The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

Obi vindicates Tinubu on presidential ambition

Not a few tongues wagged when a few months before the APC primaries last year, President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, visited President Muhammadu Buhari at Aso Rock and told reporters on the sidelines that his ambition to become president of Nigeria was a life-long one.

Many, particularly the supporters of the candidate of Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, were quick to describe Tinubu’s declaration as something that bordered on desperation. How on earth, they queried, would anyone make the presidency of a country with a population of more than 200 million people his personal ambition if not for his unbridled sense of entitlement.

But at the launch of a book written in his honour in Awka, Anambra State capital yesterday, Obi literally reechoed Tinubu’s declaration, saying that he must become Nigeria’s president now or later.

In a speech that vindicated Tinubu that aspiring to become leader of one’s country was not a crime, Obi said: “Anyone who thinks I’m on transit is wasting his time. Let me tell you, I must become the president of this country. I’m sure of that. If it is not today, it must be tomorrow.”

May 13, 2023
Zoning drama

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is caught on the horns of a dilemma picking who to lead the legislature come June this year. Although it has a comfortable majority in the Senate and is the largest party in the House of Representatives, aspirants from at least four geopolitical zones all want to be at the helm in the two chambers.

Everyone has what they consider exceptional reasons why the positions should be ceded to them. Aspirants from the Northwest would tell you their zone gave the party the largest chunk of votes. They are not bothered that top three positions would be occupied by people of the same faith – exacerbating tensions from the general elections.

Those from the Southeast say it’s their turn – never mind the fact that they contributed the least to the APC’s vote haul on February 25.

The situation is even more amusing in the House of Representatives where an army of Speaker aspirants from the Northwest, Northeast, North-Central and Southeast are all insistent on the position being zoned to their area. There’s just one problem: there’s only one seat!

With the heat of battle turned up following the party’s adoption of Tajudeen Abbas, several of the contestants have overtly threatening to revolt or rebel in the manner of Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara in 2015.

At this point, even the legendary King Solomon – reputed to the wisest monarch who ever lived, would have been scratching his head to come up with a zoning formula that would be acceptable to aspirants from four zones who insist the prize must be given to them or hell would be let loose.

But then this could be a case of bluff and counter bluff. How many of the huffing and puffing aspirants can actually command the numbers to be elected Senate President or Speaker? The answer is blowing in the wind!

May 13, 2023
Lessons of 2023 presidential poll

The February 25, 2023 presidential election has been won and lost. There had been nine others before this year’s exercise under the American political model which began in our country in 1979. None of them was accepted by either the political class or some other interests in the polity as flawless. Even the 1993 election adjudged to be the freest and fairest in the nation’s history, was, mindlessly, annulled by the dishonest military top hierarchy in cahoots with some Mafia politicians.

It is possible that political scientists and historians are already documenting this year’s contest for posterity. Doing so will enable Nigerians, particularly the political class, the contenders and pretenders in the concluded race, and their discerning and gullible followers, to draw lessons from the historic exercise.

History offers an opportunity to study the past and present for the purpose of understanding and preparing for the future. The lessons of history are instructive. They are meant to make us wiser than we were. Those who fail to learn often lack the tools, skills and experiences required for avoiding past mistakes and pitfalls. But wise politicians will be guided by events of 2023 as they return to the drawing board ahead of future polls.

The goal of politics is the attainment of power. Power, as it is now understood, is not served a la carte. Wining requires the right strategy, hard work and the ability to garner widespread support and acceptance across the country.

Also, an election is an emotive issue. Ordinarily, the contest should be perceived as a festival of choice and change. But it has often become, largely, a nightmare; a source of acrimony and division. This is due to the do-or-die attitude of some desperate politicians and their allies.

The elements of the stiff competition include antagonism, strife and rancour. These could be rationalised as requirements for power hunt. But the excesses are counter-productive because they can unleash tension, heat up the polity and damage the health of the highly heterogeneous country.

The votes garnered here and there that cannot take a presidential candidate to Aso Villa only raise a false hope. Yet, its inherent importance cannot be dismissed. The point is that on poll day, the freedom of choice, as constitutionally guaranteed, is exercised. Voting underscores an expression of personal feeling, group opinion and popular judgment, if the exercise is free and fair.

An election is meaningful if the votes count. However, no election is perfect anywhere in the world. Yet, what ignorant members of the public do not want to hear is substantial compliance with laid down electoral laws and guidelines. They are fascinated by utopia, due to their idealist yearning and self-delusion.

After the periodic election, the ballot box is the ultimate decider. But polls in Nigeria are often subjected to judicial scrutiny and affirmation as the battle shifts to the court. This year’s poll is not any different. It is still democracy in action, while the temple of justice remains the final arbiter. The only dark side is that bad losers hide under the provision of the law to ventilate imaginary grievances, thereby wasting the time of the court.

The outcome of the 2023 presidential election was influenced by a combination of factors. Apart from ethnicity, there were also issues about religion, structure, support base, emotions and sentiments.

Religion was both a strong and weak factor. Once religion was projected as the main issue, the outcome of the election was dictated by its effective deployment or otherwise.

But special skills are needed to effectively deploy religion as a weapon. To be effective, religious sentiment cannot be exploited in isolation of other factors. For example, the same faith approach never stood alone. While it was meant to appeal to highly populated Muslim-dominated zones, an objective it eventually achieved, other factors, such as formidable structure, personality, antecedent and pedigree of the candidates were added advantages.

Conversely, the religious sentiment expressed by the clangorous Labour Party (LP), which only targeted Christian votes, in the absence of the aforementioned factors, proved inadequate. The lesson is that an appeal to religion as the sole factor cannot pave the way to victory beyond inflaming passion and emotion.

Also, ethnicity, when projected as an independent factor, grossly failed. It is instructive that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and LP, which sought to profit from ethnicity, failed to garner sufficient votes like the ruing All Progressives Congress (APC) whose calculation was based on its national spread and appeal.

The implication is that in a highly heterogeneous federating nation like Nigeria, no presidential candidate can survive by leaning on a single ethnic support. While a candidate is expected to secure home support first, it should be borne in mind that cross-ethnic agreements, partnership and collaboration are more potent tolls that should be deployed to gain more political mileage.

Regional responses to the recent poll were an eye opener. They have implications for future political cooperation in the country.

The Yoruba of Southwest exhibited a cosmopolitan disposition, which affirmed their predictable liberal attitude. They voted for three political parties – the ruling APC, main opposition PDP and the clamorous LP. In Osun State, PDP won. In Lagos, LP triumphed.

Also, the three regions of the North – the Northwest, the Northcentral, and the Northeast -distributed their votes among the three parties. The Southsouth followed suit.

A sort of synergy developed among these collaborating regions, which can be built upon in the future. It contrasts sharply with the one-way voting style of the Southeast, which focused exclusively on one party, the LP, oblivious of the import of strategic political fellowship with other regions.

The deficiency of that approach is obvious. The regional appeal was narrow and not broad-based. No single zone can install a president independently of others. Besides, the voting style, which resulted from the resurgence of contemporary nationalism, created a deep suspicion, as the presidential and senatorial elections, which were conducted simultaneously in the Southeast, produced divergent results.

The consequence is that neither the ruling APC nor the main opposition PDP is thinking about zoning the Senate President to the Southeast because it is viewed as an attempt to reap where it did not sow.

Voting could become a tool for negotiation. It is a core element of a political tact and pact. Voting wisely will always achieve a better result than adopting post-election tactics that are regressive to the dispositions that are associated with threats of self-alienation, exclusion, and futileⁿ agitations for disintegration.

How the people also understand a candidate is a critical factor in ensuring they make a rational political choice. What the February 25 poll has revealed is that majority of Nigerians who voted, consciously chose a president they knew had a national outlook.

In addition, particularly for the APC candidate, bridge-building was critical to making an inroad to untapped electoral potentials.

More poignantly, targeting votes from more populous states and zones can boost the chance of any candidate. Populous states and zones are electoral assets. The North, particularly the seven states in the Northwest, two states in the Southwest, and two states in the Southsouth, if properly courted, would always supply the bulk of votes to the beneficiary candidate.

Also, the electorate was interested in what the candidates could offer. The informed voters vetted the performance of the candidates in the previous positions they had held and simply chose the best with their votes.

The platforms on which the candidates ran also played important roles. There were four major parties – APC, PDP, LP and New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) in the race. The NNPP is not a national party. But it maintained its hold on Kano State. The PDP and LP are crisis-ridden. In fact, LP’s struggle appeared to have reduced the PDP’s chances. Only the APC had put its house in order and remained united and most widespread throughout the election period, and till date.

While the PDP paid dearly for ignoring the threat posed by the G-5, LP remained a party without formidable structures across the regions. It only attracted sentimental votes in the Southeast, Lagos and some parts of the Northcentral. Besides, its efforts were inadequate.

There is a limit to relying on propaganda as a tool for gaining political mileage in the face of reality. Social media hoodlums had a pastime during the electioneering. Their target was the APC candidate. The political leeches viciously attacked him and attempted to de-market him in order to shore up the image of the LP candidate.

But, as the poll results have shown, the presidency cannot be for a neophyte or an upstart masking as a national icon.

Many youths were carried away by rumours and falsehoods. Many voted without rational appraisal of burning issues that shaped the contest. Voting by peer pressure, on the spur of the moment, became an uncritical response and lazy electoral behaviour on the part of youths whose main concern was delusional generational shift rather than the quality and worth of the candidates and the manifestos they offered to the electorate.

The greatest lesson of the 2023 poll is the God factor. Power flows to individuals through human efforts but crowned by divine favours. The Almighty is not partial. He does not use the human yardstick for His projection. Permutations can go wrong on the slippery political field. The ultimate is providential grace.

Nobody can get anything, including power, unless it is granted from the Divine Throne.

May 13, 2023
Emefiele and Buhari’s legacy

Had an aspirant like the All Progressives Party (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, not emerged as the party’s presidential flag bearer in the critical elections slated for February 25, in a landslide victory at the party primaries held in June last year in Abuja, the party would most probably have kissed triumph at the polls goodbye by now. So far, however, the strenuous efforts of the major political parties to pin the perceived flaws of the President Muhammadu Buhari APC administration on Tinubu and thereby fatally decapitate his campaign have abysmally failed to gain meaningful traction.

The APC candidate thus remains the clear front runner in the race hence the desperate but still futile attempts by the opposition, principally the Abubakar Atiku presidential campaign, to throw vicious dirt at him through recycled false allegations, mudslinging and character assassination.

For the candidate of a party which, despite the indisputable achievements of its government in the last eight years, has failed to match the great public expectations of fundamental change that greeted its assumption of office in 2015, what is responsible for the continued upsurge of the Tinubu campaign on the platform of a party that ought really to have its back on the ropes and literarily fighting for its political life?

There are at least three possible reasons for this scenario and the continuously upbeat tempo of the bulk of the APC leadership and rank and file membership in my view. First, President Buhari although traditionally regarded as the leader of the party, put a wide berth between his administration and the APC on which platform it came to power. The party had a negligible influence on or input into the government’s policies. The administration was at best perfunctory in its implementation of the party’s manifesto, a document which ought to have been its guiding light and veritable Bible.

On the critical restructuring component of the party platform, for example, the administration adopted a stance of complete indifference and nonchalance even as party leaders agonized in discomfited silence. When the administration over two years into its first term deigned to set up a committee headed by Kaduna State governor, Mr. Nasir el’Rufai, to advise on the party’s policy position on restructuring, for instance, the committee’s far-reaching recommendations such as the urgent need to radically decentralize the country’s security architecture was completely ignored after it was submitted to the President even though, in his characteristically thorough manner, el’Rufai had accompanied the proposals with draft bills on the various issues to be forwarded to the National Assembly for legislative follow up action.

It was obvious that the infamous alleged cabal in the inner precincts of the Aso Rock power house had edged out the party hierarchs from exerting any meaningful influence on government direction and policy with the result that many discerning members of the public lay the blames for the administration’s perceived failures on a few members of the President’s inner circle who abused his confidence and trust rather than on the party.

The second reason for the relative feebleness and bluntness of the PDP’s salvos against the APC in this campaign is that, even if the ruling party’s alleged failings are partly true, the PDP has not sufficiently demonstrated that it has fundamentally reformed itself and would do better if returned to power in 2023 than it did in its earlier largely squandered 16 years in office at the centre. Most of the seeds of the problems that bloomed and festered under the APC in the last eight years were laid during the preceding PDP years in control of Aso Rock.

A good example of the PDP’s all too obvious imperviousness to change was the crassness and brazenness with which it abandoned its own constitutional provision for rotation of power between the North and the South and the sleight of hand through which Alhaji Atiku Abubakar grabbed the party’s presidential ticket. The party continues to reel from the intra-organizational crisis arising from this development as illustrated by the rebellion of the governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State-led G5 governor’s and its crippling effect on the Atiku campaign.

To worsen matters, Atiku’s cynical, divisive attempt to pitch the North against the South by projecting himself with open and brazen contempt as the candidate of the North is not flying among key enlightened stakeholders of the latter region with considerable electoral clout such as the Northern APC governors who are obviously mindful of the critical importance of power rotation between the North and South for national unity, peace and stability and have been campaigning ardently for Tinubu.

Thirdly and perhaps most important is the factor of Tinubu himself. True, he is credited with having played a pivotal role in enabling Buhari to win the 2015 presidential election after three failed earlier attempts on the latter’s part. But many of those who want the electorate to blame Tinubu for the emergence of Buhari and the alleged failures of his administration were the very ones who cynically mocked the APC candidate shortly after the assumption of office of the President Buhari in 2015 because the latter’s government had so obviously sidelined a man who held the honorific title of National Leader of the APC.

Of course, many Nigerians who know him well swear that Buhari had nothing personal against Tinubu and would do nothing to impede his ambition even though as a stickler for rules and due process he would also not lift a finger to help him unduly, which is fair enough. But the unhidden fact is that the hawks around the President influenced him to distance the former Lagos State governor from his administration for the better part of his tenure but for the brief interlude when he got Tinubu to lead his re-election campaign for the 2019 election. If any of the other leading aspirants who had been key functionaries of the administration had emerged as candidate, they would face critical credible questions on what they did to enhance the quality of governance as members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the highest decision- making body of the executive arm.

It is a testimony to Tinubu’s astuteness, steadfastness, good faith and fidelity to party loyalty that he had never at any time disparaged the Buhari administration despite pressures in a number of quarters that he did so especially when he was widely perceived as deliberately marginalized from the government. Rather, he has consistently applauded the administration’s accomplishments and strengths especially in infrastructure provision across the country, its massive social intervention programmes to alleviate poverty and its monumental investment in agriculture to diversify the economy among others. While promising to improve on the administration’s creditable records in these areas, he has also pledged to seek more effective solutions in tackling the security situation, managing the debt burden, boosting power supply, dealing with the fuel subsidy conundrum and enhancing national unity through more inclusive governance among others.

This is at least far more intellectually honest than the candidates who claim they want to recover Nigeria without admitting the Buhari administration’s areas of success and that it initiated and completed scores of infrastructure projects nationwide to which most of the debts acquired are tied while investing heavily in social safety nets for the poor and vulnerable thus accomplishing much more in seven and a half years than the PDP did in 16 years even while earning far less revenue than the latter did as a result of sharp decline in oil revenues as from the end of 2014 shortly before assuming office. No matter what may be the perception about his failings and lapses, it is difficult to deny that Buhari is an essentially decent man with a good heart. That he does not own an oil bloc or scores of choice properties within and outside the country despite the critical and ‘lucrative’ positions he has held over the years is a mark of asceticism and frugality for which he is still regarded by the teeming masses of the North. It is remarkable that he is held in much higher esteem by this electorally critical constituency than most former retired military officers from the North that are far away wealthier than him.

His democratic credentials remain indelible as he has allowed free and fair elections in which even his party has lost elections in a number of states. Some of his military predecessors as President who proclaim their Messianic morality from the rooftops in obscenely nauseating self-adulatory public epistles have an odious legacy of reckless election rigging and compulsive material acquisition.

If he has a weakness, it is that Buhari trusts those he has appointed into public office, many times on the recommendation of those who were with him in his many years in the political wilderness after his overthrow in a palace coup in 1986, virtually absolutely. His style is to give them a free hand to carry out their duties without interference. Unfortunately, many of these do not hesitate to hide behind the toga of his perceived integrity to pursue policies that feather their personal, selfish and allegedly pecuniary ends.

One of such self-serving appointees is Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele. It is inexplicable, even unthinkable, that such a key player in regulating the country’s financial sector, a job that requires the highest degree of restraint, sobriety and integrity, would actually collect the APC presidential nomination form for N100 million and even attempt to contest the party’s primaries without vacating his office; that hundreds of personally branded vehicles estimated at billions of Naira would be bought for his campaign and paraded on national television.

It is this unprecedented, unwarranted, reckless and possibly criminal politicization of the sensitive office of CBN governor that has prompted widespread suspicion and outcry about Emefiele’s Naira redesign policy which, with an impossibly short deadline to dispose of old Naira notes and exchange them for acutely scarce new notes, a few weeks to a general election, has caused a severe Naira scarcity and foisted avoidable hardship on poor Nigerians throughout the country. This policy is unimpeachable buts its implementation horrendous and catastrophic. Yet, Emefiele is adamant. Is this Emefiele’s ultimate revenge against those who clinched the presidential ticket of a party whose presidential candidate he sought in futility to be?

If so, his present venture will surely end up the way his presidential did – a colossal failure. But does Emefiele have a heart for the groaning of millions of Nigerians in Banking halls and ATM queues across the country? Does he have the humaneness to realize that this misbegotten policy would compound the severe hardships already being experienced due to the protracted acute fuel scarcity? Does he care a hoot about the historical legacy of his boss and benefactor, President Buhari? These are sad but pertinent questions to ask. Emefiele typically exemplifies the ironies of PMB’s paradoxical legacy.

This article was first published February 11, 2023

May 13, 2023
Before the Super Eagles fumble again

In Nigeria, thunder strikes on the same spot severally with each fall looking more ludicrous than the latter. Rather than critically examine the reasons for previous failures, those responsible for such calamity always shop for scapegoats, leaving the reasons for such big falls unattended to. No matter how frequently you beat the drums of failures to awaken those who rectify the problems, the decision-makers ignore the message, they opt for the jugular of the messenger.

The Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers begin next month with Nigeria visiting a yet-to-be-accepted venue by CAF. The African body rejected the Bo City venue sent by the Sierra Leoneans as her preferred match venue citing the fact that the city didn’t have decent hotels where visitors could stay. This message was sent to Sierra Leone’s Football Federation chieftains who must immediately name another venue for the second leg tie against the Super Eagles in June.

Ordinarily, this game against Sierra Leone should be a stroll in the park going by the pedigree of the two nations in the beautiful game. Not anymore if one considers the results of the two countries’ last encounters, with Nigerians, lamenting to date how they watched the Super Eagles lose a four goals advantage inside the Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin City. Nigeria drew the home game 4-4 forcing the Benin spectators to take the laws into their hands. The unsportsmanlike scenes were quickly curtailed by the perfect security architecture provided by the Edo State government led by His Excellency Godwin Obaseki.

The Benin fans wanted to vent their spleen on the wobbling team, giving the stature of the top players which the country paraded against what Sierra Leone presented, no disrespect to them. The 4-4 away secured by the Leone Stars of Sierra Leone was an attestation to the fact that football isn’t a respecter of bad playing nations typical of what the Super Eagles showcased that night.

Several untenable reasons were offered for the team’s sloppy performance that night with a laughable one being the bad playing pitch as if the bad portion of the field reared its ugly head whenever the Super Eagles players had the ball. Another reason was that the players were fatigued, having just ended the European football season. The Leone Stars also fielded professionals who play soccer in Europe. So, what is the fuss about? It must be stated that Nigeria has the greatest number of players plying their trades in Europe, the Americas and the Diaspora. With such an awesome citation in soccer, especially with a population of over 200m people then, the task of selecting 23 players to form a football should be as easy and pleasurable as watching a child lick strawberry ice cream.

A proactive country with thinking sports administrators would have brought out their optional plans to see how they could retool the squad by sitting with the team’s coach and then, pick a squad excluding those who had a hectic European season. Some other daring soccer chiefs would have opted to use the opportunity to either select an all-home-based players squad or field an admixture of Europe-based players and players from the domestic league eager to seize the chance.

We have reached the crossroad again. Do our soccer big men and women know what to do considering the fact that the nation’s biggest export to Europe, Victor Osimhen returned to his Italian Serie A side Napoli, the new Scudetto champions nursing an injury after playing for Nigeria in an international game? During the periods when Osimhen was recuperating, Napoli experienced goals drought which nearly scuttled their bid to lift the Scudetto, 33 years after the late Diego Amardo Maradona achieved the feat for Napoli. What were the moves by NFF bigwigs to reach out to Napoli’s managers either to correct the notion that Osimhen’s injury didn’t happen while playing for Nigeria or to show concern by storming Naples to openly commensurate with him?

I hope NFF chieftains know the implication of staying aloof on these issues in the future. At no time did Osimhen limp off the pitch to be treated by the team’s medical crew nor did he shake off the effect of a crunchy tackle. These facts needed to be highlighted to avert any club versus country brouhaha in the future. And this club versus country wahala could start with the Sierra Leone game in June. Did you just murmur, dear reader that there are no European games for Napoli chiefs to start any funny game?

This writer thought that the Super Eagles manager ought to have made a media show of Napoli’s last two matches leading to lifting the Scudetto by watching the games. More flamboyant managers would have been captured by the photographers at the venues, knowing that the Super Eagles manager also trains Osimhen at the international level playing for Nigeria. Where was Jose Peseiro when Super Eagles striker Victor Osimhen was kissing the headlines with rave previews and reviews in the media playing for Napoli FC of Italy?

A clever manager would have organised an off-the-pitch setting over dinner where he would rub minds with Napoli’s manager possibly with Osimhen in attendance to strike the right balance between Nigeria and Napoli concerning how both parties can maximise how they use Osimhen to achieve their set goals and objectives in the 2023/2024 soccer season. Such deals struck at such dinner meetings could later be concretised by way of a sealed arrangement signed by Napoli, Nigeria, in this case, NFF and Osimhen.

This is the fatal price Nigeria is paying for having a Lilliputian as manager of our biggest soccer brand – Super Eagles. With the right synergy, Nigeria and Napoli can improve on their feats in the 2022/2023 season without rancour over the deployment of Osimhen to both teams’ competitions beginning in August this year.

I’ve been scratching my head to decipher how it was possible for a Nigerian to be the main actor of a football season in a renowned European country such as Italy, not to invite provide cards for the actor to invite his family, home federation’s chieftain and, of course, his national team’s manager? On the flip side, Peseiro ought to have prioritised watching Napoli’s matches, especially the last two. Such epochal events would have strengthened the relationship between the manager and Osimhen.

With the European season almost over, it would make no sense if Peseiro talks about having problems assembling a full team based on injuries or tiredness. The season has been hectic so Peseiro would have to fall back to the domestic league which is still on stream. The big poser is how many of the domestic players does Peseiro know when he lives almost permanently in Portugal? You tell me.

May 13, 2023
The voter as hero of 2023 elections in Nigeria

The 2023 elections in Nigeria has come and gone and winners have emerged. Plans are in top gear to swear in the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other elected candidates across the country on the 29th of May, 2023. For women in Nigerian politics, it’s still a far cry from gender justice on the political field. The number of women elected into positions seems to have dwindled especially at the national assembly. There is not a single female governor-elect yet but there are certainly a number of female deputy governors.

The history of Nigerian elections has been replete with pre and post-election petitions and legal judgments some of which had lasted for years and disrupted governance and prevented the people from enjoying the full dividends of democracy. In fact, some analysts insist that Nigerian elections are the most litigious in the world. The reasons are not far-fetched, the Nigerian political party structure seems very flawed in ways that internal party democracy seems a herculean task in most cases. This has led to the emergence of some wrong candidates either due to personal flaws or due to non-adherence to electoral laws.

When political parties flout the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) guidelines or the constitution, the courts are often called in and this has led to some candidates being disqualified either before elections or legally sacked from office. Most of the post-election litigations derail and distract the litigants on both sides. The losers are always the people who become the axiomatic grasses that suffer when two elephants fight.

However, the 2023 elections had its problems but in many ways the Nigerian democracy is the better for it. There was evidently better awareness by voters. Every voting demographic had ample time to make their choices. The Independent National Electoral Commission through the improvement in technology surreptitiously created more awareness amongst the voting public. The Permanent Voter Card (PVC) gained the pride of place as the golden ‘passport’ to a voter’s right to vote. The publicity around voter registration, biometrics capture and actual collection of the PVCs and the promise that the employment of the new Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) would be a game-changer galvanized voters who had hitherto shown apathy during past elections. Many first time voters were excited. There was a pre-election frenzy that almost seemed very addictive and most voters keyed into the moment.

Despite the difficulty voters encountered in the process of registering for their PVC and even the collections, voters showed tremendous resilience. The social and orthodox media were awash with pictures and videos of prospective voters spending productive hours to collect their PVCs but despite some disappointments, most of them persevered and even though not everyone succeeded, those who did were able to cast their votes in areas where there were no violence or clear suppression of voters. In some areas too, voters stood their grounds and defended their votes by fighting off intruders or refusing to let some INEC staff to flout the electoral laws.

This year’s election campaigns seemed to have been very exciting because for the first time in the country’s democratic journey since 1999, the Presidential election was a three-horse race involving the All Progressive Congress (APC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP). Iin 2015 and 2019, it was largely a two horse race between the APC and the PDP. The entrance of the LP changed the campaign strategies of the two former contenders in ways that were not predicted by book keepers either within the political parties or by the media.

So the Nigerian voters suddenly became the proverbial beautiful bride being wooed by the three main contenders given that the other fifteen political parties seemed very lethargic in soliciting for votes or as some people comically suggested, were either intimidated by the three major parties or lacked the financial muscle to pull through. At the end, it was really a tripartite contest and the voters were wooed with all the political strategies in the books.

While winners have emerged and despite the myriad of election petitions at the different tribunals, the Nigerian voters seem not to have in the public space been given the credit they deserve. Given the experiences of the Nigeria voters since 1999 at all levels of governance in the country, the 2023 elections produced very interesting results. There were many upsets in many states as new political blocs emerged. It was also evident that despite the efforts of some politicians across the country to divide the people along ethnic and religious lines, we still saw a people taking their destinies in their own hands.

Some voters in some states defied the political elite conspiracy and realized that even when they were of the same ethnicity and religion with their governors and legislators, their lives were not better. Not less than seven incumbent governors lost their bid to go to the Senate which had hitherto been referred to in comical local parlance as ‘a retirement home for governors’ seeing that repeatedly many ex-governors had used the power of incumbency to manipulate both the party delegates elections to their favour and used the instruments of force and coercion to manipulate the outcomes of elections .

So before 2023 elections, it was not the norm for incumbent governors to lose elections to the senate or for their cronies to lose at other elective positions that they had used their power to almost single handedly install especially their successors in office.

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia state and Samuel Ortom of Benue state are very apt examples of those who got the lessons that the Nigerian voters are now more empowered to understand that religion or tribe has little to do with selfless service. Both governors are of the same tribe, both are of the same religion like more than half of the population. Both lost their senatorial bids and their candidates for governorship equally lost. Their records in office especially of unpaid salaries and infrastructural decay did not escape the assessment of the people

Both the APC and the PDP lost elections in their strongholds. APC lost the presidential election in Lagos and Osun, PDP lost in Rivers and Sokoto states even when incumbent governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto was the Director General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council (PCC). The APC chairman, Abdullahi Adamu lost his home state or Nasarawa.

The Nigerian voters in many instances reminded the old politicians that service is not about them, it is not just about their welfare but the greater good. A cursory analysis of the national assembly records has not shown any outstanding former governor in the Senate since 1999. If anything, their presence in the hallowed chambers has been very insignificant in terms of their legislative contributions. Not one ex-governor has had an outstanding presence in terms of being remarkably influential in terms of any of the three pivotal duties of a legislator.

The legislature has been largely ineffectual and been a seeming appendage of the executive as they meander under the veil of executive-legislative harmony or party loyalty while shortchanging the people. The economic situation in the country with 133million people living in multi-dimensional poverty happened in part because the legislative arm at both federal and state legislative levels have failed in their strict oversight functions on the executive, government ministries and agencies.

The average Nigerian voter came out for the election wanting to tell the governors some of who exercise almost imperial powers that the mandate givers are the people. Many governors would be ordinary people after May 29. The idea of seeking a permanent ‘privileged’ life by cushioning their lives with stupendous and extravagantly vulgar pensions and gratuities from one political position to the other seems to have rubbed the voters the wrong way.

The Nigerian voters might not shout uhuru yet but there has been steady progress. The closer engagements from politicians seen during the campaigns were clear departure from the past where politicians felt victorious after party primaries because the votes of the people didn’t really determine who won or lost the elections. It was almost always a given that the candidates of the incumbent governments at either federal or state levels were declared winners after elections. We saw a seeming grassroots engagement for whatever it was worth. There were more rallies and the candidates at both federal and state levels tried to get to the different demographics.

Despite the efforts of the various Spokespersons to divert attention of the voters through some very diversionary tactics, the voters seemed to have had their eyes on the ball. The voters seemed to focus on the antecedents of candidates and with the help of the social media, information was on the fingerstips of most voters.

It is very important to note that Nigeria has not gotten to a desired destination politically but the just concluded elections had its flaws but we must not fail to hail the Nigerian voter that braced the odds. There were institutional and agency huddles that totally disenfranchised many voters like INEC logistics and tech challenges and the Naira change policy that further impoverished the people just weeks to the election.

The mental exhaustion from the trauma of the poorly executed financial policy made many stay away from the polling units. According to INEC, more than 93.4 million people registered to vote but just about 87.2 million collected their PVCs. A mere 29 percent turned out to vote.The good news is that democracy is work in progress and the Nigerian voters now acknowledge the power they wield. But the system must interrogate the reason for the small percentage of voters in the last elections impactful as they appeared to have been.

The dialogue continues…

May 13, 2023
Corruption reporting in Nigeria: Beyond sensationalism? (1)

Corruption, one would agree remains the Nigerian nation’s biggest malaise since independence. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers(PwC)’s report, corruption had impacted the Nigerian economy that it could cost the nation 37% of its Gross Domestic Products (GDP) by 2030.

Nuhu Ribadu, erstwhile Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC did also allege that an estimated amount of US$380 billion had been lost to graft and mismanagement. Also, the group, Human Rights Watch has documented the role of corruption and mismanagement in depriving Nigerians of their basic human and prevented tremendous resources from improving the dire state of basic health and education services, graft has fueled political violence, denied millions of Nigerians access to even the most basic health and education services, and reinforced police abuses and other widespread patterns of human rights violations.

One of the watch dog roles of the media in our society is the promotion of good governance and controlling corruption. According to Rick Stapenhurst in one of his works titled “The Media’s Role In Curbing Corruption” the media should not only raise public awareness about corruption, its causes, consequences and possible remedies but also in-

vestigate and report incidences of corruption. Also Stapenhurst argues that effectiveness of the media, in turn, depends on access to information and freedom of expression, as well as a professional and ethical cadre of investigative journalists. With the above, it can be agreed that the media ought to play a well defined role in the fight against corruption.

However, In the fight against corruption, the media is expected to be factual and accurate in every of their reports and be certain that they can defend their stories when sensationalism allegations against such reports do arise.

Such sensationalism, which is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories are overhyped to present biased impressions on events, which may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story.

Another true definition of Sensationalism is culled from the Cambridge Dictionary which defines it as ” the act by newspapers, television, etc, of presenting information in a way that is shocking or exciting: a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are overhyped to present biased impressions on events, which may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story.

Sensationalism may have reporting about generally insignificant matters and events that do not influence overall society and biased presentations of newsworthy topics in a trivial or tabloid manner contrary to the standards of professional journalism.

While the media has the responsibility of the playing its role as fourth estate of the realm, nowadays, it (media) is often accused of routine sensationalism

According to John Thompson in his paper titled, ‘Media and Modernity’, the debate of sensationalism used in the mass medium of broadcasting is based on a misunderstanding of its audience, especially the television audience. Thompson explains that the term ‘mass’ (which is connected to broadcasting) suggests a ‘vast audience of many thousands, even millions of passive individuals’.

Some tactics include being deliberately obtuse, appealing to emotions, being controversial, intentionally omitting facts and information, being loud and self-centered, and acting to obtain attention. Sometimes, the content and subject matter typically affect neither the lives of the masses nor society and instead it is broadcast and printed to attract viewers and readers only.

Sensationalism in the media has caused much problems for the practice of journalism in Nigeria, like wise in the reportage of corruption cases.

By sensationalising topics and stories on corruption it is believed that such stories are indeed a turnoff to the audience as well as the affect the credibility of the media as well as the war on corruption itself.

Sensational headlines intentionally omit facts and information or simply exagerate facts, this then leads the public to distrust whatever information the media feeds, alienating the public from the fight against corruption, this then cannot augur well for a country that has suffered much and still suffers from the effects of corruption.

The media and the prosecuting authorities are at this point accused of conducting media trials, giving the accused, even if guilty the opportunity to appear innocent or at least dorm the garb of been persecuted .

There is thus need for the governing authorities and regulatory bodies to seek to curtail such excesses.

With the democratization of the internet and the unleashing of blogs and social media the sensationalizing of stories just got worse, as these bloggers and influencers in their attempts to drive traffic to their blogs engage in click baiting and other unprofessional antics even if it violates every known tenet of responsible journalism.

This development makes functional regulating much difficult, now coupled with much restraint placed on the regulatory agencies or authorities.

May 13, 2023
Romance scandal rocks Lagos church as pastor, lover fall apart
- Aggrieved lover accuses clergyman of having affair with another female church member
- I’ve confessed to my wife, says embattled pastor
- Denies impregnating lover or encouraging her to abort baby
A five-year-old romance between a Lagos-based pastor and his lover has ended in a row with the woman accusing the clergyman of infidelity, brutality, forcible eviction from home and refusal to pay back a loan, KUNLE AKINRINADE reports.

An extra-marital affair involving a Lagos-based clergyman, Reverend Charles Ojo, and his lover, Abimbola Alamutu, was relatively sweet until it turned sour recently and crashed like a pack of cards.

Ojo, who resides with his wife and children in the Alagbon area of Ikoyi, Lagos, pastors Fire of Life Church, a Pentecostal church in Agbotikuyo area of Agege, a Lagos suburb, where he met Abimbola through her friends and ignited an affair with her about five years ago.

According to Abimbola, Ojo, who was shuttling between his home in Ikoyi and Agege, had moved into her one-room apartment and would stay with her on service days before returning to the comfort of his family in Ikoyi when there were no activities in the church.

Their affair, however, began to develop, cracks when she caught Ojo making it out with another woman in his office on a day she paid an unexpected visit to the church.

She said: “I used to be a member of the Celestial Church of Christ until he asked me out through some persons and I agreed to date him when he started crying that he needed to have a church of his own and that I could assist him to grow the church. Before we met, he was only praying for people on the phone.

“We have been living as live-in lovers for about five years. I offered to help him out by taking a loan to bail him out of his financial predicament because he was crying that he had no money to establish his own church and was unable to pay for the space he was using for the church as well as the equipment and other items that God used me to get for the church.

“I collected the sum of N1.5 million as loan from a popular microfinance outfit through an affiliate group. He used to pray for people on the phone. Therefore, I got the loans to fund his church project and cater to his children’s education on many occasions, and the people who facilitated the loans for me are still alive to attest to what I am saying.

He was living at Alagbon Close in Ikoyi, Lagos and we established the church in Agbotikuyo area of Agege, a Lagos suburb. He was staying with me in my house whenever he came to church to conduct service.

“I mobilised people to worship at the church and many of the people bought pianos, fans and other equipment for the church.”

Abimbola explained that she became worried after tales about Ojo’s escapades with other women came to her hearing. She, however, said she ignored the rumour until she recently caught the cleric red-handed making out with a food vendor in his office at the church.

She said: “I started hearing that he was dating a food vendor who usually came to his church whenever I was not around.

“On a particular day, I noticed that he had removed most of his clothes from our home and I visited the church to see him around 7 am.

“I was shocked when I opened the door to his office and found him and the female food vendor in a suggestive position on a mat I bought for him besides a mattress I had also bought for him.

“On that particular day, he was wearing a boxer and a singlet while the woman was wearing a night gown and they were in a loved-up mood when I opened the door and found them there. I quickly shut the door and left the office to pack some of his dresses dumped in one corner of the church.

“However, notwithstanding his ungodly affair with the woman, who sells Amala, he beat me up when I confronted him over his amorous affair with the strange woman.

“Before the incident, several women, including a pregnant lady, had at one time or the other complained to me that Pastor Ojo was making passes at them, but I kept quiet.

“When the people around heard about how he beat me up, they said they were not going to worship in his church anymore or assist me with raising funds for him to develop his church.

“When the time came for him to renew his rent on the church, he asked people to plead with me to return to him.”

Abimbola said she subsequently moved out of the apartment she was sharing with the clergyman when he stopped coming there because he could not stand the shame his affair with the food vendor had brought on him, “especially since everyone around was aware of how he brutalised me”.

“When I vacated the apartment, he offered to facilitate two rooms at the building housing his church. He actually got a loan to put tiles in one of the rooms while I have been living in and paying for the other room.

“When he could not pay back the loan, officials of the microfinance bank went to his church and carted away items to take care of the loan.

“However, he has been making attempts to forcibly evict me from my apartment. He recently brought some policemen to arrest me, claiming that I was threatening him. But the policemen left when some pastors around intervened.

“I showed the pastors the amount he was owing me, but he denied ever owing me and even insisted that I must leave the room I was staying in for peace to reign.

“On Sunday, March 21, he sent a letter purportedly written by a lawyer through a boy asking me to vacate the room I was staying in within one week. I took a cursory look at the letter and discovered that it was his handwriting.

“He is neither the landlord nor the one paying for my rent, yet, he wants to evict me from the apartment, using his lawyer.

“He wanted to eject me from the room I was paying rent, yet the owner of the building was not the one that initiated the letter.

“At the moment, he is owing me the sum of N357,000, apart from the amount he is owing my brother who works in a new generation bank and has refused to pay to date.”

Abimbola added: “All I want from Pastor Ojo is for him to refund me the sum of N300,000 he borrowed from me and N57,000 belonging to my son, totalling N357,000.

“He also collected the sum of N200,000 from a microfinance bank, and when he could not pay back the money, officials of the bank stormed the church and removed valuables.

“The food vendor also brought people to remove some items she bought for the church, including a plasma television, generator and his phone, among others, claiming that Pastor Ojo was owing her after making love to her several items and dumping her.”

Responding via the telephone, 58-year-old Ojo described Abimbola’s allegations as a tissue of lies she weaved in order for her to sustain her occupation of the apartment she stays within his church premises.

He also said he did not impregnate her let alone asking her to abort any pregnancy for him.

“Apart from that, I discovered that my relationship with her was no longer comfortable or favourable to me anymore, upon several warnings to make her change into a better woman.

“There were several anti-church activities I discovered she was involved in, which would take much time for me to explain.

“As I speak with you, she has taken the matter to a (Yoruba) programme on MITV called Oju Aye Ree. So she has taken the matter too far.

“She’s never a tenant in the apartment where she is staying. The apartment is within my church premises and we are using it for the church. However, when she had an accommodation problem, the church came to her assistance and she moved into the place pending the time she would get herself a new accommodation.

“Thereafter, other problems occurred between me and the lady and between her and the church.

“The apartment does not belong to her, and if she insists, tell her to give you the receipt of her rent.

“I initially assisted her in paying for the rent of the apartment where she was staying when we started dating. However, she is not paying a dime to occupy her present apartment.

“I am not owing her. Like I told you, she is my girlfriend. And as you know, things can happen between a man and his girlfriend, including monetary tractions.

“There was a time she helped me with some money for some facilities when I was about to start my church, and we paid the money back on a weekly basis for months, and my wife can testify to this.

“There was a time she collected a loan for me and it was paid back. There was another loan she collected on my behalf and that one too was paid in N33,000 every month and liquidated. The loan as well and the records are there to prove it.

“I know who she is. She is only buying time so that she would not move out of the apartment. She is looking for an excuse not to vacate the apartment.

“She is trying not to leave the room and that’s why she is making the allegations. She was given a quit notice alongside other tenants where she was living, and that was why the church decided to give her a temporary accommodation.

“She loves money and can do anything to get money. She is stubborn and respects nobody. She is highly temperamental and flirts with all kinds of men.

“I have tried my best to make her a better woman to no avail. It is only recently that she started selling biscuits at the front of her apartment.

“She has chased away many members of the church and that is why I will do my best to ensure she leaves the church premises by vacating the apartment the church gave her temporarily.

“I have told her people that I am no more interested in associating with her, and it was from that moment she started this blackmail against me.

“She neither got pregnant for me nor carried out any abortion for me. I have lost financial members in the church because of her.

“She never caught me with any amala vendor. I have a wife and children, and she is only lying against me to garner sympathy.

“People have intervened more than 15 times and she would plead for forgiveness and go ahead to do worse things thereafter.

“I am not owing any of her brothers and she is only lying in order not to move out of the temporary apartment given to her at the church premises.

“I want her out of the apartment because so long as she still lives there, she would continue to do worse things.”

He added: “My wife did not know that I was dating Abimbola, but I have since confessed to her and she was slightly annoyed. She later took it with calmness in order not to aggravate the matter because of our future.

“She said that she would look for a common ground to resolve the issue because she had prophesied about this matter long before it happened.

“Abimbola took a loan running into N200,000 for herself and two other persons. When she could not pay back, the microfinance bank pressured me to pay back the facility because I stood surety, and as I speak, she has refused to disclose the identity of the third person.

“She brought officials to the church while I was away and carted several properties of the church away, including the pew, set drums and fans.

“When I visited the office of the bank, I was told that Abimbola was the one that urged them to remove the church items and even got a bus that moved them out of the premises.

“I know that if I had not had any affair with her, she would not have done the things she did. But I licked my wounds quietly because of the dimension the matter has taken.

“Ironically, yesterday, her brother was still pleading with me on the phone not to evict her because she has no place to live or carry out her petty trade.”
May 6, 2023
Aso Villa to wear new look for Tinubu

Nigeria’s seat of power, Aso Rock, is currently being renovated ahead of the inauguration of President-elect, Bola Tinubu, billed for May 29, 2023.

Sentry gathered that work is currently going on in and around the Villa as enthusiastic presidency officials and staff prepare for the coming of a new president.

A tweet by the Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mallam Garba Shehu, yesterday, confirmed the preparatory renovations being witnessed in Aso Rock. Sharing picture of a man at work painting a wall, he wrote “painter at work. Villa wearing a new look for the incoming President.”

Tinubu, who will become the eighth Nigerian leader to govern from Aso Rock, is expected to move from the Defence Guest House into the Presidential Villa immediately after he is sworn in on May 29th.

May 6, 2023
10th Senate leadership and the rules of engagement

By Eseme Eyiboh

The 9th Legislative cycle is on its eclipse into the historical trajectory of our uninterrupted constitutional democracy since 1999. By the community reading of Sections 60(1) and 4(1) of 1999 Constitution as amended, the national legislature is intentionally empowered without hindrance within the purview of its core mandate of legislative processes in appropriation, legislations and oversight responsibilities.

Unarguably, these highlighted constitutional provisions have enhanced the unassailable authority of this arm of government within the province of separation of powers in constitutional democracy thus promoting participation within the allowances of International Covenants on civil and political rights and domesticated in Chapter 11 section 14 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.

As the 10th Senate is in its delivery stage, the ranking rules that govern and promote institutional integrity, capacity utilisation and the traditional parliamentary precedent on returning members has been a subject of several and associated intrigues arising from either the misunderstanding of the rules or mediocrity of the otherwise proponents in the black corridor of various power grid.

These antics and needless efforts at derobing the relevance and clear intendments of the Constitution as espoused in Section 311 of the 1999 CFRN (as amended, Fifth Alteration, No. 8), which provides that only the standing orders and rules of a subsisting Assembly shall be used in the election of principal officers at the state and National Assembly. The same 5th Alterations

(No.8) Act, 2023 also alters sections 54, 96 and 311 of the Constitution to stipulate a quorum of at least two-thirds of members-elect for inauguration or first sitting of the Senate, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly. Within the purview of section 311(1)of our constitution, “this section shall have effect until the National Assembly or a House of Assembly exercises the powers conferred upon it by section 60 or 101 of this Constitution as appropriate.

Section 311(2) posits that “The Standing Orders of the Senate established under the section shall have effect until the National Assembly or a House of Assembly exercises the powers conferred upon it by section 60 or 101 of this Constitution as appropriate.

Section 311(2) posits that “The Standing Orders of the Senate established under the provisions of this Constitution”.

Section 50(1) has unambiguously gives verve and meaning to who the presiding officers in the Senate are. The preponderance of strong aspirants from the cubicle of affluence and in some cases of weak leadership culture to the Senate Presidency demonstrates the deep national consciousness in our representative democracy and the associated desperation by some politicians regardless of the mood of the nation to manipulate our commonwealth. In consequence, caution must be exercise and vigilance should be unlocked to monitor these emerging mercantilists on the prowl.

The 10th Senate President must be a connecting rod to the other arms of government to reset our national priority and jumpstart sustainable development governance. The 10th Senate President and its Leadership must have people-driven consciousness to protect and preserve sovereignty which belongs to the people. Senator Godswill Akpabio as the 10th Senate President will be a frankincense in flavour and a veritable incentive to progressive politics and governance.

•Eyiboh, a former Spokesperson, House of Representatives is Dean of The INITIATIVES

May 6, 2023