The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

Militarizing Anambra election

There is palpable apprehension over the fate of the November 6, governorship election in Anambra State. This is sequel to a threat by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB to order a one week sit-at-home in the southeast if the federal government refuses to release unconditionally, its leader Nnamdi Kanu before Nov. 4.

The public space has since then seen subtle campaigns to dissuade voters from participating in the poll. But the IPOB has denied calling for a boycott of the election. It said what it ordered is a one week sit-at-home in the southeast if the federal government fails to heed to its demand.

If the IPOB makes good its threat for a sit-at-home order, fears are it will adversely affect voter turnout in the Anambra election and possibly compromise its outcome. A sit-at-home from the said date will scare away voters and diminish the universally accepted consensus that democracies perform better when more people vote.

But unconditional release of Kanu before the said date especially given the court charges brought against him by the same government would seem a tall order. Things are not made any easier by his media trial last week during which the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami levied outlandish allegations against him different from the charges already in court. Is it possible the same government will release Kanu unconditionally as demanded?

This poser appears to have in part, been answered by President Buhari’s response to the threat when he ordered the armed forces and other security agencies not to allow anything under any circumstance that will stop the election from taking place successfully. So the security agencies are not leaving anything to chance. They are poised to countermand any action or inaction that could dissuade voters from coming out to cast their votes.

In an apparent response to the president’s order, the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba is to deploy a total of 34,587 police operatives to the state. This will be composed of two Deputy Inspectors General of Police, five Assistant Inspectors General, 14 commissioners, 31 deputy commissioners and 48 assistant commissioners of police. Three combat helicopters as well as a detachment of Marine Police will also be at hand during the election.

The deployments Baba said were informed by the outcome of election security threat analysis conducted by its intelligence bureau. It would seem the objective is to ‘balance terror’ and ensure mutual deterrence. Little is known of the number of military personnel and ancillary security agencies deployed for the same purpose.

Before the threat posed by the impending election, the military had been actively conducting some operations in the zone following the upsurge in insecurity. With the order from the president, there is everything to expect that military presence in the state would be further increased and fortified. This has given rise to fears of a militarized election process with deleterious outcomes.

Psychological fear is bound to arise from threat by the IPOB to order a sit-at-home from the eve of the election. It will also get additional impetus from the intimidating presence of security agencies. If the IPOB makes good its threat to order a ghost town, voters would be scared from coming out. This fear is real given the experience of such orders in the past. That will adversely affect voter turnout and the overall credibility of the election.

The calculation within government circles is that heavy deployment of security agencies would ensure adequate protection to prospective voters to come out in their numbers without fear of intimidation and harassment. This is an angle to it. But it does not constitute both the necessary and sufficient condition for large voter turnout.

The presumption that heavy deployment of the police, soldiers and other security agencies is all required to guarantee good voter turn-out is not foolproof. Whereas heavy security presence will scare away those who intend to enforce the order, it is of limited value in compelling ardent loyalists to come out to vote. The IPOB commands considerably loyalty within the zone on accounts of issues to their agitation. Their order will likely affect the election outcome irrespective of the armada of security cordon in the state.

Read Also: Anambra 2021: Who succeeds Obiano as governor?

Militarized security presence could also lead to counterproductive outcomes; intimidating and instilling fear on voters. There are also trust-deficits between the people and security agencies. Instances in which the security agencies and the IPOB flexed muzzles over ‘ghost towns’ in the past, left the people with sad story to tell. The reality on the ground is that even those that are ready to venture out are scared by their mistrust on the neutrality of security agencies. There are copious reports of some security men conducting themselves in manners that lend their motives suspect.

That is why even after the IPOB had severally said it had cancelled its Monday sit-at-home order, it is still being observed for fear of the unknown. Maybe this case will be slightly different because an election is involved. But that magic is not likely to be procured solely through the intimidating or menacing presence of security operatives.

It calls for confidence-building from security agencies. Interfacing with the political parties, traditional institutions, development groups and town unions on the need to ensure the election is orderly and peacefully conducted promises better outcomes. Southeast leaders should also initiate discussions through any means possible to dissuade the IPOB from carrying out its threat.

The constraint here is the indecent haste with which the government tagged the group a terrorist organization. Ironically the government is still assiduously walking along that path given the disclosure from a media aide to the president. While reacting to the publication by The London Economist, Garba Shehu had said the government was working to get the international community to list IPOB as a terrorist organization.

This disposition has not helped the cause of constructive engagement with the group. If bandits that have shot down a military aircraft and blown up a moving train can be engaged by Sheikh Ahmad Gumi and some governors, what is wrong interfacing with the IPOB? Gumi even went off tangent last week when he threatened Nigeria would disintegrate if bandits are proscribed as a terrorist organization.

This is a group the National Assembly and conference of speakers have asked the president to declare a terrorist organization on account of their lethal antecedents. The same government is reluctant to do that. Yet, the leadership of this country does not see anything untoward in tagging the IPOB a terrorist organization and working assiduously to have the world accept that narrative. That proscription and efforts to profile self-determination agitators as terrorists is largely responsible for the escalated insecurity in the southeast zone.

That is however, beside the issue. An election is coming up in Anambra State under very tense and uncertain atmosphere. Allegations have been variously traded about plans to rig the election and compromise it outcome. With the conduct of some security operatives in previous elections, fears of possible manipulation to favour preferred candidates have been rife. This should not be dismissed offhandedly.

Security agencies must confine themselves to their duty of guaranteeing order and order to enable the electorate exercise their franchise. On no account should they be found in actions or inactions that lend their impartiality as peace enforcement agents suspect.

But the greatest challenge to the successful conduct of this election rests squarely on the shoulders of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. The era of inconclusive elections should be over by now. INEC should deploy technology to ensure that the collective will of the 2.5 million voters in Anambra State is neither abridged nor compromised. Anything to the contrary will confirm speculations that the chain of events preceding the election was choreographed to produce predictable outcome. We are watching!

November 1, 2021
Big brother

From his confinement miles away, Nnamdi Kanu growls on the streets. His people tremble indoors.

This is a bleak hour on the eastern front. The people are contending with forces that make for a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearean dilemma. It revolves around a man and a movement. Because he wants to tear out of the federation, he inspires teary-eyed people, either in rage against him or faith in him.

In a few weeks, we shall have a governorship election. That seeks to confirm his kinsmen as citizens. In a few months, the two political parties will argue their citizenship. The Igbos will assert fairness in zoning the president to their region. Underlying all this is the fear that they want neither governor nor president. They want Biafra. That makes them neither hot nor cold or too hot or too cold towards the Nigerian idea.

This essayist once asserted that the only way to end the confusion is fraught: it is to institute a plebiscite. Do the Igbos want in or out? The question is not easy. Who will conduct the poll? The same state that says Nigeria is not negotiable? If the anti-Kanu forces form a quiet majority and win, IPOB will say it was rigged. If the poll favours Kanu and company, will we even see the result? Will it not be a re-enactment of June 12 in the east?

What the state is doing is either to make Kanu a martyr like MKO or the Awo of the east. Kanu is growing in stature in spite of himself. His state foes are lionising the opportunist. His people, even the big sceptics of IPOB, started by seeing him as a nuisance. Then they saw him as a welcome irritant like flood in a desert. He grew from that into a sympathy. Now, some see him either as a hero or a necessity. His haters regard him as a monster fattening in the sewer. His admirers are waiting to unleash the tiger from the cage.

Awo grew in that trajectory. He was seen as a great man by a section of Yorubaland. His kinsmen even resisted his consequential ideas like free education. But the man with the sturdy ideas and gallantry dared an establishment in the centre. They goaled him out of fear. He came out of jail a bigger man, a hero, a mighty man of the west and a perennial powerhouse of Nigerian politics. Eventually he became a beloved statesman without compare. His enemies had mythicised him.

Kanu is no Awo in ideas, moral stature, or sublimity. He is puny by comparison. He is one of those men in history who become great leaders without being great men. They are the sort Shakespeare described as men that greatness “thrust upon them.” It is a giddy burden. Just like the character in Jerzy Kosinski’s novel Being There. They are cosseted heroes. They are closet icons just like Trump or, long before him, Andrew Jackson. In Italy, they had a higher brand of men in Cavour and Garibaldi. Germany gave the world Bismarck. They inspire great following but not ideas. Guinea at independence embraced Sekou Toure, who defied the servility of the French Loi cadre. He belonged to that generation of African leaders who lost their artificial gem and sought to entrench themselves. They forced on us that idea called Preventive Detention Act to pummel critics.

Such leaders win but have nothing else. They serve a temporary and desperate need like a thirst and people are thankful for it. Afterwards the man goes back into oblivion.

What lies ahead is intriguing. The Igbo political elite fear and hate him, but they fear the people too. So they cannot pretend even in public to like him. No one will believe them. He is an obstacle to their political dreams in Nigeria.

That is because Kanu is the big brother of the southeast. He is the Orwellian eye and ear of the street. He is the uncrowned royalty. When he says no one should move or breathe or have their being, they obey, even if they don’t respect, him. He is the Machiavellian model of a leader who must be feared or hated. He does not have to be loved to succeed.

Well, we have the irony. Buhari watches over Kanu in Abuja. He binds him in jail. He determines what he eats, where he sleeps or breathes and whether he has his bath. (By the way, the fellow looked well-kempt when he appeared for his first court outing).It is what French philosopher Michel Foucault conceives as the panopticon of the state in his books Discipline and Punish as well as Madness and Civilisation. From his invisible perch of power, he watches and entraps Kanu in his prison.

Read Also: Anambra election: Tension as IPOB threatens one week lockdown in Southeast

But in the east, Kanu is Buhari’s master and big brother. He bests his armies, sells dummies, blasts police stations, rattles his soldiers, cows the people and determines who sells and who buys and when. He orders when they can enjoy the sun or peer at the moon. Clerics would give him holy communion and plead with Jesus like the mother of Zebedee’s children for his place in heaven – and a mansion for that matter. They would rather recommend hell for his foes. Recently a governorship candidate swept through the popular Alaba market in Lagos. But the people shouted, “it is Nnamdi Kanu we want.”

The Anambra State governorship poll will hold. Even if only a hundred people vote, it will enjoy legal legitimacy. But will the election find faith among the Igbos? What it shows is that you can force a people to be with you but cannot force them to hugyou and enjoy it. It is like a horse. You can take it to the stream. You cannot force it to drink. That is why Malami’s bluster about a state of emergency was juvenile, at the least.

The Igbo horse may have the polls. They don’t give the vote. It is not a visceral hour for elections. It is imposed.

So those who say that we cannot renegotiate Nigeria are mistaken. It makes little sense that the man is taken to court and charges reeled out against him. He has inspired murder and arson. He has insulted other ethnic groups and their pastors. He has been a rabble rouser with gutter rhetoric. But he has enough heft to destabilise a state and make himself the de facto premier of the east. He may be raggedy and vain, but he is no rag with his people.

If we think we can continue by merely appealing to the law, we shall discover that laws are important, but can kill. People are better. We cannot make a people out of fear. The east is now an equivalent of a republic of fear.

The fear monger ironically is dear to his people, a leader no one can ignore. He is not your nice guy. When he smiles it is not the sort that cuddles children. He is not even interested in such mushy moments either, unlike another man from that part known as the Owelle of Onitsha. This man is a taskmaster of the cause. He is brutal. He is a rabble rouser. He wants to pull down the house. Like the anarchist who was asked what he would do after the house comes down, he says let it come down first.

He is no ideologue like Amilcar Cabral or a lofty charisma like Mandela, or a methodical hero like Awo, or even a colourful personage like Zik. He does not even have Ojukwu’s bearded, eye-storm of a presence. He is Kanu, slight, sullen, sour but sometimes savvy. No savoir-faire recommended.

He is sitting on the eastern dilemma. He is crippling the presidential hopes of his region. You cannot want to lead when you don’t want to belong. He is delegitimising a forthcoming governorship poll. And he is devastating the businesses of Nigeria’s most entrepreneurial race.

And we say we can just jail him, and all will be well? Think again. The law has its limits. “The law,” as I have often quoted, “hath not made anyone a whit more just.” Thoreau, who gave us civil disobedience, said it. Great American, Thoreau.

It is time to settle with the east, not settle it. It is a political matter. We cannot bully a race to love us. Or we will, by default, legitimise their exit. It is time for statesmen and not men of the state.

October 25, 2021
Lekki shooting report: Suspicion and suspense

Perhaps predictably, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has responded to public suspicion regarding the expected judicial panel report on the controversial Lekki tollgate shooting in Lagos, on October 20, 2020.

As the first anniversary of the #EndSARS nationwide turbulence created disquiet, the governor spoke on rebuilding the state at the10th meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development, held in Lagos.

Sanwo-Olu said on October 21: “The panel concluded its sittings about three days ago and has asked for time to put the reports together behind closed doors. We do not know the content of the report, but we want to say publicly that, upon the handover of the report, we will be making it public. We will not cover up anything.

“This is not who we are and that is not what our government stands for. We will make full disclosure of whatever recommendations that the panel will come up with.”

He recalled that the state “was hit by violence in the aftermath of the EndSARS protests”; and “witnessed massive destruction of infrastructure, iconic buildings, transport infrastructure, police station and others.”

The greatest destruction was the tragic destruction of lives in parts of the state during the unrest. In particular, there are loud claims that soldiers had “massacred” peaceful protesters against police brutality at Lekki. The Lekki incident continues to generate widespread interest because of its human rights and accountability angles. A 2020 Country Report on Human Rights Practices, released by the US government in March this year, further drew attention to the lack of clarity, and the need for clarity, concerning the shooting.

“Accurate information on fatalities resulting from the shooting was not available at year’s end,” the report said. The use of the word “massacre” by anti-government narrators to describe the alleged mass killing on the evening of that day has been faulted by pro-government voices who insist that it is untrue, or a tendentious exaggeration.

Read Also: #EndSARS’ anniversary and beyond: please claim and expand your great moral victory!

The pro-government voices ask: If there was a “massacre” at Lekki, where are the bodies? They also counter the claim that the soldiers had got rid of the bodies, arguing that there have been no announcements of missing persons by relations of those allegedly massacred and disposed of.

The Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for Victims of SARS-related Abuses and Other Matters was set up in October 2020 to investigate cases of police abuse of power and human rights violations, and determine restitution for victims. Importantly, the panel’s findings are expected to clarify the controversial Lekki shooting. Did soldiers indeed “massacre” civilians engaged in a peaceful protest against abuse of power by the now-dissolved Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force, known as SARS? The Lekki protesters were the focal point of the nationwide #EndSARS protests.

It is noteworthy that the Nigerian Army initially claimed its personnel were not at the tollgate when the incident happened, then later admitted it had deployed soldiers to the place with live and blank bullets, maintaining that soldiers shot blank bullets into the air to disperse the crowd and did not kill any protester. So there was shooting. The question is: Were protesters shot with live bullets?

Alarmingly, panelist Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN) was quoted as saying ”There are attempts to frustrate the #EndSARS Judicial Panel from reaching meaningful conclusions on investigations into the Lekki tollgate incident of 20th October 2020.” Who tried to “frustrate” the panel’s investigative efforts concerning the Lekki shooting? How? “I will give details subsequently,” Adegboruwa said.

He spoke to journalists after panel chairperson Justice Doris Okuwobi (retd) announced, on September 18, the suspension of the panel’s sitting until further notice. This development, a month to the panel’s October 19 deadline, was a cause for concern.

It was unclear if Adegboruwa’s claim had something to do with the suspension of the panel’s sitting. The chair explained: “There are two reports that we are expected to work on; we are not close enough to any of them. We cannot continue with the sitting and end the assignment without concluding… We have to collate and evaluate petitions already heard so as to make findings and recommendations, even on the Lekki shooting.”

It started as a six-month investigation. The initial deadline was April 19, 2021. Then it changed to July 19, 2021 following a three-month extension. Then it changed yet again to October 19, 2021 following yet another three-month extension. How did the panel find itself in this situation? Could it have been avoided? Did the panel have too much to do in so little time? Will the panel’s reports be credible?

The panel did not resume sitting before the deadline, and ended its sitting on October 18, a year after its inauguration. According to Justice Okuwobi, the panel received 255 petitions from members of the public, 252 were considered for hearing, and it reached decisions on 182 petitions. The panel awarded N410 million as compensation to 71 petitioners. It is not clear what will happen to the 52 petitions that were not heard before the panel ended its sitting, and other petitions not resolved.

Significantly, on the long-awaited report on the Lekki tollgate shooting, the panel’s chair said it was being prepared and noted that the investigation of the incident, including the taking of evidence and exhibits, had been completed. She said the panel’s recommendations would include compensation to victims, if any, of the Lekki tollgate incident.

The panel had received about 14 petitions concerning the incident. The petitioners alleged that soldiers from the army’s 81 Division, Victoria Island, Lagos fired live bullets that killed protesters. They also claimed that policemen shot at protesters.

The army’s cooperation with the investigators left much to be desired. Commander of 81 Division Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Taiwo had testified before the panel, denying the claim against the army. Curiously, the General Officer Commanding 81 Division, Maj. Gen. Godwin Umelo, and the Commanding Officer, 65 Battalion, Bonny Camp, Victoria Island, Lagos, Lt. Col. S.O. Bello had shunned the panel’s invitation on more than one occasion. In particular, Lt. Col. Bello was a person of interest because he led the battalion involved in the Lekki shooting.

After the army stopped cooperating with the panel, the panel’s chairman in January was reported saying the army’s failure to honour lawful summonses meant that it could not justifiably complain of a denial of fair hearing after the panel had presented its findings to the government.

All eyes are on the panel and the state government. The public wants to know the panel’s findings and recommendations on the Lekki shooting, and the government’s position.

October 25, 2021
One percent faith

During the feisty days of the Yoruba Wars, the tribe had its first main refugee problem. Many kingdoms were forming and unforming, and uniformity was beckoning and fleeing the race. It was chaos as rhythm. A quicksand moment gave birth at once to tyrants and heroes. Aole. Kurunmi. Sodeke. Latoosa. Fabunmi. Ogedengbe. Men as myths and myths as men. Those who spat fire and those who ate.

But the landmark heritage of the time was the birth of Ibadan, then known as eba odan, and how the phlegm and fiery of the race climbed there as the tower of refuge. It resembles what Jesus said in his prophesy, “let those who live in Judea, flee into the mountains.” If the race brandished the Bible and not Ifa, they might have read and appropriated those lines and dedicated the new town to the Lord on high, like the births of Jerusalem, Samaria, et al.

Ibadan was the Yoruba mountain in that febrile age. They had their abomination of desolation. Gods fell. Shrines caught fire. Kings were toppled. The ancient city of Ife defiled. Oyo found a new home and a new royalty. Ibadan was the city on the hill, embracing kings and republicans in one soul. That was the 19th century.

Today, we have another city, by the sea in fact but on the hill in metaphor: Lagos, without the martial past of Ibadan but a modern warhorse where Awo patented his genius. But the Lagos of today is the city, not just of Yorubaland but of Nigeria. It is Nigeria’s mountain, where all flee. The 19th century was the city of men on horseback, and swords and the short-range guns. This is a century of computers and software, where muscles swap places with another set of sinews: the brain.

Never before has the city sat centre stage in our history. It is here that the best and brightest come, and the worst find treasure for their souls and talent. It is the big elephant that carries on its back a mammoth country and strides without a groan. It holds our history by the strand, and probes the jugular of our future. Here the military rose and fell. Here power has changed hands as money does. We had the revolutionary, the turncoat and the upstart.

In this republic, however, we have had moments when the nation knew it had a brother in Lagos, and hence the present governor recently spoke again about its status.

“I should say that it will actually be unfair to expect the state to bear this heavy burden on its own. It is therefore necessary to give due consideration to all the variables that support our advocacy for a special status.

“The call for a special status for Lagos is not a selfish proposition; it is in the best interest of the country and all Nigerians, for Lagos which accounts for about 20 per cent of the national Gross Domestic Product and about 10 per cent of the nation’s population to continue to prosper.”

He was right. This should be a demand, as the BOS of Lagos, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has done. He was not asking for a big portion of the communal feast. He was asking only for a piece of a piece of the pie. He demands Lagos to eat the humble pie. He also calls for tweaking of that Nigerian pie. The federal government should have 34 percent, FCT one percent, states 42 percent, local governments 23 percent, and Lagos one percent.

The reasons are clear. Lagos is the Nigerian lab and lab rat and slab and barn and back and bank and pot and pottery and melting pot and a mosaic and the theatre and stage and the excuse and tower of refuge and destiny and destination. It is the part that is also the whole, and it may not be the centre but it is the head of the corner.

It is a lab because it is here that all experiments take place. Whether it is starting a business or tweaking our federal system. As Barrister Femi Falana, SAN, has noted Lagos is the beachhead to a federalist duel, using the courts as the touchstone of the constitution. It is therefore the lab rat. Many a rat has died to start an idea. In spite Nyesom Wike’s bluster, he knows his VAT battle is without the needed momentum without the backing of Lagos. Hence Lagos has always been a back and backing. If an idea is good, everyone wants either the Lagos institutional support or its big market. Many states have learned about internally generated revenue from Lagos. They even send their staff members for a private tutor’s class on how to govern fruitfully. It is here that the idea will get its money, to pursue an infrastructure project as well as to start the new business.

That is why Lagos is the pot, where all come to cook and sup. The new graduate, the village recruit, the new entrepreneur, the new artisan, the new artistic genius. He comes here where we had the Ikorodu Boys and the Yaba techie who hosted the Facebook guy.

Before the pot is the pottery, where all bring their ideas together and also have a place for it to seed and bloom. The mechanic has enough cars to fix, as the software engineer as the electrician and the fertiliser plant.

As an excuse, Lagos is a target. When many states fail, they find a place here in Lagos for their many citizens who cannot live and thrive there. They ran to the big city, whose bosom is big.

It is a melting pot like New York or a mosaic like Toronto. Whether an Ijebu or an Itsekiri or a Fulani or an Igbo, everyone has a welcome berth. They make the place in their own image. It is here they intermarry, and intermingle, where the son of an Adebayo can say Ko yo in Edo, and the son of an Okeke can sing Ebenezar Obey with the impunity of a native. I recall my Ife schoolmate Uche Ntinu, who spoke Yoruba so well, it never occurred to me he bore an Igbo name. Just as Ojukwu or Zik. When Ojukwu died, I titled my essay Omo Eko, because the Ikemba was more Lagosian than anyone. Hence, he abandoned a purist Biafra to gamble on taking Lagos. It was the fetal doom of a fatal project.

Those who come to this commercial node also have their own parts of town, where they can be themselves apart from the whole, and become a part of the whole.

It is the theatre and the stage. It is here that Achebe flowered, and Ogunde and it was here that Peter Igho’s talent came to blossom, or P-Square. Or Dora Akunyili. Here Onyeka Onwenu did a duet of voice, if not romance, with the great Sunny Ade. Sam Amuka gave us a journalism as well as Nduka Obaigbena, though both schooled faraway in Government College Ughelli. It was here that Sweet Mother became a national anthem. It was here that both Yoruba and Igbo and Niger Delta fans anointed French soccer star Igwe, without regard to what accent it was. Phyno flourishes here just as our own Ali Baba and Gordons. It is here that James Omokwe has reinvented the Itsekiri history with his Riona drama series.

It is the tower, from where we study the country. It provides the platform. Hence Lagos is the tower of refuge. It is a strong tower where the fearful run into and are safe. With the scourge of bandits and separatists and Boko Haram, Lagos has absorbed many who have nowhere else to go. It’s the firewall of resistance. More people entre Lagos than almost anywhere else in the world and never return. They come to live and dream, and not to leave. It has more roads to hold and ferry goods to Kanfanchan as to Sokoto. When they bring millet and yam, the city is a barn on the go.

It is because they feel their destiny is in their destination. Once they are here, they feel at home. Those not born in Lagos come here. But once here, they are never more at home than when out of home – in Lagos.

What Lagos needs is encouragement. Let it not work alone. It is time for a cooperative warmth between Lagos and the centre. Not distrust. Oprah Winfrey may have exaggerated it but she was on to something when she said, “One percent doubt is zero percent faith.” Lagos is doing the work as the BOS of Lagos has noted. But it needs faith. One percent more faith is all Lagos needs.

October 18, 2021
Senate’s undeserving glory

Does the Lawan-led Senate deserve praise for reversing its earlier decision ousting the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, of the powers to decide the mode of transmitting election results?

That is the searing question thrown up by isolated commendations of the senate since it made a u-turn from its earlier decision requiring INEC to transmit election results electronically only when approved by the National Communications Commission NCC and the National Assembly.

In its resolution subjecting the decision on electronic transmission of election results to the NCC and the National Assembly, the senate had cited poor network coverage by service providers and the fear of hacking as the major reasons. But during its last Tuesday session, it reversed itself and gave powers to the INEC to determine the mode of transmitting election results, including electronically.

Following that decision, individuals and groups have reportedly commended the upper chamber even as they urged President Buhari to expeditiously assent to the amended bill. It is good a thing however, that the senate still found courage to reverse itself to save the country the plethora of challenges that had overtime diminished confidence in the outcome of elections. It is better late than the late. But that appears the only credit they can savour for now.

That the National Assembly came up with the former decision of subjecting approval of electronic transmission of results to others bodies, says a lot about the quality of the nation’s legislature and their understanding of the place of credible elections in the country’s political matrix. Ostensibly, the senate leadership had sought to rationalize the reversal on the grounds of yielding to the weight of public opinion. That may as well be.

But that excuse comes with its own contradictions. The direction of public opinion was very clear as they voted last July in a very rancorous atmosphere and along party lines to encumber the electoral process. All the facts were there for informed decision on the issue. Our chequered electoral process characterized by all manner of malpractices is also well known to all legislators since they got to their current positions through the instrumentality of elections.

They do not require schooling to come to terms with the imperative of our electoral process adjusting to the dynamics of modern technology. They had seen how the deployment of technology enhanced the outcome of elections including electronic transmission of results in Edo State a few months back. The evidence is there.

At any rate, one would have expected that public opinion would have been factored in at the point of the initial decision than thereafter. That was obviously not the case as it appeared some of the legislators had an agenda to execute by all means. They were blinded by that agenda in arriving at the retrogressive decision irrespective of the contrived hiccups that had overtime, stood against free, fair and credible elections on these shores.

It is not that members of the National Assembly are unaware of the prevailing sentiments and public opinion on the imperative for credible elections. This had been in the public domain even before the current administration came into power. It also featured very prominently before the 2019 elections with President Buhari refusing assent to the amended bill proposed by the Saraki-led Senate pleading time constraints.

It took constant reminders and agitations from the larger public for the National Assembly to resurrect that bill more than two years after even as another round of national elections lurks at the corner. Here again, the National Assembly is about to play into the hands of the president by prevaricating on this very key legislation. Who is sure there is no agenda to give the president another opportunity to decline assent on the ground of time constraints. The senate leadership does not deserve any commendation for doing the right thing albeit very reluctantly.

There were two tendencies as the National Assembly voted last July, to oust from the INEC the powers to determine the mode of transmitting election results.

This was obvious from the voting that went along party lines. It also manifested in the walkouts and altercations as the debate proceeded. So, positions were dictated more by political expediency than the overall desire to deepen representative democracy by guaranteeing free, fair and credible elections.

Predilections of self-serving and partisan political hue were behind that retrogressive decision. The group that deserves to be commended is that which voted in support of electronic transmission of election results. But it was in the minority. Why the majority could not see what the minority saw then is at the root of our nagging national questions. And that is the real issue.

What of the constitutional issues involved in subjecting the powers of the INEC to NCC and the National Assembly? And when has the National Assembly become an administrative body to which administrative decisions of the INEC must be referred? What of the NCC that is an agency under the presidency. Is that not another subterfuge for subjecting an otherwise independent electoral umpire to the whims and caprices of an executive that is eager to win elections? These are some of the moot issues.

Secftion78 of the constitution provides that “the registration of voters and conduct of elections shall be subject to the direction and supervision of the INEC”. The same constitution also empowers the INEC to organize and supervise elections while its operations shall not be subject to the direction of anybody or authority.

Ironically, the previous decision subjecting INEC decision on electronic transmission of election results to external bodies was in utter contravention of the constitution. It is not clear whether the reversal was to avert a possible clash with the constitution. It is also not quite certain whether the continued insistence by the INEC that it has the capacity to conduct electronically transmitted election results had any role in current u-turn.

What appears certain is that those who conspired to impose impediments on the way to electronic transfer of election results have again re-conspired to allow reason prevail. Pressure both from within and outside our shores cannot be completely ruled out. The embarrassment this country would have suffered in the eyes of the international community for displaying curious aversion to technological innovations to enhance the electoral process, could also be a factor. All these may have combined to bring about the change of attitude by the leadership of the National Assembly.

Yes, the volte face could not have been possible without the endorsement of leadership of the National Assembly. There is a lot the national legislature can do to re-direct the ship of the country from the perilous path it is currently sailing. Much of the debilitating challenges assailing the country can be very decisively tackled and resolved by a visionary and committed National Assembly; an assembly that is propelled by justice, fairness and equity, one that is able to rise beyond partisan and primordial predilections. These have been in acute short supply in the current national assembly leadership.

A lot depends on the national legislature especially when the executive is obviously derailing. The National Assembly cannot continue to sit on the fence with the degenerating state of affairs in the country. It must call into quick and effective action, the powers to make legislation for the good governance of the country and see them through even when the president refuses assent. And we ask; where is the independence of the legislature, its powers of checks and balances against dictatorial propensities of the executive?

J. William Fulbright came in handy when he said, “The greatest single virtue of a strong legislature is not what it can do, but what it can prevent”. The National Assembly can prevent this country from the precipice it is inevitably headed.

October 18, 2021
Felabration and state of the nation

There is no question about his greatness among the greats. The ritual of remembrance tagged Felabration 2021 resurrected Afrobeat phenomenon Fela Anikulapo Kuti. His remains lie in an inventive tomb on the grounds of his former residence on Gbemisola Street, Ikeja, Lagos, which is now Kalakuta Museum, but his spirit soars beyond the restriction of the grave.

The 22nd edition of Felabration in Lagos, October 11 to17, 2021 showed how well the annual festival of music and arts celebrating Fela has evolved. The one-week celebration included a symposium that addressed a timely question, schools debate, art competition and dance competition that highlighted Fela’s legacy through art and dance, and musical concerts.

The thought-provoking symposium addressed an important question, ‘The National Question: Evolution or Devolution?’ It is evident that Nigeria needs to review its federalism in the face of separatist agitations based on systemic imperfections. The Yoruba Nation agitation and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) rebellion, for instance, notably reflect a critical national question that demands an answer.

A lawyer and activist, Dele Farotimi, who spoke at the event, argued: ”Evolution is a natural process of emergence while devolution speaks to the decentralisation of power and delegating power to lower authorities. These two things are incongruous when it comes to Nigeria because Nigeria is not an evolutionary phenomenon; it is a product of an amorous relationship between the British and their several mistresses in the place called Nigeria and they were all lumped together. You don’t talk about devolution when a country has been stitched together on very clear terms, one of which is the division of power between the Federal Government and the regions.”

Another participant, the Secretary-General of the Lower Niger Congress, Tony Nnadi, argued: ”Let us rule out devolution because you are taking from where there is the power to give to the constituent elements, but in a federation, it is the constituent units that donate the power that goes to the centre. To think that the federal government would give this to states or geopolitical zones is to misunderstand what we are discussing here. The revolution that is the solution to the problem is only taken from the perspective of evolution.”

The debate continues. But it cannot continue forever. The answer to the national question must be found while there is still a nation. It is interesting that this year‘s Felabration theme was “Viva Nigeria Viva Africa,” based on Fela’s 1969 song Viva Nigeria. Recorded in Los Angeles, USA, during the Nigerian Civil War, it presents another side of Fela, different from the fiery fighter.

According to Songfacts, “Although it is written in his trademark Afrobeat style, it is not a typical Fela Kuti song. For one thing, he doesn’t actually sing but talks throughout, calling for peace, love, and the brotherhood of all Africans, especially his fellow Nigerians.” Indeed, Fela biographer Tejumola Olaniyan described it as his “most politically scandalous and compromising composition.”

The composition, which lasts only 3 minutes 45 seconds, is food for thought about the state of the nation today. It calls for unity, but the country is disunited today and its existence is threatened by separationists. What would Fela think about Nigeria’s existence today?

Fela’s AIDS-related death in August 1997, at the age of 58, meant that a critical progressive voice had been silenced. He was not just a musician but a musical icon with a sense of mission. It is a point to ponder how he would have reacted to Nigeria’s renewed democratic experience that began in 1999, about two years after his death. His unapologetic activism on the side of the people was daring and defiant; and he was willing to pay the price for his anti-establishment campaign. Music was indeed a weapon for him, and he used it against the enemies of progress with all the potency of a visionary iconoclast.

Fela’s fight for pro-people governance got him into trouble; he was arrested several times. His residence at Agege Motor Road in Lagos, known as Kalakuta Republic, was burned by hostile soldiers in February 1977.

At the Felabration 2021 symposium, human rights lawyer and activist Femi Falana (SAN) noted Fela’s contribution to reforms in the country. He said: “Fela sang about ‘Sorrow, Tears and Blood,’ which spoke about torture by the police and the military. It was not until 2017 that the Anti-Torture Act was enacted by the National Assembly. Under that law, a police officer who tortures anybody shall be prosecuted and the penalty is 25 years in prison. We must thank Fela for that.”

Falana also observed: “Under the 1963 constitution, the government was not liable for any atrocity it committed against the Kuti family. However, that is no longer the rule. Under section six of the 1999 constitution, the government, whether federal, state and local, can be brought to book and taken to court. I want us to realise that these are reforms instigated by Fela and other forces in Nigeria.”

It was a big positive for Fela’ s spirit when in July 2018 French President Emmanuel Macron visited the New Afrika Shrine at Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos, an unlikely attraction for a visiting president. Regarded as the home of Afrobeat, the Afrika Shrine was originally founded by the late music legend, but was rebuilt at another site and renamed New Afrika Shrine by his son, Femi Kuti, who is also a music star in his own right. The new place is the main Felabration venue every year.

Macron’s historic visit to the nightspot, the first by a president, was the stuff of news. Not surprisingly, stigmatised because of its marijuana-smoking crowd and its hedonistic devotees, the Shrine was a no-go area to leaders until Macron rewrote the narrative.

Recalling his stint as a diplomatic worker in Nigeria in the early 2000s, he said: ”I discovered Nigeria and I discovered Lagos and I discovered the Shrine. This place is an iconic place and it is a place where the best of music is given…the Shrine is a cultural hub… I want to say with a lot of humility that I recognise the importance of this place.”

It was at the New Afrika Shrine that Macron made perhaps his most striking remarks about governance and change during his visit to the country. It was a befitting setting. He observed: ”Let me remind you that this place – Shrine – is a music place as well as politics, which is needed to change society.”

The power of Felabration is its focus on Fela’s fight for sociopolitical change using the power of his internationally acclaimed music.

October 18, 2021
Southeast security: matters arising

Even with last week’s resolutions by southeast governors to tackle the spate of insecurity in the region, unfolding events appear to be adding complications to those decisions.

They had resolved ‘to do everything within the law to ensure that there is no further sit-at-home and people are allowed to move about freely’. There was also the concomitant assurance that the ailing Ebubeagu regional security outfit would soon be launched and laws passed by all the states to give legal teeth to its operations before the end of the year.

The two decisions are vital to the restoration of peace in the zone given the killings associated with the sit-at-home orders and the controversy that has embroiled the killings in the face of announcements by IPOB that it had cancelled its Monday order. Though IPOB had serially said it had cancelled the every Monday order, the reluctance of people to resume normal activities has been largely attributed to the criminal incidents that take place when people venture out.

Security agencies are quick to blame the IPOB for such infractions with the latter denying culpability. IPOB had in turn accused fifth columnists and agents of the government of some of the killings. Matters are compounded by the inability of the security agencies to apprehend those behind the killings and sundry criminalities to imbue confidence in the people that they are capable of guaranteeing their safety. With the prevailing air of general insecurity, people prefer to err on the side of caution.

The sit-at-home orders especially the Monday variant is observed despite its cancellation due to lack of trust on the capacity of security agencies to protect those that venture out. Added to this is the foot dragging by governors of the zone on the Ebubeagu project. With confidence building by the governors in concert with security agencies, people are more likely to resume their normal lives.

That is not all there is to obedience to sit-at-home orders. Much would still depend on the issues to the agitations for which the IPOB draws mass appeal. So the governors would still have to engage the agitators if they envisage some measure of success in dissuading the people from obeying such orders. Whether some of the governors have the trust and the confidence of the people is another kettle of fish.

The Ebubeagu security outfit could also run into stormy waters if the governors aim at deploying them to further their political objectives. This possibility is real given the do-or-die nature of politics on this clime and attempts elsewhere to make political capital of the insecurity in the region. This fear is heightened by statements credited to the governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi few hours after he chaired the meeting of southeast governors.

He had in a television interview said counter-secessionist groups may rise in the southeast if the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB does not call its members to order and stop the threats and killings. This was in addition to other statements that could rather inflame tempers of the agitators as the reaction of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra MASSOB has clearly shown.

It is not clear how the idea of the counter- secessionist groups’ emergence came to Umahi who also doubles as the chairman of the Southeast Governors’ Forum. But fears are now that the new found love by the governors for the regional security outfit could well fit into this speculation. Before now, allegations have been freely traded about those really behind some of the killings. It may well be that the so-called counter self-determination agitators have already come into the fray. We shudder at such prospects.

Umahi’s warning was heightened by a threat from the Attorney- General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami when he said the federal government may declare a state of emergency in Anambra State to ensure the November 6, governorship election in the state holds.

Read Also: Malami’s call for ‘emergency rule’ in Anambra

Both statements have not gone down well with keen observers of the security situation in that part of the country.

Anambra State government did not take kindly to Malami’s threats. It read political motives to it. Elections have been conducted in states with worst security challenges in the northeast and northwest without a state of emergency being declared. So, why Anambra with few killings whose motives are yet to be established, they argue. They have even fingered politicians for being behind the killings in the state apparently to create fear and subvert the will of the people during the coming election.

Malami’s threat has only heightened this suspicion given that the declaration of a state of emergency will give the president the powers to dismantle all political structures and appoint administrators that will do their bidding. But then, it would amount to an indictment on the federal government to seek to punish the people for its failure to maintain law and order in the state. A very responsible government should be more concerned with measures to secure the state and ensure free and fair elections than the partisan advantage which a state of emergency will confer.

So the option of a state of emergency is completely out of the way unless the federal government wants to prove right, suspicions that it wants to capture Anambra State by all means. Events in neighbouring Imo State during the last elections do not give cause for comfort. Curiously, some of the dramatis personae in that election are also playing key roles for their party in the Anambra election heightening suspicions that some of the devious tactics that did the magic in the Imo election may be re-activated in the instant case.

It is not clear what the governors would do to ensure that there are no further directives or compliance with sit-at-home orders since such orders do not emanate from them. But there is a lot they can do in conjunction with the security agencies to secure the people by ensuring that all those behind the killings are apprehended in action. The culture of blame-trading each time there are security infractions without evidence has begun to create doubts in the minds of the people. Hasty conclusions and attributing any and every security infraction to IPOB as if there are no more criminals in the zone do not impress any more. They only give the security agencies latitude to arrest and incarcerate youths on flimsy grounds indiscriminately. Nothing bears out this more succinctly than the killings in Anambra State and the stampede in Imo State last Monday resulting from shootings by unknown persons.

In the killings in Anambra especially the callous murder of Chike Akunyili, the razing down of properties in Nnewi and others, accusing fingers were easily pointed at the IPOB even when no arrests had been made. Curiously, this arson took place during the day with video clips trending in the social media space. It remains curious why the perpetrators were not apprehended in action. But the state government has also alleged political motives behind the resurgence of insecurity as election draws nearer.

All possibilities and clues; all dimensions to the insecurity must be explored if the federal government is to get a firm hold on the security situation in the state and guarantee free, fair and credible elections. Perhaps, the redeployment of Anambra State Commissioner of Police and his replacement with a fresh hand shows the impatience of the authorities with the performances of that command.

The stampede in Imo State last Monday and events emanating from it really created concerns on the character and nature of the security infractions that had dogged that otherwise peaceful state. The state police command came out after the stampede following the booming of gunshots to attribute the panic to rumour aimed at ruffling the peace that had returned to the state. But the media space is awash with reports of the alleged killing of a DSS official posing as an unknown gunman by the police.

The reluctance by the authorities to respond to this report fuels speculations that there is more to the insecurity in the state than ordinarily meets the eyes. The state police command, DSS and the Imo State government must come clear on this.

October 11, 2021
Banish him

For me as a boy, the name Murtala Muhammed invoked the muscles of the hero. He capsized indiscipline and constructed the straight and narrow path. The martial resonance of his voice inspired the young who imagined the Nigerian ideal.

This was the man the nation wanted. “This government will not condone indiscipline…abuse of office. Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria and good night.” The syncopating rhythm of his delivery was like a prophet casting out evil spirits.

The blood cuddled with delight. My teenage eyes peered a great country. Many of my fellow students in Government College Ughelli had greed for the future. A soldier in messianic voice and a uniform starchy with resolve urged our little minds to anticipate hallelujah. Everyone should hug this man. He was not only a terror to decay inside the country. He tapped the conscience of the nationalist. “Africa has come of age,” he roared.

With his height a lofty symbol, his cap an insignia of national rebirth, his stride a metaphor of a country on the move, no one could idealise him enough.

When he died, the nation poured woe on death. We felt its sting and gasped. One of our great bards, King Sunny Ade, wafted the dreary air with a dirge. Olu igbo Otilo – the chief of the forest has gone.

Decades later, this essayist received a man in his office, a feisty fellow from Asaba named Emma Okocha. He wanted me to have a copy of his book. It is titled Blood on the Niger. He was on a mission. He did not say more than his desire for justice. It was about the civil war, and he knew I had written quite a few pieces on that sanguinary chapter. I was even contemplating a civil war novel, which I would later publish under the title, My Name Is Okoro.

I read Okocha’s book, part eyewitness, part research. It was about an episode three months into the civil war in the city of Asaba, the hub of the Royal Niger Company, and where history was first distorted for me when my teachers said Mungo Park discovered River Niger.

Three months into the war, Murtala’s division rammed through the Midwest, and many applaud him, now tongue in cheek, for liberating the Midwest. He was to move his way through to Onitsha, and Asaba was on the way. Biafran troops had failed in its naïve and uncoordinated advance to Lagos, and it would huddle within Biafra until the end of the war.

But Okocha’s book is the frontline literature today on the subject, and I wish we can have more. No one teaches history these days in our schools and we can only depend on popular historians for more work on this. Without excusing not having the study of history, good work is a product of rigour, conscience and fervour as we have seen with Doris Kearns Goodwin and David MacCullough in the United States.

When Murtala’s troops arrived Asaba, they enacted a bloody circus. Indigenes danced to welcome them and brandished the song of One Nigeria. The army, including Ibrahim Taiwo and IBM Haruna, were not impressed. Dance of joy morphed a dance of death. They lined the boys and men and executed them. No one, including Okocha, knows how many died. But the death goes around a thousand. The massacre, however, was not restricted to Asaba. It was all over Aniomaland. Towns like Ogwashi-Uku, Ibusa, Isheagu, Utagba-unor, Umudi and Agbor fell to the bloodthirsty spasm.

Some of the anecdotes cannot be forgotten. Who would not cry at the fate of Madam Onukwu whose sons were slaughtered at Ogwashi-Uku – Babatunde, Iweadizia, Ndufodu, Anisimbili, Ogbogu and Augustine. The mother became insane until her death in late 1990’s. Or the story of Afamefuna Elue who was slaughtered and dumped like a rat in the bush. When his son grew up and asked the Obi why he did nothing, he replied, “When they went to Isheagu, they buried the chief alive. I’m sorry about your father. I was not ready for that kind of death.” What of the pithy tale of the blind old woman, Martha Emeshie, who was hidden in a thatched house on the outskirt of Umudi. Soldiers poured petrol on the combustible shelter and roasted her. Shall we forget the slaying of Sydney Asiodu, one of Nigeria’s top athletes of the day, or Asaba’s wealthiest man, Sylvester Ugoh?

Up till today, we have seen no white paper, in spite of the visceral outpourings during the Oputa Panel hearings. Gowon who was head of state apologised to the Asaba people, claiming it was “an accident of war” and that it was an episode “I was made ignorant of.” Gowon lied. It was the lie of a coward.

The late Chief Anthony Enahoro had debunked that Gowon revisionism during a reconciliation meeting in the USA in 1998. Hear him: “I was the one that stopped late General Murtala Mohammed from further massacre of innocent children and mothers. At a point when Britain refused to sell further arms to Nigeria because they had ample evidence from the Red Cross of the federal forces killing innocent civilians, I confronted Gowon with the fact and that the only way I can get Britain through my contact with their High Commission to resume supply of weapons to Nigeria was that Murtala had to leave the war sector. Either Mohammed leaves or I will leave his cabinet. Gowon told me he was willing to call a meeting on the condition I will be the one to confront Murtala. If there was anybody that Gowon feared so much it was Murtala Mohammed. At the meeting of the Federal Executive Council, I confronted Mohammed with elaborate evidence complete with photographs. He was livid. He could not refute them, so he resorted to calling me all sorts of names…. I was instrumental to his withdrawal from that sector and subsequent appointment as a minister.”

Gowon could not confront his lieutenants. Even after the war, he was too callow a leader to stamp his feet. Hence, he was removed by the same man, Murtala. What overwhelmed Murtala who never apologised till his death? It is what Samuel Coleridge described as “the motive-hunting of motiveless malignity,” referring to Shakespeare’s play, Othello. It was murder without purpose, as an end in itself.

Some, including Obasanjo, have dismissed it as a hunt for spies. The other argument was that it was a revenge for the onslaughts of the Biafran troops when they entered Asaba and killed Hausa-Fulani persons in Ogbe Awusa, a settlement of up to a century.

Read Also: Murtala Muhammed deserves no memorials

No one could have justified the killing of the Hausa even if in retaliation for the genocidal acts on Igbos in the lead-up to the civil war.

Soldiers are trained to distinguish soldiers and civilians. That is why we have the Geneva Convention. General Alabi isama recorded it in his Tragedy of Victory. More details need to be documented on the Ogbe Awusa killings, and if we strike Murtala and his men for their barbarities, we should not spare those who shed blood in Ogbe Awusa. War, for all its primitive impulses, beckons for civilised restraint. Soldiers kill “legitimately” but wear uniforms to, in the words of Christ, “do violence to no man.”

But Murtala’s case is important. We have enshrined him as a national hero. In that shrine is the blood of innocents. An army that slaughters cannot make heroes. It is not an army but a tribe of bandits. We enter the country and it is to his airport. The vanishing 20 naira note has his face. We ply expressways with his name. That is too much for a murderer.

I should not celebrate that he died the way he killed, on the same day with his fellow murderer Ibrahim Taiwo. We leave that to God.

But while we live, we cannot celebrate the man who had blood on his hands. He has blood in his memory, and we should not perpetuate that blood ritual. So, we should wipe his name from all landmarks. We have enough genuine heroes, north or south, to take his place. Anywhere his name shines, the ghosts of his victims haunt us. Like the Onukwu boys.

Let the sublime ghosts sleep. But first, we should say to Murtala in the words of Macbeth to Banquo’s ghost. “Avaunt, and quit my sight. Let the earth hide thee. Thy bone is marrowless and thy blood is cold.”

Atiku’s sales pitch

It is no flattery when a person picks your words and turns them to a tendentious argument on the national stage. Last week, in my swipe against the manipulation of zoning, I said zoning is by the elites, for the elites in the name of the people. Atiku Abubakar, the perennial presidential fantasist, fought against zoning in his PDP, and said the presidency is for Nigerians and from Nigerians…

But the man contradicted himself in the process. He said he was part of the argument for the post to come to the southwest after the June 12 imbroglio. He benefitted from it and left his gubernatorial perch in Adamawa to become vice president. Was that not zoning? Why is he saying that he opposes it when he benefited from it? If he is not dreaming to be president, we might say he is being quixotic. But ambition is making him a little too wise for himself.

It is rather this way: zoning is by Atiku, from Atiku to Atiku.

That is his sales pitch. His party is not even buying. Wahala!

October 11, 2021
Romanticising Abacha

By Femi Macaulay

Interestingly, Nigeria’s 61st independence anniversary on October 1 coincided with the 25th anniversary of six states created by the late Gen. Sani Abacha who ruled the country dictatorially from 1993 to 1998. When Abacha created Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Gombe, Nasarawa and Zamfara states in 1996, it may well have been a move to achieve historical relevance.

It is noteworthy that the creation of these six states increased the number of states in the country to 36, and no other state has been created since then despite the incessant campaigns for new states.

In a way, the 25th anniversary of these states resurrected Abacha who died in office in June 1998. But it was an uncelebrated resurrection. His name evokes unimaginable brutality and unimaginable kleptomania. Curiously, a governor in one of the six states he created celebrated him.

It is said that some things are better left unsaid. Bayelsa State Governor Douye Diri disregarded this wisdom in his remarks during a thanksgiving service to mark the state’s 25th anniversary and the country’s 61st independence anniversary at King of Glory Chapel, Government House, Yenagoa.

The state was created from Rivers State by the Abacha military regime on October 1, 1996. Nigeria became an independent country on October 1, 1960. So October 1st is significant to the state and the country.

A statement by the governor’s media aide, Daniel Alabrah, quoted him as saying some things that perhaps should have been left unsaid. Diri said: ”Let me use this medium to thank one man. He may not be popular in Nigeria but to me and all of us Bayelsans, we see him as a great man, a hero; the man who by the stroke of the pen signed the creation of Bayelsa State. I am talking about the late General Sani Abacha.”

Diri is entitled to his perspective, but it is a narrow perspective indeed. It is understandable that the governor feels grateful to the man who created the state he governs. He may not have become a democratically elected governor if the state had not been created.

But he overlooked the evils of the Abacha regime, which cannot be redeemed by the creation of the state and five others. Gen. Abacha was a military dictator whose authoritarian regime was responsible for the deaths of many pro-democracy fighters. Many prominent and not-so-prominent Nigerians fled the country to escape his hit squad. During his time in power, he intimidated the existing political parties into endorsing him as the sole presidential candidate in a desperate self-succession effort.

Notably, Abacha prevented the inauguration of Chief M.K.O. Abiola who won the country’s historic 1993 presidential election annulled by his predecessor, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Abiola was detained for four years by the Abacha regime, and eventually died in detention in July 1998, a month after the dictator’s death.

Read Also: Abacha remains our hero in Bayelsa – Diri

Abiola is today regarded as a symbol of democracy. President Muhammadu Buhari awarded him Nigeria’s highest national honour, Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (GCFR), posthumously in June 2018, and changed Nigeria’s Democracy Day to June 12, the date of the historic 1993 presidential election.

It is noteworthy that Diri is a beneficiary of the pro-democracy struggle by Abiola and many activists. It is ironic and a dishonour to the fighters that fought for the restoration of democracy that Diri described the anti-democratic oppressor as “a great man, a hero.”

Abacha’s evil was compounded by his kleptomania. He is believed to have stolen money to the tune of over $3 billion from the treasury. The story of his mammoth loot stashed away in banks across the globe continues 23 years after his death. He was described by a US Justice Department official as “one of the most notorious kleptocrats in memory, who embezzled billions from the people of Nigeria while millions lived in poverty.” That is Diri’s hero.

Something about the size of the loot says something about the size of the looter’s appetite. The infamous Abacha loot, for instance, exposed his mind-boggling greed. At a forum on asset recovery organised by the Swiss Embassy and the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice in Abuja in June 2018, the then Switzerland Ambassador to Nigeria Eric Mayoraz said: “All funds hidden in Swiss banks by Abacha were fully repatriated and so we don’t have any of such funds in Switzerland again. $752m was returned in 2005 and we discovered more and more in other banks and that involved the $322.5m that was repatriated earlier this year.” In other words, over $1billion Abacha loot had been returned.

The diplomat employed diplomatic language when he justified the concern of the Swiss government that the $322.5m should be well managed and spent to enrich the poor. Mayoraz said: “Unfortunately, some of the assets that were returned, there was not so much transparency in it. So, we have to introduce the World Bank to get involved in this so that this particular one can be used by the Nigerian government with the monitoring of the World Bank.”

From January to April 2020, about N23.7 billion of the N125 billion ($322.5 million) recovered Abacha loot was disbursed to about 703, 506 vulnerable Nigerians under the Federal Government’s Conditional Cash Transfer scheme, according to the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ). The non-governmental group led the Monitoring Transparency and Accountability in the Management of Returned Assets (MANTRA) project.

In 2014, the US Department of Justice had highlighted Abacha’s looting methods, and was reported to have frozen $458 million in corruption funds linked to him in secret bank accounts across the world. The action was described as “the largest kleptocracy forfeiture ever in the US.”

The US Department of Justice had identified Abacha’s looting style which, interestingly, has not gone out of fashion in the country even under democracy. Abacha’s “fraudulent schemes” included “the ‘security votes’ fraud, through which more than $2 billion was embezzled from the Central Bank of Nigeria.” Sadly, the “security votes” fraud is still in vogue among people in power in the country today as an easy path to wealth acquired fraudulently. Governor Diri demonstrated a poor sense of history by romanticising Abacha. It’s impossible to deodorise Abacha.

October 4, 2021
Quo vadis Nigeria@61

By Emeka OMEIHE

Nigeria just marked her 61 years as an independent country. That the country has managed to trudge on these years in spite of debilitating challenges assailing its very foundation is a measure of its resilience in weathering the tempestuous storm.

The ruggedness of the ship of the Nigerian state in staying afloat despite all odds is being taken for granted by those who have had the rare privilege of superintending over the affairs of this multi-religious, multi-ethnic and plural society. Nigeria was so endowed both in material and human capital at independence that all that was required was the right leadership mix to galvanize the citizenry to take full advantage of these hue potentials.

That was the promise for which our nationalists drew huge support from the citizenry. That land which will flow with milk and honey envisioned at independence where citizens would fully actualize the essence of their being, has largely remained a nagging issue. President Mohammed Buhari captured this yearning gap in his 61st independence speech when he said: “I fully understand the anxiety of many Nigerians on the inability of this country to go beyond a never-ending potential for becoming a great nation to an actually great one”.

Additionally, the hope that the foundation of modern Nigerian state would be progressively followed by nation building- the psychological construction of a common sense of identity among the distinct and disparate entities has largely remained a mirage. This is evident from the regular pontification by the leadership on the unity, oneness and indivisibility of the country. That commitment also featured in the last independence speech of the president. The regularity with which commitment to the unity and indivisibility of the country is regurgitated at every independence speech and at other times is a big statement on the level of progress or lack of it at national integration 61years after.

Nothing illustrates crass mismanagement of our diversities at 61 more poignantly than demonstrations by two sets of Nigerian protesters at the last United Nations General Assembly UNGA in the United States of America. One group was carrying placards with various inscriptions rooting for a united Nigeria. The other called for the dismembering of the Nigerian federation as it is no longer working. They also drew world attention to the near state of anarchy in the country and the skewed policies of the current government that have ruffled faith in the capacity of the Nigerian state to do justice to the component units.

The leadership of this country may well play down the weight of that demonstration even as the government has been accused of sponsoring the group that stood for it repudiating accusations of genocide in parts of the country. They could also wish away all these as the mischief of some unpatriotic elements intent on giving the country a bad name. They are equally at liberty to presume these innate psychological grievances would unilaterally peter out with time or bank heavily on the deployment of brute force to hold the country together.

One thing evidently exposed by that demonstration is the inability of the leadership to engage in meaningful dialogue as a veritable route out of its debilitating national questions. That was the clear message irrespective of the allegation that the pro-government protesters were hired for a fee. And if we could go that far in laundering the image of the government, why have all the calls for national dialogue fallen on deaf ears? Or is it a measure of how insignificant the government considers the imperative of national consensus on all issues tearing the country apart?

President Buhari has asked Nigerians to take the opportunity of the anniversary to embrace peace and dialogue irrespective of their grievances. He also expressed the hope that the government will “not fight for peace… as we can always settle our grievances peacefully without spilling any blood”. That is the way to go. But that window for dialogue is yet to be thrown open by his government. Rather, all efforts are being directed towards the repression of dissent. Government’s response to these grievances does not imbue confidence that it considers constructive engagement a clear option. That is why grievances that should have been easily sorted out at the conference table have now mutated to levels threatening the very foundation of the country.

Foundational questions featured prominently in this discussion to highlight the contradiction that at 61, Nigerian is still contending with the challenge of whether to remain one or fragment into parts. That challenge is real and reinforced by the high momentum of self-determination agitations. Ironically, these are foundational challenges that should have been put behind through political solutions for meaningful development to progress unhindered.

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How did we get to this point after the successes made during the long years of military rule that followed the end of a 30-month civil war to keep Nigeria one? Why are fissiparous and separatist tendencies at an all-time high 51 years after that war? The answer can only be located in the mismanagement of our diversities- the serial inability or refusal by unpatriotic and clannish leaders to build sufficient confidence in the capacity of the Nigerian state to do justice to the constituents.

Faced with sweltering foundational challenges, it is little surprising that all other indices of development took the back seat. Countries that were at par with Nigeria development wise or even less endowed have since left us trailing in the lowest rungs of the development matrix. The schism may not have started today. But clear signals are that they got worse in the last six years of the Buhari regime. The mismanagement of our diversities is evident in the scant regard to all the balancing processes culminating in the domination of the commanding heights of the military, paramilitary and critical institutions by a section of the country.

Yet, President Buhari had the comfort of mind to claim that ‘no government since 1999 has done what we have done in six years to put Nigeria on track’. He is entitled to his opinion. But this claim has to contend with the general feeling that Nigeria has never been as divided and fragmented as we have witnessed since the Buhari regime came into power. The evidence is palpable. It is clear from resurging agitations for self-determination. It can be felt in the bloodletting and mindless killings that continue to question the capacity of the government to maintain law and order. It is evident in the curious and contradictory programs the government has been trying to force down our throats as solutions to the insurgency of the herdsmen against modern practices in animal husbandry.

At 61, Nigeria carries the unenviable record of the poverty capital of the world as citizens live below subsistence. That was its rating in 2019. The situation has been exacerbated by scorching policies of the government that left a vast majority of the people without a means of livelihood. No thanks to the value of the Naira that has fallen to an all-time low. All manner of taxes and levies have become the common fad with burgeoning unemployment compounding the delicate security situation in the country. The debt profile of the country which was drastically reduced by his predecessors has piled up again due to excessive borrowing.

The government promised to fight insecurity, reduce corruption and grow the economy. Rather than abate, insecurity has transmuted to dimensions that have left the government seemingly helpless. It is a measure of the helplessness of the security profile of the country that even a member of his cabinet had to call on Nigerians to defend themselves. He was not alone in this as similar calls have also come from governors and other well placed citizens.

But one dimension that has continued to perplex the citizenry is the attitude of the government to the insurgency of the herdsmen and bandits even as there is no difference between the two. Buhari’s body language to the insurgency of the bandits has become a moot question. Nothing illustrates that contradiction more evidently than recent resolution by both chambers of the National Assembly asking the president to declare the bandits a terrorist organization. This is coming years after Fulani herdsmen had been rated as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world terrorism index.

It will require another very committed and evidently broad-minded leader, one that sees Nigeria as his constituency to engage the discontent through policies and programs that give confidence in the capacity of the Nigerian state to do justice to all. The task is monstrous but not entirely insurmountable.

October 4, 2021