The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • The rule of market foxes

    The rule of market foxes

    Even now, the most incurable believers in market forces, of which yours truly could claim to be numbered, must have grown weary of the programmed (or deliberate?) misapprehension if not entirely the brazen subversion of the rules by those who claim a near-exclusive monopoly of the market and its allocative power. Talk of an era of easy solutions. From the service provider in the much debauched electricity sector for whom service means crude exploitation, the telecommunications industry operators and their fixation with routine adjustments at the expense of quality and the imperative of service, right up to the general services sector where issues of value for money have remained an alien concept, we are not only now in a season where the market hounds, thinking little of being left on the prowl, insist on hitting the tariff button at every sign of imagined turbulence.

    By now, the alibis have become standard even if they remain essentially what they are – alibis: the country, they say, is hard. The business environment, they complain to no end, has remained not just unfriendly but endangered in the atmosphere of rising costs, inflationary spiral and stifling government regulations. In their books, not only is the consumer out of the equation; rather, it is a one-way traffic that leaves nothing to the imperatives of service delivery or market equity, a scenario in which the supposed king is actually a guinea pig!

    In their season, a season marked by the curse of tariff addiction, even the institutional arbiters are supposed to be seen not heard even when gang rapes go on!

    Can anyone imagine the irony of an underperforming service provider which claims it has neither the money to procure basic tools to enhance service delivery for the consumer, nor would come up with a strategy to raise the funds, yet turns over to the latter to pick the bill; imagine the same returning, without shame, not to the capital markets where it ought to be making its case for funds, but to the public arena via the ready option of higher tariffs!

    Or the other case – that of an ill-served subscriber being asked to pay more even when minimum service threshold could neither be attained let alone guaranteed just to appease the ruling market foxes – not forces. Thanks to their ingrained market monopoly and with it the false but baseless assumption of holding the yam and the knife, they assume, equally falsely, that their words ought to remain law.

    Nigeria may well be a country where anything is permissible; nothing however casts the ugly shenanigans in bolder relief than the current tiff between the nation’s lead competition and consumer protection agency – the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) and the entertainment company, MultiChoice and its subsidiary DSTV.

    Now, the current issue is the Monday February 25 notice of another round of tariff hike that took effect on March 1, served by MultiChoice over which the FCCPC had expressed legitimate concerns about what it perceives as the recurrent issue of unilateral price hikes, potential market dominance abuse, and anti-competitive practices– concerns that predate the current leadership at the FCCPC.

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    Relying on its mandate under Sections 32 and 33 of the FCCPA, the FCCPC had directed the chief executive officer of MultiChoice Nigeria to attend an investigative hearing at the commission’s headquarters on Thursday, February 27. It warned that failure to provide a satisfactory explanation or any violation of fair market principles could result in penalties, sanctions, or other corrective measures, even as it confirmed that it was engaging the sector regulator and other relevant agencies to ensure fair competition and stronger consumer protection in the local pay-tv industry.

    We know how that went. While the company asked for time to prepare and the regulator insisting that the new price be put on hold, the company, in a brazen act of defiance and bad faith, went ahead to give effect to the new prices!

    Are the underlying issues legitimate? Like most Nigerians, I believe they are. To start with, let’s look at the trend in recent years, using the data from Dataphyte, the data analytical firm. As Dataphyte would observe, price increases for each subscription package between 2023 and 2024 has been phenomenal.

    For instance, in May 2023, premium package subscribers were hit with a 51.23% increment – from N16,200 to N24,500. Six months after, another major increment of 20.41% would follow, pushing the price to N29,500. Yet again, in another six months, that is, in May 2024, the service provider would be back with a new price of N37,000, a leap by another 25.42%; and then the latest adjustment effective Saturday, March 1, taking the package to N44,500 a 21% increase– representing over 300% increase using 2015 as the base year.

    For a company that pretends to be less of a monopoly that it is in reality, not even its claims about the stifling operating environment ought to suffice to deter a consumer protection body worth its salt from seeking an explanation on the dynamics under which the pricing model that many Nigerians have long described as heinous, continues to take place. And while that quest is supposed to be standard, at least in an industry said to be service oriented, what must remain the truly troubling part is the unwillingness on the part of MultiChoice to engage the consumer rights body, preferring instead, to play the Jekyll and the Hyde. 

    No matter how the current tides turn, the on-going tiff between the FCCPC and MultiChoice would merely appear a shadow of things to come. In fact, Nigerians would have, traditionally, let pass such inscrutable arrogance on the part of our local service providers. Not anymore. Today, countless evidences abound not just of how things are changing and this on a daily basis, but their endorsement of the work of the FCCPC even when this comes at a risk of being misunderstood. That, to yours truly, is a measure of progress.

    Surely, what would count in the end would not be so much about one dominant player clutching to the straw of legalese for narrow cause(s), but one of solid awareness of what is just and equitable between service providers and their consumer counterparts. In fact, thanks to the Nigerian non-governmental organisation – Save the Consumers, Nigerians have since been taught another lesson on how the sauce for the South African goose cannot be good for the Nigerian gander: MultiChoice offering simultaneous enhancement of service offerings and 38% reduction in prices for its South African customers at a time their Nigerian counterparts are being asked to pay 21% more with perhaps far less offerings – presumably to lessen the impacts of the cost of the living crisis on the former? The word discrimination could not have found a better operational definition. How about that – straight from the books of MultiChoice?

    Trust me, if the final judgment – or better still, that much feared Armageddon – is yet to come in the loud whispers of falling revenues or precipitous decline in subscriber bases, it seems only a matter of time before the reality comes tumbling in. That, surely, is one verdict that the market foxes cannot escape!

  • Nwosu stirs the Senate

    Nwosu stirs the Senate

    The complex contradictions, over the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election stirred the senate the past week as the burial of the late chairman of the National Electoral Commission, (NEC), Professor Humphrey Nwosu, approached. Nwosu, a distinguished professor of political science, died in October 2024, and was buried last weekend. The controversy was whether he was hero or a villain, and emotions stirred a commotion in the senate, after Nwosu’s kinsmen demanded for a national honour for the departed soul. Leading the charge was Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, representing Abia South.

    The June 12 election, referred by many as the most transparent election in the history of Nigeria, was supervised by Professor Nwosu and it is a paradox why those who agree with that postulation would deny that the person who conducted the election does not qualify as a hero. Of course, the major underlying tragedy is that the announcement of the election result was stopped mid-way after the military rulers set in motion a series of actions that culminated in the illegal annulment of the presidential election.

    The events of the June 1993, a little over 30 years ago, and the actions of the regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babaginda, leading to it, are within the living memory of majority of the senators serving in the 10th senate. Who did what, is known to them. Amongst the well-celebrated villains were the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), led by the late Arthur Nzeribe, Abimbola Davies and Brigadier Haliru Akilu. Their mission was to abort the democratic process and install Babangida as a civilian president.

    On the judicial bench, were Justices Bassey Ikpeme and Dahiru Saleh, who gave judgments that gave some form of judicial imprimatur to the annulment of the election. Justice Ikpeme gave the infamous mid-night injunctive relief to the members of the ABN, ordering that the election should not hold, while adumbrating that the NEC can ignore his orders. When the order was ignored and the elections held, Justice Saleh declared the election a nullity, on the ground that the order of Justice Ikpeme was disobeyed.

    In between the concocted judgments of the courts, the military regime of Babagida was breathing down the neck of NEC, and but for the dire warnings of the United States of America, and more subtly that of Britain, the regime was prepared to truncate the transition programme before the election on June 12. It was in-between the threats, injunctions from the courts, subterfuge from those who created the NEC and appointed its officials that the best election in Nigeria, by many accounts, held.

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    Indeed, it was on the night of June 10 that Justice Ikpeme, delivered the ruling granting an injunction against the election, and it was in the evening of June 11, that NEC announced that the election must hold. Many Nigerians may have legitimately believed that the election had been truncated by the same regime that had banned, unbanned and re-banned politicians, without a wimp from those directly affected and the rest of Nigerians, including those pontificating as heroes in the chambers of the senate.

    Interestingly, few weeks ago, the chief culprit of the annulment, Babangida, tried to whitewash his responsibility for the annulment of the election, and the senate of the National Assembly did not rise up to condemn what clearly amounted to a historical revisionism. Some of them, may have even attended that event, and would gleefully have shaken the hands of Babangida despite the fact that he bears primary responsibility for the June 12 election, annulment.

    Until the courageous intervention of former President Muhammadu Buhari, who recognized June 12, as Democracy Day and awarded the winner, Chief Moshood Abiola, the highest national honour reserved mainly for the heads of state, many of the senators passing off as June 12 sympathizers, would have peed on the grave of the winner if it ever came up in a discussion in the senate. After all, one of their own, David Mark, who rose to become the president of senate from 2007 to 2015, was reputed to be arch-opponent of the June 12 election and yet he has the second highest national honour ascribed to his name.

    On a fair assessment, it was miraculous that the June 12 election, despite the roadblocks, put on its way by the military regime of Babangida, and the courts, subpoenaed to do the biddings of its surrogates, turned out to be the best presidential election by several accounts. Considering the game plan of the military administrators to truncate the election even on the eve of the election, it is most likely that the military junta had hoped that the elections would be marred by logistical nightmare.

    If by June 10, an order of court said the election should not hold, those who never wanted the election in the first place may have hoped that the electoral commission would by itself demand a postponement, which would have played into their hands. Again, if those who refused to acknowledge the sheer courage and determination of Prof Nwosu in the senate last week are themselves sincere, they would acknowledge that it required a lot of dexterity and courage to continue to plan and eventually execute the best organized presidential election in the midst of destabilization plots by those who appointed the officials.

    One of the opposing senators on the floor of the senate last week said that he lost a relation, following the annulment, and by his jejune account, the late NEC chairman should be held responsible for that sad incident. That argument sounded so pedestrian. But for deep rooted prejudices, this writer wonders how an electoral officer would be expected to subjugate a military regime, to his whims and caprices, without grave consequences – a military regime, which the courts have recognized to have extra constitutional powers, legitimately.

    Without doubt, the sad events of the June 12 presidential election cannot legitimately be laid at the feet of Professor Humphrey Nwosu and his colleagues. To do so, is to turn logic on its head. But, whether those in the senate wish to support a motion that he should be honoured is their prerogative. As should be clear to the senators, there are those who would refuse to accept any honour from the senators, perhaps on the premise that they are not distinguished enough.              

    As a matter of fact, the entire senators have only one motion which cannot immortalize Professor Nwosu to muster. The power to honour the departed Prof Nwosu, by naming a national monument after him really lies with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Why the southeast senate caucus chose such an issue to stake a walkout in the senate is bemusing. If they want Professor Humphrey Nwosu to be granted a national honour, the lobbying is done behind the scene.

  • Oby Ezekwesili’s wars without rhyme

    Oby Ezekwesili’s wars without rhyme

    Not a few Nigerians are upset by the name-calling to express contempt between Oby Ezekwesili, a celebrated Nigerian icon and distinguished senator, Onyekachi Nwaebonyi on the hallowed floor of the senate last week. It is just as well the senator has since apologized for what many saw as an assault on the person of a distinguished woman that has done us proud at home and abroad. But not without Ezekwesili’s detractors saying she got what she deserved

    Oby Ezekwesili has earned her stripes. Her strings of achievements and honour at home and abroad speak for her. She was a two times minister, first as Minister of Solid Mineral and Minister of Education at different periods. As a public servant, she has been celebrated for her role in crafting the Bureau for Public Procurement legislation, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) legislation and currently, as founder-chairperson of the Board of School of Politics Policy and Governance in Abuja.

    She has also been globally celebrated as a former vice president of the World Bank (Africa region} and co-founder and pioneer director of Transparency International-TI, the Berlin-based global anti-corruption organization.

    It is however hoped that Ezekwesili still remembers she earned her stripes not through emotional blackmail as the weaker sex or by allowing her vision to be blurred by local politics, but by being able to stand her own among the best in the world. However, since we cannot stop her from doing what she does best – seeking justice for the poor and the disadvantaged, many believe it is time for her to critically examine the character and motives of those whose battle she takes head on.

    For instance, as a role model for many young Nigerians, many thought she would have distanced herself from the ongoing Natasha family war, being waged not on the basis of facts available to most Nigerians but because she seems to have an axe to grind with her husband’s friend, the senate president and she is ready to bring to disrepute all other male senators that passed a vote of confidence on the senate president.

    What Nigerians witnessed on the floor of the senate was an ill-tempered Natasha who was not prepared for the distinguished office of a senator of Nigeria. But reporting the outburst of visibly angry Senator Natasha the following morning, it was from Rufai Oseni of Arise TV that we heard that there might have been other underlying reasons for Natasha’s ignoble behaviour whereupon he publicly threw her a challenge to come to Arise TV and tell Nigerians her story. A few days later, we saw Natasha sobbing while narrating how the senate president held her hand while showing her and her husband (we have since learnt there were other senators) around his new house and whispered to her about the possibility of coming to spend quality time w ith him in the new house.  This revelation was coming about 14 months after working together amicably including accompanying Godswill Akpabio to the 148th IPU General Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland along with other senators and securing some advantages including chairmanship of juicy committee on local content.

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    But following her six months suspension for her unruly behaviour with a proviso for forgiveness if she tenders an apology to the senate’s Ethics Committee whose invitation she ignored, she changed the narrative, falsely claiming she was suspended over her sexual harassment petition allegation against the senate president.

    This falsehood was echoed by Arise TV, her chief promoter.

    Five days later, the suspended Natasha was illegally at the UN Inter-Parliamentary Union where she falsely claimed she was illegally suspended for her sexual harassment petition against the Nigerian senate president which she described as a “punishment for speaking out against impunity, corruption, and gender-based violence in Nigeria”. She then moved to BBC where she told the world how a few powerful men silence voices of women in Nigeria, with her media promoters pretending not to see the damage being done to the reputation of our country.

    Of course her message of underrepresentation of women in Nigeria where we have only four senators in a sena te of 109 resonated well with her women supporters. This seems to be the basis for her support among Nigerian women, if the conclusion of some well-educated and highly successful Nigerian women professional who often feature on TVC programme “Life with Morayo” last week is anything to go by. After their healthy debate, one of them stood up and said “Natasha out of the senate is minus one for women, this battle must be fought” right or wrong”!

    Sadly, this seem to be the mind-set of even our distinguished Oby Ezekwezili and Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, Senator Natasha’s witness and lawyer respectively during their appearance before the Senate Committee on Ethics last week. They did everything including discrediting the chairman of the committee, the committee members and the senate except pursuit of truth and justice. While calming they were not there to create a stalemate, they did everything to frustrate efforts by the committee to hear Senator Natasha’s petition.

    Many also believe Ezekwesili’s decision to join Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Mazi Afam Osigwe (SAN) the Nigerian Bar Association chair who speaks more as a politician to fight the Fubara battle was ill-informed. Ezekwezili, a star minister under anti-democratic and corrupt administration of Obasanjo where N300b budget for road reconstruction between 1999 and 2003 disappeared with no single road constructed, where children of PDP stalwarts stole N1.6trillion forging documents without supplying a litre of fuel, where about 18 of PDP and ANPP governors between 1999 and 2007 were dragged to court by EFCC for financial malfeasance, where Nigeria’s total investment of over $100b was sold for a paltry $1.5b to PDP stalwarts in the name of privatization, and where she, herself complained openly about monumental corruption under Jonathan administration, has seen nothing but doom in Tinubu’s administration.

    In fact many believe her criticism of the president’s action in Rivers which prevented a descent into chaos and anarchy amounts to agonizing over the president’s success.

    The co-organiser of ‘BringBackOurGirls’, kidnapped by Boko Haram in faraway Borno State who has today joined the new crusaders for democracy, did not do anything as Fubara ruled from her backyard like a despot for close to two years after his coup against the state House of Assembly.

    She had the following to say to people of Rivers after president’s proactive action which many believe has prevented a descent into chaos: “To all the Good People of Rivers State, I send this Quote of Wael Ghonim with solidarity and kindness: “The Power of the People is greater than the People in Power”.

    Before her last week undignified senate outing, was another ignoble interference in the battle between the openly partisan Arise Television and 2023 Candidate Tinubu’s handlers, Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake. They insisted their candidate was not going to feature on Arise TV debate anchored by Reuben Abati, who they claimed was a card-carrying member of PDP and a former Ogun State PDP deputy governorship candidate to the late Buruji Kashamu.

    They also had cause to report Rufai Oseni to the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) for unprofessional behaviour. Ask any journalism teacher who teaches attributes of news anchor in our universities, they will tell you Rufai Oseni is the worst example of how not to be a news anchor. But Ezekwezili, who knows next to nothing in journalism, organized a one woman crusade in support of Oseni, whose job she claimed was under threat. Of course many read politics into Ezekwesili’s ill-informed intervention.

    She could have saved herself from her last week disastrous outing where attempt was made to demystify her if she, as a national icon, sat back  and allow Rufai Oseni and Arise TV to fight Senator Natasha’s battle they so valiantly promoted hiding under the banner of patriotism, ‘the last refuge of the scoundrels”.

    Many have since come to the sad conclusion that Oby Ezekwesili miscalculated by taking sides in an unwinnable war between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and her husband’s friend and long-time associate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, a two-term governor and senate president, who like most accomplished politicians and professionals including journalists, can afford four wives instead of risking the fury of a scorned friend’s wife.

  • Nwosu’s heroic status

    Nwosu’s heroic status

    In its wisdom, the Senate concluded that Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, the late former chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), did not deserve more than the observance of a minute of silence by members of the upper chamber of the National Assembly. He died in America on October 24, 2024, and was buried in his hometown, Ajalli, Anambra State, on March 28.  He was 83. 

    On the eve of his burial, the Senate rejected, by an unclear voice vote, a motion to immortalise him by naming the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Abuja, after him.    

    Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe (representing Abia South), who presented the motion, praised Nwosu’s “courageous defence of democratic electoral process during the 1993 presidential election,” and “his unwavering stand as an umpire.” He argued that Nwosu “laid a landmark foundation” for the present INEC. He also requested the Federal Government to give him a posthumous national honour.

    Senators who opposed the motion, and apparently carried the day, argued that Nwosu could not be described as a hero because he failed to declare the full results of the 1993 presidential election. They claimed that he lacked courage when it mattered.

    Interestingly, the House of Representatives is not on the same page with the Senate on the question of Nwosu’s heroism. In July 2024, about three months before his death, the House, recognising his contributions to the country’s political development, had urged the Federal Government to “immortalise” him “when he is still alive by conferring on him a national honour” and naming the headquarters of INEC after him.  He was described as a “hero of our democracy.” The House had passed the resolution following the adoption of a motion jointly sponsored by Peter Ifeanyi Uzokwe and Nnabuife Chinwe Clara.

    There is no denying the fact that as the then NEC chairman, he heroically conducted Nigeria’s historic June 12, 1993 presidential election, which is acclaimed as the “freest and fairest” in the country’s political history.

    He was NEC boss from 1989 to 1993 and introduced ‘Option A4,’ an open ballot system of voting that required voters to openly queue in front of the picture of their candidate in an election. This innovation reflected his expertise as a former professor of Political Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

    What might have happened if he had lacked the courage to disregard an anomalous court order against the holding of the poll remains a matter of speculation. President Bola Tinubu, in a posthumous tribute, notably described him as “a bold and courageous administrator as well as a patriot and national asset.” There is no doubt that he was a champion of democracy who played a significant role in momentous events which, in his words, “marked a turning point in Nigeria’s tortuous journey towards a democratic polity.” His death highlighted the twists and turns of the country’s democratic experience.

    In his 2008 book, ‘Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993, Presidential Election and its Annulment,’ Nwosu said the military authorities had wanted him to “postpone the election at least for one week.” He also said they accused him of conducting “a presidential election the court prohibited” and “helped to cause… confusion.”

    A group ironically known as Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) had encouraged the continuity of military rule under Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who had designed a convoluted and deceptive programme to restore democracy. As the country looked forward animatedly to democratic governance after eight years under Babangida, the ABN, alleging corruption, dramatically obtained a mysterious high court injunction stopping the election two days before the event. The court order was reported to have been issued at night.

     However, Nwosu ensured that the election was held as scheduled, stating that the court lacked authority to stop it. The contest was between M.K.O. Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC).

    Three days after the poll, in the middle of the collation of the votes, the ABN dramatically obtained another court injunction to halt the counting and verification. The electoral body, this time, bowed to the court order in the face of intimidation by the military authorities, and suspended the announcement of the election results the following day.

    By this time, however, NEC had begun announcing the election results.  Of the 6.6 million votes that had been announced, Abiola had received 4.3 million and Tofa 2.3 million. The final result was later leaked and revealed that Abiola had won by a 58 percent majority.

    The Babangida regime subsequently annulled the election, triggering street protests, particularly in Abiola’s Southwest base, that led to the reported killing of more than 100 people by security forces. Nwosu went into exile.  The annulment of the election led to the emergence of two other military regimes before democracy was restored in 1999 and the death of Abiola in military detention. 

    Nwosu was an unlikely hero, considering the circumstances that led to his appointment as NEC chairman. He had served in the government of a former military governor of old Anambra State. He was chosen to head the NEC following the resignation of his predecessor and former mentor, Prof.  Eme Awa, after a disagreement with Babangida. Indeed, he disappointed those who had thought he would be a yes-man.

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    He left a legacy of innovative thinking and heroism in the pursuit of democracy. In 2018, he was reported saying, “the democratic system of governance is the best, especially for a multi-ethnic nation like ours,” adding that “expanding the frontiers of democracy will provide economic, social and developmental benefits that will certainly make Nigeria a great nation not only in Africa but across the world.”

     It is noteworthy that Babangida, during the launch of his autobiography, ‘A Journey in Service,’ in February, said “there was no doubt that MKO Abiola won the June 12 election,” claiming that military officers led by Sani Abacha, his chief of defence staff who later became military head of state, annulled the June 12 election “without his permission.” In the 420-page memoir, he acknowledged that the 1993 presidential election was “credible, free and fair.”

    Those who deny Nwosu’s heroism because he was eventually overwhelmed by the military dictatorship are unrealistic. His place is undeniable in the hierarchy of heroism concerning the 1993 presidential election.

  • One judgment, two interpretations

    One judgment, two interpretations

    It is difficult to brush aside the conflicting interpretations by sections of the media of recent Supreme Court judgment on the rightful occupant of the office of the National Secretary of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). The reportage of that ruling left many seemingly confused regarding the proper meaning of the apex court’s judgment.

    It might be helpful to take a brief review of a few headlines of some national dailies and online newspapers on the judgment to appreciate the extent such reports left the public confused. Conflicting claims to victory by constants to that office after the ruling did not help matters. Rather, they further bloated the air of ambiguity regarding the proper reading of the apex court’s verdict.

    But was the ruling by the Supreme Court actually ambiguous? Answers to this question will come clearer after a perusal of some newspaper headlines and other opinions on the issue. One of the leading national dailies had as its lead headline, “Supreme Court restores Samuel Anyanwu as PDP’s national secretary”. Its introductory paragraph amplified this further:  ‘The Supreme Court has pronounced Senator Samuel Anyanwu as the authentic national secretary of the People’s Democratic Party, putting an end to the legal contest over the post’.

    Another popular online newspaper wrote, “Supreme Court declares Wike’s loyalist, Anyanwu, as the PDP national secretary amid party crisis”. It went on: ‘In a fresh twist to the deepening crisis in the Peoples’ Democratic Party, the Supreme Court has declared Samuel Anyanwu, an ally of Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, as the party’s national secretary.

    Yet, a mainstream national daily deviated from this pattern of headline when it wrote, “Supreme Court asks PDP to decide its national secretary”. It pushed this angle further in the first paragraph… ‘The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that no court has the powers to decide who become officers of a political party. It also set aside the concurrent judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Federal High Court and declined Anyanwu’s prayer to be declared the party’s national secretary.

    This national daily got an ally in a national television report with the headline, “Supreme Court declares PDP national secretary an internal party matter, both factions claim victory”. The same pattern of varying interpretations of the apex court’s ruling was reflected in the headlines of some other publications.

    True to this pattern of mixed interpretations, the parties to the contest were quick to lay separate claims to victory. Anyanwu saw the ruling as victory for him especially with the setting aside by the apex court of the concurrent judgments of the Appeal Court and the Federal High Court challenging his claims to that office.

    He may have reasoned that with the setting aside of the case challenging his claim to that office, the ruling automatically translates to his affirmation as the authentic national secretary of the PDP. Thus his claim to victory.

    But the PDP holds a different opinion on the issue. In a statement by its national publicity secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the party said the judgment of the Supreme Court affirmed Sunday Udeh Okoye as the national secretary. The party based its position on the ruling of the apex court that party leadership positions including that of the national secretary fall within the internal affair of the party requiring only internal party mechanisms for resolution to which the courts have no jurisdiction.

    According to Ologunagba, the ruling affirms the standing position of the party and emphatically settles the emergence of Udeh Okoye as the substantive national secretary of the PDP having been duly nominated, endorsed and ratified through the internal mechanisms of the PDP’s statutory organs and bodies in line with its constitution (as amended in 2017).

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    The party further cited its NWC’s decision at its 576th meeting of October 11, 2023 which directed the Southeast Zonal Executive Committee to nominate a replacement for Anyanwu upon his nomination as the governorship candidate of the PDP for the November 2023 election in Imo State. Following that directive, it said the Southeast Zonal Executive Committee at its meeting on October 20, 2023 passed a resolution nominating and forwarding the name of Udeh Okoye to the NWC as the national secretary of the party.

    And at its 577th meeting of November, 2023, the NWC received, deliberated upon, accepted and approved the emergence of Udeh Okoye as the national secretary of the party. That appointment has since been endorsed by the relevant organs of the party and bodies including the Board of Trustees BOT, Southeast zonal caucus, the PDP governors’ forum and officially communicated to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the publicity secretary clarified.

    What was the actual judgment of the apex court? We shall rely on reports which in our estimation captured the proper meaning of the Supreme Court’s judgment. This will entail an abridgment of two reports taken from different media publications.

    The report will be reproduced without necessarily quoting the contents. Here it goes: The Supreme Court has nullified the judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Federal High Court which had earlier, sacked Samuel Anyanwu as the national secretary of the Peoples’ Democratic Party PDP.

    A five-member panel of the court headed by Jamilu Tukur held that matters relating to the leadership or membership of a political party fall strictly within the internal affairs of the party and should not be the business of the court to adjudicate. Justice Tukur said the exceptional circumstances that would have given jurisdiction for the court to decide on the internal affairs of a political party were ‘missing’.

    Such exceptional circumstances according to the court, include if the Nigerian constitution grants the judiciary jurisdiction over the matter, if a crime has been committed, or if there is a violation of contractual rights.  

     The court also held that the plaintiff, Aniagu Emmanuel who initiated the suit at the trial court lacked the necessary legal backing to do so since he did not show how he was affected by who is the national secretary of the PDP. That is the summary of the Supreme Court ruling.

    As can be seen from the above, the apex court set aside the concurrent judgments of the Appeal Court and the Federal High Court on two grounds. The first is that both courts lacked the powers to entertain the suit in the first place because it borders on the internal leadership affairs of the political party which the apex court said are not justiciable.

    The second reason for which the case was thrown out was that Aniagu Emmanuel who originated the case at the trial court did not have the necessary legal rights to do so because he failed to demonstrate how he would be affected by who the national secretary of the PDP is. In other words, he was an interloper. These were the basis on which the Supreme Court set aside the concurrent judgments of the Appeal Court and the Federal High Court.

    There is nowhere in the entire judgment the apex court reinstated Samuel Anyanwu as the substantive national secretary of the PDP. There was nothing like that. Neither did the apex court explicitly affirm Udeh Okoye as the substantive national secretary of the party. No!

    One is therefore at a loss on how and from where some media organisations generated such misleading headlines as: “Supreme Court restores Samuel Anyanwu as PDP’s national secretary’ or ‘Supreme Court declares Wike’s loyalist, Anyanwu, as the PDP national secretary amid party crisis’. There is no evidence of such restoration or declaration of Samuel Anyanwu as the national secretary of the PDP in the ruling of the Supreme Court. Nothing like that.

    The newspapers may have been misled by the setting aside of the concurrent judgments of the Appeal Court and the Federal High Court on grounds of lack of jurisdiction as victory for Anyanwu. But that is far from it given the further ruling that matters relating to political party positions are internal affairs of the parties for which the courts cannot adjudicate.

    This is more so as the apex court even demonstrated the grounds on which it can intervene but declared them missing in the instant case. The case was set aside for lack of jurisdiction.  It did not give explicit victory to any of the parties.

    That brings us to the headlines that are closer to the real meaning of the ruling: ‘Supreme Court declares PDP national secretary an internal party affair’ and ‘Supreme Court asks PDP to decide its national secretary’. There was no explicit order on the PDP to decide its national secretary but that is the proper reading of the ruling that political party leadership positions are internal affairs of the parties for which the courts lack jurisdiction to entertain.

    Between Anyanwu and Udeh Okoye, who is supported by the party’s constitutional provisions as the national secretary? Ologunagba said Udeh Okoye is the person and has shown evidence of compliance with the PDP constitutional requirements for the selection of the national secretary. So, the battle now is within the PDP as the apex court did not explicitly give that post either to Anyanwu or Udeh Okoye.

    If the evidence of compliance with the PDP constitution in the selection of Udeh Okoye and the surrounding circumstance are anything to go by, then the coast is clear for Udeh Okoye. How the PDP resolves the matter in the days ahead will make an interesting watch.

  • Is Peter Obi the praying mantis?

    Is Peter Obi the praying mantis?

    Pitobi amused me during Ramadam. First as a feeder of the poor. Second, as a praying mantis. Was he trying to show that he is now a Muslim or that he has sympathy for Muslims? So, when he sat among the small boys to break his fast, two things struck me. First, he was not eating the quality of rice the poor often eat. He tempted the poor with his upscale cuisine. The jollof rice was rich. Its colour could tickle a palate. I don’t know where it came from, but those boys must have been very titillated that evening when they broke their fast. They must invite him again as a good customer. Or he invited them. It was probably from Kitchen Republic or specially prepared by some happy chef. In the next Ramadan, Pitobi should wake up at 5:30 am and join them. Not his evening version of Iftar when no one can verify whether he had ofe nsala for lunch. Two, he did not communicate with the little guys. He was just eating and looking. How could he. He had not long ago showed contempt for them when he rallied his Christian elite in the name of election. He had too much contempt to relate to them. He was just smiling to himself. He was making love to himself.

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    I say praying mantis, because this was the same Pitobi who rallied Christians against Muslims, a pilgrim and crusader, not long ago. He ran as a saviour of the kingdom. He does not have to pray, but show interest. Maybe he would go to Mecca next. But if he must pray, let us know if he will apologise to those Muslims he threw dirt at during the 2023 presidential campaign.

    He is beginning to pray down our democracy though with ignorance. He says democracy is collapsing because he lost the election. He says no one should be elected unless they have over 50 percent of the votes. If we were to follow that, we can have only two parties. His Labour Party would not be in the running last time. This man needs to go and read history and political systems. There is a reason we have parliamentary systems and presidential systems and hybrids, from the United States to France to the United Kingdom to India.

    If he has a humility to learn, he can go to any university in Nigeria, especially now that he has a lot of idle time to cross religious line in journeys of hypocrisy. If he cannot go, I can recommend some books for him to read. He needs light.

  • Fubara’s Samson syndrome

    Fubara’s Samson syndrome

    The battle in the George Nwaeke household epitomises the fever in Rivers State. Rarely does one family unfurl the story of a society and a nation. For such dreams painters brush, novelists fantasise, playwrights dramatise and even biographers recall. They try to weave a social trend through the thread of a home, a family, an incident. For epic poets, history has given a lot of fodder, like Sundiata, Shaka, Ogunmola, Nana of Itsekiri, et al. Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman erupted from a historical moment.

    As the country comes to terms with the state of emergency and its aftermath, the Nwaeke family opened a window. We see the wife Florence in hysteria about a N15 billion blackmail. Around her, persons say nothing but look either in horror or approval, or in mockery of both quiet sentiments.

    She is, at that moment, a desperate wife, a romantic, social activist. To others, she is a Nollywood wannabe, a political hireling, the new face of the Fubara antic. She goes on, against the background of a high-tone furniture, as though she wants to crawl on the floor. But she does not. Her husband, Dr. Nwaeke, and head of service who resigned, has flown to Abuja. He replies his wife in public. This must be a precedent. The family washing its dirty linen in public. It is like the political family of the PDP. Wike and Fubara deny each other.

    The man says he is a former insider of the Fubara political machine. He saw all the workings of the former governor. His details are unflinching. He says the bombing that many saw as the casus belli for declaring a state of emergency was going to be a teaser, the first of many bombings that would turn the state into a sprawl of fire. It would stagnate the state and country. What did he mean? That Fubara wanted to reignite the ‘we tie’ inferno of the First Republic. In the Western Region, there were no oil pipelines. Fires and smoke repainted the streets in death and blood. Fire was mythicized, spat out by the gods. Juju was an oven conjured by babalawos. Streets became ovens. If the Rivers case was to torch oil, juju toasted the cars and houses and political enemies in the wild, wild west. It was wild, wild waste.

    Dr. Nwaeke was saying that Fubara had a Samson psyche. He wanted to pull down the Nigerian state, and possibly make the army come. Nwaeke charged Fubara of treason, of trying to overthrow our democracy. Was that what he meant when he told the youths that they would get instruction at the right time? Was this a case of a man who wanted to pull down the state if the state did not have him?

    No one has had this kind of charge since the treasonable felony against Awo in the First Republic? Fubara is no Awo, not in insights, stature or moral fibre. But Fubara had the resources to do it. The Department of State Security (DSS) ought to look into it. They ought to fight for the facts. Fubara has denied these allegations, and if they are not true, then, Dr. Nwaeke is the culprit.

    Nwaeke relayed his facts like a good raconteur, the late nights, the comings and goings in the state house, the dialogues, the names. We cannot forget graphic details of money, bags of money, in dollars hauled in and out.

    He said Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed came along, and Fubara wanted to back a northerner like him to confront a Tinubu second crack at the presidency. He also spoke of the funding of media and social media influencers to shape the narrative. Of course, we are aware of the television lawyers who were dead from the neck up when Fubara bombed the icon of legislature, the House of Assemby. They were dead from the neck up when he overthrew a branch of government and made four men the lawmakers, and pooh-poohed the constitution and the 27 men who were legitimate. They lost their tongues when he signed a budget in defiance of the law and built a cabinet on nothing. The lawyers goaded him on. PANDEF, especially under Edwin Clark, gave him the ballast while blasting his opponents and FCT Minister Nyesom Wike.

    Was it therefore true that all these persons were just working for money, and they did not believe in the Fubara cause? Look at it. These persons are now silent. No money to bomb pipelines and houses. They are not saying anything anymore. They are not organizing. The only person who dared was Governor Diri of Bayelsa State who posed as representing the Southsouth governors. When did they hold a meeting? Where did they meet? Who was present? Where is the communique? Who signed it? No wonder Edo Governor Monday Okpebholo called him out and he has remained mum.

    Read Also: Rivers Emergency: Fubara misses the point

    The elders, including Peter Odili, who was an elder in name and age but not as sage, are not saying anything. Is it a confirmation of Dr. Nwaeke’s assertion that it was all fueled by filthy lucre. The words and agitation have quieted because the bags have stopped coming. The man in charge, Vice admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, has shut the door. If we must hold the elders and the political folks and even the youths and social media responsible, we must not forget the lawyers. Shakespeare asserts, “the first thing we do, let’s kill the lawyers.” I am saying even if it is the last thing, the lawyers are not without guilt in fueling Fubara to fury. They all shooed him off the cliff. Humpty dumpty and what a great fall!All the king’s men…

    But it is an insight to the place of flattery and selfish prodding that men in office go through. They are turned into what Bertolt Brecht painted in his play, The Good Woman of Setzuan. The gods give a poor woman money and she becomes popular and everyone wants something from her. But generosity is becoming a problem, and she takes a disguise of ruthless business man, and that makes her new character unpopular and they want to stone her to death. Fubara is an example of the good woman who cannot turn bad and is wrecked by being “good.” A character says “I’d like to be good but there’s the rent to pay.”

    We have a democracy of rentiers and the rentiers wrecked Fubara through blandishments and favours. There is a place for generosity in a democracy, but not one powered by liars and frauds. The lawyers, elders, media rentiers and politicians steamrolled Rivers State into the state of emergency. They were the bones and muscles and bloodstream in the personality. Fubara just gave the roar, and he roared into perdition.

    Democracy must work with good persons though, in the line of Goethe, “Noble be man, merciful and good.”

    For the state to return to its quiet times of democracy, nobility is the key, not frivolity.

  • PRAYERS FOR THE NEW BABY

    PRAYERS FOR THE NEW BABY

    (Based on an actual video story)

    Welcome, our New Baby

    Welcome here to our corner of the country

    Son of the tiger

    Son of the lion

    Son of the elephant who shakes

    The forest like a mighty storm

    Son of the crocodile

    Who munches the minnows

    Son of the towering iroko

    Who dwarfs the lowly trees

    Son of the moon which

    Beams its smiles on chosen places

    Son of thunder which

    Drowns the wails of rightless folks

    Here, for you, is water

    Friend of all, foe to none

    Here is honey

    Read Also: Tinubu’s vision, dedication to Nigeria inspiring – Akpabio

    Whose song will sweeten your path

    Here is kolanut

    For long life and ceaseless celebrations

    And here now

    I put this pen in your hand

    You will grow and become

    A President or Governor or Senator

    Or owner of big banks

    Or baron of oil blocks

    With this pen, you too

    Will scoop your share of the national booty

    Come back home

    And build a golden castle

    Join those hawks in our ravaging sky

    Fly back here with a chick within your claws

  • Obasanjo, Jonathan, Soyinka on Rivers emergency

    Obasanjo, Jonathan, Soyinka on Rivers emergency

    If newspaper headlines are to be believed, three eminent Nigerians were reportedly among those who made fiery comments on President Bola Tinubu’s state of emergency proclamation in Rivers State. The headlines were, however, strident and difficult to correlate with the tone and nuances of their views on the controversial subject. In fact, in the case of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, the one many Nigerians love to despise for his disdain for consistency and truth, it is difficult to understand from his brief remarks at the Emeka Ihedioha 60th birthday colloquium in Abuja where he spoke pointedly about the state of emergency in Rivers. From the time he took the microphone and defused tension by joking with the compere, to the very end when he spoke soberly and frankly about the fate of liberal democracy, there does not seem to be anywhere he talked about Rivers State directly or even obliquely. He generally limited himself to the colloquium’s theme which addressed Africa’s ‘failing democracy’.

    Chief Obasanjo spoke about democracy not just failing, but actually dying, considering how deeply conceptually flawed it had been almost from the beginning. He called for definitional exactitude, insisting that it was disingenuous to expect Africa, going by its long and illustrious history, to practise with any degree of success Western liberal democracy. He may be overly simplistic to suggest that corruption had become the bane of democracy, but at least he embraces this correlation without throwing his customary tantrums. And though he regarded democracy as conceptually weakened by borrowed traditions, he felt no sense of urgency to do anything about it for the eight years he spent in office. It is also not clear why he leaves the job of fashioning African democracy to unidentified experts, while failing to provide at least a skeletal rubric for general understanding. Then he finally lathered his remarks with wisecracks and almost fooled everyone by doting on Mr Ihedioha, yes the same Mr Ihedioha, former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives between 2011 and 2015, and for almost a year Imo State governor between 2019 and 2020.

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    On his own, and complete with foreign proverbs and other literary ornaments, former president Goodluck Jonathan also offered his perspective on the emergency matter on the prodding, he said, of the people who wanted him to say something. Two Saturdays ago, as Chairman of the Haske Satumari Foundation Colloquium, a foundation that focuses on promoting social change and empowerment through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), he remarked: “Of course, what is happening in Nigeria today regarding the situation in Rivers State is like an Indian proverb which says that if somebody is really sleeping, you can easily wake up that person, but if someone is pretending to sleep, it will be difficult to wake the person up. They are pretending to sleep and waking up such a person is extremely difficult. Whatever happens in a country, the decisions taken by the executive arm of government, the parliament and the judiciary affects everybody. Whatever we do affects everybody, and if we must build a nation for our children and grandchildren, no matter how painful it is, we must try to do what is right.”

    Characteristically, the media blew his remarks out of proportion, suggesting that he had denounced state of emergency. It is true that he neither praised it nor considered it the right or appropriate response to the Rivers crisis, but the stridency insinuated into his speech was simply impalpable. Instead, he waffled, perhaps torn between placating his Ijaw kindred and unsure whether to denounce the Tinubu administration. In his opinion, after arming his point of view with an Indian proverb, Dr Jonathan blamed everybody, rather than one arm of government (presumably the executive). Unlike Chief Obasanjo, however, Dr Jonathan was more homiletical as he admonished everyone to recognise that all Nigerians bear the consequences of bad governance. The treatment given holders of Nigerian passports, he summed up, is perfect proof of how Nigerians incompetently conduct their affairs.

    If newspapers and the social media could not handle the less nuanced remarks of Dr Jonathan, they fared much worse in handling the deeply nuanced remarks of Prof. Wole Soyinka on the same Rivers subject. He was quoted as blasting, condemning or kicking against the state of emergency. But here is what he said. “If it is constitutionally right, then I think it is about time we sat down and amended the constitution to ensure that it operates as a genuine federal entity. The government is over-centralised. The debate will continue on whether this (state of emergency) was, in the first place, a wise decision, but in terms of fundamental principles, I believe this goes against the federal spirit of association. I find that the constitution has placed too much power in the hands of the president. The system we are operating right now is not the best for a pluralistic society like ours. That is a fundamental principle I have always held…The federal spirit of association is a cardinal principle and, for that reason, some of us have called again and again for a national conference to really accord ourselves an authentic people’s constitution. Right now, in principle, this action is against the federal imperative.”

    The eminent professor took a more structural rather than legalistic approach to the crisis. It was only Daily Trust newspaper that captured that nuance on its front page. The professor did not pronounce on the rightness or wrongness of state of emergency, for he was unaware of the whole facts of the case. He acknowledged that in a democracy a state of emergency proclamation was both an aberration and overkill, but in the case of Rivers, and without prejudice to what the constitution provides, the crisis, he believed, beckoned for a reconsideration of the country’s founding principles to help procure sound federal principles and arrangements. He also spoke about federalism as an abstract concept and made reference to what he believed was the unfettered power located in the presidency. And speaking directly about the state of emergency proclamation, he summed it up ‘in principle’ as negating the ‘federal imperative’. The professor was wise not to get bogged down with the legal interpretation of the constitutional provisions regarding state of emergency. But the media assumed they knew where he was headed.

  • Rivers Emergency: Fubara misses the point

    Rivers Emergency: Fubara misses the point

    Suspended Rivers State governor Siminalayi Fubara has continued to act and speak as though he voluntarily stepped down from office for a few days or weeks. He needs to be reminded that he has been duly suspended for six months in the first instance with the backing of the constitution, partly because he was central to the state’s multidimensional political crisis. He had been pressured by former governor Nyesom Wike since 2023, barely three months after he assumed office, but his predecessor had limited himself to talking up a storm. On the contrary, Mr Fubara had been actively engaged in acting the storm. The rhetorician could of course not be suspended, for he was not the one who directly governs the state; that punishment was reserved for the habitué of the storm, the governor himself.

    Last week, this column argued that Mr Fubara was actively undermining the Supreme Court judgement which ordered him to take certain actions to align governance in the state with the law and the constitution. He was unwilling to heed the judgement, believing that he had more support than he actually did, and could create events and circumstances potent enough to tie the hands of the federal government while he gets away with murder. His actions and words, not to talk of his feints as well as the provisions of the constitution, led this column to support the proclamation of a state of emergency in Rivers. The column also warned that if he hoped to return to office, he would need the circumspection he had been incapable of showing. Alas, Mr Fubara and his moribund administration may be too far gone to be salvaged. His suspension is for six months in the first instance; it may last for much longer, assuming he does not talk himself into jail as he seems bent on doing.

    The suspended governor denies the allegation of sponsoring militants to blow up crude oil pipelines, an action that tantamount to levying war against the country; but he has been unable to deconstruct his statement to youths at a public function in Port Harcourt to wait for instructions over the political impasse in the state, particularly after the House of Assembly renewed their impeachment plans against him and his deputy. The federal government was not fooled. Next, Mr Fubara was at Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, where he and his supporters tried to rally the Ijaw to his side, thereby attempting to paint the Rivers crisis in ethnic colours. Then, as if playing a script, he attended a church in Port Harcourt to demonstrate he was unfazed by the whole tumult. He obviously hopes that he and his supporters can rally the state, neighbouring states, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or a faction of it, and possible the rest of the antagonistic public and country to defeat the presidency and end or shorten the state of emergency.

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    By now, even his diehard supporters must be having second thoughts. Like everyone else, they have had enough time to study the constitution and come to some tentative conclusions indicating that the proclamation of a state of emergency in Rivers was in line with the constitution. The constitution may be silent on a number of things, including suspending governors and legislatures, but no matter how the document is read and interpreted, it is hard not to agree with the proclamation. Mr Fubara was the problem; he allowed the pressures on him by external bodies to expose the beast in him, leading him to compromise governance and predispose the state to violence of unimaginable magnitude. So far, there is nothing about him that enables him to reflect on what went wrong, what he didn’t do right, and how best he could have managed the crisis. He believes he has managed to deflect public anger to his sworn enemy, Mr Wike, and successfully covered his own appalling lack of judgement, not to say apocalyptic predilection for violence and mayhem. He still goes about thinking he can produce a violent endgame for the federal administration from the Rivers imbroglio.

    In all this, Mr Fubara does not seem to realise he is in exile. That he has not been leaned on by the security services is an acknowledgement by the federal government that all efforts must be geared towards retaining a semblance of democratic governance in Rivers. Ideally, since there cannot be two heads of state or sheriffs in a polity, one must leave town. But the government has indulged him by turning a blind eye to his nomadic escapades and posturing. But their exasperations may start to show soon. He has refused to keep silent and appears ready to defend himself at every turn, even if he must lie in the process. Since he has chosen to be imprudent and sanctimonious, it may be time for the government to open the books of his dealings over the burnt and demolished House of Assembly buildings, and perhaps too his not-so-hidden fraternisation with militants during which he forgot himself and acted like he was not governor of Rivers. He appears impervious to learning, and he does not seem to recognise that he is in the wilderness. A time in the wilderness calls for deep reflections and study, the rebuilding of reputation, and finding the formula to control his moods and mollify his unnatural rage.

    Mr Fubara is an accountant, and there are indications he is a competent professional. That makes him a numbers man, and most numbers men, as everyone knows, cannot be trusted to philosophically outthink their opponents. They may toy with mathematical scenarios, and be adept at jigsaw arithmetic puzzles, but they are often incapable of projecting the nuances of leadership that deal with the nexus between politics, economics and society. What the Rivers crisis has revealed is a governor unable to rationally respond to complex pressures from enemies or the blandishments of friends. He hated one with a passion, and succumbed to the other with amateurish glee. With a chaotic mind seething with mischief, it is unclear whether he can appreciate that his time in the wilderness, an affliction as it were, affords him the opportunity for soul cleansing. He needs to calmly analyse his predicament, and find answers to the political puzzles that have projected him as a neophyte. Despite the tons of advice given him by many state elders and columnists on how to respond to the situation that assails him, it appears sadly unlikely that he possesses both the gumption and the willingness to make amends. He will continue to talk nineteen to the dozen, obfuscate as much as possible, twist stories and tell tall ones with proactive and effective propaganda, and continue fighting without knowing how to stop.

    From all indications, the state of emergency in Rivers State will last a full six months, with the distinct possibility of an extension. The security services have let Mr Fubara run riot with plots since last year, and he has not relented. While, the House of Assembly has sensibly kept silent, and Mr Wike, whether pleased with the state of emergency or not, has let off only muted groans, the suspended governor has not let bad enough alone, as the Americans say. He has managed to get embroiled in another bitter and needless controversy with the former Rivers State Head of Service, George Nwaeke, in which again he has demonstrated a galling lack of capacity to measure his words and tame his emotions. Convinced that the public seemed to be on his side, and certain in his mind that he has enough time to make the emergency proclamation difficult to manage, he has engaged in public demonstrations of show of confidence and imperturbability. A faction of the PDP and a few leaders of the Labour Party as well as haters of the Tinubu administration have viewed the whole brouhaha from the partisan angle, in the same depressing manner top political leaders are embracing ill-mannered youths disseminating rant campaigns or truth-or-dare contests on social media. The whole environment is being badly and irretrievably polluted.

    The federal government and its security agencies should earn their pay by intelligently responding to the many subtle and multifaceted existential threats facing the country. Too many law breakers have been indulged in the name of democracy, including those advocating revolutions to overthrow the same constitution whose protection they feel entitled to. Because of the spontaneous fury that erupts on social media, mostly anchored on ignorance of the socio-economic and political conditions the new administration inherited in 2023, the government has been reluctant to clamp down on lawbreakers. No thanks to the social media, the country is today teetering on the brink. And no thanks to a warped and fearful interpretation of what democracy connotes in these parts, discipline is breaking down, and politicians like Mr Fubara as well as men, women and youths of all classes and persuasions are taking advantage of what they sense is the government’s weakness and timidity. Rivers State sole administrator, Ibok-Ete Ibas, a retired naval admiral, may not have time to probe the suspended governor, but he needs to invite him to shed light on some of the discrepancies clearly evident in his administrations dealings. If Mr Fubara likes to talk, including directly intimidating the wife of the former Head of Service through a phone call, they should give him matters to ponder. After all, for the next six months, he does not have immunity. But he can also contest that in court, as his supporters are futilely contesting the proclamation of a state of emergency.