023 elections “do not hold at all, leading to an Interim National Government to be led by a retired Army General.”

    He also said there was a plan to “Sustain the climate of shortage of fuel, food and other necessities, leading to mass protests, violence and breakdown of law and order that would provide a fertile foundation for a military take-over.”

    Alarmingly, the latest statements from spokespersons for Tinubu and the DSS are in line with previous narratives from Fani-Kayode and El-Rufai. In particular, the security agency’s claims heightened the seriousness of the allegation of conspiracy.

    This situation demands that the authorities take strong action against the enemies of democracy who are unwilling to act within the ambit of the law. But the question is: Who are these alleged spoilers? Keyamo and the DSS gave the impression that they knew who the plotters were. If so, they should be named, arrested and prosecuted.   

     The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had announced that Tinubu won the presidential election with 8,794,726 votes. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who had 6, 984,520 votes, and the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi, who got 6,101,533 votes, are challenging the election result and seeking judicial intervention to overturn the winner’s victory.

    Interestingly, the protesting losers have dissociated themselves from the said conspiracy. The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Ibrahim Abdullahi, was reported saying the DSS “should immediately go after such persons because it is the right thing to do. What are they still waiting for?”

    The chief spokesperson for the LP’s presidential campaign council, Yunusa Tanko, also said if the DSS “has verifiable facts and evidence as regards those who are planning to subvert the will of democracy, they should not hesitate to bring them out as quickly as possible,” adding that the security agency should not “intimidate the people when they are trying to fight for their rights.”

    The LP’s insinuation that the DSS allegation of an anti-democratic plot by some persons is an attempt to silence those challenging INEC’s presidential election result was made possible by the agency’s failure to act on claimed intelligence about the alleged conspiracy. The DSS should demonstrate that its allegation is not a fabrication designed to “intimidate” certain targets by taking action against the alleged plotters.   

    An Interim National Government (ING) is not strange to Nigerians. But it is an unwelcome monstrosity.  Chief Ernest Shonekan, who died in January 2022, aged 85, was controversially Nigeria’s interim head of state for about three months, August 26, 1993 to November 17, 1993, following the wrongful annulment of the country’s historic June 12, 1993 presidential election by the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida military regime. 

     A prominent boardroom player, Shonekan was an accidental political leader whose administration was widely considered illegitimate; and he faced immense pressure and opposition from several quarters, which ultimately made his position unsustainable.  He was ousted in a palace coup led by Gen. Sani Abacha whose military regime, from 1993 to 1998, was sustained by unprecedented repression.     

    Shonekan’s ING was installed by a military dictator.  It was an unelected government. But times have changed. Democracy was restored in Nigeria in 1999, and the country has enjoyed more than two decades of unbroken democratic rule under civilian leaders.   

    So, if it is true that anti-democratic forces are plotting to install another ING in the country, in a democratic context, it would not only be a violation of democracy but also an extremely disruptive installation.  

    It is not enough to raise the alarm as the DSS and others have done.  The authorities are expected to deal with the alleged conspirators. Failure to do so will cast doubt on the veracity of the allegation.

  • FUTO’s democracy heroine

    FUTO’s democracy heroine

    An event of profound significance for Nigeria’s democracy played out last Tuesday at the premises of the Federal University of Technology FUTO, Owerri.

     It was a reception organized by the management, staff and students to welcome their vice chancellor, Prof. Nnenna Oti on her return from Abia State where she served as returning officer in the governorship election. They rolled out drums, singing and dancing for what they considered her exemplary and principled stance in ensuring that the will of Abia electorate prevailed at the election.

    Their mood was captured in a banner with the inscription, “Welcome back Nnenna Oti, heroine of Nigeria’s democracy”. That was their perception of her role for which they decided to honour her. 

    Apparently elated by the honour, Oti who was widely reported to have insisted that the will of the people must count during the contentious election, told her audience that before the declaration of the final results, she was promised huge monetary inducement to change the will and mandate of the people of Abia State. But she refused and remained resolute in the face of heavy intimidation, harassment and threats.

    Hear her: “they came with their threats; they came with their money, they came with their intimidation. All I did was to declare the riot act as follows: under me, votes must count, under me, the peoples mandate will be upheld”.  In the final result of the Abia governorship election, Alex Oti of the Labour Party was declared elected by the INEC.

    Before her return, the news of her principled and uncompromising stance had suffused the media space with commentators pouring encomiums on her. It was thus, a befitting honour that FUTO management, staff and students took out time to celebrate one of theirs who stood above all threats and temptations to ensure that the right things were done.  Her principled stance was a huge credit to their institution given the embarrassing corruption that has eaten deep into the social fabric of our society.

    That was the Oti story. There was the temptation to view her claims with guarded caution as it could be a publicity decoy from a serving pubic officer.  But, since nobody has come forward to controvert her account of the encounter with vested interests in Abia politics, there is every reason to believe her narrative.

    For a country where sterling and unimpeachable qualities are in short supply; where many of her counterparts would have easily succumbed to such monetary bait, Oti deserves to be celebrated and the university has every reason to be proud of her. But her experience exposes the rot that goes on during elections in this country. 

    She spoke of harassment, intimidation and offer of huge sums of money to compromise the outcome of the Abia election. It has taken almost two weeks since these events unfolded.  Curiously, nothing has come from the relevant law enforcement agencies by way of apprehending and bringing to book all those fingered in such acts of misdemeanour.

    Yet, these security agencies were grandstanding before and during the elections on their intimidating capacities to deal with purveyors of election infractions across the country. And we ask; where were the security agencies when all the unpleasant acts were taking place?  Assuming they were not privy to these alleged acts of intimidation and monetary inducement; can they also claim ignorance of the public lamentations of the lady?

     One would have expected given the wide interest the matter has generated, that our security agencies would have by now, gone after all those fingered in those unwholesome acts. There is no indication to that effect several days thereafter. This unfortunate and speaks volumes on the general attitude of the country’s leadership to the war against corruption and allied malfeasance.

    The lady who made the allegations is a public officer. She should know those who induced her with large sums of money to thwart the collective will of the people. Money was offered and threats issued by human beings, not ghosts. The complainant has a fair idea of those she encountered. So why has the law enforcement operatives not found it worthy to do the needful on this singular case? Why the deafening silence or official compromise?

    But, the Abia case is just a tip of the iceberg of the monumental infractions that inundate the electoral process on these shores. Definitely, Abia State is not alone in this. The only difference is that someone of principle and personal integrity refused to be part of those putrid electoral practices and ensured that the right thing was done. Hers was an exception from what has seemingly become the rule.

    She was not the only vice chancellor that worked as a state returning officer during those rounds of elections. But in many of those states election results are being ferociously contested, some of her peers were also in charge in similar capacities. Perhaps, if they had given a serious thought to high integrity and personal honour, the outcome would have come out better. But that is where we are now and who we are.

    A comedian captured this dilemma in a video clip when he dramatized the fall in standards and values in the university system. While deploring the loss of value of university certificates since graduates have to learn a skill from semi-illiterates to fit into the society, he said even vice chancellors now know that their real job is outside the university environment. For him, all they do is to wait for every four years for elections to make huge monetary gains, albeit illegally.

    This is instructive and mirrors vividly public perception of the role assigned to vice chancellors and their counterparts during elections and the use they make of them. It may sound an exaggerated perspective. But that is the way their involvement in election management is now seen. Oti’s encounter bears that perception out.

    If university professors can be so easily bribed to rig and compromise the outcome of elections, what hope is there for the future? What messages are they passing across to the larger society? A message of unmitigated societal rot for the younger generation? How such a morally bankrupt society stands to survive is left to be conjectured.

     That was the dilemma encapsulated in the comedian’s video clip. It raises searing questions on the type of democracy we purport to be practicing in this country. Why must we subvert the grand norms on which the democratic foundation was erected and still purport that ours is a democratic enterprise?

    Democracy as a governance construct has operational rules without which it can only but operate in its most aberrant form. It is premised on the supremacy and sovereignty of popular will. Each time the sovereignty of the electorate is abridged or compromised through unwholesome infractions, what you get is a bastardization of that governance construct and legitimacy deficits.

     Sadly, across many of the states and constituencies in the country, intimidation of voters and electoral officers, violence, bribery and outright ambushing of election materials were widely reported. In some centres, electoral officials took money to compromise the outcome of the polls. Some sitting governors deployed armed men both fake and official, hijacked election materials at the collation centres and wrote results that bore no correlation with results declared at the polling units. And nothing happened.

    Complaints are not just coming from the opposition. The Governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle openly complained about the heavy contingent of security personnel deployed to his state during the elections blaming them for complicity in his defeat.

    If the win election by ‘hook and crook syndrome’ is not checked, we run the risk of loss of confidence in the electoral process. It happened during Obasanjo’s era. 

    Political apathy was at such low ebb that it took electoral reforms to bring back a modicum of trust to the process. That events are fast sliding towards that inglorious past in spite of the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act is a measure of how unprepared we are to play by the rules. There is nothing to suggest that democracy as an ideological construct cannot atrophy in the face of a dissonant political culture.

  • Solomon’s baby mothers

    Solomon’s baby mothers

    It would have been a time to jeer. Rather, this essayist would rather pity. The victory of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has spawned many an emotion. For some, it is rage. For others, it is tears. For a few more, it is a call for the end of Nigeria. To a few more, it is hysteria, very close to what Poet Samuel Coleridge calls “purposeless malignity.” All of this is because they cannot live with the outcome of democracy.

    Before the polls, a young woman posted her tears and fears on social media. Visceral and heartfelt, she cautioned God against letting Tinubu win the election. She threatened the Almighty and vowed never to peer the holy of holies ever again if Tinubu won the polls. She had never met Tinubu. Of course, her heart and soul slobbered on the LP candidate’s bosom. It recalls the devotion of the soldier in one of W.B Yeats poems. “Those I fight I do not hate/ Those I guard I do not love.” But this young lady is more of a true believer in the mold of Eric Hoffer who penned the classic, The True Believer. He once wrote, “we lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.” The young lady must be bewailing God now, and forswearing fasting. She belongs to the class of self-pity. I pray for her remorse. No election or candidate is worth our God. We rather obey God, says Paul, than men.

    What of our man on the plane with a PHD in law, who thought by carping to fellow passengers he could finagle his LP man to victory? This was not a man swinging his sword for the God in heaven, or in defence of a holy book. He belongs to that ilk who have lost their taste bud or ear for music. They have disappeared into the dark revelries of illusion. In his case, reality aches and cudgels him out of his fantasy. He has realized Tinubu has won and wonders why his fellow travelers are not determined like him to turn the tide. May 29 is a looming nightmare. He belongs to the class of appalled realists.

    I cannot fail to speak of the soothsayers. They are the ones who saw soot all over Tinubu’s prospects like the first chapter of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. They had soothing words for their candidate. They went to heaven and returned like Jesus on the transfiguration. They had seen the future and hoisted its roses. Those who spoke on the pulpit, and out of it. Those who ordered them to vote for their faith. Those who said they already saw the result. They asked the candidate not to worry. The Lord had assured them of victory. Those who said he would come second and Tinubu would be arrested on May 29 and power handed to their candidate. First off, the prophet said the LP candidate would be announced second. He was announced third. False prophet. They spoke on phone, in whispers, and administered holy communion. Their followers fell for prophecy, and it became a turbulence of belief, a rallying cry of the zealot. It has powered their heart, their street rabble, their righteous indignation, their internet prattle, and their faith in an unerring destiny.

    Can we forget the fuddy-duddies? It is what in Hausa Language is called bakin ciki, or what in Warri we call jiga belle. Malice. It is basically from two old men. One is the Owu chief, who knew his candidate had lost and wanted instant cancellation. He was labouring under the lie that his son would win, and when it turned the other way, he suffered from the line of Caribbean writer Georg Lamming, “something startles where I thought I was safest.” A big shame had fallen on him. He had to play the spoiler.  The other man is Ayo Adebanjo, a man aboil with a bitter soul, afraid of Tinubu and blind with hate. As Shakespeare wrote, we hate that which we often fear. His is a fear of gratitude. The man has done him so much good, and his only revenge is hate. Elder Fasoranti put him in his hoary place when he denied Tinubu won. The best writing on him is Bisi Akande’s book, Participations.

    We have the set of the doomsayers. They were the ones who wanted to bring down the country with a proposed riot called #endNigeria. The LP candidate gave an ambiguous response, at once dissociating from them and saying the court is his primary and priority option.  I pray, what are his other options? He has given a hint. We are waiting. His deputy who went on a wild peroration about not swearing in Tinubu belongs in that category. I wonder whether he is in on the so-called “religious war” or is he lying to himself.? Maybe an unaware conscript. They were the breed who knelt at the defence headquarters calling for an army takeover. These boys remind us why the Owu chief obliterated history in schools. They don’t know leprosy the army gave us for decades. They don’t know they are even the sons of the army who were disgraced out of office. By calling for them, they are calling for their temperamental fathers. A little monster invoking his father. They are the apologists of tyranny. It means they do no know the spirit of democracy. The army believes in zero-sum games. Just like them.

    We have the “mathemythicians.”  They are turning numbers into comfort. The first is the PDP. They were told that their only path to victory was squelched by the LP man. They had lost their stronghold in Lagos to him, as well as most of the south-south and southeast. Atiku admitted that at his grieving party. That basically cancels out the south. Yet, he says he won. Where could he get the numbers? Tinubu was already in contention in the north, both northeast and northwest. No matter his numbers, Atiku could not win with the north alone. Not even Buhari did. Hence, the APC. Asiwaju had his numbers in Lagos and southwest, as well as the north-central. Even in his dialogue with “yes daddy,” the other fellow begged for Christian votes in southwest and Kogi, Kwara and Niger. He knew he was not strong there and the result confirmed his fears. The LP man’s ethno-religious “mathemythics” meant he would do well in south-south and southeast, which he did. And north central and Lagos. He was, however, bested in the north central in Kogi, Kwara, Benue and Niger. He had good numbers in Plateau and Nasarawa, confirming his “yes daddy” dialogue.

    But that cannot give anyone a path to victory. Not when you campaign in Sabon Gari in Kano, and rally easterners in Sokoto and Kebbi, and depend only on southern Kaduna. The haul of Northern votes came from where he ignored. The core north saw his church pilgrimages, whose purpose we heard in his “yes daddy” dialogue. We also saw some who argued both here and abroad that winning about 37 percent of the votes cast was not democracy. What ignorance. If three ran, were the votes not going to split in three? In this case, in 18 places. LP and PDP were too lost in their triumphal hubris when they were warned that they had opened the path for a Tinubu victory. It is not new in his history. It has happened a few times in American and European history. Just one example, George H. Bush lost his second term vote to Bill Clinton when Ross Perot entered and gobbled up the conservative entitlements of the incumbent. Historians say it up till tomorrow. It is, however still speculation in a straight fight between the PDP and the APC if new forces or strategies may have handed the same result.

    We have the Solomon baby mothers. I refer to the split-baby scenario that King Solomon gave posterity. The PDP and LP accepted all their National Assembly results.  But they forswear the presidential. They are products of one womb: the Feb 25 poll. They are like the woman who lost the baby by asking Solomon the king that they should cut the baby in half, so she could have a part and the other woman who had the baby the other. Solomon knew who was legitimate. So, it is with the PDP and LP. They want to eat their cake and have it. They want to cut our baby of democracy. They want their certificates of return but want the other certificate returned. But we cannot separate them like water into water.

    Part of the noise comes from discontents in Lagos and largely the southeast. Most of the country has accepted. The north did not holler after the polls, nor the north central, nor the southwest. The governorship was more than a little turbulent in parts of the north because they had little problem with the presidential and national assembly polls.

    But the hullaballoo makes the wailers think they own the narratives in parts of the south. The western media latched on to the internet bile and fury, and no one has come with a mind of science. Not even the eager western media has advanced clear data. It is unscientific minds that stir trouble. For instance, if they say the elections went the other way, what are the facts? Recently, for all the noise about Lagos, Deputy Governor Femi Hamzat, reported that of over 3,200 polling units, about 80 polling units had problems. Governor Wike lashed back that the hoopla in Rivers was over four polling areas. Has any of the noisemakers taken the pains to count how many of the hundreds of thousands of polling units across the country had problems? The NBA went around and reported the polls merited an 80 percent pass mark. The law calls for substantial compliance.

    Tinubu won by beating two regional candidates and an ethnoreligious poseur.  Some of the angry people we see on WhatsApp, the most vicious social media platform. They live in their own bubble, where they spit, piss, sweat, and fart. They enjoy the sty and call it the new scent in town.

  • Louis @ 50.

    Louis @ 50.

    One day, a certain fellow burst through the door with a tentative, if boyish smile, twirling a sheet of paper. His greeting revealed a guttural gift as he strolled into Tunji Bello’s office. This was in the 1990’s in Concord Press.

    I was to learn later that that young man had more than a guttural gift. Added to that, he had a gift of guts and grit. The first thing I heard after that visit was a word of praise from Bello. If his smile was tentative, his competence illuminated.

    He said the young man was working downstairs. He was not a journalist. He was Louis Odion and wrote this, showing me the write-up. He wanted it published and he had encouraged him to keep writing because he was a damn good – not his words – man of letters. I took a look at his script later, and I wondered if he had strode through the walls of the university because he wrote better than many who had their master’s degree in literature. Bello said he had not. He was working as a stenographer.

    Bello’s idea – this gift would not waste. His plan – he had to find a route for him to journalism. He was a penman that must not be penned.

    In his writing, I saw guts and grits, and one more quality: elegance, a muscular sort of beauty. You could almost hear his guttural voice leap out of his syntax. He was doing his job downstairs, but his joy figured in the words and figures of speech in the sheets of paper he transported upstairs.

    We were in the political desk of the newspaper, and Bello was the political editor who wanted to get the new kid on the block with a blockbuster style into the swing of political writing, or any writing he wanted.

    He did. From my recollection, June 12 and the adversity of the military ban on Concord newspapers opened the way for Bello to edit an interim newspaper, The Daily News, and Odion was an easy pick to work in the team. From then on, dream and chance met never to part.

    After the ban, Bello had him join the journalism aspect of business. Since then, Louis has risen from the obscure role of a backwoods staff of a newspaper to a star player in the firmament of the profession, earning the name capacity in humour and in deed. He has been editor, columnist, editor-in-chief. Along the way, he has gulped a variety of accolades, including quite a few as columnist of the year from the Nigerian Media Merit Awards and Informed commentary from Diamond Awards for Media Excellence. His writing has entertained many, ripped many a powerful man and woman, amused with its sometimes subversive humour. He has had tea and dinner with personages with the titles of president, governor, diplomat and Nobel laureate. His writing has shown a great sense of history, political insights and immersion in literary traditions.

    Odion, knowing that he had to work himself through the university portal, decided to study and grab a degree in English at the University of Lagos. I recall in our days in Sunday Concord when we discussed subjects and shared books on some important themes in world and African literature.

    But he is not just a good man in his profession, but in his relations. During my American sojourn, he became my editor as he accommodated my weekly columns when he shepherded the Sunday Sun. Of course, with the blessings of Mike Awoyinfa, the editor-in-chief. He also, for good humour, became my literary agent, as every money due to me in the newspaper for my work he secured. I never took any of the money for myself, but he did me the duty of parceling sums with zest and integrity to every loved one I wanted to have it. It is an honour I would not forget.

    During that time, I had the joy to read his every column, including a moving one about his grueling visit to a dentist, a thing that made me wonder privately what damage it might have inflicted on his toothy smile.

    Odion is a study in loyalty. He sticks with his friends, and he is a man who does not forget a good deed that comes his way. He has a serenity of vision to life, and looks at people from the viewpoint of cooperation.

    He does not like soccer. His favorite sport is boxing. I recall, too, his love of Phil Collins. The pugilist and Collins, a punch in the eye and song for the heart. I saw the symmetry in Odion’s soul, the pugilist for the foe, the song for the friend. You saw him more with Collins in those days than any conversational foray into Alli or Fraser. But the boxer was always lurking.

    Since our days in Concord, he has been a social centre of the OPEC group with such stalwarts as Kayode Komolafe (alias KK) and, of course, Bello. I also remember when I visited Nigeria from the United States and he put a car at my service throughout my stay and afforded many other acts of friendship I cannot ever repay.

    His show of loyalty should never be taken for granted. He was on the side of Governor Adams Oshiomhole under whom he served as information commissioner. I attended the swearing-in in Benin City, and at that moment, I could not but muse on how the trajectory of a man’s life can take unexpected turn. What if he did not offer his articles and Bello was a stiff who would not look at a star but stanch him in the bud?  In this life we have seen too many talents who never had opportunity, who had energies but fell into the wrong projects, who had opportunity but not the reward, who had promise without promises, who had plums without a job. As the Bible says, the race is not for the swift.

    But he had to leave that position because he was also his own man. He took it in his stride. Yet, he has outgrown the pain of that time and he is in good stead with the former governor.

    His grit came into play for me when he escaped the hands of assassins in Benin, and how he confronted the kingpin of bloodhounds in the city. He made headlines puncturing the ego of a man who many feared. He did not fall hostage to any fear but held the man to account.

    On a personal note, I have seen him break lances in my defence on a number of occasions, including my last encounter with a mass of unbridled political rabble who took a misunderstanding of my writing as license and war cry.

    Few who see him know little about his sense of humour. You only need to see him needle the great KK, or hang around Azu, or spar with Yomi Idowu. The thing about this is that Louis Odion is just turning 50, but all these men are over a decade older. Yet, he blends because his wisdom has outgrown the bones in his head.

    As he takes a turn to his fifth decade, Odion still abounds with the sparkle and elan of the boy I first met in the 1990’s, with all his optimism, brilliance and sap. Congratulations.

  • Senator-elect and ageist loser

    Senator-elect and ageist loser

    Perhaps the most ridiculous complaint about the victory of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Senator-elect, Ireti Kingibe of the Labour Party (LP), in the February 25 National Assembly elections, came from the Minority Leader of the Senate, Senator Philip Aduda of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whom she defeated.

    Kingibe got 202,175 votes in the senatorial election. Her rise was remarkable. She will become the first female senator of the city in 20 years. Another female politician, Khairat Abdulrazaq-Gwadabe of the PDP, was FCT senator from 1999 to 2003.

    Aduda, who came second, had 100,544 votes. He had a great fall. He became a senator after serving two terms in the Nigerian House of Representatives from 2003 to 2011. He fell after three terms and 12 years in the Senate, which made him the longest-serving FCT senator.

    After his loss, he spoke to journalists, complaining about “challenges and concerns that we hope to address legally.”

    He said things that exposed his ageism. His words: “Let me say that as a young man, of course, I came into the National Assembly at the age of 33. By age 41, I was in the Senate. So as a youth I think I have done very well and if the FCT feels that voting in an old woman of about 70 years old and giving her capacity for a 53 years old young man and bringing somebody who is old enough to be my mother and auntie, I think that something is wrong.

    “Because even the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in some fora has said that people should begin to retire at 70. So, we are thinking of retiring her at the age of 70 and she is just beginning to represent us.”

    He continued: “She’s too old to represent us in the FCT because she lacked the physical strength to carry out the rigorous legislative activities.

    “I have constantly also put the issues of youth and women inclusion in my administrative style on the front burner, which largely reflects on my various programmes of empowerment, and it’s visible in my appointments of my aides, which cuts across all kinds of people irrespective of tribe, ethnicity and religion.

    “Not forgetting also that at 52 years of age, there couldn’t have been a more vibrant and resilient character than myself as a symbol of youth representation.”

    The boaster went on: “Because of our antecedents in politics, our works have earned us reelection for three consecutive tenures at the National Assembly, not by sharp practices, but premised solely on competence, character, credibility, performance and proven track records.

    “I became a councillor in 1996 at the age of 26, and later became a supervisory councillor in AMAC at 32, all these were before my foray into the National Assembly where I gained very valuable experience having also humbly risen to become the Senate Minority Leader, making me a Principal Officer of the National Assembly.”

    Of course, Aduda is entitled to his self-perception. But he shouldn’t feel entitled to the FCT senate seat. The voters voted him out based on their rating of his representation regardless of his self-rating.  

    He faulted those who voted for Kingibe; and he found fault with her age. But voters were free to vote for their preferred candidate, and age was not an issue for the majority of voters.

    Kingibe, 68, attributed her victory to “the combination of many factors,” including the popularity of the Obidient movement in Abuja. The political movement inspired by the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, brought fresh energy to the general elections. It is striking that Kingibe emerged as the senatorial candidate of a party associated with youthfulness, and defeated the candidates of older parties.  

    With two unsuccessful attempts to be FCT senator behind her, it was third time lucky for the civil engineer and politician who is the wife of one-time Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babagana Kingibe. She entered politics in 1990, and was Adviser to the National Chairman of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP). At various times before joining LP last year, she was a member of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    During her campaign for the senate seat, she pledged to donate her salary to a special fund to support her agenda, which includes redistributing wealth in the city and its environs. She was quoted as saying, “I see so much wrong. I see so much that can be improved on, and I also see that most of the people that have been in the National Assembly … are more concerned about how much money they’re going to make as opposed to what can be done for the people.” She plans to help provide water to poorer parts of Abuja, and access federal funds to support health, education and agriculture in her constituency

    She said: “My values are integrity, fairness, the more privileged should look out for the less privileged. I keep saying society is judged by how more privileged members treat the less privileged.”

    She also plans to push for more female representation at the various levels of government in the country.

    Notably, it’s been about 40 years since Franca Afegbua, who died this month, made history as the country’s first elected female senator, in 1983, in a 95-seat Senate. She represented the then Bendel North Senatorial District in the old Bendel State, which has been split into present-day Edo and Delta states. At the time, it was a game-changing victory for women. Male dominance in politics had ensured that elected women were nowhere to be found in the country’s highest legislative chamber until Afegbua spectacularly emerged on the political stage.

    She had enriched the range of representation in the country’s upper legislative chamber, and her record was expected to lead to greater women’s representation in the Senate. But progress in that regard has been unimpressive.

    Today, there are 109 senators, and only eight of them are female. Also, there are only three women among the 101 confirmed senators-elect after the February 25 National Assembly elections.

    Kingibe’s election to represent the federal capital in the Senate is significant. A loser’s ageism does not reduce its significance.

  • Why cash squeeze will persist!

    Why cash squeeze will persist!

    Those nursing the hope that the biting cash scarcity will soon abate should perish such thought. We may have to live with its dislocations and excruciating hardship far longer than anticipated.

    The reason is simple. The contrived scarcity is the second component of the ‘Naira redesign and cashless policy’ introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) late last year. The twin policy is among other objectives designed to take control of the currency in circulation, address the hoarding of the Naira outside the banking system and check the increasing counterfeiting of the high denominations of the Naira.

    Implicit in the three itemized objectives is the imperative to take effective control of the currency in circulation especially outside the banking system. This policy should also be seen against the disclosure by the governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele that more than 80 per cent of the country’s currency in circulation was outside the banking system prior to the new policy.

    The aim is therefore to drastically reduce the amount of cash in circulation. The CBN has since been beating its chest on the successes recorded in curtailing excess cash in circulation and their prospects in achieving set objectives including discouraging kidnapping for ransom.

    At a press conference last December, Emefiele had noted with dismay that the currency in circulation had grown from N1.4 trillion to N3.23 trillion as many Nigerians especially the rich were hoarding the currency.

    “We cannot allow them to become banks in their homes. They don’t have the license to build bank vaults in their homes. They are keeping the money to speculate against our currency and it is making our work difficult at CBN”, he had said. At other times he had blamed inflation on excess liquidity in the system.

    Will the CBN now throw its doors wide open for such unrestrained cash flow in the economy in view of the Supreme Court ruling? And will that not amount to rubbishing the very grounds on which the policy was ab initio predicated? These posers are at the heart of the tardiness in the reactions of the CBN to the order of the Supreme Court to allow the old currencies circulate with the new ones.

    Even as it is reluctant to come public on this, the underlying reasoning is that carrying out the order of the apex court will ultimately, sound a death knell to the main objectives of the policy. That seems the point many are yet to come to terms with.

    That should explain why the CBN is not keen in injecting more cash into the economy. That is why also depositors’ banks are not dispensing cash. That also informed the broadcast by President Buhari in which he countermanded the apex courts’ order and directed that only the N200 notes should be added to those in circulation.

    But the apex court took the bull by its horn when it finally ruled that the old and new currencies should circulate concurrently until the end of December this year. The court further lampooned the president for flagrantly disobeying its order through that broadcast. Even after the final ruling by the apex court, the dilly-dallying and covert sabotage did not abate.

    This led to confusion as to what order to obey- that of President Buhari or the Supreme Court. For more than a week, this disorder subsisted. There was neither a directive from the CBN for the commercial banks to begin disbursing the old notes nor were the new notes anywhere to be seen. Some of the commercial banks which managed to issue very limited amounts of the old currencies met stiff resistance as the people were not willing to accept them.

    It took a statement from Buhari denying he had a hand in the inability of the CBN to comply with the court’s ruling for the bank to reluctantly issue a statement directing depositors’ banks to begin paying and receiving the old notes. But nothing substantially changed since then. Neither the new currencies nor the old ones are available as people continue to buy cash at ridiculously reduced rates.

    So on paper, the CBN has complied with the Supreme Court’s order. But in practice, it has found other ways to frustrate and incapacitate it. Yes, the CBN has directed the banks to accept and pay out the old currencies. But how much of the old and new currencies the CBN makes available to commercial banks remains outside the purview of the apex court. And there is nothing the apex court can do in that regard as the final decision on monetary management rests squarely on the shoulders of the CBN.

    That seems the game going on at the detriment of the suffering people of this country who have been at the receiving end of the ill-conceived and hasty policy. The policy is biting even harder and about to grind business and commercial activities.

    Our policy makers may have borrowed the idea from India which a couple of years ago, implemented a monetary policy that shares similarities with the current exercise. What was the Indian model like?

    The then Indian Prime minister, Narendra Modi had on the night of November 2016, made a surprising television announcement in which he declared the highest two denominations of the country’s currency notes (Rs 1000 and Rs 500) withdrawn from the market with immediate effect.

    Termed demonetization by the media, the policy was targeted against what they called “black money”. By declaring the two currency notes worthless overnight, India hoped to destroy the large piles of black money hidden away by tax evaders, curb corruption and counterfeiting. It was also envisaged to mark India’s transition to a digital and cashless economy.

    The immediate outcome was unmitigated confusion and chaos as people struggled to cope. It brought with it excruciating suffering especially among the poor even as some deaths were recorded. A few years later, it became obvious that the policy was not a resounding success as black money challenge had neither disappeared nor inflation brought under reasonable control.

    Though there were gains in tax collection and progress in digital payments but the cost of the policy far outweighed whatever gains it was meant to achieve. There were obviously better and less painful options to approximate the same objectives. That is the path the Nigerian authorities have chosen to thread in their current Naira redesign and cashless policy.

    The same confusion and chaos that hallmarked the Indian experience are with us today. For months now, neither the new currencies nor the old ones are anywhere to be seen with a majority of citizens exposed to all manner of scorching hardship. Nobody knows for sure the amount of new currencies the CBN has printed since the exercise. Neither is the bank willing to make such disclosure.

    The speculation at the weekend was that the CBN was about to flood depositors’ banks with the old currencies to lessen the pressure of the ill-conceived and ill-managed policy. The touted new resolve is coming in the wake of the decision of the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC to picket and occupy all branches of the CBN nationwide in protest against the untold hardship imposed by the policy on workers.

     One is minded to ask, where are the new currencies? Why circulate the old currencies to the exclusion of the new ones? One would have thought that the right thing will be for the apex bank to use the time provided by the Supreme Court ruling to make the new currencies go round.

     Circulating the fast expiring old currency notes without the new ones, may be CBN’s strategy to limit the amount of cash injected into the economy. But it is loaded with the frightening prospects of prolonging the debilitating cash squeeze up to the December deadline. That will entail that we may have to live with acute shortages of cash even after the new deadline. That will obviously lead to counterproductive outcomes.

  • Electoral bulala

    Electoral bulala

    I should shed a tear for the goat. Its primal cry trembled as it flailed and failed to wriggle its dark hide from the grips of ebo men in Lagos. The goat did not know the BOS of Lagos, nor if Gbadebo has another name across the pond, nor whether a battle was afoot over who first set foot on Lagos soil. One thing, however, was certain: its blood would mingle with that soil in a finality of its oblivion. The sacrifice went viral.

    This is how the spiritual can mock the political in the Nigerian space. There was a herd of the white-clothed men, singing and chanting around some parts of town. The Oro cult was there for emphasis. It was a comic spectacle although they did not see themselves as a circus. What was happening was an existential struggle. It was not about a political party, or a religious faith. It was a race in a fighting stance.

    It would not have happened if one race did not boast that Lagos belonged to no one. The Igbo and some south-south persons have maintained that Lagos does not belong to the Yoruba. Some say it was a colonial port city, a white man’s beloved. The colonial master invited the others to the place they founded. This is unfortunate, and it is partly because we do not study history in our schools. They should have known that Yorubas have always been here.

    The issue was that the door was thrown open and allowed others to dinner and use of the bathroom. But what the Yorubas saw was the question in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart – if a man defecates on your floor, what would you do? Of course, you would find a stick of terminator to go after the defecator.  That was what happened on Saturday. An electoral truncheon or bulala.

    Lagosians showed a virtue of democracy: it is not just about numbers, although it is. It is about sentiment above all else. Lagosians demonstrated the sentiment of ownership. Sociologists write about the ownership society, but they hardly refer to land and the power of the indigene. They speak about owning individual properties, careers, families and other destinies. But this version of ownership of the land is the root of all ownership, whether in a democracy or tyranny. Governor Ortom, a bumbling governor as regards development, exploited it to win elections because Buhari seemed to undermine Benue’s ownership impulse.

    But advanced democracies always play this game. In the United States, the citizens describe their society as a melting pot. In Canada, they call themselves a mosaic. Lagos wanted the American model not by example but by its own history. Lagos opened its arms and others have come to take it for granted. We saw it hit its dark chapter in the presidential polls when the APC presidential candidate lost to the Labour Party man. Rather than see it as a collective sigh for the republican spirit, an ethnic dimension took hold when brothers from the east started not only to gloat but beat their chests that they would take over the state house.

    They started even mocking the governor for attending churches, cooling his tongue with ice cream, et al, as though he had not been doing so in the past. They boasted about a candidate who wanted to upturn the way of the tribe by installing a rival monarch, undermine the indigene in the name of a cosmopolitan idea. He could not speak the language and he privileged the settler over the indigene.

    Of course, we cannot underplay the role of the church. They turned brother against brother in Yorubaland, but the followers did not understand their pecuniary motivations. One, they had status anxiety when the Corporate Affairs Department asked them to follow the rules of succession. Two, they had Jonathan-era nostalgia when the ex-president gave them an episcopal cover. Three, they saw a pr move to swell the ranks of followers.

    But what happened in Lagos last Saturday was to raise roots of origin over belief. For instance, where I voted in the presidential poll, APC had 37 votes and LP had 20. PDP had one vote. Last weekend, APC had 51 votes and LP had nine, PDP had none. I observed that those who voted Labour who were Yoruba changed camp. My voting area was outside my estate. There were two polling areas in the estate. The first one had 83 votes for APC and Labour had 23. Two weeks ago, LP had over 40 votes while APC had less than 60 votes. In the second place, the APC scored 96 votes but the din of celebration drowned the LP number. In the presidential poll, APC won by only four votes. This time, LP might have attracted less than ten votes.

    The voters started to dance and scream, “a ti dibo, a ti wole.” We have voted and we have won. They started saying “this is Yorubaland. You can’t come and take our land from us. God forbid.” A visceral exhalation. That is the depth of suspicion. There were instances of violence, snatching of ballot boxes and even bloodletting in Lagos. I condemn all. But the conduct was vastly peaceful, and it reflected a primordial tension between two tribes. The Igbo and Yoruba. And for the youth who know nothing of their past, they should learn that at one time, Igbos and Yorubas went to the market to buy machetes for war when the great Zik was accused of misappropriating the funds of NCNC. Rather than address the allegation, he said it was because he was an Igbo man. Dare Babarinsa misled readers when he normalised Rhodes-Vivour’s ambition as Lagos narrative, citing Zik’s bid to be premier of the West. He did not show that Awo rose to counter him partly because Zik saw it as an Igbo man taking over a Yoruba race, and hence he failed. In revenge, Zik did not rise above a petty temperament when he dislodged Eyo Ita from the East to pave way to become the premier of that region.

    Maybe to bring peace between them, Awo called Zik to coalesce their forces against NPC to be prime minister in the first republic so Awo could serve under him as finance minister. Zik preferred to be ceremonial president, sqafing tea and hosting heads of state and dinners instead of developing this country. He became a cipher under Tafawa Balewa. Why did he not trust Awo? After all, he would be the boss and could even fire the Ikenne man. He was more afraid of his own shadows.

    The tension has been here all along. The man who raked it up of late was Jonathan who worked with the eastern elite and guber candidate Jimi Agbaje, who promised to install an Igbo king. This undermined the efforts president-elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had made over the years to integrate the Igbos into the state affairs. Jonathan relocated to Lagos and made the CBN his farmstead.

    What democracy calls for is a cooperative spirit. When Obama ran for president, he ran as an American, not a black man. Hence, he won. The blacks voted as one bloc, and it riled the foul blood of the alt-right who threw up Trump as the hero on a white horse. We must be careful not to make this an ethnic city but one of ethics. It is not in the hands of the indigene to ensure peace, but those who come from outside.

    Whatever the celebration must be for the APC in Lagos, it should be seen as a warning, not ecstasy. The party will have to review its party mechanics and those who have fallen victim to what Francois Rene Chateaubriand says of the phases of a cause or institution: utility, privilege and abuse. Some partisans in the party are in that place between privilege and abuse. The party has to check this, but it needs to take a deeper look.

    It is a pity that many would have loved to vote for all the great things the BOS of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has accomplished. But it was reduced to an us-versus-them fireworks. However, his place in history is stout and unassailable.

  • What a cause

    What a cause

    I watched a few Yoruba youths last Saturday at the voting arena, and they were discussing the LP candidate. They were about half a dozen, and all but one of them were obidients. A young lady was Batified and she tried to show to the folks that the LP man instrumentalized the church to rally the young. The others denied. She held her own with facts and logic. One of them said he did not see him attend any churches. I engaged them for a few minutes and said, “Do you know that this same man invested the state funds in the family business?” They said there was nothing wrong with that. He has explained his role in public. I gave up on them. In this area, I knew I was sure My generation was better. We lashed out at Bakin Zuwo, then Kano governor, who kept government money in government house and so had license to spend it. This is a new Bakin Zuwo and the youths are applauding. O ma se o! I reflected that the Yoruba youth were not clever. The Igbo youths see the LP man’s project as their own and make the Yoruba youth believe it is for everyone. And the Yoruba youth fall for the cause. That is the curse.

  • Braimah at 60

    Braimah at 60

    Former classmate and one of the gems of this generation, Ehimare Braimah, turns 60 on Tuesday. The mathematics graduate had turned numbers the way he now turns words for pr and for marketing. Journalism he takes in his stride. He was the smallest boy in our class one in Government College Ughelli. He was, as our class master Asoro described him, a small boy who had the biggest grade. Happy birthday.

  • Democracy test

    Democracy test

    Writing under the title “Critical issues in Saturday’s elections” in February 27, this column had highlighted the highpoints on which the overall credibility and integrity of February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections would be judged.

    The article which was submitted on the eve of the elections and published two days after, had established the challenges that faced the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as it got set to conduct the imminent polls. It was the contention of that write-up that how the electoral umpire is able to navigate those challenges will be a measure of the level of progress of the country within the democratic chart.

    There were also attitudinal and behavioural issues; their impact on nation-building that were billed to face interrogation from the pattern of eventual voting given the plurality of the contestants. And since the issues canvassed then were largely provisional as the elections were yet to hold, it is apposite to re-examine them now to see the level of impact they had in the controversy trailing those elections thereafter.

    As in the previous article, this one will be submitted on the eve of the governorship and House of Assembly elections and published after those elections would have been lost and won.

    It could be considered the second part of the earlier article. Those issues critical to the February 25 elections are still very alive as they equally pose greater challenges for the March 18 polls. The stakes are even much higher with all that is known to have transpired during the presidential and National Assembly elections.

    There are fears of massive voter apathy in the face of uncertainties as to whether the sordid lapses of the last elections will be a repeat performance. But INEC has not given any indication that set rules have been altered. So, it is presumed the elections will be conducted under the same conditions as the presidential and National Assembly polls. Both will inexorably, face similar challenges.

    What are the issues? The first identified challenge the electoral umpire was anticipated to face during the first round of elections was in the area of logistics. It was observed that in the past, delays and late delivery of election materials on voting days impacted adversely on voter turnout and led to recriminations and allegations of partiality against the electoral umpire.

    INEC was advised to ensure timely and contemporaneous delivery of election material across the country as it stands a critical area on which its activities will definitely come under serious inquisition. What was the performance of the electoral body like on the day of the election? INEC was found abysmally wanting.

    The elections were billed to start by 8am and end at 2.30 pm. Sadly, in many parts of the country, voting materials did not get to the polling units even by the 2.30 pm elections were supposed to have been concluded. In places where officials arrived somewhat early, they came with incomplete materials resulting in delays and disenfranchisement of the electorate who after waiting for hours left out of frustration.

    A measure of this large scale disenfranchisement is evident from the results of the presidential elections where the combined scores of all the candidates merely added up to just one quarter of the 93.4 million registered voters. There could be other reasons for the low turnout including trust deficits and deliberate manipulations by rogue officials.

    But unavailability and late arrival of election materials turned out a potent factor despite the high interest generated by that particular election.

    Technology: Much of the optimism that the elections would mark a sharp and substantial departure from our sordid electoral pasts characterized by the writing and alteration of election results, ballot box snatching and changing of results as they are conveyed to the collation centres centred on the new technology INEC promised to deploy. The commission did a test run of the new devise and assured Nigerians of its efficacy in direct transmission of results in real time, from the polling units to its result viewing centres.

    Through the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and direct transmission of election results, the electoral umpire sought to reassure Nigerians that their collective will expressed at the ballot will neither be tampered with nor circumscribed. BVAS was seen as the lynchpin on which the wheels of free, fair and credible elections revolved.

     Because technological innovations were consistent with public yearnings for electoral reforms, the idea in no small way shored up the confidence of the electorate in the elections. BVAS was seen as the game changer.

    It remained the actual conduct of the elections for this optimism to be tested. And what was the outcome? The BVAS functioned during the accreditation of voters. But when it came to the critical function of real-time transmission of results from the polling units to the result viewing centres, the worst happened. That expectation was dashed to the consternation of voters who were fed all manner of excuses for the colossal and inexplicable failure.

    INEC was to cite what it called glitches or hitches to rationalize that colossal embarrassment and unmitigated failure. Unscrupulous politicians and their cronies wasted no time in taking undue advantage of this failure to write results manually and mutilate those not favourable to them. The rejection of the results of the election by the leading political parties is largely on account of the mess that became of the BVAS in direct transmission of election results.

    It is presumed the BVAS will also be in use in the governorship and House of Assembly elections. INEC secured a court order to reconfigure the device for the said elections. What will again come under serious test in Saturday elections is whether the calamity that befell the devise in the February 25 polls will pull a repeat performance. This issue promises very interesting and potentially contentious whichever direction it eventually turns out.

    The next challenge that faced INEC as it prepared for the presidential and National Assembly elections was the surging insecurity across the country. There were local government areas and constituencies where the security agencies were not in firm control. The dominance of non-state actors was so prevalent that even the political parties could not campaign in such districts.

    Questions were raised as to how the electoral umpire would possibly navigate these life threatening challenges; ferry election officials and materials to such areas on the day of elections. The prospect of elections holding in such places was absolutely not there. So what was the situation on the day of election?

    Reports indicated there were no elections in such areas. Nobody was prepared to risk their lives venturing into those places. INEC was to announce a blanket repeat of voting in areas elections were not held on the first day. Of course, nothing happened in most of those violent local governments abandoned by indigenes on account of unceasing killings.  

    But what turned out as a huge surprise especially in the case of Imo State was that results were posted for such areas. And one asks how did it happen? The dire security situation remains the same. The same questions are going to be asked if election results emanate from such areas again.

    The other key issue to be thrown up by that election was the level of progress of the country in nation-building. Because key contestants came from the three dominant ethnic groups in the country, the election was seen as a veritable test of the extent primordial and sectional predilections still influence voting choice. It was going to be a measure of the pre-eminence of national ethos and common sense of national belonging against religious and ethnic lure. What did we find after the polls?

    Though the three key contenders secured votes spread fairly across the country, the influence of ethnicity in the voting pattern was quite evident. They all showed greater electoral strengths within their dominant geo-political divides. That self-evident fact was equally admitted by the speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbjabiamila and a UN group.

    Even after that election, such destabilizing sentiments are freely being traded and canvassed by some supposedly well informed Nigerians; people who will tomorrow quickly pontificate on nationalism, patriotism and all that. But that is the real measure of who we are and where we are on the rungs of national integration.

    Little wonder fissiparous and centrifugal tendencies have continued in constant competition with the central authority for the loyalty of the citizens.