The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Some thoughts on media and terrorism from Amman

    This year’s world congress and general assembly of the International Press Institute (IPI), the 63-year global press freedom advocacy organisation, took place in Amman, capital of Jordan, between May 19 and 21. Few Nigerians may have heard of this organisation even though it partly funds the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, the country’s premier journalism trainer, and even though some of the most prominent Nigerian journalists and publishers including Alhaji Lateef Jakande who once presided over its affairs, Aremo Segun Osoba, Mr Sam Amuka, Mr Felix Adenaike, Malam Kabiru Yusuf and Alhaji Ismaila Isa, have been among its leading members.

    Naturally the organisation believes that press freedom is “the right that protects all other rights.” Consequently it has tried to defend press freedom everywhere in the world in several ways, including through its annual congress and general assembly where leading journalists, editors and media executives gather to discuss major contemporary issues.

    Among the variety of issues discussed this year were the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the terrible civil war in Syria, the safety of journalists reporting in conflict situations, the implications of internet regulation for democracy and press freedom and reporting on religion. This journalist was on a panel of three – the others were Steven Pollard, editor of the London based Jewish Chronicle and Monjuru Ahsan Bulbul, the CEO of a private television station in Dhaka, Bangladesh who was a last minute substitute for Jeffrey Sharlet, a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine and faculty member of the Centre for Religion and Media, New York University, who failed to make it to Amman – which discussed the last subject. The moderator was Ms Maria-Paz Lopez, a senior religious writer with La Vanguardia, Spain, and chair of the International Association of Religious Journalists. A little bit more about this presently.

    Meantime a bit of my impression of Jordan. For me a more classic study in contrast between the country and Nigeria will be hard to find. Here’s a country in the middle of a harsh desert with no oil, no water, with a population of little over two million and in the frontiers of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which is at the heart of so-called clash between the West and Islam. Yet a visitor to Amman and several of the towns and villages a few hours’ drive from it which we visited would be forgiven if he mistook them for towns and villages in advanced Europe or America. All the highways we travelled along were tarred, all the towns and villages we visited had electricity and water and not once did the lights go out throughout our stay in Amman.

    Of all the barren country’s advances in spite of an almost total lack of natural resources none fascinated me like its ability to provide water to all its inhabitants. According to Nasiru Aminu, a senior diplomat at our Amman embassy and a friend, in all his several years in Jordan the taps in his house have never gone dry. Yet, the country, he said, relies almost entirely on harvesting rain water.

    However, for me even more interesting than the ability of the country to satisfy the water needs of its inhabitants in the middle of a desert was the pattern of water supply among the poor, middle and high income neighbourhoods of the towns; the poor are supplied daily, the middle thrice weekly and the rich only once, said Nasiru. Here in Nigeria the reverse would’ve been the case.

    The secret of Jordan’s relative wealth, said Nasiru, is its investment in the education of its people. This is evident from the country being a leading destination of medical tourism in the world, raking in more than two billion dollars annually. It is also the Information Technology capital of the Arab Middle East.

    Jordan is, of course, no El Dorado. As a kingdom, and for that matter one on the frontiers of the Middle East conflict, its citizens can do with a lot more freedom than they have. I am certain, however, that few Jordanians, if any, would want to exchange their relatively gilded cage for Nigeria, the majority of whose citizens have been left free to live in abject and grinding poverty, almost totally abandoned by a state whose officials are generally too venal, selfish, power-hungry and incompetent, etc, to give a damn about public opinion.

    Back to the IPI congress and general assembly, the liveliest session for me was none of the eight that were held between the morning of May 20 and the evening of the following day. The liveliest for me was the pre-congress town hall meeting in the evening of Sunday May 19 moderated by the well known CNN International anchor and correspondent, Jim Clancy. The subject looked simple enough; “Who is a journalist?” However, not surprisingly, the answer proved elusive. The debate that followed the introductory remarks of the four panellists on the questions whether in today’s digital age where anyone with a computer or a mobile phone who can send pictures and stories to news outlets and bloggers can be called journalists was truly hot and in the end there was no single answer.

    There was, however, one interesting remark from the floor which was that today’s so-called “citizen journalism” was making mainstream journalists lazy by giving them an excuse to abdicate their responsibility for cross-checking the accuracy of news items before publishing. This, said the gentleman who made the remark, bodes ill for the future of professional journalism. I couldn’t agree more.

    Finally to the discussion on reporting religion of which I was a panellist. My submission was that the dominance of the Nigerian media by the private sector in spite of the heavy presence of government in the broadcast media – a private sector dominance which, for historical reasons, does not reflect the ethnic, regional and religious plurality of the country – has led to a reporting culture which is heavily biased against Muslims and Islam. This, I said, was in turn a reflection of the global media which has been essentially anti-Islam.

    Nowhere is this bias as glaring as in the reporting of Boko Haram insurrection which has caught the attention of the world because, of course, Nigeria, with at least 160 million people, is one of the most populous in the world and the biggest in Africa, reportedly almost split in half between Muslims and Christians, and because, of course, Nigeria is a leading world oil producer. The evidence of this anti-Muslim and anti-Islam bias of the Nigerian media is pretty clear in the way it has grossly under reported the human rights abuses of ordinary law abiding Muslims by the military and security forces in their fight against Boko Haram.

    Two recent reports by Adam Nossiter, the West African correspondent of The New York Times, have captured this journalistic blind eye like no other. The first in May entitled “Bodies Pour In as Nigeria Hunts for Islamists” and datelined Maiduguri, made very grim reading.

    “A fresh load of battered corpses,” Nossiter said in his introduction, “arrived, 29 of them in a routine delivery by the Nigerian military to the hospital morgue here. Unexpectedly, three bodies started moving. ‘They were not properly shot,’ recalled a security official here. ‘I had to call the J.T.F.’ — the military’s joint task force — ‘and they gunned them down.’”

    Nossiter’s second story this month in the wake of President Goodluck Jonathan’s declaration of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states makes as grim reading as the first, perhaps even more so. “The first independent accounts of the military offensive (since the emergency)”, said Nossiter, “spoke of indiscriminate bombing and shooting, unexplained civilian deaths, night time roundups of young men by security forces.”

    You will search most of the Nigerian media in vain to see any expression of concern about this indiscriminate use of force by our security forces in their war against Boko Haram terrorism. Certainly you would not see the sort of vehemence with which the media rightly condemned the Odi and Zaki-Biam massacres of the Obasanjo’s era. Yet what has happened in the North-eastern strongholds of Boko Haram is worse than the two combined, if only because both were one-off military invasions.

    In a recent well argued defence of President Jonathan’s state of emergency declaration in the region, the respected constitutional lawyer, Prof Ben Nwabueze, called it “a masterstroke indeed.” Without debating the merit of his position – this is a matter for possibly another occasion – it is obvious that the professor believes the consequential military operation against Boko Haram will bring a definite, if not quick, end to its terrorism, regardless of how the soldiers go about their operation.

    The professor’s “masterstroke” only reminded me of what President George Bush Jnr said when he invaded Iraq. It was, he said, going to be a “cakewalk”. Today, we all know that it was anything but. Right here at home the late President Umaru Yar’adua said more or less the same thing when he sent the soldiers after the sect in 2009. This too has, sadly and tragically, proved anything but a cakewalk.

    It seems to me the lesson of relying mainly on the use of indiscriminate force to solve a problem even as criminal as terrorism, whatever its variety, has not been learnt by our leaders and media pundits. Certainly the Nigerian media has not used its freedom as a shield that, to rephrase IPI’s principal objective, should be used to protect the rights of others.

     

     

     

     

  • June 12: A beacon in the dark

    June 12: A beacon in the dark

    IT was the best of times; it was the worst of times”.

    These words from Charles Dickens befit the 20th anniversary of the most bittersweet event in the history of Nigerian electoral politics – the June 12, 1993, Presidential election.

    For a fleeting moment, we tasted a precious thing: free, fair and honest elections where the people truly elected who they wanted as their leaders.

    We thought that historic election would bring the best of times. Just as we tasted the euphoria of the moment, it was snatched from us for reasons we shall never understand; its annulment cast the nation into the worst period of military dictatorship.

    June 12 showed the people’s capacity to exercise political wisdom; it also showed the folly that brews when a powerful few believe they know what is good for the people better than the people themselves.

    June 12 shined the light of hope; its termination enveloped us in darkness. Some claim we regained civilian democracy in 1999; that claim is not completely true. What took place in 1999 and what is taking place now is but a shadow of June 12. Things are such that many wonder if we, having lost this great chance, will ever revisit the fullness of that moment. I pray we do. The fate of the nation and the over 150 million people occupying it hang in the balance. The past has not always been kind to us; we hope the future does what the past has not.

    Two decades have elapsed since Nigerians cast their votes across ethnic, religious and regional divides for Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.

    Despite the passage of time, June 12 remains etched in our national conscience. It symbolises Nigeria. A day that began with full promise, ended in twisted disappointment because a cunning few thought their interests paramount to the wishes of an entire nation.

    Since June 12, we have struggled to reach the level of democratic quality experienced that moment. Today, we live halfway between sun and storm. While better off than the bleak days of reactionary dictatorship, we have yet to reach the democratic level of June 12.

    This is why we must never forget June 12. We must never lose hope that we can attain the level of democratic practice of that day. We cannot change the past; thus, we cannot return to correct the bad turn taken. However, we can dedicate ourselves to a better future. We can go forward to a new, more complete June 12 that has an ending as benign as its beginning.

    The annulment of June 12 and the regression to full-scale dictatorship hurled the country into a severe crisis of legitimacy. June 12 reminds us that, although the vast majority of us want democracy, reactionary elements work to stifle these aspirations. These elements are not always in uniform. No military dictatorship could do to us what they have done without having its full complement of civilian lackeys and courtiers.

    Against these forces, the people struggled for democratic restoration at great costs. Many of our compatriots spilled their blood and lost their lives. As such, the struggle for internal democracy has proven more costly than our quest from colonial independence. Sadly, if asked the identity of our worst enemy, all we can do is point into a mirror.

    After fourteen years of civilian rule, June 12 is not nationally commemorated because of the power of these reactionary forces. Chief MKO Abiola deserves a posthumous honour recognising him for being so stalwart in his democratic beliefs that he refused to forfeit his mandate. At the costs of personal deprivation and his life, this man stood his ground. In doing so, he stands as our tallest hero in the cause of Nigerian democracy.

    Many of those who have come to power since 1999 try to belittle June 12. We must not sweep the lessons of that day under the carpet. Those things will only reemerge later, in ways uglier and more resistant than the first time. We must imbibe these lessons that they may keep us from tragedy’s repeat and move us to finally realise the full blossoming of our political democracy.

    Those who discount June 12 don’t do this because of regional chauvinism or anti-southwest motives. June 12 belongs to all Nigerian except a certain class frightened by what full democracy would mean for them. This has nothing to do with region, religion or ethnicity. It has everything to do with a person’s view of democracy. Reactionary forces detest June 12 because it reminds them their days will be numbered should the people’s will ever be respected.

    At its essence, June 12 serves as a reminder that the struggle for democracy is never-ending. Just as there are heroes willing to lay down their lives and livelihoods to secure the people’s future, there are still elements that would rather snuff out democracy than let the people attain freedom’s stride.

    When we talk June 12, we talk not about dead heroes and dead evil. We talk not about ghosts. We talk about today and the future to come.

    At some point, this government must ensure appropriate national recognition for Chief MKO Abiola and those who sacrificed to protect the mandate so openly and freely won that day. We must safeguard one-man-one vote, which made June 12 a watershed. We must ensure electoral integrity where the sovereign right of the people prevails.

    If things continue as they have for the past 14 years, we shall never attain the quality of elections or the promise of good governance June 12 represents.

    The country has drifted for too long. The current government is long on problems, short on solutions. We have too much poverty, too much unemployment, too much violence, too much hunger, too much corruption, insecurity and disease. We have too little electricity, jobs, progress, justice and hope.

    If we are the giant of Africa, it is a masochistic fellow who revels in shooting himself in the foot instead of feeding his starving children.

    There are many lessons to draw from June 12. Here, I would like to focus on three of them.

    First, the current one–party dominance of the political economy rewards bankrupt governance and corrodes the national fabric.

    A more balanced system featuring a countervailing progressive party to oppose the ruling retrogressive promotes democratic competition that augurs great change. This is why agents of the inefficient status quo busy themselves casting roadblocks in the way of the formation of the new party instead of focusing on good governance. They have opened their bag of tricks to thwart the merger. But, there is no stopping an idea whose time has come.

    Let them waste their time. After all, they have wasted so much of the nation’s.

    The other clear lesson from June 12 is, given their free choice, the masses prefer progressive government. Thus, Nigeria is politically bifurcated nation. We have a hard working and progressively-minded citizenry under thumb of an unabashedly retrogressive political elite. The only way this is sustainable is for the elite to impose themselves as a quasi-elected modern aristocracy.

    Third, June 12 was a product of an open, fair electoral process. Despite marginal improvements in the current process, we still have a grossly unreliable voters register. This is because the current hybrid, half electronic, half manual system is both engine and fuel for malpractice. To solve this obvious problem, we must demand a fully integrated biometric voters’ register that guarantees accuracy and eliminates multiple voting.

    The use of the biometric system for elections in Nigeria should be non-negotiable. Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Liberia employed forms of the system and it worked in these cases. It is modern and reliable. Nigeria should not be different. Additionally, the National Assembly must pass measures deepening electoral reform by enhancing INEC’s autonomy and ensuring electoral tribunals are reconstructed to have truth and respect for the rights of every citizen as their objective. Currently, most tribunals and the legal processes they employ are constituted in a way that legitimates misconduct instead of punishing it.

    Nigeria today stands with one foot on the rock and one in the rising waters. We need to decide whether we want to stand or sink.

    Nigeria is trapped by a defective federal structure that promotes underdevelopment for the many in the guise of the vast enrichment of the few.

    Twenty years after the happy June 12 election and its dismal termination, sufficient lessons should have been learned. I know that the conspirators now must have their regrets. But there is yet hope for redemption. The only way for redemption is for them to embrace a new thinking that will reflect the will of the people. They must now join hands with the progressives to propel a people-oriented government to office. Then the dream of June 12 would have been fulfilled.

    Because those in power look the wrong, undemocratic way, they have learned the wrong, undemocratic lessons.

    They have learned not to give the people the chance to truly express their political will. The current system does not foster the public’s will. The system squeezes it.

    The system is so corrosive that even an election among 35 governors for the chairmanship of the governors forum becomes an exercise in blatant mischief where the loser is tagged the winner because he is a well-paid courier delivering to those in Aso Rock as they wish.

    In the end, there is no end. That is the essential lesson of June 12. A nation never keeps democracy except it continually fights for it. To slumber is to lose. We remember June 12 so that one day Nigerians from all walks of life and all parts of the nation can describe an election as, “It was the best of times,’’ and mean it as the full and complete truth. This is the Nigeria we seek. For today and for tomorrow.

     

  • PPPs; Banks, loans and the naira; Police Service Commission affair

    PPPs; Banks, loans and the naira; Police Service Commission affair

    Who can forget today is June 12 when democracy was so callously killed at a huge cost to normal Nigerians who are yet to recover. Governments should stop calling for public/private sector partnerships before they themselves do anything good. Government should stop haemorrhaging so much wealth needlessly in corruption and deal with the poverty issues. Only then will the private sector come on board through CSR projects. Governments should not shirk their leadership role in this anti-poverty area.

    A slum is a slum and almost impossible to escape. Everyone in the slum needs water, toilets, security, education and a job just like those in the government reservation area or a mansion near the governor’s lodge. A poorly equipped school is a poorly equipped school. Poor people do not ruin banks. Rich people do with schemes and rich people’s unpaid loans. Bankers are rich men and women. Therefore they have no real right to talk about poverty alleviation especially since it is their policies which perpetuate that poverty in the land. How many poor Nigerians are victims of shylock lenders because the bank interest rates are too high and the bank loan is unavailable to the poor? Greed-eaten landlords demanding two or three years exorbitant rent for shabby gutter-close face-me-I-face-you or better put face-me-I-disgrace-you holes glorified with the name ‘rooms’ must accept their own responsibility in perpetuating poverty in the ‘failed state affair’. Lagos State has banned the taking of more than one year rent, but is that working? Landlords are just as guilty as bankers. In Ibadan, government has given notice that toilets are essential in all houses.

    Everyone needs a small loan at one time or another, even CBN governors. It is now realised that even a funeral or wedding can be turned into a business venture with projected profits after a short term investment in flashy IVs and infrastructure like wakings, wedding parties, canopies, luncheon and well-placed N500,000 obituary adverts in newspapers and on the NTA nine o’clock news to bring the waking and wedding worms, www, out of the woodwork. The sympathy helicopters and jets, often paid for by government and therefore people’s taxes, scuttle from and to Abuja swarm like fat flies and mosquitoes darkening the sky and filled with the great, the good, the bad and the ugly to be seen with lesser mortals regardless of whether or not they knew the deceased or the wedding couple.

    When a loved one falls sick, name the bank which will give a troubled wife or husband tiding-over money for surgery, medicines, or school fees? Most banks worldwide would, but Nigerian banks would not, so what is the use of putting your salary there year after year for your working life. No trust or shared responsibility!

    Can the new Police Service Commission actually do anything? Remember the fate of the last Police Trust Fund meant to upgrade the police and with the likes of past IGP Tafa, of N19b fame, still giving advice to the current IGP, what hope have we in heaven of getting a police to be proud of? A sum of N5-10billion should be set aside now as we are at an intermediate stage between war and peace. The police need a higher visibility with more mobility and patrols. N1billion will buy 100-500 vehicles@N2-5m each. In most cities small cars costing N2m will suffice for corner parking and increased presence. The larger jeeps@N5-7m are for centralised police station back-up, convoys and interstate roads.  Therefore if we allocate N5b to different sized vehicles costing N2-5m, we will triple the available vehicles on the country. Motorcycle patrols, in pairs are also valuable for around the police station and neighbourhood patrols. Instead of crushing okadas, perhaps it would be more useful to recruit the machines to this job although they are usually two stroke pollution generating engines. Each equipped police patrol motorcycle probably costs about N500,000. How many police stations are there in Nigeria? 5000? The annual maintenance budget is what? Investment in data bases, criminals fingerprint, photographic, occupational etc must to be pursued quickly as must a network of forensic laboratories. In these days of unemployment and entrepreneurship and Sure-P employing 5,000/ state or LGA, it should be obvious that white collar computer jobs for photographic and fingerprint and personal records and DNA data base entry are needed. In addition hackers and other computer wiz kids, retired yahoo yahoo 419ers, digital still and video photographers, basic scientists, biochemists, food technologists, microbiologists, ballistic experts, forensic anatomists  etc are all needed to make up a formidable forensic armament against corruption, fraud, crime and political devilry. Even accountants and banking experts are required to unravel the intricacies of bank fraud. You cannot employ such people on a silly salary scale.  They should be treated as if on secondment from the private sector equivalent elsewhere to avoid being frustrated by police interested parties to any investigation.

    One cannot escape the conclusion that powerful forces have consistently paralysed good police work and police workers by deliberately refusing to properly elevate the forensic laboratory to international standards even though money was allocated annually in the budget. Someone should tell us how much that money is in total. Is it N1b in some Past IGP pockets? We can all see investigative forensic policing and crime detection on television, so we know our deficit. The 1930-style police station requires to be upgraded in design and content.

  • Fayemi’s final triumph (1)

    Fayemi’s final triumph (1)

    There is a joke in legal circle that where an unsuccessful appellant at the Supreme Court of Nigeria remains dissatisfied with the decision of the apex court, he can only take his case to the “court beyond” presided over by the Almighty Himself. This common joke is in reference to the finality of appeals at the Supreme Court level. However, one ‘itinerant’ appellant found out on Friday, May 31, that even the Supreme Court was out of his reach when the apex court dismissed his appeal.

    Segun Oni, ousted governor of Ekiti State, had approached the Supreme Court to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal sitting in Ilorin delivered on October 15, 2010, which nullified his election and on which basis he was sacked from office, and Kayode Fayemi, the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, was sworn into office. That decision of the Court of Appeal went on to generate a lot of controversy that led to the investigation by the National Judicial Council (NJC) of the panel of the Court of Appeal that sat on the matter and the suspension of the then President of the Court, Justice Ayo Salami.

    In the appeal he filed at the Supreme Court, Oni, through his counsel, Joe Gadzama, SAN, had urged the court to set aside the October 15, 2010 judgment of the Court of Appeal on the grounds of alleged likelihood of bias on the part of the panel of the Court of Appeal. Gadzama had argued that the suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, who constituted and presided over the panel and also wrote the lead judgment that sacked Oni from office, had a close affinity with Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the leader of Fayemi’s party, ACN. Gadzama cited section 36 (1) of the Constitution, which guarantees fair hearing of every party to a suit in a Nigerian court. He added that bias or likelihood of it makes a decision a nullity and is therefore a sufficient ground for the lower court to set aside its own judgment.

    Fayemi, who was joined with his party, ACN, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and three of its Resident Electoral Officers as the first to sixth respondents, filed a notice of preliminary objection along with the other respondents where their lawyers countered the submission of Oni’s legal team and contended that as at the time the governorship election was conducted in 2007, the Court of Appeal was the final court empowered to determine governorship election matters. Fayemi’s team relied on the provisions of section 246 (3) of the Constitution and urged the court to decline the invitation to meddle into an appeal that had been successfully concluded. They argued that by that provision, the apex court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain an appeal that emanated from a governorship election that was held in 2007.

    In a unanimous decision, the seven-man panel of justices of the Supreme Court led by Justice Mohammed Tanko struck out Oni’s appeal and held that the apex court had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal on the grounds that the matter emanated from a decision of the Court of Appeal arising from the 2007 governorship election to which section 246 (3) of the 1999 Constitution was applicable. The court reiterated the submissions of Fayemi’s lawyers and said that by the provisions of section 246 (3) of the 1999 Constitution, the Court of Appeal has the final decision on gubernatorial election petitions as at the time the appellate court sacked Oni from office.

    The decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the preliminary objection of the respondents has put an end to the protracted legal tussle between Fayemi and Oni since the elections in 2007. Fayemi had, after the 2007 governorship elections in Ekiti State on April 14, gone to the Governorship and National Assembly/ Legislative Houses Election Tribunal to challenge the declaration of Oni by INEC as the validly elected governor of the state.

    The tribunal, in its decision delivered on November 28, 2008, dismissed his petition.

    Not satisfied with the decision, he approached the Court of Appeal, Ilorin, which, prior to the amendment of the constitution, was the last court in governorship elections. The Court of Appeal, on February 2, 2009, delivered its judgement and allowed the appeal in part and ordered a supplementary election in 63 wards, leaving the result in six wards intact and to be added to the result of the supplementary election in the 63 wards affected.

    On May 5, 2009, both Oni and Fayemi contested the election with the candidates of other 11 political parties. When the result of the supplementary election was added to the result of the six uncontested wards, the first appellant (Oni) was declared the winner with 111,140 votes against the first respondent’s (Fayemi) 107,017 votes. Still not satisfied, Fayemi challenged the result of the election. In its majority decision rendered on May 5, 2010, the tribunal annulled the result of the supplementary election in some wards but dismissed the petition.

    Fayemi appealed to the Court of Appeal, Ilorin against the majority decision of the tribunal and by its judgement delivered on October 15, 2010, the court allowed the appeal and set aside the majority decision and affirmed the minority decision which pronounced Fayemi the duly elected Governor of Ekiti State. From then on, Oni has been going from one court to another.

    There are certain points to this Supreme Court decision, which must be pointed out. First, contrary to some reports in the media, the Supreme Court did not “uphold” the decision of the Court of Appeal so to speak or decide the matter on the merits in favour of any of the parties. The apex court merely withdrew itself from hearing the appeal at all on the basis that it had no jurisdiction to hear it. Another point that must be pointed out is that the 1999 Constitution has since been amended and the final appeals from gubernatorial election petitions now ends at the Supreme Court.

    The crux of the Supreme Court’s decision is that at the time of the election, the amendment had not been made, and it would not be applied retrogressively. Oni’s lawyers tried to distance the issues on appeal from the 2007 election and focussed on the issue of fair hearing accorded to every citizen by section 36 of the Constitution. However, Justice Nwali Sylvester Ngwuta, in the lead judgment, noted that “the appellants’ entire case, when stripped of its extravagant build-ups and reduced to its proper frame, is simply an invitation to rely on Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution to strip the ruling of the Court of Appeal of the finality granted to it by Section 246(3) of the same Constitution.”

    As expected, reactions have followed the decision of the Supreme Court, with Fayemi himself calling for the establishment of an electoral offences commission to punish electoral offenders and deter people who not only manipulate the electoral process but file frivolous applications to clog the judicial process. Femi Falana, the renowned activist who was part of Fayemi’s team, also took a jab at Oni’s lawyers by saying that their moral laxity had led to their encouragement of an appeal when they knew the law could not support it.

    In the end, does one hail the judiciary which is not free of controversy for a ‘well-considered decision’ when in the past we have had judgments that seem to run against the tide of reason and justice? The law has been so mangled in the past to accommodate predetermined outcomes at all levels of court that one can only hope that this decision, sound as it appears, is the product of genuine legal considerations and not influenced by other unseen factors as has happened so many times before. Hopefully, Nigerians will get to the point where second guessing the justice of every case will be unnecessary.

    (To be continued)

     

  • June 12 annulment: A calendar of infamy

    June 12 annulment: A calendar of infamy

    By the time Justice Bassey Ikpeme delivered her first pronouncement on the petition of the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) on June 7, 1993, it was clear that the presidential election scheduled for the following Saturday, June 12, was headed for a debacle

    ABN, the shadowy but well-funded and highly-connected organisation that has in recent times emerged as a major vehicle for consummating military president Ibrahim Babangida’s hidden agenda, had gone to court to seek an injunction restraining the National Electoral Commission (NEC) from conducting the presidential election.

    Why?

    Because, as claimed by the wily and mercurial Arthur Nzeribe who never championed a cause without bringing it into disrepute, 25 million Nigerians do not want the election to hold. They want General Babangida to continue as president for four more years. The petition, Nzeribe claims, is backed by the signatures of those 25 million Nigerians.

    Justice Ikpeme, about whom little was known until that day, was impressed enough to order NEC Chairman Professor Humphrey Nwosu, Federal Attorney-General Clement Akpamgbo and President Babangida to appear before her the following Wednesday to show cause “why the election should not be stopped.” She reserves ruling till Thursday, June 10.

    That ruling, delivered in the dead of night, follows closely her pronouncement at the first hearing, her language is just as exorbitant, and her conduct just as heedless. The election must not hold, she rules, but NEC is free to ignore her order.

    For the next 16 hours or so, there is no clear indication that the election will hold. It is well past lunchtime on Friday, June 11, when NEC finally announces that the election will go on as scheduled, Justice Ikpeme and the ABN notwithstanding.

    The Federal Government’s affirmation that the election will hold comes indirectly, in response to a statement by the United States Information Service, in Lagos, to the effect that any postponement of the election would be “unacceptable to the U. S. Government.’’

    The elections hold on Saturday, June 12, as scheduled. Minor hitches are reported here and there, the type that can be expected even in the best-ordered poll. For the most part, NEC and everyone connected with the election gets high praise for a job superbly executed.

    By late Sunday, intimations of a grand sweep by the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Chief MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe, of the Social Democratic Party, are all over the place. By lunchtime on Monday, June 14, victory songs are in the air in the SDP. The NEC has authenticated the returns from 14 states, and returns from the remaining 16 states are being “collated.” It names a chief electoral officer, an indication that it is set to declare a winner. The National Republican Party (NRC) is putting the finishing touches to a statement conceding defeat and pledging to work with the SDP in the country’s best interest.

    By the next day, Tuesday, the NRC is singing a different tune, following a telephone call to its candidate, Bashir Tofa, from Aso Rock. The NRC, per Nduka Obaigbena, publisher of the defunct newsmagazine ThisWeek, who had made an unsuccessful run for the Senate from Delta State, the NRC charges that SDP candidate Chief Abiola had gone to vote on election day attired in a dress on which was embroidered a stallion, the party’s symbol, in breach of the electoral rules,.

    The penalty for such a breach, they hint darkly, is a huge fine or a two-year jail term, or both fine and imprisonment. They assert that the breach raises questions of “morality;” that the entire poll stood fatally tainted, and should therefore be voided.

    Meanwhile, NEC has stopped announcing results, while apparently continuing the “collating.” But the results from all except two of the 30 states are everywhere at home and abroad. For just N200, you could at Oshodi Bus Stop, in Lagos, purchase a set of documents detailing how Nigerians had voted ward by ward and precinct by precinct. They show unequivocally that Abiola has won a decisive sweep.

    Unencumbered by NEC’s order forbidding publication of “raw scores,” foreign correspondents covering the election had filed the results with their media back home. Even the national press has all but called the election. So, why all the fuss, especially when the results that had been authenticated tallied in virtually in every aspect with the figures earlier circulated in Nigeria and abroad?

    A clearer but more troubling picture emerges as the day progresses. Another high court in Abuja Federal Capital Territory, Justice Dahiru Saleh presiding, grants a petition by the ABN to stop further announcement of election returns. Attorney-General Akpamgbo orders NEC, first, to comply with this order, and second, to show cause why it should not be punished for discountenancing the order of Justice Ikpeme, aforementioned.

    The following day, Wednesday, June 16, the New Nigerian, wholly owned by the Federal Government, and the Daily Times, in which it holds controlling interest, come out with editorials expressing diametrically opposed views. The Daily Times hails the election results a “people’s triumph.” The New Nigerian denounces the entire poll and calls for its cancellation, even while proclaiming that it had been won by a “third party,” presumably the ABN.

    How so?

    Because, says the New Nigerian, the 25 million ABN members who did not vote outnumbered 2:1 the 13 million Nigerians who had voted.

    That day, NEC chairman Nwosu fails to address a scheduled press conference. Also missing action is NEC’s director of publicity, the voluble Tonnie Iredia. An assistant director, about whom little has been heard previously reads out a convoluted statement saying NEC would seek legal clarification of Justice Saleh’s clarification. It is being bruited that Nwosu has offered his resignation, to no avail.

    It comes to light the following day that Yakubu Abdul-Azeez, editor of the New Nigerian, has resigned over the editorial attributed to the paper and by implication to him. He is quoted as saying that he is quitting because he cannot continue to affix his imprint on a newspaper being used to pursue policies that can “lead to Nigeria’s disintegration.”

    Throughout all this, there has been no word from the Presidency, save a statement by Chief Press Secretary Onabule, to the effect that the Federal Government had in no way interfered with the election and that NEC had not complained of any difficulties.

    Everything stands still until Monday, June 21, when NEC rises from the stupor into which it had been lulled by the events of the previous week and files a petition before the Kaduna High Court against the ruling of Justice Ikpeme, a certified copy of which it has not been provided, and against the ruling of Justice Saleh. None of NEC’s officials is in circulation. Professor Nwosu is reported to be ill, with an undisclosed ailment. The appeal is scheduled to be heard two days later, on Wednesday.

    Just as NEC is filing its appeal, Justice Saleh who had barred NEC from announcing further results, swings back into action in Abuja and declares the presidential election of June 12 null and void and of no effect whatsoever, on the ground that it had been conducted in violation of a restraining order.

    The order under reference is Justice Ikpeme’s. She had issued it fully acknowledging that NEC was not obliged to heed it, since the court had no jurisdiction in the matter. Justice Saleh now says that since NEC had disregarded that order, the election is null and void.

    Two days later, on June 23, the Federal Government strikes a blow that leaves everyone practically breathless. It cancels the presidential election, suspends NEC, and repeals the law governing the final phase of the political transition programme that had been eight years in the making. By that singular move, it also terminates all court cases relating to the presidential election.

    The statement announcing these measures is not signed and not dated. Typed on plain paper, it was issued on behalf of the government by Nduka Irabor, press secretary to the Vice President, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu. The statement says the government has taken these sweeping measures to ensure that a judiciary that has been built on a sound and solid foundation is not “tarnished by the insatiable political desire of a few persons.”

    This stunning announcement comes a few hours before the National Defence and Security Council is scheduled to meet and deliberate on the crisis. Can it be that the Council had met earlier than scheduled, or is the announcement designed to present the Council with a fait accompli?

    The Council disperses only after a brief meeting, ostensibly for what Information Secretary Uche Chukwumerije calls “wider consultations.” It is to convene the next day.

    When it finally convenes, it members are reported to have taken far-reaching decisions on a new agenda that could include the appointment of a prime minister to serve along an unelected military president, formation of more political parties, and the un-banning of all those who had been kept in political purgatory during the transition. Field commanders, principal staff officers in military formations, and the police hierarchy, are to be briefed the next day, Friday, followed by a national broadcast by Babangida.

    Friday ends without the promised broadcast, which is now rescheduled for Saturday, June 26. But it does not take place at mid-day as the public has been led to believe, nor an hour after mid-day as announced in a revised schedule. It does not take place at 7 p.m. as rescheduled again.

    It takes place, finally, two hours later, at 9 p.m. Even more than the benumbing events of the previous 12 days, the content is beyond belief. It provides proof, were any still required, that the “hidden agenda” was not the invention of cynical commentators.

    The broadcast, a tissue of self-serving lies and fabrications and evasions and rationalizations, eviscerates the promise emblematized by June 12, that one nation might emerge at long last, from the plethora of nations inhabiting the Nigerian space, and it locks the country even more securely into a debacle.

    Its place is assured in Nigeria’s calendar of infamy. So also is the political and judicial debauchery of which it was the culmination.

     

  • June 12 and ghost of MKO

    June 12 and ghost of MKO

    In the beginning, he bawled while others hee-hawed: “Abiola won fair and square.” That was 1993. Before the latest crisis, contrived by power greed and cant, he also thundered: “There would be consequences!” That was 2011.

    Between 1993 and 2011, the damning voice of Mallam Adamu Ciroma, clear, loud, harsh, austere but honourable, hangs over a polity that prides itself for infamy.

    It is the living equivalent of the ghost of Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, the man who won the one and only true pan-Nigeria presidential mandate, in Nigeria’s troubled political history. That ghost still ravages this country, exactly 20 years tomorrow, after that historic election – and shows no signs of abating.

    O yes, Goodluck Jonathan also claims a pan-Nigeria mandate of a sort. But from the intra-Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) legerdemain that preceded it and the electoral gerrymandering that hallmarked the 2011 election, it is clear Jonathan’s claim is only history repeating itself as mere farce.

    The irony must be clear: a consummated pan-Nigeria mandate ought to lead to a can-do release, a derring-do spirit that liberates and pushes the nation, like reeds in front of sweeping winds, into happy and unbridled development.

    But Jonathan’s mandate has produced the exact opposite: a vast slaughter slab that aptly captures the 21st century equivalent of Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature, where life is hard, nasty, brutish and short, even when many an ardent Jonathan backer screams “political Boko Haram!”.

    MKO won a clean presidential mandate – the cleanest in Nigerian history. But he spent his whole four-year term in gaol, between 1994 and 1998, in Sani Abacha’s gulag. When MKO’s gaoler suddenly expired, not reportedly in the most honourable of circumstances, MKO too had to pay the supreme price, as a so-called “equaliser”, to finally settle a contrived power crisis that had lasted the whole of five brutish and bloody years!

    Seriously, how can a country boast such swashbuckling injustice, against a citizen whose only high crime was winning a free election, and not expect dire consequences?

    The latest consequences of that long running injustice is the Boko Haram scourge, for which many an excitable mind would love to conk Mallam Adamu as some Northern irredentist, set against the emergence of a “southern” president.

    How Ciroma’s open stand against injustice, against his own people (as was clear from the summary repudiation of the PDP zoning formula that propelled Jonathan himself into the vice-presidency), in a federal Nigeria rippling with fierce competition for power, can only emerge in a Nigerian polity that ripples through and through with lazy thinking.

    But emotive demonization or no, the severe beauty of Ciroma’s stand lies in its consistency.

    Prof. Omo Omoruyi, director-general of the Babangida-era Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS), verily believed a northern-inspired “geo-ethno-military-ruling-clique”, with its pre-1993 power arrogance, masterminded the June 12 presidential election annulment. But Mallam Adamu cried foul, even if his moral protest could not stop the evil and its terrible aftermaths.

    So, when a constellation of southern power hustlers, led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, self-proclaimed “father of modern Nigeria”, bore false witnesses for Jonathan on the PDP presidential zoning policy, to deny the North of its right, was Ciroma supposed to keep mum? He rightly pressed his right to be heard. With the total crisis that is Goodluck Jonathan’s uneasy tenure, he has been painfully proved right.

    But much more instructive for a power-drunk northern elite, who pushed their luck too far on June 12, thus pushing with it, into the Atlantic Ocean, their British-aided illicit power domination: Adamu Ciroma is a living witness, and indeed protested, against his kith-and-kin, when power waywardness pushed them to the June 12 harakiri.

    Now, his golden voice is still here, pushing their right to clambering back into the power chamber, if the latest and desperate tenant of Aso Rock allows. Even then, it must be clear to all that the untrammelled lollies of pre-1999 power halcyon years are gone for good!

    It is all the making of MKO’s ghost, the latest karma on the Nigerian political plain!

    Even before MKO’s death, karma was already reaping bountiful harvest of those who, for real-politik, betrayed June 12.

    Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’adua would stake some claim to a martyr of Nigerian democracy, dying in controversial circumstances in Abacha’s gulag, after conviction for trumped up coup charges. But had his People’s Front (PF) faction of the victorious Social Democratic Party (SDP) not conspired to sign away MKO’s mandate, Yar’adua probably would still be alive – and perhaps consummated, after an Abiola presidency, his ambition to become Nigeria’s elected president.

    Yar’adua is dead and rests in peace. But not so many, who live long but hardly happily ever after, in the rank of the political living dead, after the June 12 crime.

    Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, since his “step aside” after the do has found out he could not possibly ever “step back”, no matter how long he lives – and may Allah gift him long and healthy life yet. He would bear, to his grave, the guilt of June 12 and its subsequent but avoidable tragedies.

    Olusegun Obasanjo and Anthony Anenih are a serious study in passive and active political irrelevance, two gerontocrats yoked to the same fate, all thanks to their role in the June 12 saga.

    Obasanjo, the other day, took a swipe at Jonathan, his estranged godson, that whoever could not perform as president should give way; an eerily similar putdown, almost word for word, he gave luckless Umaru Musa Yar’adua, on his fatally ill bed. But just as Obasanjo was pushing the cause of Jonathan at Yar’adua’s expense, he is now pushing the cause of Sule Lamido, Jigawa governor, at poor Jona’s expense!

    But not many people remember that Lamido, as SDP national secretary, was complicit in signing away MKO’s victory. It could well be superstitious, but it would appear the MKO ghost that has pushed Obasanjo into passive irrelevance of spiteful endorsement, when his previous endorsements have been absolute disasters, is waiting in the wings!

    Anenih, the SDP national chairman that signed away MKO’s win, is busy at his own active irrelevance, prescribing antediluvian, anti-democratic theories of automatic tickets for a party about to break up. Clearly, Pa Anenih is stuck in the past: the same old strong arm tactics that clearly made the fixer, is set to finally fix the fixer!

    But in the latest PDP rumpus, Anenih is in good company: the fixer as party undertaker, in cohorts with a desperate president as party undertaker! The ghost of MKO may yet smash the PDP, a retreating military Trojan horse, wilfully installed to sell a democracy dummy and dispense raw power and impunity, in lieu of the real thing that June 12 epitomises.

    Still, to avert a president as party undertaker doubling as a president as country undertaker, another word of wisdom from Prof. Omoruyi: “The death of Chief Abiola ought to lead to a renegotiated Nigeria to make a true federal system.”

    That is the way to go for a Nigerian rebirth in the spirit of June 12.

     

  • June 12: Old habits die hard

    June 12: Old habits die hard

    June 12, 1993, about 14 million Nigerians trooped out to cast their ballots in what became the watershed as the freest and fairest elections in the nation’s electoral history. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, the business mogul Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, received over 8 million votes, and won in 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory. His National Republican Convention (NRC) counterpart, Alhaji Bashir Tofa got over six million votes and won in only 10 states. The SDP candidate’s victory was resoundingly comprehensive as he clinched almost 60% of the total votes cast. Only in two states of Kebbi and Sokoto did Abiola fail to obtain at least one-third of the votes.

    That was the result before the June 16, 1993 order by the Abuja High Court suspending further announcement of the results. The order was of course as good as superfluous given that the result, under the existing rules, was already available to the world. We know what happened later: the election was annulled by the Ibrahim Babangida junta.

    The intendment of the annulment was in effect, to deny that the exercise, in which more than 14 million citizens freely exercised their franchise, never really took place! The description of the criminal annulment as a military wonder of procuring an abortion after the arrival of the baby could not be more apt!

    But then, no less revealing is the attitude of a section of the political class. Some actually insisted that the election, in which they freely took part, could not have been valid mainly on the strength of a spurious judgment procured at midnight! Losers on their part would not even find the grace to concede victory to the winner just as some would threaten to bring the roof down should the result of the non-controversial election be recognised. In the end, the pan Nigerian mandate was effectively scuttled. As they say, the rest is history.

    But then, we are talking of an event that took place two decades ago. How well has the nation fared 14 years into the so-called democratic journey? No doubt, its quest for democratic consolidation has been a mixed bag. Whereas the experience has ranged from the outright confounding to the ridiculous, the nation can at least point to one major blessing that the democratic order, with all its dysfunctions, is at least theoretically, still in place!

    Now, let’s go back. Twenty years ago, the nation had what one might call, a passable electoral process. Warts and all, the Modified Open Ballot system – better known as Option A4, at least guaranteed some degree of credibility to the process. The requirement was simple. Voter registration was elaborate. Accreditation of voters, although tedious and cumbersome was at least open and transparent. The collation process, although fraught with some challenges, was generally seen as credible and reliable.

    What do we have today? If in 1999, the process was passable, subsequent years have been an exercise in steady regression. If citizens thought that no election could be worse than that of 2003, they could not have imagined what became of the 2007 elections. In the South-west, it actually took the active intervention by the judiciary to return to the winners what the electoral robbers had stolen as we saw in Ekiti and Osun states! And the source of the trouble: the electoral machine that turned losers into winners and vice versa.

    That was the background which informed citizens’ faith in the Attahiru Jega-led INEC. And what did we get? At best a distinction without a difference. Today, Nigerians can’t even be sure that any system let alone a fool-proof one is in place. Despite the song made by the electoral umpire about deploying modern technology to its activities, the last exercise ended in utter disappointment, unfortunately, for an exercise that the nation had invested so much faith and resources. In the end, not only was the outcome suspect, all the promises of an error-free, biometric system simply disappeared with the wind.

    But then, the problem with the political system isn’t always that of the architecture of the elections. It seems to me that we have a greater challenge to deal with in the attitude of the players in our electoral politics. It starts with their basic understanding of political concepts and extends to their disdain for the rule of the game. In 1993, a section of political players would insist on not making the distinction between the military-ordered cancellation of party primaries and the annulment of a national election. It’s like not finding the difference between the candidate that was prevented from writing an exam and another that sat and passed for an exam but for which the examiner would nonetheless insist never held!

    Again, that was 1993. It is a measure of the regression of our national politics that the same old daemon of delinquency is back. Evidence: May 2013, a so-called “consensus arrangement” among players is deemed as superior to an election in which parties willingly took part, and of which the result would run contrary to their expectations of their ‘consensus’. And that is an election in which only 35 voted!

    One is talking here of the Nigerian Governors Forum election of May 24 which Rotimi Amaechi, the Rivers State governor won with 19 votes, but which the consensus group now claims that their man, Jonah Jang won with 16. I watched Olusegun Mimiko, the Ondo state governor struggle to make the case that the election held against the grain of expectation. Did he say that the election did not take place? No, he didn’t – only that the incumbent ought to have stepped down in deference to their rules. Did he vote? Was his vote among the 35 counted? At this time, it’s even pointless to talk about bad losers who instead of accepting defeat gracefully would rather invoke God as if He, and not them, scripted the confusion.

    Where is the nation headed? It’s not difficult to tell. Let me however make this point: the virus of political delinquency would kill this democracy faster than anyone might ever think. The point is – it’s easier to fix the bolts and the nuts of the electoral machine than one would deal with the delinquency virus. What delinquency does is gnaw slowly away at the soul of the democratic spirit. Now, tell me, whoever heard of a being without the spirit?

     

  • Before we end the emergency rule

    Before we end the emergency rule

    The federal government seems to be enjoying a rare moment of success in the war against terror and President Goodluck Jonathan is feeling on top of the world. There are even talks in government circles that the state of emergency imposed on Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states might not last its full six months course.

    Even the National Assembly, particularly the Senate has caught the bug of victory over Boko Haram “in sight” that is pervading official and military circles in Abuja. President of the Senate David Mark recently echoed President Jonathan when he said the emergency rule would soon be over.

    But amidst this optimism lies the danger of dropping our guards and allowing Boko Haram a way back and causing more havoc. And that seems to be the case in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital last weekend when some members of the terrorist organisation sneaked through the security cordon within and around the city, hiding their guns in a coffin to gain access to where some informants were staying and shot them dead.

    The president seems to be under some pressure to end the military action and declare victory albeit prematurely and that would be dangerous for Nigeria. If he succumbs to the pressure from both within and outside the Peoples Democratic Party, the Boko Haram insurgency could become like a snake cut into half, when it strikes, it would be more deadly.

    For the first time President Jonathan seems to be doing something right. The military action seems to be heading for success and Boko Haram look certain to fizzle out or retreat into neighbouring countries. This looks good, but then with 2015 elections near the corner, the politician in the president is inclined to wanting to reap the success too quickly and risks destroying the gains. As was the case with former United States president George W Bush when he declared victory over Iraq in the second Gulf war prematurely, any hasty withdrawal of the military from the theatre of operation against Boko Haram could prolong the insurgency and harm Jonathan’s political future. Not that he has done well overall to deserve another term in office, but if he could restore peace and security to the north east and other trouble spots around the country may be he could have a chance.

    Supporters of the military action. I guess they are more in numbers, want peace everywhere in Nigeria not just the north east, just as critics of the military action. They would support every action by the military to bring about peace and security but not high handedness and crimes against the innocent as the military in states under the emergency rule are being accused of. Every criticism of the military in this regard is often seen by the government and the military high command as an attack on Nigeria by “enemies” of the country. Even media reports are seen in this light. This is rather unfortunate. The other day Aljazeera reported certain atrocities against innocent civilians and the government’s only response to it is to condemn the report without any evidence to disprove it. Now the government is hyper sensitive to every seemingly negative report of the military action in the north east almost to the point of paranoia, yet no effort has been made to take Nigerian journalists to theatre of action to see things for themselves. Telephone communication to most parts of the region has been cut, so getting first information on what was happening is pretty difficult,so the Nigerian press is left to publish/report handouts from either the military high command in Abuja or what foreign news agencies could glean from their contacts in Nigeria.

    While it might look unpatriotic to rely on foreign wire reports to get information on the military operation, the hand out from the military cold also be suspect, as the military cannot be relied upon to day the whole truth. So, as it is done elsewhere, it wouldn’t be out of place if the military should arrange “embed” some Nigerian journalists as part of the military media team covering the military action against Boko Haram. If the local journalists are there live, the tendency to want to rely on foreign wire report would be reduced and trust the Nigerian journalist to also be patriotic.

    The federal government it does appear gets annoyed only when these reports and criticism of some perceived excesses of the military in the fight against Boko Haram doesn’t favor it. Each time the United States had something not too good to say about the military action and even the activities of Boko Haram, the federal government was always on the defensive, and at times abusive.

    At a point the US was to classify Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation but Abuja kicked against the move, but last week President Jonathan finally came to terms with the reality that what we had on our hands was a gang of terrorist and has so acknowledged and classified the group together with its sister organisation, Ansaru. What this points to is a simple fact that these foreign countries and/or international agencies couldn’t possibly have anything against us other than the best interest of the country and the international community.

    Now that we seem to be getting on top of the Boko Haram insurgency, the need to engage our neighbouring countries in the fight is imperative. Some of the fleeing terrorists have found their way to Niger Republic in particular where they recently attacked a prison in an effort to free some of the inmates who are members of their organisation. The Ghanaian president recently called for a regional approach to the fight against terrorism in the sub region. A coordinated effort supported by the rest of the international community would go a long way to rid Nigeria and indeed the West African sub region of threat and menace of these terrorists.

    The war against terror is not one in which victory can be declared, it is a long one to be fought over generations and must not be left to the military alone. We are all involved.

     

    As PDP presses the self destruct botton

    Not picking your national chairman’s call could cost you your membership especially if you are a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). At least that seems to be the reason behind the suspension of the Sokoto State governor Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko last week from the party. Alu, as the governor is fondly called was the second governor elected on the platform of the party to be suspended by the leadership under the guise of instilling discipline in the party.

    Remember Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State is still on suspension to ostensibly instill discipline in the party. At least that was what we were made to believe by the Bamanga Tukur led executive of the party but Nigerians are not deceived. All is geared towards clearing the way for a Jonathan candidacy for the presidency on the platform of PDP again in 2015. To achieve this, all real and perceived obstacle must be removed. Well let’s see how far Jonathan and Tukur can go.

    How many more “recalcitrant” governors would be suspended to achieve this remain to be seen but it does appear that some people in the party would stop at nothing to return Jonathan to the presidency even destroying the party and possibly our democracy. But Nigerians are watching. May be we need the PDP to self destruct to save this democracy. Time will tell.

  • The tower of PDP

    The tower of PDP

    As we marked another democracy day, it is natural to review our democratic journey in the Third Republic so far with a view to forming an opinion on the journey itself and the road ahead. In the event that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has governed the country uninterrupted since 1999, it is the dominant influence of our democracy and as painful as it is, the bitter truth is that our fortunes as a nation are decided by the PDP. So it is only sensible to look at the PDP, the drivers of our national vehicle in order to see where the drive is headed.

    Many commentators point to the uninterrupted 14 years of civil rule and the handover in 2007 from one civilian led government to another as evidence of deepening democracy in Nigeria and conclude that it has in fact come to stay. This conclusion is without sophistication in as much as it does not recognize the fact that a transfer from one PDP government to another is not a handover, it is a hand-in.

    For different reasons and especially because of recent dramatic events in the PDP, anytime happenings in the PDP assault my space, the biblical story of the Tower of Babel comes to mind. For those unfamiliar with the story, the people of the world at that time had only one language and were very skilled in construction. So conceited did they become in the greatness of their own abilities that they decided to build a tower to reach up to heaven. God realising the possibilities attendant to unity of purpose decided to confuse their tongues and the builders started speaking different languages. Unable to understand each other any longer, the project collapsed and ended in failure.

    The lesson of the story for me lies in the wisdom of recognising that with unity of purpose, great things are possible. Unfortunately, the fact that a thing is great does not make it good and therefore with unity of purpose even ignoble things can be attained. The PDP has ruled Nigeria for 14 years. It has not been years of glory for our nation but for members of the PDP. Whilst the rest of the country is being crushed under the suffocating weight of corruption induced poverty and insecurity, they are in their own cocoons. That is why a country with a GNP that is less than that of the West Bank and Gaza is the same with a staggeringly disproportionate high demand for armoured vehicles, private jets and champagne!

    The PDP has captured and retained power for 14 years, but that is not the real story. The fact is that power has been retained by a combination of brute force, election rigging, intimidation and politics of divisive tribalism and religion. Unfortunately as a people we have been outmanoeuvred by PDP’s ignoble but clever use of divide and rule propaganda. So even when things are being done wrong, the identity of the perpetrator and his tribe and religion become more important than the effect of the wrong doing on the larger society. A good friend and otherwise very sensible gentleman and also from the South-south agreed that things were not going well in Nigeria but chastised me for blaming or criticising President Jonathan, our ‘brother’ ( I am not Ijaw and neither is he). He angrily proclaimed that he did not care if Nigeria spoils and in words that are forever etched in my system – “others have spoilt Nigeria before- it is our turn to spoil Nigeria! After we have taken our turn then we can pay attention to doing things right”! A pure but sadly prevalent case of impassioned irrationality of the many that have been fooled by the divide and rule propaganda. This same friend of Urhobo extraction, when asked whether the governorship in Delta State will rotate to Delta North who have never held the position – angrily reminded me that democracy is a matter of numbers and so the minority Delta North should be democrats and perish the ambition! Such is the self-serving hypocrisy of a traumatized citizenry. In Akwa Ibom State, the Eket senatorial district is laying claim to the governorship in 2015 on the basis of rotation and fairness. PDP stalwart and Senator representing Uyo senatorial district, Ita Enang has proclaimed on behalf of the party that zoning, which he described as unknown to democracy has never been applied in Akwa Ibom! The Eket people have started reminding everyone, increasingly aggressively, that being the producers of the entire oil wealth of Akwa Ibom State, their quest to govern the state is not only meritorious it is also not negotiable! Sounds like a familiar narrative and if memory serves me right I remember my friend Senator Enang making the startling disclosure that northerners control 80% of Nigeria’s oil. I wonder how much of Akwa Ibom’s oil is controlled by non-Eket Akwa Ibomites!

    Forgive the detour of the above examples as it is necessary to illustrate the latent inconsistencies that have become part of the PDP and hence national fabric; inconsistencies manifested by the surfacing of strange tongues.

    Recent events in the PDP, especially the Rivers State situation, playing out in the recent Nigeria Governors Forum election and spiralling out of control is a manifestation of the irredeemable confusion in the party. It is my humble opinion that this is a signpost for the liberation of a hapless citizenry from the clutches of a power-crazed locust ruling elite. Nigerians have been speaking in different tongues and have been rendered unable to forge a common front to make the ruling elite subservient to the peoples wishes and interests. We have been kept divided because the ruling elite have forged an unholy unity in a quest for their own self-protection and selfish interests. Nothing signified this unholy unity of purpose more than the existence of a cohesive governors forum. The Rivers situation has resulted in the collapse of the governors forum. We the people should rejoice because although an unintended consequence, our freedom is nigh. That is the law of nature, confusion among our captors means we are able to break the shackles of induced divisions and re-establish the supremacy of peoples power. As K O Mbadiwe may have said – they are disuniting to unite us!

    A key component of democracy is elections and the acceptance of the majority rule. From the governors forum election, it has been clearly demonstrated that this is at variance with the PDP ethos. For them, it is either the way of the cabal or everything scatters! I will boldly predict that although PDP controls Nigeria, our dear country will not scatter, it is the PDP that will scatter! The boast of ruling Nigeria for the next 100 years (with or without our consent) is akin to building the tower of Babel and God having seen our helplessness has come to our rescue. That is why Governor Jang believes God made him the chairman of the governors forum, he is correct! And Nigerians should thank God! The history of Nigeria’s democracy when told in many years will feature PDP prominently, sadly for our country; it is episodes like the post election drama and the abduction of Governor Chris Ngige amongst several other shenanigans that will be of most interest.

     

    • Ukpong writes from Lagos.

  • The new slate

    The new slate

    It was a slate then. It is a slate now. Back in the day, we carried the miniature blackboard and wielded our chalks. We could only write on it. It had no memory, and whatever passed for memory we wiped off with our hands or what we called duster. It contained only what the learner or the teacher put on it at the moment. We call it primitive now. At that time, it was the grand way to learn, a miracle of erudition.

    Today, the story is different. Kids wield the cell phone, and through it borders collapse, time and space intertwine into a blur. The internet, cell phone, iPad, and the dizzy traffic are what Al Gore designated as the information superhighway. We are fulfilling what Daniel said in the Bible, that “men will go to and fro and knowledge shall increase.”

    In that rustic state of Osun, the grand old state of learning is about to get rusty. From its success, others will take a bow, and emulate what is potentially the most audacious move for education since Obafemi Awolowo, with free education, shed light into the brains of his compatriots in the 1950’s.

    The Yoruba call it Opon Imo, and it is translated as the tablet of knowledge. The launching last week was a consummation of about two years of soldiering. I hinted in this column two years ago when the idea was mooted that it was an extraordinary innovation. It was an example in idealism. Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, with his trademark goatee, optimistic eyes and boyish zeal, took on the challenge.

    Over the past two years, I had waited for the moment last week. Often I would ask him, “what’s up with Opon Imo?” but his answers varied.

    At the beginning, his eyes glazed over when he boasted it would be a revolution. After over six months and I saw nothing, I wondered what was going on with it. His answer was more sober, without the glint of the sanguine. His answer, if I can recall properly, gave a hint that the work was on. But he had no enthusiasm to speak further on the subject. He, however, understood my agitation when I said that, for all his vision for the state, the project that impressed me the most was the tablet of revolution. He reassured me it would be done. I could see that he was a little embarrassed that the project did not move at the speed he wanted.

    I decided not to mention the subject for some time, but when the silence appeared to me like capitulation, I raised the issue about late last year. He was more spirited that time. The software was giving some problems but some experts had been hired and they were optimistic that they would get it done. The light had resurrected in his eyes, and his body language resumed to the path of boyish glee.

    That was the way of technology. It is thorny with frustration. Biographers of Thomas Edison, who invented so many modern marvels, tell the story of his constant frustrations, near misses, surrenders, and the stage that playwright Samuel Becket described as to “fail better” than previous failures. The governor referred to this in his speech at the launching. In the end, courage and spirit triumphed over pain.

    The tablet is like the iPad in size but it contains multimedia content, 56 tutorials and e-textbooks covering 17 subjects, over 40,000 practice questions and answers and seven extra-curricular books. It gives the student the ability to learn on the go, and the teacher to track the student’s performance. It is not only an innovation in learning, but also creativity in economics as it saves the state N8.4 billion annually to procure textbooks for its students. It also domesticates learning, tapping from local culture and lore. Solar power plants have been located in the schools to allow them charge the device as counterfoil to power failure.

    This boost will play on the already breakneck rise in the number of enrollments across the state. The tablet cannot be seen in isolation but in the context of a programme that includes feeding of students in schools with protein-rich food, supply of other tools as well as the erection of a model schools all over the state in what is billed to be the biggest budgetary allocation ever to the sector to the tune of N40 billion. It is a programme of light for the future whose fruits the governor may not see until his hoary days. It is an endowment for posterity.

    It is also a paean to technology. It reminds one of the phrase, a brave new world, which was popularised by the novelist, Aldous Huxley, by giving that name to his inventive novel. He borrowed the phrase from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Other writers like Wells, Leibniz and Voltaire have been fascinated by the concept of technology. Technology helps us tackle the future. The world does not change without it. We remain where we are unless we invent. Alan Kay said the best way to predict the future is to invent it. We have had such things in our past, like the introduction of the television by Awolowo, the opening up of spectrum of mobile communication in the Obasanjo era and the use of software to account for and save revenue by former Governor Bola Tinubu.

    But technology often disrupts, and the word disrupts is always a good thing when scientists use it. When Gutenberg gave us the printing machine, it democratised learning. One of the beneficiaries was the lay man who could not access the Bible. He depended on the priest. But Gutenberg, who democratised learning, touched off the protestant revolution as a consequence. The steamroller, the car, the airplane, radio, etc, changed the world. Great leaders think about inventing. The Egyptian leader Mohammed Ali was so enamoured of change that a historian said that if they suggested to him to build a castle in the air, he would ask them to try it. Only those who dream, dare.

    Opon Imo is a testament to dreaming. Technology has not always done us good. But we need it. “The world is very different now,” intoned, John F. Kennedy, “for man holds the power to abolish all forms of poverty and all forms of life.” But that is only possible when “men have become tools of their own tools,” according Henry Thoreau.

    Opon Imo may hit some hiccups along the way, and I might say it is inevitable. But the destiny is inescapable. All others have to join him and adapt and even improve on it, so we can make education cheap for all across the country. It is time to move from the old form, by revising what we meet on the ground. That is merely mending. And as Huxley himself said, “ending is better than mending.” This is a surefire way to end illiteracy in land.