The Nation Newspaper

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  • Ageing, conservative Atiku as revolutionary

    Ageing, conservative Atiku as revolutionary

    DAYS after his spokesman, Paul Ibe, issued a statement on his behalf waxing ebullient about revolutions, former vice president Atiku Abubakar has still not disavowed it. His statements, many Nigerians and the media have come to understand, must be taken with caution, especially when they are posted on his social media handles. To conclude that his posts inevitably represent his views may, for this budding but really ageing revolutionary, be fallacious. Last Monday, Mr Ibe quoted the former vice president as warning the Bola Tinubu presidency to beware of looming revolution because of hunger, thus simplistically correlating sundry crimes with hunger. He had bellowed: “The most violent socio-political eruptions and revolutions all over the world had often been powered by pervasive hunger and unbearable material conditions – especially the paradox of squalor amidst plenty in our land.” He also added grimly: “The current unacceptable situation offers an opportunity for reflection, (in line with) the French Revolution, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the Arab Spring in which a young man caught in the maelstrom of unbearable frustration set himself ablaze in a development which occasioned violent socio-political eruptions starting out from Tunisia and engulfing the Middle-East and North Africa.”

    Not done, he then added: “Back home here in Nigeria, it may not be out of place to argue that even the ‘ENDSARS’ protest was fuelled by the traumatising  frustration of hunger and  insensitivity on the part of the government.” Alhaji Atiku’s love for theorising and abstractions is legendary. Whether he really understands the foundations of his beliefs or the dynamics of the social forces he declaims about so magisterially is another thing entirely. Indeed, as his records show, when any of his pontifications proves unpopular, he disowns them instantly.

    On May 13, 2022, one day after Deborah Samuel, a student of the College of Education Sokoto, was lynched by fellow students in an appalling case of murder carried out before a global audience, Alhaji Atiku was rightly outraged enough to denounce the murder. Said he on Twitter: “There cannot be a justification for such gruesome murder. Deborah Yakubu was murdered and all those behind her death must be brought to justice. My condolences to her family and friends.” His tweet, however, attracted a swift backlash from some northerners, perhaps Sokoto indigenes, who swore not to vote for him should he win the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential nomination yet to be conducted at the time. And with alacrity, and writing in Hausa language on facebook that same evening, he recanted his belief and outrage, posting: “This evening I received information that a post was made that doesn’t agree with my orders. I use this to announce that any post without A. A. is not from me. May God protect us.” So, what about the murdered Miss Samuel? Silence, ponderous and crushing silence.

    Read Also: Tribalism a malignant disease hindering Nigeria’s progress – Atiku

    In late August, speaking through his representative Ola Olateju, a professor, Alhaji Atiku declared that he was not as desperate to be president as he was in midwifing a new and prosperous Nigeria. The genial professor spoke on behalf of the former vice president at a ceremony in Lagos welcoming defectors into the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the special purpose vehicle the coalition of opposition forces planned to use to unseat President Tinubu. Hear Prof. Olateju: “Atiku Abubakar’s plan is to build a better Nigeria. So, it’s not about him being the president. It’s about having a better government, a good government able to deliver for Nigerians. It’s not a personal thing for him, and that’s why some of us are with him. It’s not about Atiku having to be president at all costs…It’s not about a personal thing that he must be president. No, it is not a matter of must. The must is for him to see Nigeria deliver as wished by all…” The ink had not dried on that awkward ascription of altruism to Alhaji Atiku before he denounced the ascription.

    Another of the former vice president’s spokesmen, Tunde Olusunle, issued a swift rebuttal on facebook a day or two later, insisting that his principal would vie for the presidency in 2027. Quoting Alhaji Atiku, Dr Olusunle posted: “I did not issue that statement. When people stand in for me at events, we preview my thoughts on the instant subject and what my contribution or intervention will be, so that we are on the same page. In this particular instance, there was no engagement with me to distill my thoughts. Prof. Olateju was not speaking for me. I will run in 2027.” In the Miss Samuel case, the former vice president cowardly and mystifyingly placed his ambition above his principles, if not his character. In the Prof Olateju case, Alhaji Atiku was sadly unable to even recognise when his unflattering image as a vacillator and opportunist was being burnished.

    And then came the revolutionary buncombe. When he anchored his belief on a looming revolution on the examples of Russian and French revolutions as well as the Arab Spring, it was all but certain that Alhaji Atiku had very superficial understanding of the forces he casually referenced in his statement. Not only was he ignorant of the remote and immediate causes of the revolutions, he also failed abysmally to draw the right lessons from the social earthquakes that sundered those countries and defeated the objectives of the revolutions. It has indeed become fashionable to talk of revolution, even by conservative and reactionary politicians who, like the former vice president, cannot be trusted to stand for anything.

  • US, social media and Charlie Kirk murder

    US, social media and Charlie Kirk murder

    Last Tuesday, the Department of State Service (DSS) sued activist Omoyele Sowore for calling the president names on social media. Sued along with him were tech giants Facebook and X. The activist has also countersued, insisting that he was merely exercising his constitutional right to free speech. Weeks ago, the social media set Nepal on fire because of warped perception of freedom of speech. There, the courts intervened strongly and determined that boundaries should be set, including getting tech giants operating in that country to register with the Communications and Technology ministry. The proscription of the tech giants that followed the non-adherence to regulations triggered massive and violent protests that led to the burning of public buildings, looting, raping and the death of dozens of protesters, policemen and innocent bystanders.

    Right-wing activist and United States president Donald Trump’s ally, Charlie Kirk, was also shot and killed in the State of Utah by a white man, Tyler Robinson, radicalised by extreme and fierce political rhetoric online. As the governor, Spencer Cox, said in an interview last Sunday, “I believe that social media has played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last five, six years.” President Trump has also filed a $15bn lawsuit against New York Times for defamation, even though his own incendiary speeches and statements on social media have been inflammatory and divisive. The tech giants are by their permissiveness clearly nudging the world, not just Nepal or Nigeria, into chaos. The world may very well get there sooner than expected.

    Read Also: Who really was Charlie Kirk?

    What Mr Sowore can’t figure out is that though he is at liberty to oppose or dislike any president or even individual he wants, that freedom is circumscribed by propriety and law. Otherwise, one day, someone will also post on social media hurtful things about his family and plead free speech or any other justification. It is, therefore, up to the courts to determine what boundaries should be set for commentaries or whether the society is, as it now seems, defenceless against slurs, innuendoes, and outright hurtful fabrications authored by malevolent and dysfunctional personalities.

  • Citizens, citoyens and fellow compatriots

    Citizens, citoyens and fellow compatriots

    As Nigeria’s sixty fifth birthday anniversary approaches, it is imperative, beyond partisan considerations, to ask some questions about the fate and fortunes of liberal democracy in the greatest conglomeration of Black people in the world. The question is even more pressing in the light of notable developments in Western nations, particularly the rise of rightwing populism and xenophobic nationalism in leading western nations such as America, England and France. As this column has noted several times in the last few years, these developments may suggest some fraying at the edges of the nation-state paradigm itself and the possibility of its undergoing some radical mutations as historical developments unfold.

      If this were to be the case, it will amount to double jeopardy for African nations that are yet to inculcate the habits and operational procedures of the nation-state after the epoch of empires before they are frog-marched once again into uncharted territory. The question must now be broached as to why western-type liberal democracy seems to be taking its time to take root in Africa. Why has it proved difficult for Africans to internalize and interiorize its habits and norms? At the superficial level, the question can be converted to its own answer. Africa is not Western Europe or America for that matter. The mode of acculturation and socialization of each entity is different. So is their historic trajectory. Africa is the last bastion of traditional feudal autocracy.

     But something far more profound and fundamental seems to be afoot. Early developmental economists such as Samir Amin, the iconic, Egyptian-born radical economist, historian and social philosopher, suggested that Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand were able to overpower and overcome the contradictions of feudalism so rapidly ironically because they were at the periphery unlike its classical formation in China, India, Ethiopia, the Arab countries and core Africa. As a matter of fact, the United States is supposed to represent a complete new beginning for humanity founded on the ashes of feudal Europe.

      Even then it took several centuries of turmoil and bloody strife preceding the signing and sealing of the Magna Carta in June 1215 through subsequent civil wars and a revolution to domesticate and naturalize the democratic franchise in Britain. It was only in the last century that adult suffrage was extended to all male and later women. In America despite the self-declared “self-evident” truths that all men are born equal, it took centuries of protests and violent confrontations on the streets for Black people to be declassified as sub-human curios not worthy of voting or being voted for. Democracy is not a Kayo-kayo festival.

       When African postcolonial elites cotton on to the heroic struggles for self-emancipation of other people to demand same for their nation without having expended the same toil, tears and sufferings for the emancipation of their own people not to talk of immersing themselves in their analogous struggles except when it confers certain privileges and political advantages on them, that is breastfeeding democracy leading to empty caterwauling and the sulking of colonial sucklings. They quote John Locke’s theory of social contract without understanding its limited universal applicability, what led to what and the context and circumstances.

    They warmly approve of Rousseau’s famous saying that man is born free but is in chains everywhere, without appreciating the fact that not all “men” fall into that social category or genetic classification.  Rather than coming to grip with their intellectual, political and moral limitations and go back to the drawing board, they resort to hoary prescriptions and demagoguery about how to move democracy forward and safeguard votes which is dead on arrival because it is founded on peer-envy and losers’ fatigue. Seeing through the hegemonic ruse, elites from countervailing cultural formations dismiss it all with contempt and hostility, a development which reinforces the extant ethnic temples and drives the prospects of liberal democracy further away. You cannot buy into a game of numbers and ethnic herd-count after conducting your own tribal census and then buy out midgame. That is electoral disruption, or isn’t it?

    Read Also: Who really was Charlie Kirk?

      This is the bane of democratic growth and expansion in Nigeria with the nuclear caucus of each dominant group gaming away to snatch the supreme laurel on the basis of extant strengths and advantages rather than relying on a pan-national consensus. In such circumstances, it is the dominant group that is able to claw away at the electoral strengths of rival power formations and cobble together the semblance of a national consensus that is bound to prevail at the centre. This is what happened in 2023 and may yet repeat itself in 2027 given the enormous economic and strategic resources that have since accrued to those that have found themselves controlling the levers of power at the centre despite the wailings about pangs of hunger.

    It is a precarious situation and the circumstances are far from rosy. It is an established fact that in conditions of depressing and distressing economic indices, elite contestation for power which involves fanning the embers of religious and cultural identities in an already severely polarized polity may eventuate in political disorder and ethnic confrontation on a prohibitive scale. The western powers that used to nudge Nigeria in the direction of democratic rectitude and restitution are all embroiled in internal contradictions and existential complications of their own which leaves no room for international do-gooding.

      It reminds one of an anecdote about Charles de Gaulle, the greatest Frenchman of the last century. After surviving another of the numerous attempts on his life, the get-away car conveying him to safety had barely left the scene when it developed a flat tyre. The tall looping figure of Charles de Gaulle craned out and then ruefully noted that those who were trying to save his life were as incompetent as those who were trying to kill him. Democracy has many night nurses who often turn out to be daylight killer-medics.

    Democracy may be a permanent work in progress. But when improperly and incompetently handled, it is also prone to quick regression and summary retrogression. We have seen this in the many coups, countercoups, civil uprisings, religious upheavals, military annulment of election and the consequent abridgement of democratic growth as well as the instances of civilian autocracy that this country has hosted since independence. They all point at something very fundamental: the lack of nourishments and nutrients on which a viable and sustainable democratic culture can grow and flourish.

       To compound our predicament, this foundational lack is complicated by the vestiges of traditional authoritarian rule which we inherited from our forebears and which has survived the most outlandish onslaught of colonization. The rich irony is that traditional authoritarian rule had its unique checks and balances which allowed empires, kingdoms and autonomous principalities to flourish until the colonial irruption. Had it been that we had listened to some of our visionary founding fathers who insisted that what has been handed to us is not a real nation in the classical sense of the word but a pastiche and mosaic of countervailing ethnicities with different cultures and different historical trajectories, we could have fared much better because the scope and enormity of the task ahead would have been apparent.

       For example, while the Yoruba spent most of a previous century fighting themselves in a series of interlocking civil wars, the Igbo people were in a world of their own with periodic eruptions of internecine bloodletting while the Fulani conquerors had just completed a systematic decimation and takeover of Hausaland. To beat all these together into an organic whole would have required masters of violent homogeneity or a political surgeon of uncommon skill of surgical disentanglement and unbundling. But with the heady beat of independence, rather than facing the fundamental issues squarely, we headed straight off to uncharted territory. Six years later, the whole thing fell apart and we are still at it sixty years later.

     So, let us by all means continue with our quarrelling and bickering about the validity of the military-ordained 1999 constitution, the need for a national dialogue, the tragic unraveling of the judiciary, INEC and its failings, the need for state police, devolution of power and the messy constitutional impasse about Local Government which speak to the tyranny of overbearing centralization and its strangulation of genuine democratic aspiration of Nigerians for over sixty years. But let us also revive debates about certain issues that are even more germane and foundational to our democratic evolution, particularly our inability to throw up a genuine nationalist and patriotic political class, the drastic decline of civic consciousness and the continuing absence of an authentic citizenry to act as guardrails against democratic derailment.

       So far, what we have in the context fierce elite contestation for power without a coherent and holistic nationalist ideology of development and democratic growth is ethnic citizenship or nationalism in furious reverse gear in which primordial loyalty to tribal origins and aspirations trump all considerations for the larger nation. In the ensuing collision of tribal temples and templates, the soul and essence of the nation is lost leaving an amorphous mass of contending ethnic nationalities. Having been handed Nigeria by the colonial masters, we are finding the task of creating Nigerians a mission impossible, except by default.

       We must thank the authorities for restoring the teaching of history to our school curriculum. This is the way to go. The original decision to expunge history from our pedagogical space is so bizarre in its malicious intent and conception that it could only have come from the philistine mindset of a perverse egomaniac. As we noted only last week, It has led to a rupture of heroic remembrance and a short-circuiting of institutional memory. We must shudder at the effect and impact of this on a whole generation of our youngsters. Unfortunately, while the teaching of history can be restored and civic consciousness imparted by boosting and enhancing national literacy levels, not so authentic citizenship which is an integral and organic bastion of the storied history of a united people in all their shared destiny, their shared inspirations and aspirations and their shared faith in the orgiastic future.

       It is the absence of authentic citizenship aided by a historical void and the collapse of civic consciousness which opens the door and a pathway to the phenomenon of “fellow countrymen”, the false narrative beloved of military despotism and civilian autocracy alike in which there is no fellow feeling or compatriots but the barbarity of cave-dwellers. Fortunately as that phenomenon recedes into remote and malignant antiquity, we have the opportunity to create the nation anew. If the opportunity slips, the alternative is too dark and sinister to contemplate. Happy anniversary to the nation.

  • Non-humans to regulate human behavior: Advantage Albania ?

    Non-humans to regulate human behavior: Advantage Albania ?

    Oh boy, oh boy, we surely live in interesting times. It is not only Africa that is in trouble, other parts of the world, particularly Europe and America, are experiencing unique tremors. The human species has never appeared more troubled and tormented by its own foibles and the toxic effluence and side-effects of sheer genius. Has anybody ever heard the song Spirits in a Material World? As President Donald Trump’s Air Force1 glided gracefully into the clouds on Thursday at Stansted Airport on departure from Britain after a historic state visit, one prayed that some astral gliders would not swoop on the plane and forcibly reroute it to an unknown destination.

     One had prayed for the day never to arrive when robotic machines infused with artificial intelligence would develop enough initiative and nous to overwhelm and overpower their human masters and take over the affairs of humanity. If it seems like unrealizable Science Fiction please be guided that future reality sometimes begins like unactualizable fiction. Albania, a remote semi-European country just a stone’s throw from Italy but essentially of Balkan provenance, has taken the bull by the horn. A land of heroic warriors and doughty fighters, the Albanians are just peeping out to the outside world after many centuries and epochs of serial entombments by Roman, Ottoman and modern European civilizations. They even survived a nasty spell of communist inquisition under the notoriously savage rule of an Islamic tyrant known as Enver Hoxha who took the country and its people back to the Stone Age only for the country to succumb to a protracted siege of economic anarchy and political turmoil. Corruption and mismanagement of scarce resources became rife.

    Read Also: CCII rallies Ibadan indigenes for Ladoja’s coronation

       It is said that when flies are eating up a madman no one seems to be bothered, it is only when a madman begins to gobble up his tormentors that eyebrows are raised. The Albanians seem to tire of that nonsense. They have decided to place their fate in the hands of non-human or in-human actors. According to a report: “Albania has become the first country in the world to appoint an IA as a minister.  The virtual official, named Dijella (“ sun in Albanian”) will oversee public procurement. Ministries will submit their application for tenders, and Dijella will process them and make decisions. Her role? Oversee government contracts, block favouritism & bribery and boost transparency…”

      It is a way of arriving at modernity and the impersonal rigours of western bureaucracy by other means. This is how advances in science in the modern world can come to the aid of less developed countries on their own terms as Lee Kuan Yew famously demonstrated in Singapore. Western scientific discoveries come in handy when it comes to inculcating Weberian rigour and rationality in permissive epistemologies. Fred Engels chuckled that economically backward countries can play first violin in Music. The bet is that they didn’t make the violin in the first instance. Oh Dijella, if you are ever persuaded to stray or wander to some shorelines in Africa, you will be lucky if you are not abducted or stolen away in the first instance. This is what the Yoruba people call “Amodemaja” or he who abducts both the hunter and his dog. Welcome to the real McCoy.

  • DAWN PERAMBULATOR

    DAWN PERAMBULATOR

    Those long legs

         How do they gage your gait

    As you walk each morning

         To meet the opening day

    Who hears the whisper

         Between your sole

    And the listening earth

         In what dialect, their dialogue

    How loud, the ditty of the dust

         The powdery prowess of its message

    Read Also: Shettima to lead Nigeria’s delegation to 80th UN General Assembly

    The granular grandeur

         Of its soft, embracing patience

    How do those long arms

         Paddle you through

    The ocean of the wind

         And its liquid lore

    At dawns resonant with untold tales

         Of the dreams of yester-nights

    The chimeric metaphysics of metaphors

         So indigenous to your figurative versatility

    The sweet sweat of gentle jogs

         The huff and puff of grateful lungs

    And muscles honed and toned for

         Endless promenades in the Orchard of Grace

  • Obasanjo gets it wrong at Jonathan Democracy Dialogue

    Obasanjo gets it wrong at Jonathan Democracy Dialogue

    Last week, the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation hosted its fourth edition of Democracy Dialogue in Accra, Ghana. Loftily themed ‘Why Democracies Die’, it attracted high-profile personalities, including Ghana’s president John Mahama, ex-Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, 2023 Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi. This piece is not about what all of them said during the dialogue: it would be boring and repetitive. It is not even about the gentle admonition the keynote speaker, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, gave former president Goodluck Jonathan regarding the 2027 presidential election. He had warned the ex-president: “The voice of the devil is not so far from the voice of God. Listen very carefully to those who want to use you as an instrument for the elongation of their interests, and not your interests or the interests of Nigeria.”

    The piece is also not about Mr Obi’s customarily simplistic ratiocinations on national issues. He had wildly generalised that democracy was dying in Nigeria, saying: “Nigeria is a typical example of where democracy is dying because it no longer serves the needs of the people and is no longer accountable to them. In Nigeria, democracy has become a process of elite state capture, granting access to public resources for personal and family interests. To reverse this situation, Nigerians must take democracy and elections seriously by ensuring that only people with competence, capacity, character, compassion, and commitment to service are elected.” It was unclear whether he was playing to the gallery, or whether his statement reflected how far his mind could take him, or he was simply trying to ape and please Chief Obasanjo, his newfound master and choreographer.

    It was also, as a matter of fact, certainly not about Dr Jonathan himself, despite the foundation being his. All he could think about, his mind ineluctably drawn to the judiciary, is that “…No businessman can bring his money to invest in a country where the judiciary is compromised, where a government functionary can dictate to judges what judgment they will give. No man brings his money to invest in that economy because they are taking a big risk…If we must build a nation for our children and grandchildren, no matter how painful it is, we must strive to do what is right.” Dr Jonathan probably identified with the cacophony on social media suggesting that the courts compromised the lawsuits that followed the last elections. It is significant that he has said nothing about those lawsuits and the presidential poll directly. If only he was capable of giving his audience something deep relating to the theme of the dialogue, something about why democracies die, or whether a country must run Western-type democracy in order to advance the interests of its citizens.

    Read Also: FG may invite EFCC, ICPC over slow progress on Abuja–Lokoja road project

    Chief Obasanjo was the chairman of the dialogue, and he, as usual, made a few highfalutin and patently contradictory statements tangential to the subject matter of dying democracies. He is, therefore, the reason for this piece. This write-up will focus on two or three points he made during the panel discussion. Responding to the question of where Africa got it wrong in terms of democracy, especially in view of incompetent sit-tight leaders as well as leaders who manipulate the constitution to stay on and on, Chief Obasanjo launched into a rigmarole inspired and propelled by his interactions with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame. He said he once discussed the subject of succession with Mr Kagame who told him of his unsuccessful efforts to mentor two potential successors, both of whom betrayed him and betrayed Rwanda. As a result, the Rwandan leader inspired a constitutional amendment to elongate his tenure than originally envisaged. Chief Obasanjo added that he embarked on a vox pop incognito in Kigali during which he questioned some 10 Rwandese, eight of whom admitted that they would be willing to give Mr Kagame 10 more terms should he ask for it and as long as he continued to rule well as he was doing.

    Here was Chief Obasanjo supposedly providing insight into why democracies fail and what could be done to prevent that failure in Africa but ending up making peace with tenure elongation on the excuse that potential successors failed the Rwandan president. Did he by any chance inquire into why the potential successors ‘betrayed’ Mr Kagame? What is evident from Chief Obasanjo’s rambling anecdotes and thespian imageries, particularly his conclusion that the Rwandan leader amended the constitution ‘perfectly’, is that Mr Kagame’s tenure elongation aligned exquisitely with his abjuration of Western-style democracy. He made another anecdotal reference to an African sit-tight leader, possibly Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, whom he encountered somewhere in Europe in the thick of impeachment attempts against him in Abuja, and who had counseled him to go back home and amend the Nigerian constitution. Not only was he flattered by the suggestion, but juxtaposing that counsel with his half-baked idea of democracy, he felt it unnecessary to delve deeper into the continent’s checquered democratic journey, let alone question Mr Kagame’s untenable justifications. For if the Rwandan leader could not find the right successor, supposing he dropped dead suddenly, would the country not find an answer to their existential riddle one way or the other?

    Even more mystifying is how to explain why Chief Obasanjo keeps evading a more structured and fundamental consideration of the continent’s democratic longings, a task that never crossed his mind as president, nor has he contemplated it or tasked himself after his presidency. Midway into the panel discussion, he had initially spoken about the weaknesses or failings of Western liberal democracy, that Eureka moment coming only after he had ruled for eight years and unsuccessfully tried to amend the constitution to suit his objective. But he made no rigorous or original suggestion to explicate the subject matter other than his usual self-righteous conclusions anchored on a terrible misreading of political history. He claimed, without any substantiation, that Europe’s development could be attributable largely to the reign of monarchies, stable monarchies that supposedly allowed for longevity of ideas, visions and developmental plans and executions. In other words, tenure extension for rulers like him and Mr Kagame would have produced economic development. Absolute piffle.

    Indeed, Chief Obasanjo even argued, sadly unchallenged, that America, which was founded as a protest against Europe, had no term limit until 1951, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the passage and ratification of the 22nd Amendment. The devil is, however, in the detail. Three of the foundational presidents of the United States to wit, George Washington (1st), James Madison (4th), and Thomas Jefferson (3rd), kept strictly and deliberately to two terms, with the third president insisting that to aspire to more than two terms was to strive to be a king. That king, concluded President Jefferson, could very well rule until his ‘dotard’ sustained by the ‘attachments and indulgence’ of the people. While Nigeria struggled to amend its constitution to bar a third term for presidents who complete the term of another, and managed to obfuscate it, the US constitution amended for the same purpose was explicit. It provides that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

    Chief Obasanjo has clearly not found time to study political history or understand the US system to which he made glib reference, nor given proper thought to the unstructured political systems often manipulated or exploited by malevolent and messianic leaders. On the one hand, he denounced presidents who schemed for life presidency, but on the other hand spoke wistfully of presidents who satisfied ‘certain fundamentals such as peace, security, unity that are taken as sacrosanct’ to stay longer in office. Drawing from the Rwandan example and contrasting it with the unnamed president who advised him to amend the Nigerian constitution, he gave the impression that once a president governed well or brilliantly, term limit should not rob the country of his expertise. But how could anyone tell when a brilliant and popular president has had enough? The moderator of course saw through Chief Obasanjo’s baffling logic, and unfazed by his anecdotes, decided to probe him further on his alleged third term ambition.

    Responding to the question on third term, Chief Obasanjo sought refuge in theology. He was no fool, he snickered, boasting that he would have had it had he wanted. He based his confidence on the far-fetched comparison between third term and debt relief. According to him, securing debt relief was infinitely tougher and more complex than getting third term. If he could achieve the more complicated task of securing debt relief for Nigeria, every other thing was cakewalk. Only Chief Obasanjo was capable of such comparisons. But for the rest of Nigeria, no such comparison or contrast exists. In any case, he said dismissively, no one alive or dead could accuse him of asking or scheming for a third term in office, a lie many national lawmakers and political leaders had repeatedly debunked. They described his style as plausible deniability. What Chief Obasanjo didn’t know is that contrary to the impression he tried to create of his altruism and leadership acumen, nearly all his responses to the moderator’s question in Accra last Wednesday gave indication that he saw nothing wrong with tenure elongation, regretted that he could not pull it off in 2007, and is still bitter against those who robbed him of the chance to rule until he was tired or in his dotage. And if he could not even master the art of mentoring a successor, why would he think his legacy was extraordinary enough to gift him tenure elongation? Yes, he is still mentally sound, but that soundness, not to say his sanctimoniousness, has never mitigated his lack of depth and altruism.

  • Church rethinking 2027?

    Church rethinking 2027?

    Not likely. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), which has in recent years acted as the unofficial political opposition, continues to promote active interest in both the 2023 and 2027 polls. Two Saturdays ago, at their conference in Akwa Ibom State, the Archbishop of Owerri, Lucius Ugorji, moaned that the conduct of the 2023 general election eroded confidence in the nation’s democracy. He was echoing the view of the opposition, indeed the general public impression, but without any substantiation. Responding, the electoral commission of course dismissed the bishop’s assertion as ungodly, insinuating that a section of the opposition had damagingly peddled that mendacity around the country for far too long.

    Read Also: FG may invite EFCC, ICPC over slow progress on Abuja–Lokoja road project

    In their communiqué, the CBCN was radical in condemning what they also concluded was a slide towards a one-party state. Again, of course, there were no facts adduced to support that conclusion, other than popular impression. Recently, some of their bishops had warned of dire consequences should the elections be rigged again. Again? Well, there was of course no proof that the 2023 elections did not reflect popular wish. Whether they dislike the judiciary or not, the fact is that no proof was tendered in court to cause the courts to decide differently. Given their propensity to immerse themselves in politics, thus sowing division among the brethren, the bishops would have, unlike the Early Church, called for a forcible overthrow of the Roman Empire government of Nero as he orchestrated bloody and barbaric persecution of Christians.

    But it is not all gloom. While the Catholics commit themselves to erasing the dividing line between church and state, the Pentecostals are beginning to have a rethink. As demonstrated by Prophet Isa El-Buba of the El-Buba Outreach Ministries in a recent interview, it had become necessary to be politically pragmatic in the preparation for the 2027 elections. In other words, some Pentecostal leaders may have cooled considerably concerning the infusion of religion into politics, and have used the present administration as a litmus test to determine that Nigeria’s religious dichotomy may not necessarily lead to subjugation or persecution. 

  • Fubara returns to seething Rivers State

    Fubara returns to seething Rivers State

    Returnee governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, was expressionless as he addressed the state last Friday. He was incredibly conciliatory. He talked approvingly about his refusal to challenge last March’s emergency rule declaration, appreciated the president for his fatherly role in the whole saga, lauded the combative former governor Nyesom Wike, held out an olive branch to the state legislature, appealed to all injured by the events of the last six months and even farther back to embrace peace, and pledged to intensify his developmental strides. Whoever wrote that speech for him was a virtuoso: it was a model in political correctness, succinctness, and self-effacement.

    While Governor Fubara’s speech was textually brilliant, and the elocution sombre, few were persuaded last week that his heart was in it. He wore a glacial expression, albeit with a pained look delicately etched on his visage, and he read the speech with a slight injection of pathos. Some of his supporters as well as cynical commentators have suggested that the governor’s return to office mimicked the fate of a subdued hero, promising that they would exact some revenge on his behalf in the next poll. It seems likely that the state will continue to seethe in the next few months or more depending on how the governor manages the aftermath of the two years of brutal battle for the control of the hearts and souls of Riverians.

    There are doubts as to the capacity of the governor to manage the aftermath. He may have read a brilliant speech, but not much effort was put into getting him to correspondingly look the part. He has a close circle of aides, something akin to a kitchen cabinet, but they were probably men and women cut from the same cloth as he is. It was his duty to surround himself with a body of advisers who have the spirit of the gods, men whose counsels would prove both unerring and farsighted. He didn’t or couldn’t. If he had such men, they would have noticed a few outstanding issues relating to his impending broadcast, and perhaps helped to instill some pretentious enthusiasm in his delivery.

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    The peace Mr Fubara so eloquently spoke about in his broadcast, the same peace so tentatively alluded to by his former enemies, will likely be tested severely in the early weeks of his return to office. Before the open confrontation broke out less than a year after he was sworn in, the legislature was skewed against him: he had about four while the other side had the preponderant 27 or so. The same skewness still prevails. Could the lawmakers, some of whom appear to be diehard opponents, be trusted to restrain themselves in their dealings with the governor? Could they be trusted not to view the governor as a defeated foe? At the local government level, all but three LGAs have been warehoused in the All Progressives Congress (APC) far out of the reach of the governor, and amenable to the fiery control of the national ruling party. Here, the governor will have little elbow room. And to boot, Mr Fubara must now submit his budget and cabinet nominations to the lawmakers for vetting in tandem with democratic principles. Indeed, he will be sorely tested. Having spurned the last opportunity offered him last February by the Supreme Court judgment which reprimanded him for his dictatorial tendencies and ordered him to make amends, could he be relied upon to sensibly judge the spirit of the times? No one can say conclusively.

    But these imponderables are not insurmountable if Mr Fubara can assemble men and women able to coax him away from the cliff edge where he seems to perch. He cannot do it the extrication by himself. He lacks the depth and temperament. But whether he can even find gifted counsellors in Rivers is hard to say, for that state in the last two years has proved too implacable for their own peace of mind. In love and hate, and especially in political affiliations, they have often yielded to damning excesses. But needs must when the devil drives. The ball, once again, is in Mr Fubara’s court. He will have to find the temper and wisdom to juggle the difficult ball downfield. He must not play offside, and must not engage in dangerous tackle. If that means stooping to conquer, by all means, let him do it in order to berth the ship of state in 2027 safely.

  • Anambra governorship election: Soludo, Ekwunife in comic extravaganza

    Anambra governorship election: Soludo, Ekwunife in comic extravaganza

    On the basis of the comic relief that has attended the build-up to the Anambra State governorship election on November 8, it is unlikely that anyone would complain of a dull moment by the time the poll is over.

    Of course, there would be winners and losers on the basis of the votes polled by the individuals and political parties involved in the contest. But there is every chance that those who fail to win at the polling booths will look back to the build-up and commend it as a worthwhile ride if only on account of the public spat involving the reelection seeking Governor Chukwuma Soludo, his wife Nonye and the deputy governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Uche Lilian Ekwunife.

    Soludo had chosen the inauguration of his party’s campaign council on September 6 to fire the first salvo at the candidate of APC, Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu, and his running mate and former member of the House of Representatives Ekwunife, describing their educational qualifications as poor and fake respectively.

    The former CBN governor had said that Ukachukwu “crawled out of school” with F9 in three subjects he described as the backbone of leadership, namely English, Mathematics and Economics.

    “How will a man who failed English understand official documents?” he queried.

    “How will he calculate Anambra’s money when he failed Mathematics? Such a person should be driving a tipper, not dreaming of becoming the governor of a state that produced Chinua Achebe, Nnamdi Azikwe, Ojukwu, Alex Ekwueme, Chuba Okadigbo and other great icons,” he added.

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    Shifting attention to Ekwunife at the occasion, Soludo accused the former House of Reps member of parading a fake PhD certificate; a move he said could deceive young, innocent people into believing that every university degree could be purchased.

    He said: “INEC has a column where if you are filling your form, you fill your qualifications. But the running mate to this candidate wrote that she had a school cert and a PhD. What this means is that she does not have a diploma, a degree or a master’s degree, but jumped to present a PhD. That is wrong.

    “Some people have taken it upon themselves to find out where the PhD was gotten, and it turned out to be fake.

    “It is from those kinds of institution where if you pay, you get it. Some charge even 60 dollars, and they give it to you.”

    Soludo then vowed to declare a war on fake certificate holders once he was through with his battle against fake native doctors in the state.

    While Ukachukwu chose to play the gentleman and kept mute over Soludo’s jabs, Ekwunife would not allow it go without a response. She did not only defend the authenticity of her academic certificates, she launched a vitriolic personal attack on Soludo, saying he is poor in both hygiene and dressing. She then insinuated that an amorous relationship existed between Soludo’s wife and Chinwoke Mbadinuju while the latter held sway as Anambra State governor. She even insinuated that the former governor might have fathered one of her children.

    As it would be expected, Ekwunife’s allegation did not sit well with Mrs Soludo, who accused Ekwunife as crossing the red line. She vowed that she got married as a virgin and had remained faithful to her husband in their more than 30 years of marriage. She then challenged Ekwunife to make the same vow if she was sure that she had not been sleeping around.

    She also said she was ready for a DNA test for all her children, challenging Ekunife to do same.

    With the governorship election still about three weeks away, observers of events in the Southeast state are guaranteed some interesting times.

  • Rivers: What next after emergency period?

    Rivers: What next after emergency period?

    Like a flash of lightning, six months have passed since Sir Siminalayi Fubara temporarily lost his job as governor of Rivers State. Like a chicken beaten by the rain, he is now sober as he regained the seat two days ago, following the expiration of the emergency period.

    Members of the House of Assembly, led by authentic Speaker Martins Amaewhule, who suffered a collateral damage during the constitutional sanction, also returned to the legislative chambers with an eagerness to start legislation and oversight duties.

    The lawmakers have unveiled plans to review the “emergency rule budget” that guided the interim leadership. They are also likely to beam the searchlight on the alleged frivolous spending of N5 billion monthly before the declaration of emergency rule.

    But the lawmakers are now more likely to be conciliatory in an atmosphere of cooperative separation of powers and accompanying checks and balances, if the governor improves on the reconciliation or dialogue with them.

    In his absence, the state was kept afloat by a caretaker, Air Vice Marshall Ibok-Ete Ibas, an unelected person who managed to restore tranquility where the governor had failed woefully. This puts a question mark on politicians’ ability to manage a crisis before it gets out of hands. This is because democracy is also about problem-solving by an elected representative.

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    Also, the structure of the state, particularly at the grassroots, has changed dramatically. At the local government, Fubara has to reconcile himself with the inevitability of working with newly elected chairmen and councillors who were not created in his image but in the likeness of his estranged power-loaded benefactor, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike.

    Details of the underground reconciliation between the previously combative governor and the determined lawmakers, who enjoyed and still enjoy the backing of the godfather, are unknown.

    But it is expected that the state will not remain the same again. By now, the right lessons should have been learnt by the parties in the protracted political dispute. The lifting of the emergency is not the end of the matter. The nation looks forward to a cordial relationship between the Executive and Legislative arms. It is critical to the consolidation of peace and recovery of the lost grounds.

    On March 18, the President warned that the emergency period could be extended, if reason did not prevail and the combatants decided to further plunge the state into violence.

    The proclamation of the emergency rule became inevitable, following what that the President described as “a total paralysis of governance” in the state, which aptly manifested in the prolonged face-off between Fubara and the House of Assembly. The three-member House of Assembly presided over by an impostor masquerading as Speaker became a national embarrassment. Much havoc was wrecked when the fake Speaker, Victor Oko-Jumbo, presided over the screening of some elements who were erroneously sworn in as commissioners and special advisers.

    The protracted rift stalled the passage of budgets. Of course, the Assembly was in flames; crippled, desolate, helpless, and impotent. Protests became violent and properties were serially destroyed. The President described Fubara as the aggressor and autocratic leader who stood on the way of democracy by trying to prevent the parliament from performing its constitutional roles.

    The obvious collapse of governance prompted the Supreme Court to rule that there was effectively “no government” in Rivers at the time. Instead of closing ranks, some Rivers elders took sides in the clearly divisive issue, making outsiders to doubt their capacity for peace-building and gerontocratic monitoring.

    As the jungle was about to mature in Rivers, Nigeria and its constitution, ably deployed by a thinking President, averted the disaster. History will record that although Fubara was elected for four years, he could only effectively spend three and a half years in office. His place at the Nigerian Governors’ Forum and the Council of State was vacant for six months due to his inability to manage the power the electorate gave him on behalf of the state.

    For the first time in two years, peace reigned in the Southsouth state as the emergency period doused tension, the vituperation of anti-emergency rule campaigners in the media and other negligible litigants, notwithstanding.

    Administrator Ibas, who was recalled from his blissful retirement to restore order into the troubled state, was focused, firm, and goal-oriented, despite the empty threats and distractions by some aggrieved stakeholders.

    The emergency rule, having been ratified by the National Assembly, Ibas governed the state by federal parliamentary backing in accordance with the emergency regulations. It was, nevertheless, an emergency rule with a human face; no restriction order on any of the warring actors, no probe of the Fubara administration by any commission of enquiry and there was no witch-hunting of any kind, unlike what happened under the revious dispensations that introduced the same measure to avert anarchy.

    Reflecting on the period, President Tinubu noted that the positive signals made it unnecessary to extend the emergency rule beyond its initial six-month duration.

    For the period, Rivers was off the democratic radar. Popular rule was put on hold, but other forms of freedom were not tampered with. Gladiators were denied a battle ground. Bands of hired thugs and miscreants spoiling for proxy wars were automatically disbanded. Mass processions became ineffective and rival supporters of leading actors locked in the curious war of attrition were dispersed. The ordinary man on the street heaved a sigh of relief.

    Many observers believe that the emergency rule was a blessing in disguise for Rivers, and in particular its elected chief executive, who escaped the hammer of angry lawmakers plotting his impeachment.

    Unknown to Fubara, he was the man on the defensive, from the beginning of the logjam. His tenure was full of tension, and he would have been consumed by the fire, especially when the lawmakers unconditionally insisted on a pound of flesh.

    Had the governor fully embraced the peace deal brokered by President Tinubu, the calamity would have been averted. It involved making sacrifices, giving concessions and self-abnegation which only a statesman can attempt. Fubara dismissed the pact, saying it was mere advisory. A big opportunity for concessions, consensus, and ‘win-win’ was bungled without sparing a thought for the consequences. The pact collapsed and the combatants intensified the onslaught in a manner akin to mutually assured destruction.

    Wike was labelled as an over-bearing godfather always eager to impose his wishes on the governor. Some critics chided him for undue interference or meddlesomeness in Rivers affairs, in spite of his busy schedule as Abuja minister. Others alleged that he instigated the crisis, using the lawmakers as fronts.

    The minister’s argument was that the governor had deviated from the plan of the party that conferred on him the rare privilege. Wike explained that since he rode on a formidable structure to power, the structure should not be desecrated but strengthened in a manner that befitted a ruling party. In his view, Fubara was courting those who opposed his aspiration to the detriment of party members who laboured to put him in office. He frowned at the governor’s penchant for allocating positions and privileges to those who worked against his victory while neglecting members of the dominant camp who weathered the electoral storm with him during the 2023 polls.

    Fubara’s reliance on Oko-Jumbo’s three-member House of Assembly stood logic on its head.

    The illegal House of Assembly screened the commissioner-nominees and passed the 2024 and 2025 budgets. Illegal council polls were conducted and violence engulfed the state.

     Although the governor claimed that the 27 members, led by Amaewhule, had defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the court disagreed.

    The court also declared that Rivers had no budget and those in the illegal state executive council were carrying out the duties of commissioners and special advisers in error.

    At that stage, the handwriting was boldly on the wall. Yet, it was ignored. But the end of impunity was near.

    Fubara could be said to have seen the lightning. The thunder that followed evoked fear and produced a shock wave. It could also be a warning. So also was the avoidable mistake that heralded the loss of political control. To men of wisdom, such a folly should never be repeated.

    The lessons of the entire saga are very instructive. The imbroglio in Rivers boils down to two issues. The first is the peculiar predecessor-successor crisis due to wrong calculation or a faulty succession plan. The second is the violation of the constitution and the rule of law in the governor’s  bid to consolidate his hold on power.

    Now is the time for the warriors on both sides to sheathe their swords in the interest of the state. The governor, despite wielding executive power, should appreciate some limitations to his powers. The delicate parliamentary/executive balance is a major test for the actors on both sides.

    Dialogue, which was once rejected, is still the way forward. In democracy, it should be continuous. There is a need for him to reconcile with the lawmakers who will screen his commissioner-nominees. Fubara would need an experienced and competent parliamentary liaison officer or adviser who is versed in the intricacies of executive/legislative relationship in a presidential system. He would also need a good legal adviser who should always interpret the law correctly so that he would not be misled. The advisers should not be partisan elders who can lead him astray because they have scores to settle with Fubara’s predecessor.

    Some aspects of the discarded pact that are still relevant to the search for amity should be sincerely implemented.

    There should no room for vendetta by either the executive or the legislature. Vengeance would lead to renewed discord and escalation of repressed tension.