The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Time to stop the carnage in Gaza

    Time to stop the carnage in Gaza

    In some years to come, our grandchildren or great grandchildren may ask us what position we held when Israel seemed to have been granted a licence by the whole world or a critical part of it, to slaughter defenceless children, women and elderly people in Gaza against the Geneva protocol on interstate conflict with regards to the protection of unarmed women, the elderly and children. 

    Some argue that Israel is taking these military actions in retaliation against the Hamas administration in Gaza because of its failure to prevent terrorists from there going to Israel to slaughter some Jews and carrying other Israeli Jews into captivity during a religious celebration.

    The world, including our government, condemned this terrorist attack against civilians but at the same time has not condemned the one-sided war since then against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank of the River Jordan which in terms of numbers would soon reach a hundred thousand souls. This disproportionate retaliation war has spread to Lebanon where the Israeli military might has dealt a deadly blow against Hezbollah forces for their support for the Palestinians. The same has happened to the Houthis in Yemen and the newly created army of Syria after the collapse of the Alawite terrorist dynasty of Bashar al Assad. The culmination of the unrestrained military promenade of Israel in the Middle East was the recent attack and victory of Israel over Iran in the 12-day war in which the USA joined Israel in the apparent obliteration of Iranian nuclear assets.

    With all these wars, Israel has definitely become the supreme military power in the Middle East. Turkey is the only power that is capable of challenging it in the wider area extending to Turkey. Turkey of course has its own problems with its minorities of Kurds, Circassians, Arabs and Jews which put together constitute about 27% of the entire population. Possible Turkey’s military confrontation with Israel is obviated by Turkish membership of NATO of which America is  the dominant power and America ‘s protection of Israel’s interest is solid and this will not allow the USA to allow Turkey to be involved in any anti-Israeli confrontation in the wider Middle East. This overwhelming power of Israel therefore remains unchallenged unless an Islamic revolution sweeping through the Middle East and extending to Turkey were to occur to change the current power configuration in the entire region. This possibility should hopefully constrain the current wild power Judaic hegemonic considerations in Israel to be careful about how it throws its weight around in its merciless treatment of the Palestinians in their home country.

    Right now Israel is enjoying the support of Europe and the USA because of their victimisation in the hands of the German NAZI during the Second World War and their historic victimisation in continental Europe spreading from the Atlantic to the Urals. The question may be asked in future whether the Arabs were the ones who unleashed genocide on the Jews and why the Palestinians were being made to bear the brunt of retaliatory destruction caused on them by the Jews using American and European weapons. When this time comes, each and every one of influence in the world will be asked our roles either as individuals or as governments.

    As far as I know, Africa has not taken a position despite the fact that for years, the Organisation of African Unity (the African Union) accepted the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) as an observer. The only African state that has taken a position on this issue is the Republic of South Africa which took a courageous step of taking Israel to the World Court of Justice on the charge of committing war crimes and actions that could lead to genocide over the starvation of the Gaza Palestinians.   The UN has described the so called feeding of the starving Palestinians by the American/Israeli Gaza humanitarian organisation as “drip feeding “of millions of people in Gaza encircled by Israeli military. These are people surrounded by Israeli troops preventing the world body  from taking food to the starving population of Gaza while the rest of the world lay prostrate begging Israel to permit them access to the starving  Palestinians.  

    Read Also: Stranded Nigerian miners in CAR arrive Embassy

    Israel has expelled virtually all agencies of the UN including the WHO involved in humanitarian activities in Palestine, while in the meantime, the Israeli military has turned into killing fields, the various depots jointly established by the Israeli – American Gaza humanitarian organisation into killing spots where starving Palestinians are shot as sport on the grounds of rowdy behaviour in tens, hundreds and thousands. The situation has been criticised by global  organisations and governments especially in Europe, Latin America, Africa and some parts of Asia while America that has the power to make Israel change its murderous policies in Israel has remained unconcerned. 

    Britain and America bear moral responsibility for the existence of Israel in the land of Palestine. It was Britain as administrator of ancient Palestine that in 1917 during the First World War promised the land by the Lord Balfour declaration that Palestine would be given to the Jews as their eternal homeland and in 1948, it was the American government that first recognised the Israeli state against the interest of Palestine. It seems now both Israel and the USA are following a policy of starvation as weapons of war. What is most disgusting in the situation is the weak response of the entire Arab world and the organisation of Islamic countries including Nigeria. What is morally wrong to us Christians would or should be wrong to our Muslim brothers. I don’t believe that because we are a plural country, our foreign policy should not be guided by moral principles. For most of my involvement in our foreign policy at the global stage, we have always supported the Palestinian cause even though not all the Arabs and the Iranians have supported the African struggle for independence and against the apartheid regime. This did not make us withdraw support for the Palestinian cause. So what has changed? Have we lost our moral compass? I am aware of our current economic weakness but poverty is not an incurable disease; it only compels us to work hard. It should not muffle our voice against moral injustice as in the Palestinian case. I am a Christian and a practising and believing Christian but this does not make me deaf to the wailing of suffering Muslim humanity in Palestine and I don’t see why our government should remain silent in the face of the tyranny of the Israelis against the Palestinians. We should not wait until France, Britain join the other European countries like Ireland, the Nordic countries, and a host of other countries recognise Palestine before we do what is right.

  • Ghosts of Mokwa

    Ghosts of Mokwa

    Saratu’s grief is a ghost no one can exorcise. Every evening, she still cooks for her sons. Three boys perpetually living in her memory, weeks after they were buried in a mass grave.

    Nigeria may have forgotten, but Saratu hasn’t. She still sets their plates on the bare floor of what used to be their home before it was ruined by the flood. On May 29, Saratu’s world shattered as a flood triggered by a downpour from the previous night surged through her home in Mokwa and swept away her three sons.

    Saratu watched death happen three times, under 30 minutes. That morning, as the water surged all over Mokwa, she watched her sons drown one after another, as if the river intended to drink her womb dry.

    What does it mean to survive, if survival comes at the price of one’s children? This is the nagging question left to mothers like Saratu, to widows whose breadwinners were carried off by the flood, and to children orphaned overnight. On that same day, a Quranic school in Tiffin Maza, the Madarasatul Tarbiyyatul Islamiyya, was submerged by the flood; the boys inside it were not spared. They were wandering scholars otherwise known as almajirai. The flood stole upon them while they were curled on their prayer mats; some of them in their school and the rest, in a masjid opposite it.

    AbdulMalik, 15, from Sokoto; Abba, also 15, from the same state; Lawwali and Salamanu from Niger, 16 and 18 respectively; Muhammadu, 20, were pulled like withered leaves from a branch.  Their names are now footnotes in receded waters, their memories drifting like flotsam in a nation that never learned to mourn with sincerity.

    About 207 people were confirmed dead in the Mokwa flood disaster, and more than 1,000 were declared missing. Hundreds were injured, entire villages got displaced, and the silence that now surrounds their suffering is even more devastating than the catastrophe itself.

    Why must we speak again of Mokwa? Because it is too easy not to. Because Nigeria has a pattern: we wail at the scene of disaster, and become silent once the waters recede. Once the television vans roll away and the tweets lose traction, what is left for Saratu, who lost all three sons to the floodwaters? What is left for the over 416,600 residents displaced and the countless others nursing physical, emotional, and existential wounds?

    What becomes of the widowed, the orphaned, and the maimed when the world stops watching? We have seen this before. We saw it in Hurti, Bokkos LGA, Plateau State, where villagers were massacred and the news cycled out in a few days, drowned in political headlines. The bereaved wailed into the void and, when no justice came, learned to bury their pain in silence.

    We saw it in Benue, where murderous herdsmen reduced farming communities to ash and carcass. The same template is playing out in Mokwa: grand declarations, flurries of humanitarian attention, and then, nothing.

    We treat disasters like dramas. Once the curtain falls, the audience departs, and the victims are left stranded on a ruined stage. This must not be our script. Not anymore.

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must lead a shift in national consciousness. Disasters, whether natural or man-made, should not be reduced to photo opportunities or soundbites. They demand long-term action, transparent systems of relief, and above all, compassion with structured support.

    Tinubu’s administration must surpass the issuance of condolence messages with a more concrete system of intervention. Nigeria needs a dependable national framework for disaster response that includes structured monitoring, targeted relief evaluation, and a publicly accountable system of rehabilitation and reintegration for victims.

    For too long, Nigeria has operated without an effective mechanism to track relief materials or the billions supposedly allocated for disaster response. Where is the roadmap for recovery in Mokwa? Who is keeping track of the displaced? Who has audited the relief funds promised? Who is ensuring that mothers like Saratu are not merely left to mourn in tatters, while government officials return to ribbon-cuttings and press briefings?

    Victims are not mere statistics. They are citizens. They are human.

    Every flood victim is a citizen owed dignity. Every massacre victim is a Nigerian whose blood must not vanish into statistical abstraction. There must be a real-time, verifiable system for disbursing compensation, not filtered through bloated bureaucracies or compromised middlemen, but directly to the afflicted. In Mokwa, that means establishing a local registry of verified victims inclusive of names, households, and identities.

    It means deploying federal monitors, not appointees of politicians, but trained humanitarian actors, to assess and report progress. It requires a disaster victims’ welfare board, independent of political control, reporting directly to the presidency, with audited results published every quarter.

    What is justice if it is delayed until the dead are forgotten? In Benue, where hundreds were displaced by floods and bandit incursions, women still sleep on mats beneath battered roofs. In Hurti, survivors still stare at burnt compounds, waiting for homes that will never be rebuilt. If we are not careful, the disaster victims of Mokwa may suffer a similar fate.

    Read Also: Stranded Nigerian miners in CAR arrive Embassy

    This is not just about structures, it is about heart. We must begin to feel again. We must see the pain of our fellow citizens as a collective wound. When the almajirai drowned in Mokwa, there was no state funeral. No candlelight vigil televised or national day of mourning was declared. These were children; poor, yes, but children nonetheless. What does that say about us?

    Somewhere, a widow in Tiffin Maza is still spreading a wet wrapper on an unmade mat, an orphaned child is still waiting for parents who will not return. Nigeria must not leave them to heal alone.

    If President Tinubu truly seeks to write a redemptive legacy, he must pay good mind to the ordeal of those rendered homeless and bereaved by the Mokwa flood disaster, the Plateau and Benue massacres among others. Good governance is not merely the construction of roads or the expansion of tax bases, it is also the healing of wounds. And Nigeria is bleeding.

    Mr President must direct the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, and the Ecological Fund Office to adopt more transparent systems of intervention. The Office of the Vice President, under whose purview social investment and humanitarian oversight supposedly lies, must inaugurate a citizens’ panel to track post-disaster interventions. The affected states, too, should be held accountable through emergency task forces made up of civil society members, local religious leaders, and professionals drawn from the affected communities.

    Too many disasters have ended with slogans and forgotten press releases. But to forget Mokwa is to rehearse failure. It is to rail at every victim, dead or alive, that their lives do not matter. That the flood is their fate, and their sorrow is no one’s responsibility.

    Nigeria must no longer be that kind of country. We must stop writing elegies for children drowned by our neglect and start writing policies that save the next generation.

    So, we remember the drowned almajirai. We remember Saratu’s sons. We remember the unnamed boy whose body washed up like driftwood, faceless but no less human. It’s about time their tragic demise provoked action.

    The flood may have drowned their lives and bodies, should we let their memories drown too?

  • Falcons; Sports deficit; N3-4trn power debt

    Falcons; Sports deficit; N3-4trn power debt

    Congratulations to the Super Falcons who defeated Morocco 3-2 to win the WAFCON for the 10th time. Wow! Hurray. Their win is a triumph over many battles of life, with setbacks, overcoming rejection, scepticism, self-doubt, negativity and sports administration fiascos -the lot of every Nigerian athlete. We pray they were actively protected against sexual harassment. There is always luck with huge skill, knowing when to score and more brilliantly when to pass for others to take the goal glory. Yes, there is a winning team but the others are not losers but fellow football athletes who have also given their all with one winner.

    This year it is the Super Falcons putting Nigeria back on the world football map. Hurray! Our players will go abroad as with any successful profession from sports to medicine. The only ‘profession’ not sellable abroad is the ‘profession’ of ‘politics’. Think about that! Nobody wants our politicians, but they impose themselves on us. Far too expensive to maintain!  The familiar ‘minister-to-international-job’ transition happens, but rarely for politicians. For those who succeed in the ‘politics-foreign job’ jump, it is their primary pre-politics profession which takes them forward like agriculture, the judiciary, economics, finance and medicine.

    The video call with President Tinubu was of, as yet, unrecognised monumentally important. The winning team loved their president. They showed the traditional respectful admiration of youth. We all loved it. It is obvious President Tinubu can easily engage and relate with Nigeria’s youth.  Sadly, President Tinubu is rarely seen with ordinary youth, or with real, not AI, photo ops for the youth to share in millions. This is an important and costly PR failure of his management team to inroad the youth mind pre-vote, especially as 2027 has been accelerated into today’s politics.

    No doubt, the houses allocated to the team, coaches and management,  will be  delivered hopefully not after 30 years of administrative obstructionism with no  one punished, but right now from the 1506 individual homes Emefiele built. Creating great good out of bad. So, unknown to him, he was actually using our money in CBN to build for the Super Falcons and other good people if the remaining houses are put to good governance use. The remaining houses should also be allocated within Nigeria’s social architecture -a moral lesson.

    Read Also: Tinubu governing with people, not above them, says Shettima

    This Super Falcon’s success in football this year focuses attention on the need to vet and assess sports facilities and sports ladders at each LGA, state and federal government level. There is now once more, a 2025 opportunity for the Tinubu government and state governors and LGA chairmen to correct past neglect and return to the glorious days of year-round training for north, south and eastern regional sports festivals and Inter University Games, NUGA, best exemplified by Governor Samuel Ogbemudia of then Bendel State who became the Sports Czar of Nigeria. Moshood Abiola, presidential campaign winner in 1993 became ‘Pillar of Sports’ for his contributions. Time to make our champion sports personalities household names, role models and pillars. The federal government should allocate adequate funds to send teams athletes abroad after rigorous training schedules in any of the several National Sports Stadia, some run down with rubbish accommodation. Governors and LGAs chairpersons should take up ‘Nigerian Sports Infrastructure and Sports Superstructure’ with more responsibility to the youth  and improve primary and secondary school sports with more zonal competition and exposure.

    Nigeria has had many unsung sports heroes and heroines. In a country desperately needing non-political role models, ask yourself how many schools have honoured them or named a door, room or a wall after them? Probably none.  Use the internet. Research them and make classroom posters for real-life influencers like Chioma, Ajunwa, Falilat Ogunkoya, Mary Onyali-Omagbemi, Lucy Ejike, Asisat Oshoala, D’Tigress team, Tobi Amusan, Ether Oyema.       

    Renovating, refurbishing or rehabilitation, call it whatever, of schools is not newsworthy or celebrated in normal countries where high school standards are the ‘minimum standard’ and compulsory norm. No one waits for end stage school dilapidation or collapse, injury or death before doing the right thing. At last, in Nigeria more public schools are getting a long overdue facelift making them ‘Child and Teacher Friendly Classrooms and School Environments’.

    Please Google Bariga LCDA Lagos for an amazing primary school and Governor Okpebholo of Edo State for a similar impact. Enough of pointless spending billions on politicians while our children wallow in education poverty. It is our responsibility to ensure children enjoy their ‘years of learning’ .   

    Nigeria owes GENCOs N3-4trillion. Prof Oke has pointed out that the debt needs interrogation to ensure its accuracy. A multi-pronged forensic audit should be initiated urgently. Government organs must pay their bills like we do. We all know of the disconnection of government hospitals and health centres ruining patient outcomes. Criminally, many heads of government institutions actually failed to pay their electricity bill (and salaries and pensions) monthly without cause or consequence for years.

    Yet, even without paying their monthly electricity bills, those in authority have no spectacular achievement over those in the private sector. So, what did they do with the money illegally ‘saved’ by the non-payment of the electricity bill? Accurate electricity cost projections should be inserted in all government institutions and allocated funds must be used properly. Are we in this N3-4 trillion black hole partly because 30–40-year electricity Budget Allocations were diverted or stolen outright, like the security vote may be?

  • Social media: How fake and diversionary news drowns real news

    Social media: How fake and diversionary news drowns real news

    Right from start, social media, notably, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), have played a significant role in the spread of information beyond mainstream print and electronic media. It was obvious early that their role could be positive or negative, depending on the nature of information and its consequences for political processes.

    It is well known that social media are veritable platforms for sharing information, allowing citizens to voice opinions on political issues, thereby allowing voices that were previously unheard to be heard. Social media are particularly useful in increasing citizen participation in the political process, by mobilising support for political causes. In recent years, their role in organising protests for or against governments or government programmes increased after 2010, when young Arabs organised protests across the Middle East against authoritarian regimes, corruption, economic hardship, high unemployment, and limited political freedoms.

    Today, the use of social media for this kind of political mobilisation has been taken to the extreme in democracies, which guarantee freedoms of expression and assembly, as we saw in the United States in January 2020, when supporters of President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol (equivalent of our National Assembly) and in Brazil in January 2023, when supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro invaded the Congress and Supreme Court. Trump and Bolsonaro had led their supporters to protest the elections they lost in their respective countries. So inciting were Trump’s messages at the time that he was suspended indefinitely from using Facebook and Instagram, but his privileges were restored after two years.

    Since the 2023 general elections cycle in Nigeria, social media have taken a turn for the worse in the country. The escalation of their uses in spreading fake news and falsified information during the elections has hardly abated. The BBC was so perturbed by the ubiquity of disinformation during the elections that it carried out detailed investigations. The investigators discovered three websites from which a number of fake news originated and got spread on social media. They were Podium Reporters, Reportera, and Parallel Facts.

    What’s in vogue in Ngeria today is the use of social media to divert attention from serious issues. Two politicians in the forefront of diversionary politics are Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party. They were both in the news recently. Senator Natasha (as she has come to be known) alleged that the Senate President had sexually assaulted her, but the Senate suspended her for six months for offenses other than sexual assault.

    However, all she has been talking about is the assault charge, and that’s what has been trending on social media. In the midst of the suspension and the ensuing court case, she held a big rally in her Kogi Senatorial District, using social media to draw a large crowd to the venue. To add a sensational spice, she arrived in a helicopter! It was all a ploy to attract sympathy from her political base and beyond.

    She again revived social media pandemonium, when she appeared at the National Assembly gates, knowing full well that she would not be allowed into the building. It was to energise debates about her course, with many media posts claiming that the Court had ordered her return to the Senate and upbraided the red chamber, when the Court did not. Rather, the Judge only expressed an opinion that the suspension for six months was excessive but conceded, under the separation of powers, that only the Senate has the power to revise its own rules and allow Natasha to represent her people.

    The truth is that the Judge did nor order Natasha’s return to Senate at this time. Indeed, the orders made by the Court were against Natasha for contempt, for which she was fined N5 million. While not ignoring her sexual allegation or the reasons for her suspension, it is obvious that all the helicopter appearance in her Senatorial District and the march on the gate of the National Assembly were political theatre to feed social media platforms.

    Read Also: Sanwo-Olu’s wife launches N60m Tinubu’s RHI Agric support

    Peter Obi’s case is different. Like Natasha, he went to Edo state to raise his supporters’ political consciousness and create social media content for them. Hence the large crowd of supporters that received and escorted him to St Philomena Nursing School, where he donated N15 million. Within minutes, it was all over social media, with some claiming he donated N50 million, while others claimed he made the donation to his alma mater. The truth is that, from the content of his speech at the event, Obi went to Edo to campaign for support.

    In no time, however, Obi’s visit, for whatever it was worth, was drowned out by what the Governor of Edo state, Monday Okpebholo, said of the visit. The Governor had cautioned Obi never to visit the state without alerting state authorities so that adequate arrangements could be made for his protection. But the way he couched the message made it sound like a threat. That was the dominant reading on social media and even on TV shows.

    Two interesting social media diversions from substantive issues were the gaffes by the Senate President and Governor Hope Uzodima, in which they swapped the name of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the late President Muhammadu  Buhari, while talking about Buhari’s death and praising Tinubu for according Buhari a superb state burial. Social media went to town with the gaffes so much so that their contexts were lost and forgotten. Several readings of the gaffes are possible. One, it was possible that Tinubu was so much on the speakers’ mind that his name was the first on their lips when they wanted to talk about a President. Two, those who wished Tinubu dead found the gaffe interesting, while those who support his work found the gaffe unwarranted from top government officials. All readings and interpretations were content for social media.

    A few days later, a Tiktoker claimed falsely that President Tinubu had seriously fallen ill from poisoning. Some claimed that the Tiktoker said the President collapsed and died, a typical amplification of falsehood. The Tiktoker was promptly arrested, but death did not appear anywhere in the court charges.

    Perhaps the greatest recent social media diversion was the viral video of Vice President Kashim Shettima opening the car door for his Brazilian counterpart, Geraldo Alckmin, as the latter left the Presidential Villa. Yet, what had happened earlier between both men was of major consequence for both nations. They signed several MOUs, covering defense, energy, culture, drug control, and food security, featuring a $1 billion Green Imperative agricultural Initiative. Social media would have none of that.

    Rather, Shettima’s courteous act of opening the car door for his guest was turned into something else: Some claimed that “The dude has serious low self-esteem and inferiority complex.” Another concluded that “After they approved their loans they act humble”! Although there were a few posts that defended Shettima’s action as mere diplomatic courtesy, the vast majority blamed him. None, however, mentioned the substantive trade agreements between the two nations.

    2027 may look far on the calendar. It is already in the horizon for social media activists. The government should begin to prepare for what is coming.

  • The 1999 Constitution: Between Obasanjo and Anyaoku

    The 1999 Constitution: Between Obasanjo and Anyaoku

    • By Mohammed Haruna

    Two weeks ago, on July 16 to be precise, the self-described Eminent Patriots, in conjunction with the Nigeria Political Summit Group, convened a three-day National Summit on “The Future of Nigeria’s Constitutional Democracy” at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. At that summit, two pre-eminent Nigerians, former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, grabbed media headlines for their diametrically opposed views on the country’s Constitution.

    Anyaoku, who spoke first, said the problem with the country was its Constitution basically because it was a military imposition and did not reflect the country’s plural nature. His solution, he said, was to go back to the parliamentary constitution of the First Republic which was bequeathed to us to by our British colonial masters. Obasanjo disagreed and said the country’s problem was not its Constitution, imperfect as it is. The problem, he said in effect, was the bad faith of those who operated it.

    It is hard, if not impossible, to disagree with Obasanjo, even though as president, he did not always respect the checks and balances built into the Constitution.

    Anyaoku is, of course, not alone in blaming our Constitution for the country’s woes. The vast majority of the country’s “progressives” do, and their voices are much, much louder than those of conservatives. Probably, the loudest among them is The PUNCH. Editorial after editorial, it has never left any of its readers in doubt that not only does it think our Constitution is unworkable. It has repeatedly said it is, indeed, a fraud.

    The latest of such editorials took up three quarters of its editorial page in its edition of July 8. Entitled “Attah’s position on the 1999 Constitution resonates”, the 1,209-word editorial unequivocally supported the view of Obong Victor Attah, former two-term governor of Akwa-Ibom State and prominent member of the Eminent Patriots, that what the country now needs is not merely an amendment to the Constitution but a brand new one because it is simply irredeemable.

    “We,” Attah reportedly said, “cannot amend what is so fundamentally bad. We need a completely new constitution.” Attah’s call was against the background of the on-going exercise by the current National Assembly to further amend the Constitution which, he said, has only given us a polity that is “a unitary system masquerading as a federalism.”

    “Attah’s position,” The PUNCH said, “is compelling. The 1999 Constitution is a charade from start to finish—in letter, spirit, and form.”

    Clearly, the newspaper would be in total agreement with Anyaoku in his disagreement with Obasanjo. But both the newspaper and the retired top diplomat – and, of course, Attah as well – are, in my view, wrong to blame our Constitution for the country’s woes.

    Our Constitution is, of course, not perfect simply because nothing man-made can be perfect. To begin with, as a roughly a 61,000-word document, it is rather too bulky for a constitution, especially compared to, say, the United States constitution we modelled it after; theirs, as a roughly 7,500-word document, including all of its 27 amendments, is a study in brevity, clarity and simplicity. Second, because our Constitution is military in origin, it sounds plausible to dismiss it as an imposition.

    Third, our current 36-state federalism came about by a strong centre ceding powers to the states it created out of the original three regions that made up the country at independence in 1960. This is in sharp contrast to the US which came about by first, the original 13, and eventually 50, independent states coming together to cede powers to the centre.

    The differences between the two constitutions in size, origin and evolution notwithstanding, both are presidential democracies whose common feature is a division and balancing of power among the three arms of their governments, namely the legislature, the executive and judiciary. But, contrary to popular public perception in this country, Washington DC, the US capital, exerts far greater power and authority over its 50 states and even over the private sector than Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, exerts over its 36 states. 

    However, the fact that of the US constitution has served it well for nearly 240 years since 1789, is not just because of its slim size, origin or history. It is essentially because its citizens, leaders and followers alike, have, by and large, kept faith with its provisions.  

    In his total rejection of the current Constitution, Attah said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, himself a victim of the abuse of the Constitution by President Obasanjo when he was Governor of Lagos State, should appreciate the need for a totally new Constitution.

    Read Also: Tinubu governing with people, not above them, says Shettima

    “This particular President”, he said, “is in the best position to do it because he suffered the consequences of the type of thing that this Constitution allows to happen. His local government money was seized unconstitutionally… So, he is really in the best position to do it, … if he doesn’t do it, he would have left a worse Nigeria than he met.”

    From his own very words, it ought to have been clear to Attah that the problem between Obasanjo and then Governor Tinubu was not the Constitution itself. He himself said the money for the Lagos LGAs “was seized UNCONSTITUTIONALLY” (emphasis mine). The Constitution, as our Supreme Court ultimately ruled, clearly forbade Obasanjo from doing what he did. It is therefore wrong for Attah to blame it instead of the person who breached its injunctions. Rules, after all, do not execute themselves. It is people who do.

    And unconstitutionally withholding the money for Lagos LGAs was not the only rule Obasanjo breached while in power. He hired and fired chairmen and other senior officials of his party at will, appointed and sacked Senate Presidents at will, sacked state governors and state legislatures at will, tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to fire his estranged Vice-President, and even tried, again albeit unsuccessfully, to abrogate the Constitution’s two-term limits for the elected executive offices of the president and governors.

    It is such demonstration of bath faith against our Constitution, not just by Obasanjo alone, but by so many of our leaders that is mainly responsible for the seeming failure of our Constitution to serve our country well. And its not just our leaders; even ordinary Nigerians generally tend to preach one thing but practice the opposite. And, as the saying goes, a people get the leaders they deserve.

    Simultaneous with his call on President Tinubu to spearhead the making of a new constitution, Attah also pleaded with the National Assembly to pass a bill for the convocation of a national conference with representation from all relevant groups, ethnic nationalities, and socio-cultural groups across the country, “to sit down and prepare a proper constitution… so that it is a Nigerian Constitution.”

    The 1999 Constitution, as we all know, is essentially the same as that of 1979 which ushered in the Second Republic. Surely, Attah must be aware that that Constitution emerged through a national conference similar to the one he is now calling for. And that Constitution, it can be argued, is the best shot of all the efforts by Nigerians at constitution making since the first attempt in 1922. The argument that it is merely a military imposition certainly does gross injustice to its framers.

    First, the draft of that Constitution was framed and written by a 49-member Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) composed of some of the most brilliant and accomplished Nigerians, headed by the late Chief FRA Williams, the country’s first Senior Advocate. The committee spent nearly a year going round the country before it wrote and submitted its draft to the authorities under Obasanjo as military Head of State.

    Second, the Constituent Assembly (CA) which worked on the draft was composed of 230 Nigerians, only 27 of whom were government nominees, seven of them being chairmen of the seven subcommittees of the CDC. The rest were all elected through what was one of the most credible elections ever conducted in the country. Anybody going through the list of its members will testify to the fact generally they were among Nigerians of the best character and highest achievements in their various fields.

    This Assembly spent about nine months going through the draft before it produced the Constitution. It speaks volumes of the credibility and integrity of that Constitution that some of the founding fathers of our nation like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Malam Aminu Kano, contested in the two general elections of the Second Republic before it was overthrown in 1983.

    Yes, our Constitution has its flaws. But no, those flaws are not so fundamental that it must be replaced with something completely new. Our problem, as I have often said, is not the tool as such but, as the English would say, it is that of a bad workman always quarrelling with it instead of learning how best to use it.

    Mohammed Haruna is a veteran journalist and political columnist and currently a National Commissioner with the Independent National Electoral Commission.

  • Tinubu, Sanwo-Olu, First Lady celebrate Obanikoro at 65

    Tinubu, Sanwo-Olu, First Lady celebrate Obanikoro at 65

    President lauds ex-minister’s role in Lagos, national politics

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, have extended warm felicitations to prominent Lagos politician and former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, on yesterday’s celebration of his 65th birthday.

    The President praised the Lagos politician for his steadfast service to the state and Nigeria.

    In a statement in Abuja by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu described Senator Obanikoro as an influential leader within the Lagos political landscape and a dependable stakeholder in the All Progressives Congress (APC).

     “Senator Obanikoro’s significant contributions to Lagos State, particularly during his tenure as the Chairman of Lagos Island Local Government and as Commissioner for Home Affairs and Culture under my administration as governor, remain worthy of commendation,” the President said.

    President Tinubu noted that Obanikoro’s service extended beyond state-level responsibilities, recalling his impactful roles as a Senator representing Lagos Central from 2003 to 2007 and later as Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Ghana.

    Currently an apex leader in the Lagos APC and a member of the influential Governance Advisory Council (GAC), Obanikoro, fondly called “Koro,” was celebrated by the President for his “commitment to Lagos development and his pivotal role within the state APC”.

    He urged the celebrant to continue dedicating his experience and influence to the unity and progress of Nigeria, praying for his long life, renewed strength, and more fruitful years in service.

    Senator Obanikoro remains one of the most recognisable figures in Lagos politics, with a career spanning local government administration, national legislature, diplomacy, and executive appointments.

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    In a statement yesterday by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Gboyega Akosile. Governor Sanwo-Olu praised Obanikoro for his contributions to Lagos State’s development and his selfless service across all levels of government.

    “On behalf of my wife, Ibijoke, the people and government of Lagos State, and the APC and GAC members, I congratulate Senator Obanikoro,” he said.

    Sanwo-Olu described Obanikoro as one of Nigeria’s most decorated politicians, having served diligently as chairman, commissioner, senator, minister, and high commissioner. 

    According to the governor, Obanikoro was a good ambassador of Lagos as the senator representing Lagos Central in the Fifth Senate.

    As a lawmaker, he contributed significantly to legislative work in the National Assembly.

    The governor prayed for Obanikoro’s continued good health and strength to render more service to Lagos State, Nigeria, and humanity.

    In her congratulatory message to Obanikoro through her media aide, Busola Kukoyi, Mrs. Tinubu said: “I celebrate with you, your well-wishers, associates and family members on your 65th birthday.

    “As senator, minister, and diplomat, you have contributed meaningfully to national development.

    “I pray you celebrate many more years in Divine health, joy and peace. Happy birthday, your excellency!”

  • Renewal of local councils

    Renewal of local councils

    The Supreme Court judgment that granted autonomy to local government councils in Nigeria has seen a bumpy ride to its full implementation. For this writer, who participated actively in the recent local governments’ election in Lagos State, the feedback on the election was a mixed grill. While a number of persons claimed that elections did not hold in their polling booths, it went smoothly were this writer voted. What is not in doubt is that the election was very peaceful, even though the turnout of voters was very poor.  

    Yet, we must commend Lagos State for consistently conducting local government elections when many states were afraid to conduct same in their states. Governors are afraid that council chairmen can undermine their grip on party politics and the resources that pass through the local governments in their states. Indeed, some governors in the past merely hand over monies for the recurrent expenditure to the local government chairmen, and go ahead to appropriate the rest as they please.

    But on July 11, 2024, the Supreme Court in the case of A.G. Federation vs A.G. Abia and 35 Ors, SC/CV343/2024 effectively stanched that unlawful enterprise by the states. The landmark decision declared as unconstitutional, the practice of state governors, who withhold federal allocations due to local councils, dissolve elected local government officials or appoint caretaker committees to manage the affairs of local governments. The judgement declared that governors cannot withhold or tamper with allocations for local government from the federal government.

    Many have argued that portion of the judgment is ultra vires the provision of section 162 (5) & particularly sub-section (6) of the 1999 CFRN (as amended) which provides that “Each state shall maintain a special account to be called “State Joint Local Government Account” into which shall be paid all allocations to the Local Government Councils of the state from the federation account and from the government of the state.” While clearly the apex court lacks the power to amend an existing law, it has the power to interpret laws, and such interpretation can have far reaching consequences on the application of such laws.

    In the interpretation of section 162(5) & (6) of the constitution, the Supreme Court held that reading the constitution together, the intention of the legislature has been defeated by the erstwhile practice of federal government paying the allocation into State Joint Local Government Account, and ordered that such monies should be paid directly to the local government authorities. Of course, there is lesser ambiguity with respect to section 7 of the 1999 constitution which provides: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed: and accordingly, the government of every state shall, subject to section 8 of this constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils”.

    Since the provision on democracy at local councils is not controverted by anyone; every state in the country has chosen to obey. The Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, has indicated federal government’s determination to enforce the judgment of the court. Osun State, which is presently at logger heads with the federal government, is defending an application to refund money earned, allegedly unconstitutionally. While it is prejudicial to comment on the matter before the court, the determination shown by the office of the AGF in that matter indicates what awaits any state that ignores the provision of section 7 of the constitution, on democracy, at local councils.

    While Lagos has been consistent in conducting elections every four-year cycle in the state; with the recent autonomy, one wonders what will happen to the state created 37 councils, should any of the chairmen of the constitutionally named 20 Local Government Areas, seek to stretch the independence of the local council to its limit? This is because, the monies may in future, as held the apex court, be paid directly to the account of the constitutionally named local governments.

    I have used the word constitutionally named advisedly, because in A.G. Lagos vs A.G. Federation, (2004) CLR 12(A) (SC), the Supreme Court did not declare as invalidated, the creation of 37 local council development areas by the Lagos State government, under then governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. It however stated that there must be legislative action by the federal legislature as provided in section 8(5) and (6) of the 1999 CFRN (as amended). Interestingly, while the constitution in section 8(3) places the responsibility for the creation of local governments within the purview of the state legislature, the required federal legislative action, if stretched, may require the amendment of the constitution to list the state created local government councils, which is a very difficult endeavour.

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    The 1999 constitution makes it extremely difficult, to alter the provisions of the requisite section 8 and portions of section 9. Section 9(3) provides: “An Act of the National Assembly for the purpose of altering the provisions of this section, section 8 or Chapter IV of this Constitution shall not be passed by either House of the National Assembly unless the proposal is approved by the votes of not less than four-fifths majority of all members of each House, and also approved by resolution of the House of Assembly of not less than two-third of all states.” 

    While watching the swearing in of the local government chairmen by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, as obtainable in other states, I wondered at the propriety of state governors swearing in local government chairmen, if truly they are autonomous. The governor also went ahead to read out what the chairmen cannot do. As the leading state in the country, this writer and I believe many Nigerians, would be watching how Lagos will navigate the autonomy granted the local governments, by last year’s judgment of the Supreme Court. 

    Despite the judgment of the apex court, the information in the public space is that most governors are seeking ways to circumvent the judgment. Anambra State government passed a legislation which many have argued, seeks to circumvent the judgment of the apex court. Edo State, whose governor, from All Progressive Congress (APC), defeated the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was welcome by hostile local government administrators elected few weeks earlier on the platform of PDP. He has been battling to realign the reality with his wishes, as a member of a different party.

    No doubt, the expectations from the newly elected local government chairmen and councillors, in Lagos are high. Governor Sanwo-Olu mentioned that they have autonomy at the swearing in ceremony and most Nigerians know that they will have more money in their coffers, courtesy of the economic reengineering of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration. So, the expectations are much higher than in the past. As the saying goes, to whom much is given, much will be expected.

  • Kemi and the Iroko ‘curse’

    Kemi and the Iroko ‘curse’

    How do you pronounce that Scottish name, Badenoch?  Baid-nok as the Brits would? Or Ba-de-nok as Africans, particularly the Yoruba?

    That’s Kemi Badenoch’s first “curse of the Iroko”!  The Iroko tree, in Yoruba tradition, doesn’t rush to crush deviants. Running down her homeland will earn her sure ruin!

    Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke (Nigerian) became the proud — haughty, even — Mrs Kemi Badenock (British). 

    But as she stamps Nigeria under her British conceit, Ba-de-nock, the Scottish insurance that gifts her such insufferable hauteur, rings true of her Nigerian roots! 

    Still, she ought to have taken a cue from her beloved, immensely British husband, Hamish Alexander Badenoch.  Badenoch!  A living proof of Britain’s ancestral horrors!

    Hamish was born in Wimbledon, England — like Oyinbokemi (as Sam Omatseye dubbed her).  But were Britain a settler country like the United States, he would be English — and perhaps he regards himself as one.  But her mum was Irish.  Badenoch, his father’s name, is ancestrally Scottish — from the Gaelic original: “baideanach”.

    Now, you don’t need to be an expert in British history to know the Scots and the Irish bore the brunt of English ancient savagery, just to subdue the British Isles. 

    The Scot, fiercest rivals of the English, gave as much as they got.  Yet, got yoked into some — uneasy(?) — cohabitation.  The Irish were much more clobbered.  Yet, remain the fiercest in proclaiming their Irish-ness. 

    If the United Kingdom — of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — ever hangs on a thread, it might well be because Northern Ireland is split between unionists/loyalists (pro-UK) and nationalists/republicans (pro-United Ireland). 

    But either as Ulster unionists or Irish nationalists, Irish nationalism bubbles, perhaps with a tad more fizz, than Gaelic nationalism, which is not exactly a baby’s moan. Still, the Scot-Irish common peeve is clear disdain for English domination.

    Mr. Badenock, who in his psyche packs that latent volcano of ugly British history, has worked all over Africa — Malawi, Lagos-Nigeria, Kenya.  But not once did he betray any vile distemper against his homeland, even with his joint ancestors so cruelly mangled by the English.

    His Nigerian wife is the diametric opposite, though it’s not quite clear what’s biting her. In her serial misadventure, she has trashed her native Yoruba tact, with her adopted British diplomacy — all to thrash herself, in her arch-delusion of thrashing Nigeria.

    Indeed, for Mrs. Badenoch, it has been a grotesque double whammy: scorned in her native Nigeria; shunned by the introspective class among the Brits: the very people she labours hard to ingratiate herself.  Enter, a loathe-worthy dud of both cultures!

    If you doubt, recall British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s brutal put down, bang in the House of Commons, of poor Mrs. Badenoch, more-Brit-than-the-British, the supposed Tory Leader: 

    “She has appointed herself, I think, saviour of the western civilization, in a desperate search for relevance”!  Sardonic humour: biting, classic, British!

    Didn’t even know which bit more: the guffaw of contempt that swallowed the chamber or the Brit Oyinbokemi, her smile frozen into a grimace, looking like trapped game!

    Yet, it was all so logical: if Kemi so passionately scorns her skin (Nigerian nativity), how can she possibly adore the mere sheen over it (her plastic Britishness)?  Indeed, how?

    Since Mrs. Badenoch started her anti-Nigeria misadventure, all she has reaped is a relay of what her Yoruba folks back at home call “a-si-so” (doomed to mis-jiving); and “a-si-se” (fated to misbehaving).

    Yet, the goodly Kashim Shettima, Vice President of the Federal Republic, had tried to steer Mrs. Badenoch off her self-destruct ways: stop denigrating Nigeria or risk being soon a self-chiselled nobody, even in the British political sphere.

    But Shettima, a man of style, tact and wit, didn’t sound so stark, in his two-way advice. One: why doesn’t  Kemi be like Rishi Sunak, the Hindu-Indian ex-UK PM and Tory Leader — a “brilliant young man” who “never denigrated his nation of ancestry”, even if he hugged his Britishness no less?

    But if that was beyond the vainglorious British-Nigerian, why not a clean break: remove Kemi from her name, and fully live the cultural jetsam she had made of herself!

    Cultural jetsam?  Yes, because Nigeria, as the proverbial Oyingbo market, is so packed it misses the absence of no one!  Nigeria would move on to her manifest destiny, with or without the self-loathing Oyinbokemi!

    But that rebuke only stung her into further recklessness.  It’s true as the Yoruba say: the doomed dog is deaf to the hunter’s whistle!

    First, an alter ego declared she’s no PR spinner for Nigeria — true.  Then, “with her chest” — as they say in that pidgin lingo — she growled that Nigeria was a bastion of crooked politicians and criminal police, that robbed her brother of valuables.

    But that verbal diarrhoea would gift us what drove her Nigeria hate — Fulani hate! Her Yoruba people, she claimed, had little in common with the stony savages of the North!

    Now, what was that? The “British” hyper-educated version of the stark “Yoruba Nesan” campaign? 

    But as the “Yoruba Nesan” campaign sadly showed, cultural condescension is no sole bastion of the plebs!  Plebeians, patricians and in-between were well captured!

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    That Freudian slip was clear, from Kemi Badenoch’s riposte to VP Shettima.

    Still, the good thing is that the Yoruba dodged the IPOB Igbo bullet — that wild tail wagging the dog, and pushing the collective into avoidable catastrophe — just because Nigeria had a “Fulani” president, and you must choke his tenure with blind hate: the same toxin you accuse the Fulani of!

    But even for Britisher Mrs. Badenoch, that wasn’t even bad enough — every vocal pun intended!  On CNN, she must run her mouth about Nigerian citizenship, in a fit of combative ignorance!

    That CNN show of shame had own irony — and it wasn’t pretty.  Fareed Zakaria has earned global fame and awe for his well-researched, razor-sharp Global Public Square (GPS) series on CNN. 

    So, if our Oyinbokemi chose to display her arrogant ignorance, couldn’t Zakaria himself — a proud ethnic Indian but America’s ever-shining intellectual diamond — have fact-checked her, even with a prompting question?   The Nigerian Constitution of 1999 isn’t exactly a closet document!

    Still, it’s stiff  — and sweet — Karma: her perverse tantrums on Nigeria have dragged her to CNN to spew rubbish and further de-market herself! Didn’t the Bible say what you spewed ruined you, not what you gulped?

    But among the Yoruba, it’s even more foreboding: the concept of “eedi”!  Her ailment would seem verbal “eedi”. She won’t stop until she talks herself from promise to nothing.

    The Tories will soon realize — if they have not already — that their Nigeria chatterbox is a diplomatic liability — about time!  Who wants to lug such liability as PM — or which country, in the Black world, is more critical to UK than Nigeria?

    Conceit, hubris, blot out common sense — and our Mrs. Badenoch is living proof!

    Still, a sweet takeaway!  “Bade” is a Nigerian name, even if the “Scottish” version “noch”s!  Too bad for Oyibokemi. There’s no Nigeria escape.  Talk of the Iroko “curse”!

  • Between Baba-Ahmed and Usman Bugaje

    Between Baba-Ahmed and Usman Bugaje

    All through the pre-independence and post- independence years, the northern ruling caste effortlessly harvested votes from the region through weaponisation of religion, poverty and tribe. At every critical period of our nation’s history, the ruling caste have never been in short supply of elders statesmen like Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and Dr. Usman Bugaje who equally serve as adequate representative of their people when it comes to waging subliminal battle over the minds of northern voters when their interest clash with other political interest especially from the south. Although both have often been behind most controversial divisive issues in the country, they remain the envy of many informed Nigerians because of their clear-headed analysis of some of these controversial issues.

    Let us start from the run up to independence power struggle among the nationalists. The 1953 Kano riot was sparked by tensions between northern and southern Nigerian political leaders over the pace of Nigeria’s independence. Following Ahmadu Bello and other northern leaders’ particularly members of the ruling caste’s rejection of a motion for self-government by 1956 and the subsequent hostile reception they faced in Lagos, the northern ruling caste, never known for forgiveness,  waited patiently for revenge against their southern tormentors.

    An opportunity soon came with Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s decision to send a chieftain of his party, Chief SL Akintola, to mobilize the youth of Kano for support of Action Group’s (AG) policies including free and compulsory education. Two prominent NPC stalwarts were deployed to Kano. Their task was to mobilize Kano youths against southern infidels attempting to desecrate their Islamic religion and ridicule their leaders. That was all the uninformed, uneducated Kano street urchins without hope or future needed to unleash terror on non-Hausa/Fulani urban immigrants especially Igbo and Yoruba, with harvest of the death of 44 innocent people.

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    Today the tool remains the same – mobilization of brainwashed disruptive and unproductive street urchins often celebrated by the ruling caste as tools for winning elections in Nigeria.

    Not too long ago, Nasir El Rufai boasted that the north because of its numerical strength, will always decide the outcome of any election in Nigeria. He has also in recent times told President Bola Tinubu to await the revenge of the north in 2027. To ensure the voting strength of the north remains unassailable, Dr. Usman Bugaje told Nigerians not too long ago that APC then in opposition, imported some Fulani from the Sahel region for the purpose of 2015 election.

     Hakeem Baba Ahmed is a former spokesman for Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). Accepting Tinubu’s appointment as special adviser to the presidency in 2023, he had said: “This is not the time for fence-sitting or criticism when you can be useful in turning the country around. I am honoured and humbled. Please pray for me and Nigeria. However in his April open letter to the president, he declared “the north is drifting from your leadership under weight of economic hardship, insecurity and alienation”.

    Reminded by Seun Okinbaloye, during last week Politics Today” television show, that these problems predate Tinubu’s two years administration, his quick answer was – “Tinubu’s performance is worse than abysmal”. Egged on by the same reporter who asked if there is anything Tinubu did to warrant mobilization of northern voters by northern political elite against his two years administration, rather than going to convoluted argument, he simply said “the north awaits Tinubu in 2027”.

    Incubation of Almajiris and other northern youths without a future appear to be a deliberate policy of northern ruling caste. Even with the north in control of power for the greater part of our independence years, with the likes of Babangida retiring to build a scandalous mansion among the squalor of his people, and Abacha stealing billions of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings, with Atiku Abubakar, two-term VP allegedly buying off a huge chunk of his state, we have no evidence these powerful northern leaders gave a thought to the plight of millions of northern youths without a future.

    The Arewa Consultative Forum, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed once spoke for, is dominated by rich and accomplished members of northern ruling caste. His younger brother Datti Baba Ahmed, Peter Obi’s running mate in the last election, owned one of the most expensive private universities in Nigeria that attract only people like Rotimi Amaechi, (eight years speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly, eight years as governor of the oil-rich state before moving on to serve as super Minister of Transportation, and Dino Melaiye, with a massive Abuja mansion adorned with the state-of-the-art cars without visible means of work.

    We have no evidence that rich members of this forum, many of whom allegedly made fortune, saw millions of impoverished northern youths beyond instrument for winning election.

    But for Baba Ahmed, Tinubu’s two-year old government is the source of nightmare of northern poor thus the ringing echo of his outing on Channels TV last week is Tinubu must resign.

    Like Baba Ahmed, Usman Bugaje, Nigerian elder-statesman was once an APC member. He had moved from PDP to APC and later moved back to PDP. He is today very critical of Tinubu’s administration.

    But let us first locate the god he serves. This became apparent a  few years back when he shocked the oil-producing state when he with clinical precision, argued that Nigeria oil belongs to the north.

    According to him, “One state in the north can take more than two of the spaces of the total southeast. The north has the landmass. What I am saying is that if 78% of that landmass gives you that mileage into the sea where your oil comes from, the 78% of whatever mileage we get into the sea can therefore be claimed because the 78% landmass belongs to the north which is the majority.

    “My point is that there is no oil-producing state. The only oil-producing state is the Nigerian state itself. Derivation is based on the fact that because extraction is being done in a particular state, it comes with the destruction of the environment. Therefore, there is a need to make resources available that would address that destruction to cushion the effects of that particular process. And it is not because it belongs to anybody”.

    Like Hakeem Baba Ahmed, he has been very critical of Tinubu’s administration which he describes as “rudderless”. “They came with a promise of fixing the country and, apparently, they did not do their homework. And we are in a much deeper mess than when he started. In my view, I think they have no ideas. I think he should apologize to Nigerians for deepening their woes”, said Bugaje.

    When asked by Okinbaloye whether it was fair to heap the blame of the crisis of insecurity, economy, forex, power supply, successive Nigerian leaders failed to tackle since 1999 on Tinubu’s two years administration, rather than answer the question, he went into a tirade declaring “I think they have no ideas. I think he should apologize to Nigerians for deepening their woes, they seem to just go about their businesses, enjoying their lives and taking good care of themselves the way they have always done in Lagos irrespective of the suffering of people. What I see that they do is just loot the treasury”.

    Of course the consequences of President Tinubu’s harsh economic policies are still biting. The president while reassuring Nigerians that the worst is over admitted this much. Besides, Bugaje’s call for the president’s resignation is coming at a time when local economic institutions and international economic institutions like IMF and the World Bank, whose reform recommendations Tinubu deviated from, are hailing what they described as “his home reforms”.

    The question then is–why is Bugaje and Baba-Ahmed so desperate for Tinubu to resign after only two years that they are doing everything, including swearing in the name of northern youths, just as they did in the run up to independence, to prevent free education for northern youths who the ruling caste regard as serfs? Of course those in the inner circle of Tinubu are expressing the sentiment that it is because his current economic policies have the potential to end the northern ruling caste’s continuing living on sweat and blood of those they see only as tools for political bargaining?

    What is not in doubt however is that Baba-Ahmed and Bugaje, our respected elder-statesmen have other gods they serve within the Nigerian state. And this is why I think the title of Bugaje latest work – Nigeria in crisis: Where are the statesmen? should read “Northern Nigeria in Turmoil: Where are members of northern ruling caste?

  • A new constitution or amended version?

    A new constitution or amended version?

    The debate on whether Nigeria’s national questions are best addressed through an entirely new constitution or amended version resonated last week. It formed a major plank of the resolutions of The Patriots after their national summit on “The Future of Nigeria’s Constitutional Democracy”, held in Abuja.

    It could also be discerned from the reported disagreement between governors, Alex Otti and Hope Uzodinma of Abia and Imo states respectively on the desirability of creating more states in the country. The issue is no less evident in the refutation by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio of reports that the National Assembly has approved the creation of additional states.

    The Patriots are a group of elder statesmen and women and diverse interest groups led by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth in collaboration with the Nigerian Political Summit Group (NPSG)

    In a communique at the end of their summit, they “agreed that the 1999 constitution (as amended) is deeply flawed and unrepresentative in that it was not made by the people and is inadequate for addressing the country’s pluralism and the various challenges confronting Nigeria as a nation”. They were also in unison on the need for a new people-driven, inclusive, democratic constitution anchored on true federalism.

    To actualise this and other reforms, the summit agreed that the president be requested to introduce an Executive Bill to the National Assembly to empower the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC organise elections to a National Constituent Assembly of delegates elected on a non-partisan basis. It shall be the responsibility of the Constituent Assembly to actualise a peoples’ democratic constitution that will be subjected to a referendum before it is assented to by the president to midwife a peoples’ democratic constitution, The Patriots further agreed.

    The issues raised by The Patriots are not entirely new. They formed the basis for the National Political Reforms Conference of the Obasanjo era and the National Conference organised by the Jonathan regime. But as fate would have it, none of them was implemented before those regimes wound up. The Patriots want the current constitution to give way for an entirely new democratic one by the people through representatives elected on a non-partisan basis and anchored on true federalism. 

    Other key recommendations are the restructuring of the six geo-political zones to ensure true federalism, devolution of powers to reduce excess power concentration at the centre and electoral reforms.  They want amendments to the Electoral Act and the relevant sections of the 1999 constitution (as amended) for Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and electronic transmission of results in real time to be made mandatory.

    Barring elected officials from defecting to another political party before the end of their tenure or lose their seats if they switch camps, equity in statutory rotation of headship of national security agencies among sub-national units, creation of state police and secularity of the Nigerian state are other item for constitutional amendment.

    At the zonal public hearing on constitutional amendments by the House of Representatives in Owerri, Governor Uzodinma, while making a case for the creation of additional states, faulted the idea of wholesale scrapping of the current constitution. He reasoned that “like most constitutions around the world, ours is a work in progress. Let us continue to build on it. There is no perfect constitution anywhere in the world”

    He called for the creation of at least two additional states in the southeast even as he fingered ‘Anim State’ as a priority on the ground that it will have the status of an oil producing state upon creation.

    Otti’s view on the creation of additional states in the country especially in the volume the demand is coming is that it will be an additional burden to shoulder. Though he admits state creation will address concerns of exclusion of some ethnic and religious groups in the current structure, he is for an inclusive governance model in the states, one that gives every major clan a say in the allocation of resources, a seat at the decision-making table and the structural leverage to advance their political and economic interests.

    That is the level of divergence in opinions thrown up by the propriety of creating new states. Vicariously, Uzodinma shared in Otti’s fears when he sought to justify the creation of ‘Anim State’ on the basis of oil that can be found within its soil.

    But reacting to a seeming misrepresentation of his views on state creation, Otti further explained in a statement by his media aide that he had over the years advocated a six regional structure to reduce the cost of governance. He clarified that since a zone in the north has seven states, others six with the southeast trailing with only five states, there could be an additional state for the southeast to balance the disequilibrium. But not to create new states across the geo-political zones.

    The Senate entered the fray when it issued a statement denying that the National Assembly had approved a certain number of new states. Senate President Godswill Akpabio said during plenary that although 42 proposals for new states were received by the constitution review committee, none has scaled through full rigorous legislative process.

    The issue here is not as much with state creation as the dissonance in the modalities for a constitution that accommodates and reflects the pluralities of true federalism-one capable of addressing the fundamental systemic challenges that have over the years, held down the progress and development of this country.

    Can the review substantially address the structural imbalances that nurture divisions, mutual mistrust and slide to centrifugalism among the constituents? That is the issue to contend with especially given the shape these challenges have assumed in recent times.

    That is the point driving the agitation for a new constitution and restructuring the country along the six-political zones. But there are others who do not share this view. They believe the National Assembly has all it takes to initiate constitutional amendments that will take away Nigeria from the many flaws that had stood against its progress and development. They also point at the incongruity in the advocacy for the convocation of a constituent assembly when elected members of the National Assembly are still in place.

    The issue is whether the constitution review committees of the Senate and House Representatives can in verity, actuate the fundamental changes that will satisfy equity, fairness and guarantee the pluralism of a federal governance framework. In the debate between state creation and restructuring the country along the six geo-political zones given the unviability of many states, how far can the powers of the constitution review committees go?

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    The recent creation of six regional development commissions by the federal government and the inauguration of National Assembly committees for oversight functions further raise that stakes on the desirability, value and functionality of that governance framework.

    Beyond this, the National Assembly is progressing with its constitutional review process having constituted the two committees early last year. There are no definite timelines for the committees to complete their assignments even as the deputy speaker of the House, Benjamin Kalu had promised at inauguration that the new constitution would be ready in 24 months.

     Issues for amendment by the committees include devolution of powers, fiscal federalism, state police and local government autonomy. Others are constitutional roles for traditional institutions, inclusivity, equity and women representation into elective and appointive positions. Comprehensive electoral reforms to address the gaps identified in the 2023 general elections as well as the strengthening of greater institutional accountability also featured prominently in the agenda of the review committees.

    There is a common thread around the items for urgent constitutional review by The Patriots and the National Assembly. The only point of disagreement is that while The Patriots want the 1999 constitution thrown overboard, the National Assembly views incremental changes as the way out.

    Perhaps, this disagreement is fuelled by a seeming lack of confidence in the capacity of the National Assembly to come up with far-reaching changes-ones that will realistically and substantially address the contentious issues of our federal order. The body language of the National Assembly especially its inability to stand up as an independent arm of the government has not helped matters.

    The nation is facing serious systemic stress, tilting it to the precipice. This makes fundamental constitutional amendments imperative. Devolving more powers to the constituents including fiscal federalism, state police and local government autonomy are issues to be resolved before the next elections. It is time to fill the gaps created by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on local government autonomy.

    But all these may come to naught, if the National Assembly fails to review the Electoral Act and relevant sections of the constitution to make BVAS and electronic transmission of results in real time mandatory. It is nigh impossible to conceive of a democratic constitution when the lynchpin on which the wheels of democracy (free, fair and credible elections) revolves is heavily flawed.