The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • The cost of protest

    The cost of protest

    The faceless organisers had dubbed their planned #EndBadGovernnace protest with a foreboding: “Days of Rage.”

    It turned out that the first day carried a blazing compass towards that cataclysmic direction. There were reasons to believe that the agitation might slip into chaos, given the outcome of past actions. Thankfully, some prescient governments, especially in the Southwest, took proactive measures to prevent bedlam. Before the nation went to bed, the protest caused huge losses that would take some time to quantify and recover from.

    Vehicles were off the roads from the wee hours, especially on major routes. Economic and social activities were paralysed. Shops were under lock and key. Banks did not open. Markets, filling stations and schools were shut. Many ordinary folks and workers who were not on essential duties stayed indoors.

    In Lagos, the nation’s commercial nerve centre, there were fears about hoodlums and merchants of chaos unleashing mayhem on innocent citizens conducting their legitimate businesses. Many residents stayed indoors in the fear that movement would be hampered. Their experience in the October 2020 #EndSARS outrageous destruction still lingers.

    Artisans and peasants lost daily income. Flights were slightly disrupted. Business schedules were cancelled. Everybody’s attention was on the action. The attention of the world was also on Nigeria.

    There was panic. The country was enveloped in anxiety. Many stayed glued to their television sets for the latest information. Others stayed close to their radio to monitor events. Many relied on social media, the purveyors of authentic and fake news.

    The reason for the apprehension was obvious. Although a protest is legal, the organisers’ dubbing of the agitation 10 days of rage drove fear through the spines of the citizens. Rage means strong, extreme, and uncontrolled violent anger. Therefore, discerning Nigerians remembered the #EndSARS protest and the mayhem unleashed by those who hijacked it, the destruction of public facilities and the avoidable loss of lives.

    Some of the demands of the arrowheads were genuine; others were laughable. Curiously, the agitators were oblivious of the fact that some of the demands were being addressed by government. However, certain unrealistic demands underscored the idealistic yearnings of the youths who swim in the pool of subjectivity.

    Indisputably, there was tacit support for the protests by opposition figures who were injured by the outcome of the fiercely contested 2023 presidential election, which resulted in bitter litigation that ultimately terminated at the Supreme Court. This makes the contest, in part, the continuation of the battle for power. Their strategy is to mobilise and manipulate the public against the government, and incite their supporters and other gullible people against its policies with a tactical intention to weaken it ahead of the 2027 poll.

    No doubt, the threat shook the government, which started reeling out its scorecards across the sectors, its ongoing people-oriented policies and programmes, particularly those targeted at the youths, and their future projection for national prosperity.

    At the end of the first day of protest, the fears of the government, statesmen, traditional rulers and religious leaders who had cautioned against the protest were confirmed. Experts noted that N100 billion was lost in Lagos to economic disruption.

    Predictably, it turned violent in other states. Those who claimed to be the organisers failed to lead the protest. In some states, it was a semblance of an uprising. Though reports gave different casualty figures, 11 lives were said to have been lost in four states, the least of the figures. Many public assets were destroyed. Private properties were vandalised.

    In Kano, protesters even threatened to invade the Government House before they were forcefully dispersed to prevent unpleasant consequences. The Digital Innovation Park in Kano slated for launch next week was a casualty of a colossal assault. It was built to support the technical talent accelerator (3MTT). Alongside the #3MTT, the building was meant to host the buildathon holiday maker programme for secondary school kids from next week.

    Communication and Innovation Minister Bosun Tijani was in shock that some Nigerians could set ablaze and loot such a national asset in the guise of a protest. It is a slight setback for the country’s journey to deepening the workforce for technology while creating job opportunities for the youth. In his words: “Millions of naira down the drain.”

    In Niger, Yobe, Kaduna, Gombe, Jigawa, and Borno, the protest degenerated into riots. An account said Boko Haram criminals infiltrated the rank of the demonstrators, killing some people.

    Read Also: Violent protest: Military on standby to restore law, order, says CDS

    While other governors urged their people to rethink the protest, Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf promised to join them and and take their petition to higher authorities. The amorphous band of protesters ignored his advice to make it peaceful. As His Excellency felt the heat, he had to declare a curfew to halt the escalation of violence and wanton destruction of public property.

    In Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), some roads were barricaded and vehicular movement was hindered. It meant those exercising their freedom of association and assembly inadvertently violated other people’s freedom of movement. A police station was razed in the FCT.

    As urchins joined the protesters, there was hullabaloo. There was loss of control.

    In Dutse, the capital of Jigawa, the secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was torched. In Katsina, some miscreants called for a military takeover, oblivious of past protracted battles against sit-tight military interlopers.

    These scenarios imply that protesters in Nigeria are not mature agitators who would not veer into looting, arson, vandalism and other forms of misdemeanours. It is ironical that those complaining against bad governance are also very disorganised in their approaches.

    Remarkably, the protests polarised the polity. While some protesters, whose actions appear justifiable because of the glaring and persistent hardship satisfied their appetite for protest, there were also protests in support of the Tinubu administration by equally patriotic, rational and objective citizens who disagreed that the government had failed.

    The 12-point demands of the first group are as follows: “Revert petrol pump price to N100/litre; combat insecurity and hunger; close all IDP camps and resettle the campers; total electoral reform, independent probe into the electoral budget of N355 billion; immediate release of #EndSARS protesters still in detention; and implementation of a living wage (the minimum wage of N300,000).”

    Others are “compulsory free education from primary to secondary school, children of public school holders must attend public schools in the country, the government must patronise made-in-Nigeria goods, transition to unicameral legislation as well as judicial and constitutional reviews.”

    The organised Labour, which was not a party to the protest, had sealed a deal of N70,000 minimum wage. The quest for electoral reforms and constitution review is good. But instead of protesting, many believe that the planners should have taken advantage of the ongoing constitutional amendment and submitted their memoranda to the National Assembly.

    #EndSARS protesters are in two categories. There are legitimate and law-abiding protesters. Zlso, some hoodlums killed and maimed during the violent protests. Asking for a blanket release of detainees is illogical. The wheat has to be separated from the chaff. While legitimate protesters who were rounded up and clamped into detention should be released, suspected arsonists who killed policemen, torched council secretariats and courts and destroyed public buses and other infrastructures should be isolated and charged to court.

    Ahead of the on-going protest, many leaders urged calm and appealed for dialogue. However, the planners could not be identified on time. They were invisible, trying to cast a sort of shadow. This is strange. The lack of identity aggravated the anxiety. Many people started insinuating that the promoters were agents of aggrieved politicians who lost their bids for political control in last year’s elections.

    The time frame for the protest was so disturbing that the organisers’ legal adviser counselled them to reduce it from 10 to three days. His idea was that the mobilisers and organisers of the protest should not end up organising a bad, unnecessary, prolonged and boring agitation. The more the protesters stay on the street, the more the action is susceptible to hijack.

    Also, in Abuja, Abeokuta, and Lagos, the protesters had court injunctions to contend with. According to court rulings, they were restricted to certain locations and processions were disallowed. The protesters could not allow themselves to be confined to the locations specified by the authorities in Lagos and Abuja, which were projected as the epicentres. In Ojota, the protesters broke into two groups. A group complied with the ruling by moving into the Gani Fawehinmi Park. Another group decided to stay on the highway, thereby disrupting the flow of traffic. It appears some people harbour the feeling that a protest is unsuccessful until there is violence.

    But, how can the procession be legally interpreted? At least, the protesters had to move en mass from a takeoff point to the restricted location.

    The major lesson of the partly successful and partly failed protest is that dialogue is better than thoughtless confrontation. It should be explored and exhausted before embarking on protest, and even strike, which may be a weapon of last resort.

    Protest organisers should develop better skills for interest articulation and organisation of mass action in a strategic way that will not permit the infiltration of hoodlums who are likely to hijack and derail the objective of the popular action.

    Since planners clamour for police protection for protesters, it is imperative, for operational efficiency, that they and the police, who are also citizens, should mutually agree on practical guidelines that will make the protest effective without a damage to the social order. The baseline is the removal of the age-long suspicion between civil society and the police.

    As at the time of writing this peace, it is gratifying that the police have handled the protest in a professional manner. There have been provocations. But, security agencies have exercised restraint despite the display of criminal tendencies by protesters in some states.

    In the last one year, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has focused on the challenges of rebuilding and repositioning the economy. There are more grounds to cover. He deserves the support of all and sundry. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

    The onus is still on the government to move speedily to douse tension by constructively engaging the organisers who should now show their faces. There should be an interface with the youth segment and improved communication focusing on the achievements, plans for economic revitalisation and speedy implementation of programmes that would quickly herald a new lease of life.

  • What manner of protest ?

    What manner of protest ?

    It is not in doubt that the Nigerian State has majorly been plagued by bad governance for far too long.  Even with the much awaited and fought for return to democracy, the lack of transparency, accountability, and responsiveness in government has naturally made or left many citizens feeling disillusioned and marginalized. Such a trend has repeatedly frustrated a number of Nigerians who have continued to bemoan the country’s situation despite its rich resources. Such a frustration has naturally led to an expression of outrage via protests as we experienced in the Ali must go, Structural Adjustment Programme days and the EndSars protests. Other experiences such as the back and forths on fuel pricing between the NLC and the Save Nigeria Protests are among the number of protests carried out within the annals of our history.

    Following the current socio-economic challenges faced in the nation, challenges which are not the making of this present administration, there have been calls for the protest against the administration tagged ‘ End Bad Governance and Tinubu Must Go Administration being organized by a group of concerned citizens who claim that they are tired of the corruption, inefficiency, and disregard for the rule of law , bloated governance and lack of empathy for the ordinary man. The protesters  believe that it is time for people to stand up and demand change from their leaders. I agree.

    The consequences of bad governance on the Nigerian democracy have been severe. The lack of trust in government institutions has eroded that social contract between the previous governments and the people. This has led to a breakdown in the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, with many Nigerians  feeling alienated and voiceless.

    The mismanagement of public funds has also had a devastating impact on the Nigerian economy. The rampant corruption and embezzlement of resources have hindered economic growth and development, leaving many citizens struggling to make ends meet. The lack of investment in infrastructure, healthcare, and education has further exacerbated the problem, leading to widespread poverty and inequality.

    The planned protest claims that it intends to highlight these issues and demand accountability from government officials. The organizers have also claimed that they are calling for an end to corruption, nepotism, and impunity in public office.

    Since bodies such as the Human Rights Council has long affirmed that ‘everyone must be able to express their grievances or aspirations in a peaceful manner, including through public protests without fear of reprisals or of being intimidated, harassed, injured, sexually assaulted, beaten, arbitrarily arrested and detained, tortured, killed or subjected to enforced disappearance’.

    The line of convergence however becomes broken when these protests hint at making the country ungovernable and appeal to wanting to create instability within the polity.

    When the leaders of these protest groups appear to be faceless and with varied intelligence concluding that the protests are only a smokescreen for certain aggrieved politicians to “Cry havoc and let slip in the dogs of war” Then patriotic Nigerians cannot sit and watch the puppets and their puppeteers create a moment for disaster.

    Nigerians must remember certain lessons from the fall of the First and Second Republics amidst the resultant horrors that greeted each fall. The same people we hailed as saviors turned around to shove down and deep our throats a worse form of governance and a  more flagrant display of corruption. The pattern is same with what the puppeteers want; first havoc and then a retaliatory decisive blow using the military and other security measures to deal with such. Scream blue murder and accuse the administration of being high handed, then induce certain officers, mostly of junior ranks to help save the country, martial music and the rest will be history or should I say history repeated!

    Read Also: Violent protest: Military on standby to restore law, order, says CDS

    Again, how much of the blame should the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu get for the mess the country is presently in? This is an administration that is barely a year in office and one that inherited a myriad of challenges that would naturally reel any nation under. Isn’t it too early to call for a protest against the Tinubu administration? Governance isn’t magic and it would surprise one to note that a number of these puppeteers were once or had served for ages in government, pray can we see their scorecard?

    While I will always agree that power belongs to the people and the people should always determine how their government treats them should such power translate into lawlessness and a reduction of the state to a miniature Hobbesian expression where the same impunity they seek to curtail now is then given a leeway, while we grapple with nations like SouthSudan, Somalia and Haiti in the comity of failed and failing states.

    I am not a spokesperson for the Tinubu administration but I must give it its credit, for where other administrations played deaf to the music it’s citizens made, here is an administration that has largely been receptive to the challenges thrown by its citizens. Yes whilst the administration had to end such fuel subsidy the way it did, it has offered to channel such monies into plausible programs whether it be in education as we have seen in the Student Loans scheme, or in the areas such as manufacturing in which it intends to offer the aforementioned loans at 9 percent for five years, this alongside with its interventions in the small and medium scale enterprises should naturally get the economy trucking again. Even as I write, the Tinubu administration has repeatedly waved  the olive branch appealing to the organizers of these protests to shelve such and present their demands to the administration, sadly even with a number of groups pulling out of the planned protests, those who are adamant on plunging this country into chaos have remained resolute, so while the Tinubu administration has shown restraint and respect for the feelings of the ordinary Nigerian, those who believe that this country belongs to them alone are ready to throw in the kitchen sink if that remains the only way they can remain relevant in the country. In their attempts to bait the citizenry, they have accused the Tinubu government of been the causative factor of even the problems they themselves created.

    The consequences of bad governance on the Nigerian democracy are far-reaching and profound but can be remedied by constructive criticism and eventually the ballot as 2015 and 2023 showed us. However, the consequences of chaos and unprovoked havoc are much more dire, particularly in a country with pluralistic tendencies as ours.

    It was Sir Winston Churchill, who once said that ” Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” May this not be our path this time around.

  • Endorsements and the power-brokers (2)

    Endorsements and the power-brokers (2)

    Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello endorsed candidates, leveraging their influence and reputation. Awolowo reportedly supported Joseph Fadahunsi (1960), Ayo Akinsanya (1960) and Adekunle Ajasin (1979). Azikiwe backed Michael Okpara (1960), C. C. Onyia (1963) and Chukwuemeka Ojukwu (1966) while Ahamadu Bello endorsed Tafawa Abubakar Balewa (1959), Kashim Ibrahim (1962) and Usman Faruk (1985). Their endorsements carried weight due to regional influence, party leadership, national stature and grassroots connections.

    Awolowo’s vast network and loyal following could make or break candidates, boost credibility, mobilize support, shape party decisions and impact electoral outcomes. By embracing the power of endorsements and learning from the successes of leaders like Awolowo, Azikiwe and Bello, Oyebanji can further solidify his position as a leader who exceeds expectations.

    Without doubt, Oyebanji’s administration has made significant strides in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with notable progress in various sectors. His initiatives have yielded tangible results in agriculture, youth empowerment, sports, and environmental conservation. He prioritized education, healthcare, and economic growth. He also transformed transportation, promoted tourism, and made progress in increasing access to clean water and reducing maternal mortality rates.

    Despite Nigeria’s slow progress (a SDG score of 55.4% so far), Oyebanji’s efforts demonstrate the potential for collective action to drive meaningful change and accelerate SDG progress. His administration continues to protect natural resources, support vulnerable groups and strengthen security. These achievements demonstrate his effective leadership and commitment to improving Ekitis’ lives.

    To build on this momentum, the governor should continue to prioritize skills development and economic growth. By leveraging the state’s strong cultural emphasis on education, he can drive science-focused, agro-industrial development and create a thriving export-oriented economy. This strategic approach can foster sustainable prosperity and further establish Ekiti as a hub for cultural and economic growth.

    Read Also: Normalcy returns to Abuja after protesters’ clash with security operatives

    Governors Seyi Makinde and Muhammed Bago’s efforts to transform Oyo and Niger states’ economies into an export-oriented hub offer valuable lessons for Oyebanji’s vision for Ekiti’s economic transformation. By linking Oke-Ogun to Ibadan within 45-60 minutes, Makinde is boosting economic growth and connectivity in the region. Similarly, BAO, as Oyebanji is dotingly called, can drive agro-industrial growth in Ekiti, to set a benchmark for others to follow.

    Inspired by Indira Gandhi’s ‘Green Revolution’, Oyebanji can partner the Ekiti State University’s Faculty of Agriculture with a global leader to drive an agro-allied revolution in Ekiti. He can establish a liaison desk with the Netherlands’ Commercial Attaché to attract expertise, investments and best practices. His government can also set up tractor-hiring centers, like Uber, to provide farmers with accessible and affordable mechanization services, replicating the Netherlands’ success.

    Ekiti can benefit from financial collaborations with Dutch development finance corporations like FMO and NL Business. These partnerships can unlock expertise, funding, and innovative solutions, driving agricultural growth and economic development. By harnessing Dutch expertise in agriculture and finance, the state can transform into a thriving agro-industrial hub, fostering sustainable economic growth and prosperity.

    It is interesting to note that Oyebanji’s selfless leadership prioritizes state interests over party affiliations, echoing former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s sentiments. He recognizes local governments’ crucial role in Nigeria’s decentralization reforms and has empowered grassroots governance through a successful local election. His endorsement for a second term is a call to deliver higher-quality services and justify the trust placed in him.

    In democratic politics, when one begins to count the number of endorsements that have come Oyebanji’s way, even from hitherto unexpected quarters, one may be tempted to say that it has given him a significant adrenaline boost. Moreover, it suggests that the opposition in Ekiti has no fingers. Therefore, with endorsements pouring in like holy water at a papal coronation, all BAO needs to do is press on, undeterred, resolute, and bathed in the blessings of his benefactors. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, ‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.’

    May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!

    •Concluded.

  • Beyond Akpabio’s apology to Natasha Akpoti – Uduaghan

    Beyond Akpabio’s apology to Natasha Akpoti – Uduaghan

    The Nigerian political space has for decades been dominated by men. The executive, judiciary and legislature at local, state and federal levels seem to have more men. There has never been a female governor so elected on any major political party. There has never been a female Vice Presidential or Presidential nominee of any major political party in Nigeria. Appointments at state and federal levels have never hit the 35% affirmative action mark even when Nigeria was a signatory at the 1995 Beijing Conference.

    The origin of the poor representation by women in Nigeria’s political space is not farfetched. There are fundamental causes of the gender exclusion in modern leadership structure in Nigeria. Modern because in pristine times, Nigeria always had a dual leadership structure where men and women played complimentary leadership roles. With colonialism came the western patriarchal leadership structure that empowered more men than women. But even colonial Britain has moved on. Kier Stammer’s 19-member cabinet has eleven women.

    With the independence of many African countries, power was handed over to men. The men got the financial empowerment and so even political parties were formed and funded by men. Beyond the colonial legacy of mono leadership, the socio-religious issues of culture helps to promote gender inclusion. In most Nigerian cultures, there are gender biases. Religion is also a powerful factor in the ways women are regarded in almost all religions.

    It is therefore not surprising that the political space is monopolized by men who often assume, even if wrongly that leadership is a male exclusive. This then explains why in the Nigerian democratic journey, women have been more or less outsiders. From the structure of the political parties, executive leadership positions seem a male exclusive with mere ‘Women Leader’ positions often left for the women not as an empowerment position but as a politically expedient  position for the mobilization of women and youth voters.

    The gender injustice in Nigerian political space can only be solved through a constitutional amendment and the enabling laws passed  by  the National assembly but none seems to have happened. The 9th National Assembly that had seven female senators and about 22 House of Reps. members threw out about five Gender Equity Bills as more men  voted against it. Sadly, in the 10th Assembly, there are even less female senators during the 9th assembly so it gets progressively worse instead of getting better.

    The National assembly has just 4 female Senators out of the 109 senators which is about 2.7% while the House of Reps went from about 22 female senators to 19 representing 4.2% of the 360 house members. State House of Assembly even have less women. Some houses of assembly especially in the northern part of the country have no female members. What this implies is that issues like reproductive health and other women issues have no female imput.

    Conversely, Rwanda has the record of having more female parliamentarians than anywhere in the world with more than  61%. Kenya had a constitutional amendment in 2010 that made it unconstitutional for any gender to have more than two third representation. That amendment led to the election of three female governors and the number went up to seven in the 2022 elections.  These are smaller countries than Nigeria  but the seeming giant of Africa seems to be lagging behind in gender justice.

    It is a known fact that countries with fewer opportunities for women are often the underdeveloped countries. Nigeria has more than 133million people living in multi-dimensional poverty with more than 20million out-of-school children. The non-formal sector of the economy contributes a great percentage to the country’s GDP and the disempowerment of the key drivers- women shows in the economic strength of a country.

    In the light of these political existential realities therefore, it is curious that the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio have had series of verbal tirades against a few women in public offices. First it was the former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joy Nunieh, a lawyer when he was the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs. Both had faced the House Committee on Niger Delta over some allegations of financial scandal in 2020.  The then minister had alleged that the woman had married several husbands while the woman had alleged sexual harassment by Senator Akpabio.  She was in office for less than a year.

    Read Also: Gatemen, drivers, apprentices can’t earn less than N70,000 – Akpabio

    Recently again, the Senate President had intervened in the verbal exchange between the Senator Representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ireti Kingibe and the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike by advising the minister to ignore ‘detractors’ after the Senator complained that there were urgently needed infrastructure in the FCT that the minister should address and that she was not being carried along as a representative of the people. The statement was seen as undermining the status of Senator Kingibe.

    Just recently, the Senate President was trending on the social media for shutting down Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan during plenary and telling not to speak without him recognizing her to do so. He had added, “…the senate is not a nightclub”. Many Nigerians saw that as very derogatory and assumed that the statement had some gender-based biases. The outrage was expressed loudly enough to attract an apology from the Senate President.

    Many feminist groups alleged that the Senate President was being sexist and recalled the previous times he had insulted women. He was forced to publicly apologize to Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan but he claimed that the interest in the social media shows that “we have enemies”.  He added that, “the people should concentrate on things that will move this country forward”. He cautioned social media users, “to practice with decorum, we won’t out of anger regulate social media” , he concluded.

    He went further to say that he has four daughters and would not intentionally denigrate women, “I will not intentionally denigrate any woman and I will always pray that God will uplift women”, he added.

    While the Roundtable Conversation feels the Senate President did the right thing by apologizing to Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, we view his behavior as shocking but not surprising. Most men see women in public offices as ‘intruders’ in some ways. Women are often muscled out of political participation across the country. It is particularly worrisome that the same Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan had to retrieve her mandate from the courts after what seemed like a long tortuous odyssey in politics in her home state of Kogi.

    Her 2018 attempt at contesting for the senate seat to represent Kogi Central under the Social Democratic Party (SDP) saw her go through a lot including the burning down of her office. She was bruised but not defeated. In 2023, she re-contested under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It was alleged that the then governor, Yahaya Bello in a bid to hamper the transportation of electoral materials to her Senatorial district, influenced the excavation of parts of the road and allegedly claimed that it was to prevent access by hoodlums.

    Being popular with her people, she won the election even though her opponent was declared winner. She retrieved her mandate from the courts. She is a metaphor for what most women experience in politics in Nigeria. In a way, she can be said to have been lucky to escape all the violence against her. Another woman, Salome Abuh, a PDP Women Leader was burnt alive in her home in 2019 by assailants alleged to be from the opposition. The killer, Ochoi Edicha was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

    Many women in politics have reported various degrees of abuse from their male counterparts. Some are even taunted as prostitutes just because they attempt to access leadership positions at various levels. Beyond the monopolization of party executive position seen as very powerful for electoral victories, women suffer financial handicaps because the Nigerian political system is not structured for transparent financial accountability and this leads to money playing a huge role in who accesses political positions either at party primaries or general elections.

    Even though the Senate President apologized to the female senator, the impact of his remark remains. It is very stereotypical of many male politicians to pass snide remarks on women who share the same space just to mentally defeat the women. This is not good for our democracy. Nigeria with a population of more than 200 million cannot develop without its other population. There must be a level field and women must be given their due respect at all times.

    Public office holders like the senate President who is getting more notorious for his public gaffs must realize that certain positions are like a lamp on the mountain top. Younger men and even his own daughters are watching and he ought to know that with positions of power come certain responsibilities. Too few women are in the senate in Nigeria. A  Senate ratio of 4:105 for women Vs. men is very discouraging for a country like Nigeria with the class of intellectually sophisticated women that can contribute to national development.

    Gender equity and justice must not be mere rhetoric. Politicians in Nigeria must realize that the underdevelopment in the country is often linked to the absence of women in strategic political positions especially in the legislative houses where laws are made and oversight functions carried out on the executive.

    The fact that many women occupy leadership positions in the financial sector, academia, businesses and agriculture shows their capacity and the political space can benefit from the brilliance of many Nigerian women. Is it not interesting that in the recent UK elections, of the eight British-Nigerians elected into parliament, six are women? Nigerian men must understand the idea of a bird being unable to fly with just one wing. The poverty level in Nigeria says something about gender and youth exclusion.

    • The dialogue continues…
  • The trouble with patriotism in Nigeria

    The trouble with patriotism in Nigeria

    Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country- John Fitzgerald Kennedy JFK

    The quote above were words spoken by the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy as he gave his inauguration speech to the American People who had just voted in the closest election race ever. Kennedy, a serving  Senator prior to his emergence as president was a regarded as a new generation leader who via that speech was seeking to reinvigorate the American populace to do more for the nation.

    This generation of Nigerians and future generations have no other country but Nigeria, we shall remain here and salvage it together.

    Now, this quote were the very last words of the  speech of a former military ruler of Nigeria, General Muhammadu Buhari, a favorite of mine, this quote too was somewhat a rallying call for Nigerians to salvage the mess that past Nigerian administrations had plunged the Nigerian nation into, a call many Nigerians barely answered.

    Herein lies the difference between these two societies; the call to patriotism  by two new generation leaders of two different nations and the aftermath. One society remains progressive building upon such patriotism to expand the nation’s frontiers, the other grappling from one conundrum unto another, doing what a renowned professor described as the “Forbaki” dance of progress, where it takes two steps forward and ten steps backward!

    Read Also: Guinness Nigeria records 31% revenue growth half year

    In one we have had a rising spate of patriotism alongside progress, though such patriotism is worriedly springing up some sort of nationalism as a counterforce to the rising liberalism/ diversity of American  society but then that is a discussion for another day and in the other, there appears to be a dwindling spate of patriotism, one where there is no shared passion with the aspiration of the state, conversely there is seemingly no meaningful progress in the affairs of such a state.

    Today, on numerous skits and on social media platforms in Nigeria we repeatedly see where the nation is reportedly bashed by its citizens, yes we know that the country hasn’t been on a path or track that she was destined for but then should that make the nation the butt of jokes? No is the music here!

    The United States of America is not the only respectable exemplification of what patriotism is or should be, other nations such as Germany, Israel, India, The United Kingdom, Namibia and Ghana are natural examples of a people that take pride in their national status, yes they may have had their issues with their governments but you will never see them jeer at their nation’s pride.

    It is this level of patriotism that is translated into all works and spheres of life of these nations! From the leadership to the ordinary man on the streets of these nations we see a compelling need to put the interests of their nations before anything else, little wonder these nations are remarkably making fleeting progress!

    Certain schools of thought will however criticize my train of thoughts, laying landmines on why patriotism is lacking in Nigeria and possibly attempt to justify such. They will make known examples of how the Nigerian State has reportedly failed its people and how it’s leadership, like a recurring decimal has repeatedly dashed the hopes of the Nigerian people while dishing out slogans and maxims that left the nation poorer while they enriched themselves! They will point to how national leaders became tribal champions undermining the Nigerian spirit for the allure of regional or prebendal politics, they will refer you to the lives of those who gave their all for the love of country and place a picturesque contrast with those who didn’t and how these persons have fared after be it in life or in death. Nigeria I have repeatedly heard is “not worth dying for!“

    They argue that if we are to indeed exhibit patriotism, then the leadership class must be the bellwether of such an act, they state that it is unfair to place such burdens on the people while the leadership class fritter away the nation’s commonwealth.

    One might be forced to agree with such thinking save the solemn fact that every nation deserves the kind of leadership it gets, therefore if the leadership class has fallen short of the patriotism benchmark then it is because the people too have exhibited such.

    I may also agree that while nations like Pakistan, India and China had single national hero leaders, leadership such as Al Jinnah, Nehru and Mao who’s philosophy have sought to guide their people into finding the path unto national salvation whereas compared to Nigeria, where we had a motley of leaders who    were reportedly more of regional or ethnic champions than nationalists complicating our march unto national unity and its salvation, but then the United States and the UK cannot be ascribed to a singular hero leader, rather they have had a cast of them each repeatedly seeking to lift the nation even as peers and as rivals, again is such an argument not lame in the fact that it’s been sixty years since the nation got her independence from her colonial masters, to continue to dwell on such is indeed laughable or we a country of all over 200 million people now short of heroes?

    The answer like that hymn is blowing in the winds!

  • Electoral commission for local governments

    Electoral commission for local governments

    Opinion is divided on the push for a separate and centrally administered electoral commission for the nation’s 774 local government areas.

    The debate followed the Supreme Court’s judgment on local government autonomy, which tends to have limited, to a large extent, the state government’s control over the third tier.

    The Senate is discussing a Bill, titled: “National Independent Local Government Electoral Commission (NILGEC) and other matters (Establishment) Bill, 2024,” sponsored by its Finance Committee Chairman Sani Musa, a stalwart of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Niger East District. If the bill scales through and is assented to by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) set up by state governments for council polls may be outlawed.

    The aims and objectives of the proposed local government commission, as highlighted by Senator Musa, are similar to those of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    These include conducting free, fair, and transparent elections to elect local government chairmen and councillors, preparing and maintaining an accurate and up-to-date voters’ register, and ensuring voter education and public awareness towards the electoral process.

    The proposed agency will set and enforce electoral guidelines and regulations for council elections, recruit and train electoral officers and workers for efficient election management, monitor and supervise all electoral activities and processes at the council level, investigate and adjudicate electoral disputes and grievances.

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    The proposed NILGEC is expected to operate independently, free from external influence and interference; with its budget, approved by the National Assembly, to ensure financial independence.

    The electoral body shall announce the election schedule, at least, six months before the election, and define and enforce penalties for electoral offenses, including but not limited to voter fraud, ballot stuffing, and electoral violence.

    When established, “all powers and functions related to the conduct of local government elections previously vested in any other body or authority shall be transferred to NILGEC”.

    The apex court’s verdict on financial autonomy and conduct of council polls by NILGEC, if approved, may decorate local government as lower-level federating units of an inexplicable federation once characterised by three and later, four regions, and much later, military-created 36 states, as presumed or perceived federating units.

    Supporters of a separate umpire for conducting council polls believe that the commission would be independent, unbiased, more assertive, and more credible than the current 36 states’ Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs).

    However, those who have reservations about it contend that the country may gradually move from its meagre devolution to a higher degree of centralisation, although they never doubt the prospects of electoral efficiency and resultant free and fair council polls.

    Their other observation is that the establishment of a separate electoral commission for local governments would entail tinkering with the constitution, which has given legal backing to SIECs and state authorities to organise and supervise council polls.

    Section Seven of the 1999 Constitution gives the local government system a legal impetus. The section provides that “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 Eight of this Constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance, and functions of such councils”.

    Section 3 Part II of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution makes provision for the establishment of SIEC. Section 4 of the Constitution gives SIECs the powers to organise, undertake and supervise all elections to local government councils within the state and to render such advice as it may consider necessary to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), including the compilation and registration of voters as long as the register applies to local government elections in the state.

    The above provisions show that INEC is superior to SIEC because the latter still depends on the voter register prepared by INEC although INEC does not perform any regulatory functions over SIEC.

    The constitutional interpretation is that while the Federal Government has constitutional power to constitute the membership of INEC, as contained in Section 154 of the 1999 Constitution, the same power is given to governors for the composition of SIEC, as contained in Section 3 of Part II of the Constitution.

    Unlike INEC, which has an organisational structure comprising a Chairman and National Commissioners, SIEC has “a chairman; and not less than five but not more than seven other persons”.

    But while all attention has been on the five elections conducted by INEC – the presidential, senatorial, House of Representatives, governorship, and House of Assembly; the polls conducted by SIEC – chairmanship and councillorship, have never generated widespread attention.

    The reasons are not far-fetched. Many stakeholders believe that local government poll results are predictable; the governor’s party often wins the poll by a landslide. Conceding defeat in some wards or councils means ceding some councils to opposition parties. To the ruling parties, it is a taboo. It is the height of political intolerance. In most cases, the grassroots elections are usually boycotted by opposition parties.

    Besides, experts have often complained about the lack of capacity and autonomy by SIEC as politicians may even be appointed as SIEC members. In many states, local government elections are conducted reluctantly by governors. They are inclined towards setting up caretaker or transition committees comprising their associates and lackeys.

    There is no uniformity in Nigeria’s local government system. While the chairmen and councillors enjoy a four-year tenure in some states, other states have chairmen and councilors with three or two-year tenures. While the Federal Government cannot dissolve a state government, many governors, until the recent court judgment, indulged in sacking elected council functionaries at will. The reluctance to conduct council polls has become a political culture in many states. It is inherited and transferred to successors. Some critics have rejected the economic factor cited as the reason. But the truth is that since state governments feed fat on the local governments’ allocations, conducting polls may reduce such opportunities. Thus, the poor financial status of some state governments does not predispose them to organising elections.

    Indisputably, security challenges, particularly in some trouble spots in the North, may not motivate state governments to take council polls as a priority.

    If NILGEC is established, Nigeria would be retracing its steps to the pre-Third Republic era of political experimentation but with a minor difference. The difference is that while the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC) of Eme Awa conducted council polls with success, the responsibility will not be performed by a separate body appointed by the President. This may be due to the feeling that INEC may not be able to cope with the expansion of electoral responsibilities to cover local governments.

    In December 1990, the defunct NEC conducted the first nationwide local government election on a party basis, building on the success recorded during previous council polls in 1989 on a non-party basis.

    Many Nigerians hailed the electoral body, saying the election was very peaceful, adding that rigging was minimal, compared to previous polls. 

    The implication is that when a central election management body conducts council polls, its outcome can be more transparent and credible than polls conducted by the SIEC.

    However, while many polls conducted by SIEC may not have passed the integrity test, it should also be noted that not all the elections conducted by INEC in this dispensation were devoid of controversy.

    In Nigeria, where politicians never readily accept the outcome of elections, however transparent it might have been, would NILGEC be able to cope with numerous post-election litigations across the country?

    There are other puzzles: if NILGEC comes on board, will it also conduct elections into the smaller local units, the Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs), and area councils? These LCDAS are not listed in the constitution. They were legitimately and legally created, but the process, according to the Supreme Court, is inchoate. What would be their fate?

    Does it not also have an implication for the practice of federalism when the conduct of the grassroots election is centralised but not decentralised?

  • Netanyahu, Iran and the US

    Netanyahu, Iran and the US

    Virtually every sentence he uttered was punctuated with standing applause by members of the United States Congress who had convened to listen to an address by the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. That Netanyahu was addressing the joint sitting of the two houses for the fourth time is an indication of the close ties between both countries. However, not insignificant too was the boycott of the event by no less than 80 Senators and Representatives of the Democratic Party reflecting both the wide ideological hiatus between contending political tendencies and breakdown of elite consensus in the US but also the odium with which the Israeli leader is widely perceived by not an insubstantial number of citizens across the world. This is because of what has been widely condemned as the ongoing genocide in Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in a conflict that has lasted for nine months now.

    True, the unprovoked attack by fighters of the Hamas militant group on Israelites within that country’s territory on October 7, 2023, killing, maiming, and allegedly raping thousands of people as well as taking hundreds of others into captivity as hostages was responsible for the forceful response by the IDFs against the inhabitants of Gaza where Hamas has its headquarters. However, the prevalent public opinion across the world is that the reaction of the Israelis has been more than proportional and that the victims have been mostly innocent Palestinians including women and children rather than the Hamas militants.

    In his address to the US Congress, Netanyahu strongly denied this allegation. He contended that the IDF has been largely successful in evacuating civilians from areas where military actions were to be undertaken hence minimizing non-combatant civilians. Not unexpectedly, he came hard down hard on the International Criminal Court (ICC), which had issued a warrant of arrest against the Israeli leader for alleged genocidal actions of the IDF in Gaza which amounted to “crimes against humanity.”

    He described the action of the ICC as an attempt to tie Israel’s hands and prevent its ongoing offensive to decapitate Hamas and prevent the organization from ever again constituting a threat to the people of Israel. He was no less strident and unyielding in his reaction to anti-Israeli protesters who were outside the premises of Congress and have been active on university campuses across America calling for an end to what is widely perceived as genocide in Gaza.

    In his words, “Many choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers. These protesters stand with them. They should be ashamed of themselves”. Continuing, he said, “When the tyrants of Tehran who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair or are praising, promoting, and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots”. It is unlikely that a resort to insult and cheap abuse will change the perception by many that what is happening in Gaza is difficult to distinguish from genocide. The daily visuals and stories on global media suggest a situation on ground in Gaza quite different from the picture painted by Netanyahu.

    One critical aspect of his speech that this writer found interesting was the length Netanyahu went to portray Iran as the villain responsible, directly or indirectly, for much of the violence in the region and beyond through sponsoring violent groups like Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. According to him, “In the Middle East, Iran is virtually behind all the terror, all the turmoil, all the chaos, all the killing and that should come as no surprise. When he founded the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini pledged, “We will export our revolution to the entire world. We will export the Islamic revolution to the whole world”. Now, ask yourselves which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran’s maniacal plan to impose radical Islam on the world? And the answer is clear: It’s America, the guardian of Western civilization and the world’s greatest power. That’s why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy”.

    Netanyahu went on to proclaim that Israel is the bulwark against Iran’s ambitions in the Middle East and thus America’s indispensable ally for safeguarding Western civilization in that region and even across the world. The American legislators must have been carried away by the skill with which their guest massaged their country’s ego hence the endless standing applauses he received. In reality, America’s legacy in the Middle East and across the world is not as ennobling and altruistic as depicted by the Israeli leader. For instance, in 1953, it was America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) that masterminded the coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mr Mohammed Mosadegh. But for that truncation of democratic practice in Iran, that country’s national political trajectory could most likely have been fundamentally different from what it is today.

    According to an online resource, “The coup transformed Iran’s constitutional monarchy under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi into a royal dictatorship that was later toppled in a revolution in 1979”. It continued, “Despite a campaign of historical revisionism in Washington, the archival record makes clear that the US government was the key actor in the 1953 military coup that ousted Mohamed Mossadegh not the Iran clergy. A French and Swiss-educated lawyer from an aristocratic family, Mosaddegh served two terms as Prime Minister of Iran from 1951, when he led the movement to nationalize the British-controlled Iranian oil industry until 1953 when his government was toppled by a royalist military coup supported by the CIA and the British SIS”.

    Another report indicates that “For most Iranians, Mossadegh remains an evocative national hero because of his staunch defense of Iran’s sovereignty over its vital resource – oil. For many liberal Iranians who still dream of a democratic Iran, he also remains a symbol of civic nationalism and constitutionalism because of his demand that the Shah should reign but not rule.”

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    Of course, the absolute, dictatorial monarchy under the Shah installed after the 1953 coup, promoted a lack of accountability, insensitivity, impunity and corruption since absolute power it is now agreed corrupts absolutely. Of course, the Western countries that sponsored the coup which brought the Shah into power as an absolute monarch had unfettered access to the control and exploitation of Iran’s economy, especially her oil in that dispensation. This was the background that led to the Islamic revolution which brought radical Islamic clerics to power in Iran in 1979. This revolution was popularly received by the majority of Iranians because of the pervasive corruption and ineptness of the deposed Shah monarchy.

    The media also reported in 2000 that during a brief thaw in the ties between Britain, the US and Iran, then US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, officially acknowledged that the “US played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh” and described the coup as “a setback for Iran’s political development”. It is only within this kind of historical context that the contemporary politics of Iran and its dynamics including its attitude to the US can be properly situated and analyzed.

    Netanyahu described the ongoing war in the Middle East as a clash not between civilizations but a clash between barbarism and civilization. But the sheer ferocity of its retaliatory action against Hamas in Gaza, the widely acknowledged abuses and atrocities of the IDF even against women and children suggest that what we have is a competition of barbarisms on both sides with the difference being only in degree. Unfortunately, the IDF has not demonstrated that it operates at a higher professional and ethical pedestal than the rag-tag Hamas fighters.

    Netanyahu exults in his claim that his country and America have jointly developed some of the most sophisticated weapons to help protect both countries. This, in addition to maintaining a monopoly in ownership of nuclear weapons and particularly thwarting Iran’s capability to do so, he seems to believe, is the path to security and peace for the two countries. But it is futile for anyone to believe that other countries apart from Iran will not also seek to acquire nuclear power in the course of time.

    A democratization of ownership of the most sophisticated military weapons may make the difference between survival or destruction for countries in a world in which might is right and the powerful can tread with impunity on the rights of the weak. As many experts have persistently advocated, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction is the pathway to a more secure world. A situation in which a handful of countries hold on tenaciously to their ownership of these weapons while preventing others from following their example and reinforcing their arsenal is unsustainable and futile in the long run.

    For Netanyahu, the only way for the cessation of the war against Gaza is when total victory is achieved and this means the surrender and total dismantling of Hamas. In his words, “The war in Gaza could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, disarms, and returns all the hostages. But if they don’t, Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas’s military capabilities and its rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home”. But the October 7 attack against Israel by Hamas did not occur in a vacuum. It has been analyzed by many within the context of the rabid injustice against the Palestinian people such that in a place like Gaza, life is like existing in a concentration camp.

    Unless these root causes are addressed, an even deadlier liberation movement will arise even if Hamas is annihilated today. The desire for freedom springs in every soul and much of the history of the world is that of people resisting oppression and fighting for liberty and emancipation. According to the Israeli leader, “A new generation of Palestinians must no longer be taught to hate Jews but rather to live in peace with us”. He is right. But a new generation of Jews must also no longer be taught that they are inherently superior to the Palestinians who deserve to be treated only as second-class citizens.

  • Clapping for our opponents

    Clapping for our opponents

    I don’t envy the honourable Sports Minister Senator John Owan Enoh. The amiable politician would find out in the coming days the true picture of how well or how badly our Olympic Games’ bound sports federations have fared in the last four years.

    Enoh would also find out that there is a distinct difference in fielding athletes who qualified early for the Olympics and those who went through several expeditions of qualifying competitions before they could make the cut-off points.

    Enoh is in Paris to learn. He has done well by providing what the contingent reasonably wants. Kudos to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for releasing N12 billion to the 88-member contingent, another of Tinubu’s magic wands which ought to motivate the athletes to give their best during the competition.

    Tinubu has shown that he is grounded in the act of motivating people. Sports has never had it so good – N12 billion for the Olympics? Please don’t wake me up until the medals start flying in. Not drug tainted medals o!

     Indeed, after the Olympics, Enoh won’t want to see many of the cringing sports administrators who have been hovering around him like nectar on hibiscus. He would have been wiser, but won’t be able to do anything with the spilled milk. Enoh would, however, be able to correct some of the mistakes from the Paris Olympics by insisting that only goal-getters win the sports federations’ elections for a better tomorrow at the next Olympic Games in 2028.

    What this means is that the minister would have realised that the latter groups (late qualifiers) are at the 2024 Olympic Games as also-ran athletes. Most of them struggled to make the games’ mark to survey the boutiques, perfume shops, telecommunications outlets and other merchandising outlets for shopping not to compete for honour for Nigeria – put simply they are in The French capital to ‘See Paris and die,’ as the jingo goes. These groups are in Paris to enjoy the very good French wines and meals since they can’t kill themselves to win medals for Nigeria, experts in fire brigade style of preparing for a competition whose date was known four years ago. They would constitute the crowd of failed athletes who would be clapping for Nigeria’s better prepared opponents who would be sweeping the laurels when pitched against us. They would be ones inferring that our athletes were robbed by the officiating personnel. Forgetting that the rules of all sports keep changing and the Olympic family can’t wait for snoring Nigerian officials to learn the new tricks of each game before utilising them at big sporting competitions.

    Nigeria would continue to dance in circles at big tournaments except we learn how to host big sports competitions, going forward. The first benefit is that our infrastructures would be the latest supersonic brands in the market, not the rustic ones you find in dilapidated facilities across the country. Indeed, many young kids watching such competitions in Nigeria would be driven by what they see to embrace the sport. Our sports administrators’ penchant for competing only in foreign lands defeats the essence of sports development in a third-world nation such as ours.

    Enoh would find out albeit very late that the country’s hopes at the Olympics would be those forerunners in their different sports such as Tobi Amusan, Efe Brume, and perhaps, a few others in wrestling, who would scale through the qualifiers. Indeed, the Olympic Games is a melting pot of sorts for sports – only good for the best sportsmen and women and also a platform for upsets for those countries who have used the last two Olympics in 2016 and 2020 to discover, nurture, and it is time to expose the new kids on the block at the big stage – the Olympic Games.

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    The unwritten Olympic mantra is that it takes at least between two to three Olympic Games’ circles of four years to produce world beaters as athletes. Of course, the very exceptional ones take short circles. Anytime I listen to our sports administrators listing Amusan and Brume as potential medallists, my mind races back to Blessing Okagbare until she was caught in the drug web, thus ending her hitherto illustrious sprinting career. Okagbare had problems taking off out of her starter’s block in the 100 metres for women. Our administrators couldn’t get her a good coach to correct that flaw in her sprinting career.

    Countries such as Jamaica and the USA would storm Paris ready to dethrone Amusan in the 110 metres women’s hurdles and Brume in the women’s long jump. They would have studied both girls’ tapes to exploit their flaws to clinch gold medals in both competitions they have dominated in previous Olympic Games. It is important to ask our administrators with experience in handling such matters if they got Amusan and Brume the coaches, doctors, dieticians, nutritionists, video analysts etc who kept a watch on likely contenders in these girls’ events. Or have they left them chasing the gold medal blindfolded as usual? We won’t accept any form of excuses if both athletes don’t enjoy the preferential treatment that top stars such as the former Jamaica’s world record 100 metres champion Usain Bolt enjoyed in his heydays.

    Dear reader, I had the privilege of sitting close to the finishing line of the 100 metres final for men at the 2012 Olympics held in London and Bolt’s entrance into any event was memorable – simple, but noticeable even when the buzz around his presence has calmed down with his exit. I sat so close to the finishing line that I stood up to shake the champion who made the sprint race a delight to watch, in spite of his usual late outbursts from the starter’s block.

    The bodyguards who accompanied Bolt gave him space which he exploited to salute his fans. He signed several things brought before him by his admirers without any hindrances. His appearance at spots at the Olympic venues in London didn’t cause any stampede. Rather, he came like whirlwind, but this time not scaring people with any dust or litters which accompany whirlwinds. Bolt knows how to take pictures with kids – lovely shots. Bolt was indeed athletics’ King Kong, apologies to fans’ other choices such as America’s Carl Lewis.

    The Super Falcons were full of guts and gumption, but a 37th minute strike by Gabi Nunes separated the two-time Olympics silver medalists from the nine-time African champions as the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament got off to a nervy start on Thursday. The game ended 1-0 in Brazil’s favour. Such nail-biting results will characterise the outcome of Nigeria’s participation in the games. The finer edges of victory belong to those who did their homework between four and eight years ago. Not six months ago

    I would rather Nigeria returns from Paris without any medal because it wouldn’t be happening for the first time than for our country’s image to be stained by cases of drug-popping athletes.  I hope that the country’s doctors haven’t compromised standards for any reason. Nigeria won’t cease to become a sovereign country if our country’s sports ambassadors fail to get a medal in Paris.

    Interestingly, Nigeria can beat her chest to say that Amusan, the country’s flag bearer to the Japan 2024 Olympic Games and Brume are sure medal hopefuls based on their pedigree. But, the Olympics is a different kettle of fish. It is the platform for new stars to emerge by beating the established orders.

    As for this writer, I also wish to watch Amusan and Brume dancing on the medals podium with Nigeria’s national anthem played to celebrate their outstanding outings. I would be equally happy if our wrestlers could make a statement about their arrival in Paris by winning at least two gold medals, a silver and bronze medals.

  • Tinubu, restructuring, and federalism

    Tinubu, restructuring, and federalism

    One of the greatest challenges confronting the current administration is how to restore true federalism.  It appears President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is trying to resolve the hurdle in an exceptional way and with a unique style.

    That time-tested style is characterised by devotion to the constitution, respect for the rule of law, and belief in the judiciary, the third arm of government and ultimate arbiter under democracy.

    As a democrat, the president is leaning on these pillars of popular rule as he undertakes the critical assignment of repositioning the country for the nation to have what some people call proper federalism.

    It would be a long journey. But the foundation is being laid,  to the surprise of those who thought the president may have abandoned what he agitated for when he was opposition leader.

    The key to restoring an effective federal principle is reform, which would yield the dividends of restructuring or devolution of powers that are ingredients of a decentralised democratic order.

    There are four routes to the goal. The first is by the convocation of a national conference. Many believe this approach is laborious, monotonous, and wasteful because the previous two conferences ended in a fiasco. The 2004 conference report was sacrificed for a third-term agenda. The 2011 conference was no more than a jamboree, a Greek gift.

    The second option is the Sovereign National Conference (SNC), which would validate a popular process leading to the birth of a people-oriented constitution, based on agreed terms for peaceful coexistence in a multi-lingual, multi-religious, and diverse society. However, this has been largely elusive.

    The National Assembly has often viewed an SNC as a threat and an affront to its sovereignty as the custodian of the constitution amendment process, oblivious of the fact that it was voted into power by the people.

    The third approach is through a constitutional amendment. This is the purview of the National Assembly. The belief is that the 1999 Constitution has lied against itself by posing as a federal constitution that harbours some elements of unitarism. So far, getting a consensus on many items in the national document has been an uphill task. Periodically, there is a piecemeal constitution review, but it is incapable of making Nigeria a proper federation.

    The fourth option is through a judicial pronouncement, particularly by the Supreme Court, which has the power to give a final verdict on constitutional matters and resolve any conflicts arising from inter-governmental relations in a supposedly federal entity.

    The third approach has produced a far-reaching, unprecedented result as the apex court affirmed local government financial autonomy. Allocations to the 774 councils will henceforth go directly to the council chairmen. The middlemen – governors – are being partly eliminated from the channels of financial control over the councils.

    With the development, it is hoped that there will no longer be any cause for fund diversion. Also, only democratically elected councils would be recognised; there would be no room for caretakers, generally perceived as impostors. The onus is on state governments to conduct council elections. With the apex court’s pronouncement, the local government is gradually becoming the third tier of government in Nigeria.

    But, in this circumstance, some puzzles have arisen. Has the court abrogated the State/Local Government Joint Account? Has it outlawed the power of the Houses of Assembly to create and politically supervise the local government systems?

    It appears the verdict has strengthened the councils financially to frontally tackle the challenges of grassroots development. It means that the councils’ responsibilities that were hitherto discharged on their behalf by states would be returned to them.

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    Politically, the local government will now be attractive to politicians. Competition for the positions of chairmen and councillors will now become stiff. There will be a need to check reckless council bosses who may want to convert their domains into a means for acquiring private wealth.

    But scholars need to study the emerging trend of having a corrective federalism whereby local governments centrally created by past dictatorial military regimes are listed in the constitution. On the other hand, those created by civilian governors, based on consultations and public yearnings, are not listed. Such a development would make the procedure for creating them inchoate.

    President Tinubu was an apostle of devolution of power and creation of true federalism when he was the opposition leader. Consistent with that avowed commitment, he has upheld the decision of the immediate past government to decentralise rail transportation, for example.

    This implies that the centralisation of the rail system is outdated. The railway is thus on its way to the Concurrent List. This is laudable. While the Federal Government can build on the existing structures, states, groups of states, regions, and groups of regions can collaborate to extend the rail lines for ease of transportation and commerce. If the railway is improved upon, the roads would be insulated from the threats posed by trailers and other articulated vehicles on the highways.

    Electricity has been a big headache to Nigerians. Yet, it is critical to public welfare, effective business operations and industrialisation, particularly the resuscitation of the manufacturing sub-sector, which can create jobs. Without a stable power supply, there would be no ease of doing business. Investors may also be reluctant to explore opportunities in Nigeria.

    The decision by the Federal Government to decentralise the supply of electricity is just beginning to catch up with the proposals enjoined by the Tinubu Administration in Lagos, which gave birth to Eron/PPP.

    It is now possible for a state or group of contiguous states or a region to collaborate to have regular power supply, instead of relying on the current mess.

    President Tinubu’s position on state police has also received commendations. The goal of a decentralised policing structure is to bring policing to the people’s doorsteps at the grassroots and boost the channels of intelligence gathering.

    Under the proposed state policing system, those who know the environment would police their areas. Therefore, they would have a good knowledge of the environment and the people they serve. The geography, sociology, history, psychology and the customs of each area would aid the policing system.

    This approach would enhance the security system, which would become the joint responsibility of the state or community policemen, the indigenes, and the residents.

    However, there are three challenges. The idea of state policing suggests that there would be a multi-layer policing system. What would then be the relationship between the federal police and the policing structure controlled by the governors?

    Also, the governors would become the chief security officers in their states. However, what is the assurance that they would not deploy state police to oppress their foes, or the opposition, especially during electioneering?

    There is also the concern about funding. While some states that are already giving substantial financial support for the federally centralised police can fund state police with success, other less endowed states may flounder in funding.

    Two other issues agitating students of Nigeria’s federalism are the Value Added Tax (VAT) and resource control. Already, the VAT case is pending in court. Should states that outlaw alcoholism, for instance, partake in the proceeds of tax generated through alcoholic consumption from other states?

    Does it not amount to robbing Peter to pay Paul when VAT is generated in a state for the benefit of other states? One zone tolerates alcohol, which consumption generates huge VAT and another zone has outlawed alcoholism. But in the portions of the VAT from the sale and consumption of alcohol in the former are still distributed to the later, because they must be their brother’s keeper.

    The crisis of federalism in Nigeria is connected to the quarrel over the distribution of the proceeds from oil, a national cake domiciled in the Niger Delta region and a few other areas. Host communities, despite the various Federal Government interventions, are still complaining about imbalance and lopsided distribution. While some states claim ownership of solid mineral deposits in their domains, they still get their shares from the revenue that accrues from oil, a national wealth sustaining the federation.

    There is still more work to redress perceived injustice and injuries arising from the nation’s highly defective federal system.

    Many believe that if reforms for devolution were implemented to a logical conclusion under the Tinubu Administration, Nigeria would be liberated from the yoke of ‘unitarism’.

  • Local government financial autonomy:Huzzah to the Supreme Court

    Local government financial autonomy:Huzzah to the Supreme Court

    In what appeared to be a landmark ruling in the annals of judicial interventions in this country Nigeria, the Supreme Court, the nation’s highest court recently ruled on local government funding, upending an era that has seen state governments meddle with funds meant for the Local Government Councils at the detriment of this tier of government which has stunted democracy and development at this grassroot level.

    The ruling, which will ultimately have far-reaching implications for the country’s governance has largely been hailed as a victory for local governments, as well as underscores  the importance of financial autonomy for these critical tiers of government. However, there is a need for more to be done particularly at the legislative end to ensure total autonomy of these councils if such a ruling is to be significant in the desire by many for the return of true federalism in Nigeria.

    I had in one of my columns published in December 2022, titled ‘Poverty Blame Game (2)’ pointed out that one of the reasons why poverty was rampant in Nigeria remains due to the neglect of the Local Government System, describing the system as at that time and now as a sick joke and the chattels of sitting governors and their cronies. A situation where funds meant for these LG’s are held by the state governments and parceled out to these LG’s according to the whims of the governor, who like an emperor can dissolve duly elected officials, replacing them with his lackeys who are at his beck and call. I had in that piece called for the LG system to be allowed to flourish via making such a system autonomous and democratic in nature drawing comparison with how the Chinese county system had helped pull 98.99 million people out of poverty while ours was rapidly sucking millions into poverty!

    The Supreme Court ruling thus gives much vindication to my postulation in that piece as well as a whole the critical voices who have bemoaned the daylight robbery at the LG system. It’s ruling, which revolves

    around the interpretation of Section 162 (7) of the Constitution. This section of the Constitution outlines the sharing of revenue among the federal, state, and local governments in the country. It provides that the president shall cause the revenue to be shared among the three tiers of government in such a manner as to ensure financial autonomy for each tier. This has sadly not being the case as most local governments don’t have direct access to their funds and thus cannot perform the least cursory of services that is despite the humongous allocations received by it, most state governors and their commissioners for local government and sometimes the added appellation of chieftaincy affairs usually siphon such funds.

    Haven seen such rot, most Nigerians have condemned the system or practice of state governments controlling and allocating funds to local governments. They have argued that these councils were entitled to receive their share of revenue directly from the federal government, without state government interference.

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    But the state governments have argued that they,  the states play a crucial role in the administration of local governments and therefore had the authority to allocate funds to them. They contended using the argument of true federalism and that the LGs have no place in a federal constitution. One Editorial of a major Nigerian newspaper arguing in support of such an opinion posited that in countries such as

    the United States, India, and Brazil, their constitution recognises the centre and province/region/state governments only and that the sub nationals or  States fund the LGs as the councils are under them. The states also assert that the

    1999 Constitution does not provide for direct allocation of funds to local governments and that state governments were responsible for ensuring that local governments received their share of revenue.

    The states have also alleged that whilst LG chairmen had control of their funding from 1999 to 2002, before a court ruling placed them under state government’s purview , that period witnessed serious corruption practices by these chairmen resulting in teachers and local government staff not getting paid while the LG chairmen lived in opulence and that since the state governments had taken over the funds, such practices had been limited.

    While some of these arguments of the state remain tenable, particularly its position on corrupt Local Government officials, are  the state governments more transparent? Can they boast of a much more prudent use of such funds than these corrupt officials?

    Again, the arguments that they play a crucial role in the administration of the local governments can not justify their insistence on controlling the revenue allocated to the LG’s which stifles development since these LG’s deserve some level of financial autonomy to meet or fulfill their constitutional obligations.

    In addition, while the Constitution of Nigeria does not recognize the LG’s as a federating unit, it still cannot justify such undemocratic control of its activities by the state governments, this stifles development  as well as transparency and accountability whilst enabling corruption and mismanagement of such funds.

    One of the key implications of the ruling is that local governments in Nigeria will now have more control over their finances and greater freedom to prioritize spending on projects that benefit their communities. This will enable them to improve service delivery and infrastructure development at the grassroots level, leading to better outcomes for residents.

    Furthermore, the ruling is likely to have a positive impact on governance and accountability in Nigeria. By affirming the financial autonomy of local governments, the Supreme Court has sent a strong signal that the rule of law must be respected and that constitutional provisions must be upheld. This will help to strengthen the country’s democratic institutions and promote good governance practices at all levels of government. The era of caretaker committees the bastion of such undemocratic malfeasance perpetuated by these avaricious state governors and their cronies will also have come to a remarkable end!

    Likewise , the ruling is likely to have implications for intergovernmental relations in Nigeria. The relationship between federal, state, and local governments has long been characterized by tensions and conflicts over the allocation of resources and the exercise of power. The Supreme Court ruling may help to clarify the roles and responsibilities of each tier of government and promote a more cooperative and collaborative approach to governance.

    Lastly, I cannot fail to say kudos to these eminent judges who by such a ruling may have placed the country on its surest and fastest path to development, while it is not yet Uhuru, history, I must say will surely be kind to them!