The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Oshiomhole and his enemies fight on relentlessly

    By UnderTow

    The next election cycle is closer than many top All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders think. It is on the surface about three years away; but in reality, given what the party needs to do and put in place, they barely have two years. Yet, the party apparatchiks have fought like Kilkenny cats, and oblivious of the dangers they face should the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) become truly resurgent, they seem unable to grasp that they face an existential threat. There are greater issues to fight over, such as their ideological standing and platform, or salient national issues that need their attention and clarification, but they have chosen to fight one another, brutally, bloodily and obscenely. Alas, the nation has become their vast and curious spectators.

    Their party chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, has become their lightning rod. Having bifurcated the party by his provocative opinions and administrative resolve, members and leaders of the APC have ranged themselves into two platoons or brigades: one with him, if not necessarily for him, and the other against him. He is fortunate that his ideas and person, not to say his style, do not leave anyone indifferent to him. To that extent, his victory, or that of his enemies, would probably leave the party more wholesome, more compact, and truly energised to fight the next election cycle. This column thrice focused on him and the battles confronting him in the APC. Quite clearly, the war has not ended. It has not ended because one side has not been defeated. However, it does not seem like the war will continue for much longer, probably not later than this year or early next year.

    Unfortunately for the ruling party, the war between Mr Oshiomhole and his enemies is not one of ideology, administration, style or even any substance properly so called. It is a war over 2023, the year of the next election cycle culmination, a war in which one side to the conflict has presumed the party chairman to have taken sides. Armed with that summation, the aggrieved side has sworn to dethrone the chairman before 2023, and has increasingly fought more confidently, openly and without gloves, regardless of whose ox is gored. A significant percentage of the APC Governors’ Forum is against him, many of them embittered by the pre-election intraparty politics of 2019, and the fear of what role he might yet play in subsequent governorship elections. Another group is against him for the way he made them lose face when he thwarted their succession politics and plots in 2019.

    Yet another group is taking on him after coalescing around diverse objectives, some of those reasons so far-flung that it is hard to judge their coherence. What is significant is that Mr Oshimohole’s enemies will be relentless, unsparing and fanatical about dethroning him. They have summed up his ideas, person and style, and have concluded that it is fruitless pacifying him or reaching some accommodation with him. They think he is so unpredictable that leaving him in office as chairman of the party would do a lot of damage to their present and future interests. What is more, the chairman’s enemies are spread all over the country’s expedient geopolitical zones, though some are more truculent in their opposition than others.

    Mr Oshiomhole has tried to pacify some of his enemies by composing dithyrambs in their honour, but they have remained unyielding. He has also tried to browbeat some of them, but they have become even fiercer. Yet he has very solid support in the party, particularly among those he helped to rise into prominence either in the party hierarchy or in past elections. But neither his new converts nor himself, nor yet his backers can tell how long or how far he can keep his enemies at bay.

    He is optimistic, and so are his main backers; but it is not clear whether optimism alone can swing the battle. However, he and his backers hope that in the final analysis, the crucial veto power of the presidency would either not be cast on time and decisively, or if cast, that it would be cast in his favour. Overall, they hope for a third option: that the presidential veto would, as it has become customarily and idiosyncratically aloof, not be cast at all.

    As this column noted a few weeks ago, the Edo and Ondo governorship polls in September and October will go a long way in determining the fate of Mr Oshiomhole. He is unlikely to have much headache in Ondo, despite the ongoing schisms in the party and the initial feelings that the governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, might be averse to his chairmanship. Party leaders are fairly confident that the situation in Ondo has not deteriorated beyond remedy. They think they can reconcile the combatants and coax the governor to make concessions.

    But in Edo, the jousting in that politically febrile state has probably gone beyond the point of no return, given the undiplomatic and somewhat coarse manner the governor, Godwin Obaseki, has dug his heels in and thrown barbs at Mr Oshiomhole. The state, even though one-sidedly APC, has functioned without a legislature for many years on account of the curious political arithmetic projected by the governor, not to say his quaint and unusual definition of democracy. The APC chairman is more politically savvy than Mr Obaseki; should he find the formulae to thwart Mr Obaseki and still go on to win Edo for his party, he will become both indomitable and invincible going forward to 2023.

    But Mr Oshiomhole is being fought from the APC Governors’ Forum, as emblematised by the group’s director general, Salihu Lukeman, who penned a caustic message against the chairman to the Bisi Akande-led reconciliation committee. And he is being fought from Edo State, as epitomised by Mr Obaseki’s intransigent opposition.

    Then, there are stragglers and ambitious politicians in the wider APC who have the capacity to do tremendous damage to Mr Oshiomhole. So far, the opposition to the APC chairman, though sever and acerbic, has been largely desultory. Should they manage to coalesce for one reason or the other in the coming months, particularly after the September and October governorship polls, Mr Oshiomhole will have to reassess his chances and contemplate his future. He is not yet encompassed by enemies, but there is nothing to suggest his enemies are not trying to outflank him.

    The APC chairman is himself a stout-hearted and combative politician. Even though many of the battles he has fought and won were needless, considering that they are the products of unforced errors and unnecessary boisterousness, he possesses an effervescence that endears him to party rank and file.

    He is powerless to find a clean and clear solution to the intraparty conflicts that have dogged the APC from inception, for many of the problems are foundational, but he must slowly begin to realise that there must be an end to conflict in the party if it is to regain its composure and present a good fight in 2023. Chief Akande has been saddled with the task of finding a solution to the conflicts that have ravaged the party, but though he is a man of very even temper and is avuncular to boot, it is doubtful whether even he can find the magic wand to quieten the raging storms within the party.

    The APC is fortunate to have an even more fractious PDP to contend with, not only this year in the Edo and Ondo polls, but in the near future in other polls and in 2023. Had the PDP been better led than it is and more inspired with the right leaders and philosophies, perhaps the fear of diminution or even extinction might have persuaded the ruling party to still their own storms. Indeed, in a way, the storms in the APC are a disincentive to the PDP, and vice versa.

    Since there is no third force to give the two leading parties a run for their money, both the APC and PDP can afford to be fairly complacent. Nigerian politics has become increasingly conservative; and so the chances of a radical resolution of the country’s political ferment are not very high. A third force does not, therefore, look imminent. Indeed, given the revolutionary pressures observed in the past one decade or so, the chances of an all-out revolt seems more likely than the radical but measured resolution of the national paralysis by a third force.

    Mr Oshiomhole must be in a quandary at the moment. He knows his position is not terribly threatened, but he also fears that he does not have much time left. He has tried being on the offensive without much success, considering his own failings and weaknesses; but he has done just enough on the defensive without actually vanquishing his enemies.

    He will hope that fortune will smile on him, and his enemies will make a mortal mistake from which they cannot recover. If he drives home his advantage at that point, if he becomes more diplomatic and less antagonistic, he might get the breather he has pined for since assuming office. How long that breather will last is, however, anybody’s guess.

  • Saraki’s latest headache

    Saraki’s latest headache

    By Sentry

    It is no longer news that the immediate past President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, is still under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). But if Saraki has any headache, it is about EFCC’s application before a Federal High Court in Lagos seeking permanent forfeiture of his choice assets in Lagos and Ilorin.

    If the assets are permanently forfeited, the ex-Senate President might soon be homeless. And ahead of the continuation of the hearing of the forfeiture application on April 17, the  EFCC may release more damning fact – sheet on Saraki.

    Read Also: Now that Saraki is begging Kwara Govt

    But the two-term Governor of Kwara State said he was not shaken. He challenged the EFCC to present concrete evidence on why he should lose the properties. He said he has nothing to fear.

    He said: “We hereby assure the associates and supporters of Dr. Saraki that he remains unflinching in his belief in the ability of the Nigerian judiciary to always do justice to all persons and at all times. We believe that justice shall prevail in this case, as well.”

    Nigerians are watching who will blink first between the EFCC and Saraki.

  • FG searches for model to use for social media regulation

    FG searches for model to use for social media regulation

    Sentry

    A Pall of uncertainty is still surrounding the decision of the Federal Government to regulate the social media in the country. Even those in government are unsure of the model to adopt. But the regulation shelf is filled up with many options: Egypt, China, Singapore, South Korea, The European Union, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States.

    A top source in government said: “We have not decided on the model to adopt. Some wanted wholesale adoption of what is obtainable in a country; others have recommended a hybrid policy. But we cannot do without social media regulation.” The Minister of Information and Culture, AL. Lai Mohammed, however, said the government was pushing ahead with the regulation of social media.

    Read Also: Fed Govt: no going back on social media regulation

    He said: “We are also pushing ahead with our plan to sanitize the social media, working with stakeholders. By March 2nd 2020, we will inaugurate the stakeholders committee that will deliberate and recommend the way forward.

    “We are also planning a major international conference that will bring together the tech companies, media practitioners, policy makers and others as part of efforts to tackle this growing canker-worm

    “Last week, I met with representatives of Google and Facebook for the same purpose. The situation is dire, and no nation that values its peace, security and stability will allow an irresponsible use of the social media.”

  • Ogunyemi, IPPIS, ASUU and sexual harassment bill

    By Undertow

    THESE are not the best of times for the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Buffeted from the inside by sex scandals, assailed on the outside by federal pressures over the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), and distracted by a proposed bill on sexual harassment targeting the universities, the union is reeling under crushing weights. Irrespective of whether they are right or wrong in their perspectives over these matters, ASUU is lucky to have a self-willed, erudite and eloquent national president, Biodun Ogunyemi, who has stood resolute in the face of all kinds of attacks from various quarters.

    Years ago, ASUU’s main war was against poor conditions of service in the universities, poorly equipped laboratories, overcrowded and dilapidated hostels, abysmal teacher-student ratios, half-hearted autonomy, and hopelessly low funding of education. While that war was still ongoing, and did not even look like it would ever be won, and while ASUU itself was still under a tremendous pressure to find new ways of fighting an ancient and seemingly invincible enemy, the government has changed gear, shifted the goalpost, and deflected the battle in a different and unanticipated direction and terrain that disfavour the union. Now the frontlines are poorly defined, and the battlefield is greatly muddled up.

    Last year, almost out of the blue, the federal government directed ASUU to be enrolled in the new payroll system. Instead of a better defined and more expansive autonomy, ASUU is to be sucked in deeper into the civil service system. The union, of course, immediately kicked against this new insolence through an orchestrated campaign definitely not lacking in suavity. But it is a campaign for which it has received very scant support from the media and the public. Go and enrol, they, and indeed the entire country, chorused to ASUU.  It has not helped ASUU that this new battle is coming not too long after a splinter union, Congress of University Academics (CONUA), arose in the universities threatening the general cohesion that had stood them in good stead for decades, making them one of the most lethal unions in the country. In fact, given the total annihilation of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS, as amended by its decades of metamorphosis), and the ingenious disembowelling of the fractured labour unions of the country, ASUU was the nearest thing to a credible unionised monolith.

    Not anymore. Nigerians, unable to grasp the dynamics of IPPIS or the atmospherics of what ASUU represents and embodies, are wary of queuing behind the union. But they really should queue behind them, for the universities have become a caricature, with the government projecting no viable or sensible idea on how to reinvigorate it. The government is more preoccupied with controlling the universities than empowering them. Nigerians have not really interrogated why the government is dragging the universities into IPPIS while exempting other government agencies such as that unaccountable behemoth, the petroleum corporation NNPC, the equally humongous Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the scarecrow tax collectors, the FIRS, and the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), among others. Officials of the IPPIS insist that eventually these other agencies will be enrolled, but for now, because they are revenue-generating agencies, they will be exempted. The devil is, of course, in the detail.

    Here is the argument of IPPIS: “The government knows that all agencies cannot be brought on board at the same time. But for those who draw their salaries and personnel costs from the consolidate revenue account of the Federal Government, they must come on board. For the CBN, FIRS and NNPC, they are revenue agencies and they live on the cost of collection. They are revenue-generating agencies and they don’t draw from the consolidated revenue fund. So, it is left to the government on what to do next, but it is a journey that just started.”

    But here is the argument of ASUU: “There is massive corruption in IPPIS. Did government care to investigate IPPIS itself? We are saying why is CBN not in IPPIS? Why is NDIC not in IPPIS? Why is Federal Inland Revenue not in IPPIS? But the lecturers who are just collecting stipends are to be pulled into IPPIS so that our legal entitlement will not be paid.

    “We are not going to allow it. We are not going to be part of the staff that are going to be enrolled in IPPIS. We took a resolution and we are reaffirming … that we are not going to get enrolled into IPPIS and you know what our union is actually against is that the university has an autonomy and if you look at it clearly, this autonomy we are saying is enshrined in Section 2AA of the University Miscellaneous Provision Amendment Act of 2003 which clearly explained the role of the Governing Council.

    “Even the Miscellaneous Act we are saying clearly stated that the power of the council shall be exercised as in the law and that status of each university. So it is clear we have autonomy. Again, university is the peculiar nature of the appointment of university as academics. Our 2009 agreement which was negotiated by the federal government and our union is also there. So many issues are there and that is why our union is saying we should be allowed to produce a template which will have all these series of issues but not to have a centre point of payment.”

    Put differently, the government gives the indication that enrolling in IPPIS will curb the following anomalies and atrocities, to wit, ghost workers, salary padding, multiple salary payments, illegal recruitment, and corrupt employment, among other evils. But do these evils not exist even in greater dimensions in the exempted agencies? Of course they do. So why the exemption? So far, the government has made arguments in favour of the exemptions, but the arguments do not hold water. Not only have funding of universities been grossly inadequate, the government has shown neither commitment to university education nor produced an inspiring vision of what tertiary education should be. Nigerian universities rank very low globally. Instead of declaring a genuine state of emergency in the sector to rectify the problems militating against university education, and lessening or altogether extirpating overcrowding, the government is pursuing a red herring. Like all levels of education in the country, the university system has virtually collapsed. ASUU has made valiant efforts to reverse the decline, but its efforts have become enfeebled by lack of public support and government’s unwillingness to envision something great, befitting and ennobling. The situation is much more dire than the government is admitting; yet that situation will not be ameliorated by IPPIS.

    Now, ASUU’s dilemma and troubles are set to multiply, regardless of the persistence and fortitude of their national president, Prof Ogunyemi. Sexual harassment is eating up the innards of the universities. Unfortunately, it is a vice neither ASUU nor the universities have shown brilliance or sagacity in tackling. Consequently, a few rather embarrassing public cases of harassment of female students have gripped the imagination of the country and ended up in the courts. The cases have also unfortunately tended to portray university teachers as rapacious and predatory, and the university authorities more intent on protecting their image than giving succour to mistreated students. Even more unfortunately, the problem has now drawn the attention of the country’s parliament in the form of a bill on sexual harassment designed to protect, most especially, female students. The bill recommends very stiff punishment for offenders.

    The ASUU president came under fire last Monday during a parliamentary public hearing when he attempted to draw the attention of the country to extant provisions of the law regarding sexual harassment, while at the same time arguing that the universities, in consonance with the law, can tackle the problem of sexual harassment. Unimpressed, stakeholders jeered at his presentation, and insisted that the bill was timely because the universities had proved woefully incompetent to rein in the problem. But argued Prof Ogunyemi: “Every university has structures through which disciplinary procedures are handled. If we follow the procedure that we have in place at the universities and we link with our existing laws,  we can address the same problem without necessarily coming up with a law.”

    Given the mood of the country, and in the face of highly publicised sexual harassment cases in the universities, it required enormous courage for Prof Ogunyemi to publicly argue against the parliamentary bill. But he did, a tribute to his character and his intellect. Not only that, he is right. All that the problem of sexual harassment requires is to find ways of ensuring that university authorities live up to their responsibilities. Sadly, neither Prof Ogunyemi nor ASUU is likely to sway the public which has tasted blood. The public will most likely get their bill passed, and the universities will be further weakened and dispirited. Both the public and the ASUU, not to say the universities themselves, cannot be absolved of guilt. And the government which should champion the cause of reviving the university system is too caught up in the morass and too bereft of great ideas that it will continue to fail the country and the universities until everything reaches a dead end.

  • NYSC discharge certificate scandal hits another govt official

    By Sentry

    The ghost of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate is still haunting the nation almost 17 months after it consumed a former Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.

    This time around, another female head of a money-spinning agency was unceremoniously removed by President Muhammadu Buhari, following intelligence report that she did not have NYSC discharge certificate.

    The erstwhile CEO, who claimed to have served in Kwara State, was discovered not to have participated in the NYSC scheme.

    Read Also: NYSC warns graduates, corps members against fake deployment

    The travails of the ex-CEO began in January this year when a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) raised the alarm that she did not present discharge or exemption certificate of the NYSC for screening. And when the top official was invited to show proof that she underwent the compulsory one-year programme in 1989/90, she only claimed she lost the discharge certificate.

    Security agencies were said to have dug deeper and uncovered that she skipped the service. Despite her closeness to the First Family, President Muhammed Buhari wielded the big stick.

  • Bayelsa governor under pressure to jettison Dickson’s policy

    By Sentry

    Barely a week after he assumed office, Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State is under pressure to jettison a key policy of his immediate predecessor and godfather, ex-Governor Henry Seriake Dickson. The policy borders on the engagement of non-indigenes in Bayelsa State Executive Council.

    Sentry gathered that Bayelsa elders and opinion moulders have asked Diri to discard the policy in order to earn their confidence. Conversely, they have threatened to withdraw their support for the governor if non-indigenes are accommodated.

    Read Also: Douye Diri faces another battle with Timi Alaibe

    But liberal-minded Bayelsans who approved of Dickson’s policy have been trying to mediate because most of the affected non-indigenes are Ijaw from Delta, Rivers, Ondo and other states. They also claimed that since the non-indigenes were usually about 1% to 2% of political appointees, there is no basis for the furore.

    A few others said Bayelsa State does not have the manpower being offered by the non-indigenes. Some however said Dickson was only trying to live up to his dream of being a nationalist which is no longer applicable at the centre.

    The way and manner this issue is handled by Diri will define his future relationship with Dickson who staked everything to make him a governor.

  • Anyansi-Agwu’s broken head

    Ade Ojeikere

     

    YOU cannot give what you don’t have. This doctrine rings so true of the operations in the domestic game with our so called gurus toying with people’s lives on the altar of sticking to rules which suit their whims and caprices. These all-knowing administrators have turned league venues to theatres of violence, leaving the spectators at God’s mercy as they run through the dense air from canisters of teargas shot indiscriminately by security operatives.

    Whereas other climes’ domestic league administrators seize every opportunity in the league to leverage on sponsorship deals, ours watch as existing businesses in the league collapse. It is running into three seasons when league matches were last shown on television. This is an invitation to anarchy? Why won’t roughnecks run riot, knowing cameras are not there to capture their misdeeds?

    The irony of what is happening weekly at league venues is that the organisers spend quality time hobnobbing with foreign technocrats, yet they are unable to replicate what they learned in the domestic game. If they did, they ought to have known that globally, local derby matches are high-risk ties, requiring extra vigilance and the best officials who can handle the twists and turns of the game without hitches. It is the referees’ decisions which are most times misrepresented that lead to fracas as seen in Umuahia on Sunday, when Abia Warriors hosted city rivals Enyimba FC of Aba.

    What happened in Aba isn’t different from the unholy incidents during the Katsina United versus Kano Pillars game. This tie had a long history of chaos in Katsina and Kano yearly. But our siddon look league buffs allowed a recurrence of previous years’ mishaps, preferring to act after the havoc has been committed. The pain in this shameful setting is that it happened in two consecutive opening seasons.

    Referees and match commissioners were the target of the irate fans; but now urchins have extended their assault on club chairmen, choosing the most popular of them as their first victim.  Felix Anyansi Agwu isn’t a new comer in the league. For any fan to strike Anyansi Agwu on the head, causing a serious injury, tells a lot about the poor security arrangements at match venues. Where was the chairman of Abia Warriors on that day? What has he done to fish out the culprits? Who are they? When would they be prosecuted?

    Typical of the league organisers, they rushed into a meeting to read the riot act in the aftermath of this bloody game. They came out with a laughable suggestion that league venues should have at least 100 policemen. They also resolved to get boys and girls of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to provide adequate security in the stadium. Perhaps, the organisers don’t know that 100 policemen can’t be found in many units in the states. Where they are, it would be more chaotic moving to match venues from 2pm to 7pm. The criminals would unleash hell on the citizenry, knowing that those who protect the lives and property of the people are at match venues.

    The meeting was silent about those who perpetuated the dastardly act. No one knows who paid for treatment for the injured. This writer’s heart sank watching Anyansi-Agwu sit on a bench with his singlet soaked in his blood. More depressing was the fact that Anyansi-Agwu sat before a cylinder fitted with a hose which was also clipped to his arm? In this 21st Century? What a shame, given what we see other climes do with such medical cases. I pity the players who ply their soccer business here because they are risking their lives with the obsolete medical systems at match venues.

    Even at that, most of the security operatives in such areas are fans of the home side and share the sentiments of grieving fans over referees’ decisions or inaction. The original 50 operatives never arrested one person, including the one in which Anyansi-Agwu is presently carrying stitches on his head. Anyansi-Agwu is not a noise maker. He is also not a violent person. He knows the rules of the game. He wouldn’t have constituted himself into a nuisance to necessitate the injury on his head. The pain about this attack on Anyansi-Agwu is that the beast would not be caught, or prosecuted, making what he did look like a legitimate act.

    Hooligans and urchins handle sensitive areas hence, no mechanism is in place to checkmate their activities. And the club chairmen are happy with it because the criminals take percentages from gates where their activities are not supervised. Is anyone surprised that with this setting, it is easy to pummel the referees – the exit gates are manned by hoodlums who won’t open the gates until the assignment is completed. Isn’t it laughable that the organisers are talking about getting 100 policemen at venues?

    Even if the organisers succeed in getting 100 policemen at match venues, acts of violence would persist except we have the league live on television and all stadia installed with CCTV cameras, not known to the fans. The idea of getting youth corps members to secure match venues should start with the organisers’ children and relations.

    Besides, any stadium that is slated to host games must build special exit gates that will make it absolutely impossible to access the referees before, during and after matches. Any harm inflicted on match referees will translate to 10 points deduction from the offender’s total. Such a defaulting club should not be allowed to play in that venue for one year.

    With a live coverage of the domestic league, it will be easier to identify where a problem began. Those running the league met an existing television right sponsor and a title owner of the league. What happened to these two bodies which funded the operations of the organising body?

    The domestic league is an apology, beginning with the sharp practices around the grounds before, during and after matches. Nothing to stimulate the interests of the spectators to sit patiently at the stands. The essence of organising league matches isn’t for both teams to benefit from the gates takings, but to allow Nigerians watch the country’s future representatives at CAF inter-club competitions. The matches ensure that the owners of the clubs (mostly state governments) get the facilities ready for the players to battle for honours. But with visionless organisers, anything goes, even if it means playing games with empty terraces.

    To avert deaths, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) should immediately prioritise manning of match venues before, during and after matches, through special squads. The IGP can place temporary police stations inside the stadium with Black Marias stationed to house hooligans when they are caught. Any other shoddy arrangement by the league organisers should be rejected.

    Perhaps, this is the time to ask the Inspector General of Police whose duty it is to ensure adequate security in any gathering. How come the police are disinterested in securing our match venues, knowing that football is an emotional game over which some criminals can take the laws into their hands?

    Dear Inspector General of Police, thugs, roughnecks and urchins storm the stadium with raised chests, warning that they are around and not scared to repeat the mayhem. This impunity won’t occur if security operatives whisk them away for punishment. Others will behave properly. The IGP should, as matter of urgency, ask his units in the states where matches are played to immediately storm these venues before a referee is killed simply because some fans are unhappy with a match rule. Teams which suffer from such unruly behaviour return home to await their hosts in the second leg game.

    I’m not surprised that roughnecks have seized match venues, largely because most of the match commissioners are weak. They don’t have the character to assert their authority before, during and after matches. These match commissioners are too friendly with club officials. They close their eyes to certain laxities in the security arrangement. Otherwise, how have these mayhems gone without the hoodlums being caught inside the stadia?

  • The courts are not to blame

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    IN the aftermath particularly of the Supreme Court’s upturning of the outcome of the governorship elections in Imo and Bayelsa states resulting in the enthroning of candidates and parties, which won a minority of the votes in elections, the judiciary has been blamed by several analysts for allegedly undermining democratic governance in the country. The judicial decisions in these two cases mirrored the situation earlier in Zamfara and Rivers states where, following alleged violation of credible and transparent intra-party electoral processes, the apex court legally incapacitated candidates of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) enabling the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to either assume power or continue in office irrespective of the expressed will of the electorate.

    While some have accused the judiciary of resorting to legal technicalities to arrive at pre-determined conclusions in these cases for crassly partisan reasons, others have leveled grave but unsubstantiated charges of grand corruption against members of the respective election petition panels. That the overturned elections in Imo and Bayelsa substantially reflected the will of the electorate in reasonably free and fair elections seems incontrovertible. In Imo, the desire of a power-intoxicated incumbent to foist a dynasty on the state by installing his son-in-law as successor was stoutly resisted within the APC causing the party to contest the 2019 elections with a badly fragmented house.

    The beneficiary was the PDP and Emeka Ihedioha, a formidable politician in his own right, who coasted home to victory to the delight of a not insignificant number of Imolites who were greatly relieved that the state was at least not reduced to humiliating servitude to one family. In his approximately eight months in office, Ihedioha won popular admiration even from those who do not necessarily support him politically because of his scientific, systematic and serious minded approach to governance. This was reflected not only in the quality of those he appointed into public office, but also in the gradual restoration of respect for stipulated processes and institutions, which had been reportedly grossly undermined during Rochas Okorocha’s eight year tenure. The result was that in Ihedioha’s short tenure, for instance, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in conjunction with the UNDP, rated Imo State as the best improved in the country as regards the institution of transparency and accountability in governance.

    Can Uzodinma’s government sustain this reformist tempo or will the Supreme Court decision have unwittingly helped build a bridge back to a discredited and better forgotten past in Imo? Only time will tell. In the case of Bayelsa, Lyon’s electoral victory was likewise aided by the antics of a strong-willed incumbent who sought to foist a successor on the state at all costs utilizing the power of incumbency. Governor Seriake Dickson in the process alienated key stakeholders in the state including ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, thus paving the way for APC’s emphatic victory in a state that had been the traditional stronghold of the PDP since 1999. In both cases, therefore, the court verdicts appear difficult to differentiate from judicial coups through which electoral minorities have been able to become governing majorities.

    A number of analysts have pointed out what appear to be imponderable incongruities and inconsistencies in the Supreme Court decisions in Imo and Bayelsa. In the Imo case, questions have been raised as regards the origin, procedural regularity and normalcy as well as integrity of the large number of allegedly ‘excluded votes’ that were legitimated by the court and the addition of which swung victory in favour of Senator Hope Uzodinma who came fourth in the election!  Could any other party apart from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) claim credibly to have been the custodian of the votes in question? Yet, did Ihedioha’s counsel do enough to discredit the integrity of these allegedly excluded votes particularly during cross examination? Only legal minds can authoritatively answer the question.

    In the Bayelsa case, the Supreme Court has been criticized for voiding Mr. David Lyon’s election on the basis of the infractions of his deputy thus implying that members of a governorship ticket are inseparable Siamese twins that must rise or sink together. Yet, the same court had in 2015 allowed the Kogi State governor, Mr. Yahaya Bello, to contest the election without a running mate signifying that the deputy is not of critical import to the joint ticket after all. What then are we to believe now? We can only hope that the apex court will utilize the opportunity of the appeals for the review of its judgments sought by the affected parties in Imo and Bayelsa, to give a rational justification for its decisions.

    Even then, no matter what may be their own foibles and failings, are the courts to blame for the frequent vulnerability of electoral outcomes to judicial erasure? I do not think so. The problem has to do rather with the overvaluation of state power primarily as a source of primitive accumulation of wealth and the attendant vicious and unstructured struggle of contestants for public office at all levels to win elections at all costs and by all means. Parties and candidates vote funds to compromise intra-party primaries; they spare no effort to bribe the electorate and perpetrate outright violence to win general elections; they make provision to pocket security agencies and buy the support of the electoral umpires and above all they vote munificent funds to procure favourable verdicts from the Election Petition Tribunals through the Appeal Court to the Supreme Court. Practically every electoral outcome becomes a matter of litigation putting the courts under unimaginable pressure.

    How many of those who castigate the courts for some of their seemingly compromised decisions on election petitions would rise to a higher level of moral integrity were they to find themselves in such positions with the attendant political pressure from desperate political actors?  Not many in my view. The problem is thus not with individual judges but with the political system as a whole. How then, the question should be, do we make political offices less attractive as a source of wealth acquisition and thus reduce the intensity of the competition for public office and the consequent pressure on judges to give politically tainted and pecuniary-induced decisions on election petitions?

    On their part, the courts seem to be only too eager in many cases to substitute their choices for the expressed will of the electorate based on technicalities. This is unhealthy and has huge destabilizing potentials. In the aftermath of the 1979 elections, for instance, the Supreme Court could easily have upheld Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN)’s petition that Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) did not score the required spread of 25% of votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states to be declared President despite scoring the highest number of votes in the election.

    The UPN was technically correct. But what would have been the consequence had the apex court upheld Awolowo’s petition? There would have been the strong possibility of Awolowo emerging President at a runoff against Shagari in the Electoral College especially if he won the support of the other political parties opposed to the NPN. But then, Awolowo’s UPN had won the election only in five states all in the South West region. The NPN won in seven states with better geographical spread. Furthermore, the UPN had 25% of the votes in not more than 7 states while the NPN met the requirement in 12 states and scored a substantial number of votes in a 13th state, Kano, which was won by the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP).

    It would have been a travesty of justice for Awolowo to have emerged President in the circumstances largely through judicial pronouncement. The Supreme Court controversially but wisely upheld Shagari’s victory ruling that the NPN satisfied the constitutional requirement of winning the highest number of votes as well as 25% of votes cast in 12 and two-thirds of the then 19 states in the country. The jurists were no doubt sensitive to the fact that their opinion based on legal technicalities could not be made to supersede the will of the Nigerian electorate.

    It is unfortunate that the courts in Nigeria today are losing this kind of sensitivity. It should matter to the jurists that in Bayelsa, Senator Douye Diri was sworn in not only amidst tight security and tension akin to a war situation but a dusk to dawn curfew is still in place in the state even after he has assumed office. It has become imperative for the National Assembly to urgently pass the necessary legislation to make it impossible for courts to declare anyone as the winner of an election even after such polls have been nullified. Rather, where elections are voided, the electorate must always be given the opportunity to have the final say through fresh elections.

    The obverse side of the judicial decisions in Imo, Bayelsa, Rivers and Zamfara states, however, is that it will force political parties to adhere to stipulated rules in conducting intra party electoral processes and also ensure that they are more rigorous in screening the credentials and other records of candidates they sponsor for office. This is good for the polity. Finally, there has been so much ado about Justice Mary Odili being chairman of the judicial panel that sat on the Bayelsa case. But was she not just one among a panel of five members? Again, was the panel not constituted by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Tanko Muhammad, alleged in some quarters to be a stooge of the Buhari administration? Enough of conspiracy theories please.

     

  • Farida Waziri: Just as she is

    By  Segun Ayobolu

     

    ‘Just as I am’. That is the title of the engrossing autobiography by world renowned evangelist, Billy Graham, who simply, honestly, frankly and in a down to earth manner tells the story of his epic life from his childhood through to the height of his fame as perhaps the world’s most prominent and widely travelled preacher of the gospel of Christ.

    Billy Graham’s unforgettable anecdotes, his sense of humour and his sincere self portrayal came to my mind as I  read Mrs Farida Waziri’s gripping memoir, titled ‘One Step Ahead: Life as a spy, detective and anti-graft Czar’.

    This unpretentious narrative is a portrait of the essential Farida Waziri; the young, innocent and fervent Catholic girl who yearned to become a reverend sister but was destined for an eventful career in policing and crime fighting, legal practice and also playing a frontline role in the country’s war against crippling corruption at a critical point in the evolution of this political dispensation.

    Of course, there is all too much to whet the appetite, excite the senses and titillate the imagination in this superbly narrated book.

    It is thus not surprising that the intrigues that characterized her tenure as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), her nerve wracking and superlative exploits as pioneer Commissioner of Police in charge of the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) or her fascinating and deeply emotional rendering of her recollections of and roles in the aftermath of the 1976 Colonel B.S. Dimka  coup as well as the 1995 phantom coup that purportedly sought to overthrow the regime of General Sani Abacha, for instance, have made the headlines and dominated the very effective pre-launch publicity of the book.

    What I, however, found most enjoyable about the book are the many lessons it offers about life and living drawn from the very personal and most intimate stories of Mrs Waziri – her childhood, education, marriage, career trajectory, faith and even painful encounters with death when she lost loved ones.

    There is so much wisdom woven into every facet of this book, all distilled from the invaluable life experiences of the author.

    Mrs. Waziri nostalgically captures her love-suffused upbringing as a child in Gboko, Benue state, and how her parents inculcated in her a healthy sense of self esteem that guaranteed her psychological stability and emotional security later in life.

    In her words, “Father’s words tide me over in my human odyssey. He blessed me with his declarations. His parenting style, as embodied in his love for me, taught me valuable lessons. Call your children good names. Speak good words into their lives. Advise them wisely.

    Then your prayers over them will come to pass. I have seen people who rebuked their offspring with vain and vulgar names – and not surprisingly, the children chose accursed paths…

    There are better ways of correcting a child. Correct them, if you must, and firmly too. But, also talk to them softly. Counsel them with positive examples”.

    The young Farida’s early dreams of becoming a medical doctor was quickly jettisoned due to the unpleasant emotions she experienced on her first sighting of a corpse.

    Rather, her young imagination was fuelled by a desire to become a lawyer; an ambition partly influenced by a fictional character, Perry Mason, a brilliant investigative lawyer, she encountered in a detective novel series she read avidly. She was determined to obtain a university education and train to be a lawyer.

    However, as a result of subtle, albeit well meaning pressure, from one of her Uncles, the young Farida found herself enlisting in the Nigeria Police Force and pursuing a different career trajectory altogether.

    And this was despite her passing the entrance examination into the Catholic-owned Sacred Heart College, Kaduna, from where she could have pursued her dream of going to university and studying law.

    Did she give in to discouragement and disappointment when she had to discontinue her education at Sacred Heart College? Not on your life.

    In her words, “I missed my opportunity to continue my education at Sacred Heart College. But I did not waste my time wallowing in recrimination and resentment. The same singular dedication I had devoted to education was redirected to the training at the Police College in Kaduna”.

    Not surprisingly, she won the Baton for Best Recruit at the Police College and was among the ten best graduating police recruits to be moved to Lagos and given specialized training as an informant, intelligence officer and police spy.

    She gives an interesting insight into the life of a police spy when she writes, “An interesting part of the job involved operating incognito.

    To be a spy, you have got to be good at disguising. You had to be adept at dressing to be inconspicuous. I could easily transform into a rich woman if the occasion was for prominent people and I had to blend into the backdrop.

    I could also, if the situation warranted, transform into an anonymous woman on the street, modestly clad, wearing bathroom slippers and not any different from groundnut sellers on the street”.

    Read Also: Farida Waziri was simply hired to attack me, says Jonathan

     

    The author regales us with her invaluable experiences as a detective with the then famous intelligence arm of the police more popularly known as the “E” Department, a name which I first encountered in Wole Soyinka’s prison memoirs, ‘The man Died’.

    Perhaps the most touching parts of the book are when she writes with such candour and disarming innocence about her first meeting with her future husband and her falling in love, getting married and building a home.

    Her first encounter as a young girl with the man she later married, Senator Adamu Ajuji Waziri makes interesting reading. In her words, “One day, my uncle, Asaa, took me to the Police Officers’ Mess for my first experience of the Tombola.

    I sat close to him at his table. Across from us was a young man that openly ogled at me. His gaze was intense and it made me uncomfortable. Why was he staring at me? I was sure that I did not know him from anywhere.

    I was seeing him for the first time, yet, he kept his eyes on me. A few minutes later, he made his way to our table, greeted my uncle, and greeted my uncle, and tried to borrow a pen from him. “You are not serious.

    If I give you mine, what will I use?” retorted Uncle Asaa. I gave him the biro I had with me. He thanked me and went back to his seat’.

    Mrs Waziri tells in a vivid and moving manner the story of her falling love and marrying her husband and the mutually fulfilling life they shared until his death; an experience that elicits deep sadness not only in the narrator but which the reader cannot but share.

    Out of her profound love for him, Mrs Waziri later converted to Islam even though her husband gave her utter freedom to continue to practice her Catholic religion.

    She movingly tells the story of their life together, her deft combination of marriage and career and the bringing up of their five children with love and compassion combined with discipline and firmness.

    It is testimony to the author’s tenacity and diligence that after bearing and raising her children, she later pursued her dream of studying law at the University of Lagos and graduated with a Second Class Upper honours degree before proceeding to the Nigerian law school from where she also successfully graduated. She was also later to obtain a Masters Degree in Strategic Studies from the University of Ibadan.

    Mrs Waziri’s effective discharge of her responsibilities as the pioneer Commissioner of Police in charge of the Special Fraud Unit at the height of the infamous ‘419’ menace in Nigeria no doubt recommended her much later for appointment as Chairman of the EFCC.

    Although constantly faced with danger including assassination attempts as Head of the SFU, she undertook her assignment with courage and resilience. Under her leadership, the SFU recorded 11 convictions in two years in addition to making significant recoveries.

    Before her appointment as EFCC Chairman, Mrs. Waziri had retired meritoriously from the Nigeria Police Force after a 35 year career in which she served variously as Commissioner in Charge of Administration at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Commissioner of Police for General Investigations, Commissioner in charge of X-Squad and Commissioner in charge of SFU. She reports, remarkably, that she did not receive a single query throughout her career.

    Easily the most vilified and traduced Chairman of the EFCC, the undeniable record of her achievements in that office are documented for posterity in this book.

    It is certainly impossible to efface the over three and a half decades of dedicated service to her fatherland in different roles in the police prior to her appointment as EFCC Czar.

    It is certainly noteworthy that one of the country’s most highly respected former Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Aliyu Ibrahim Atta (RTD) testifies eloquently about Mrs. Waziri’s competence and character in his foreword to the book.

    In his words, “I am pleased to write the forward to this masterpiece. Mrs Farida Waziri was an extraordinarily intelligent officer and being invited to write the forward to her book is an honour to me. I feel confident because I have interacted with her throughout her professional career.

    I knew her from the start of her police career, watched her progress up to her retirement, and followed her post-retirement activities at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

    She towers in intelligence and character amongst her contemporaries. Her remarkable story is of benefit to our country now and in the future”.

  • Pedro sets ribs cracking as he claims new age at book launch

    Sentry

     

    THE high point of the public presentation of Prince Bayo Osiyemi’s book, The Charming Prince in Journalism and Politics, at the Sheraton Hotels in Lagos on February 4 was the launch of the book by a former Lagos State deputy governor, Otunba Femi Pedro.

    Pedro had stood in for National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the chief launcher of the book because the latter was “unavoidably absent.”

    With speakers having taken turns to admire the “boyish” looks of seventy-year-old Osiyemi at the event, Pedro also took some time to admire the author’s looks in spite of his advanced age.

    The former deputy governor then sent the gathering into rib-cracking laughter with his declaration that he had just found that he was much younger than the 65-year-old everyone thought he was.

    “I was going through some documents in my house recently, and I found one left by my father, showing that I am actually 40 years old; not 65,” he said.

    His comment threw the gathering into hysteria laughter, with some guests saying that no one wants to grow old, particularly when they are on the chummy side of life like Pedro.