The Nation Newspaper

Category: Barometer

  • Israel, Hezbollah: shape of new war

    Israel, Hezbollah: shape of new war

    After last Wednesday’s truce between Israel and Hezbollah (euphemistically described as a truce between Israel and Lebanon), both sides to the conflict have claimed victory. It was reminiscent of the 2006 2nd Lebanon war between the two sides, with both also claiming victory, and the Israeli Winograd Commission describing it as a missed opportunity to disarm Hezbollah. Would this latest truce lead to a permanent cessation of hostilities, and perhaps, optimistically, a peace deal? Few on both sides think there is prospect of a peace deal anytime soon. The latest conflict lasted for about 13 months, triggered in the main by Iran’s prompting and the Gaza war. Hezbollah, apart from being one of the Middle East’s deadliest and probably the most equipped proxy militia of Iran, is an armed non-state actor as well as a political party in Lebanon founded after the 1st Lebanon war (1982) and the eviction of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) from Lebanon.

    Stung by its failings in the 2006 war, and in view of the political ‘bloodletting’ that followed the war, Israel learnt its lessons and prepared far better for the next war which they knew was inevitable. After many skirmishes, that war finally came in September, accompanied by a lot of war razzmatazz starting with James Bond-type moves (explosions of thousands of rigged pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies as well as targeted assassinations that eliminated nearly all Hezbollah leaders) and ending with incredible precision bombings that ignored and made nonsense of human shields. Hezbollah may have declared victory to buoy up the confidence of its supporters, but its fighters and Iran knew they were beaten this time. Who won or who lost, a debate that will continue perhaps long after the conflict, is, however, not as important as what the war foretells about the future of wars. Taken together with the war in Gaza against Hamas, this latest conflict effectively sounds the death knell for the role of human shields as a war tactic, regardless of the arguments and warrants of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    Two major tactics describe the Hamas and Hezbollah wars against Israel: the deployment of a maze of tunnels as a war tool and use of human shield to limit or castrate attacking forces. Both failed in the ongoing war in Gaza and the Hezbollah conflict now circumscribed by a two-month ceasefire. Unlike previous wars in which Israel deployed general and conventional tactics in dealing with the conflicts, the Hamas and Hezbollah wars saw the deployment of new Israeli tactics of targeted eliminations. Top commanders of both Hamas and Hezbollah were eliminated in the opening days and weeks of the conflicts, including a significant number of the second layer of the militias’ leadership. Tunnels dug under civilian homes and health and educational institutions were breached or bombed regardless of collateral damage. The Israelis showed that tunnel warfare had limited efficacy in deterring the enemy. They also proved, notwithstanding ICC warrants, that human shields would not deter the deployment of massive ordnances. In both World War I and World War II, carpet bombings of civilian and military infrastructures were routine. But in the 21st century, the world has become more squeamish about civilian casualties, leading to many militias deploying human shields. In the years ahead and wars to come, neither tunnels nor human shields, nor any civilian infrastructure such as schools or hospitals, will deter military tactics or disproportionate use of firepower.

    Debates are already ongoing about whether Israel should have acceded to cessation of hostilities in the Hezbollah war, given its experience in 2006 when the militia was not disarmed and continued to menace Northern Israel. Opinions are divided down the middle. What is clear, and which Israel’s political and military leaders probably know, is that Hezbollah is so integrated into the Lebanese body politic that defeating them completely may be unrealistic. Continuous degrading of the militia’s fighting capability, and disconnecting them from Iranian influence and control may be a more sensible option. Until Iran took over the financing of Hezbollah, Syria used to be its paymaster and controller. By a combination of war of attrition with Israel and civil war triggered by the Arab Spring, Syria unburdened itself of Hezbollah almost the same way Qatar is unloading Hamas. There is, therefore, no conclusive indication that Israel might be throwing away a golden opportunity in dealing with and eliminating Hezbollah. The truce provides for the withdrawal of Hezbollah behind the 121km Blue (Litani River) Line, and the withdrawal of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) from southern Lebanon. If nothing endangers the tentative truce, the ceasefire could be turned into something more permanent. But as long as Hezbollah does not disarm, and given its influential role in the Lebanese parliament and politics, not to talk of the intransigence of Iran, it is hard to see peace being restored to Lebanon and northern Israel. Hezbollah may have been considerably weakened by Israeli attacks, but it remains to be seen whether that weakening is sufficient enough to strengthen the Lebanese Army to take control of the country’s armed forces, or position the parliament to impose control over the country’s politics.

    Read Also: Israel poised to approve ceasefire with Hezbollah, says official

    In so many important and unprecedented ways for Israel, the Hamas and Hezbollah wars have shattered the illusions that tunnels and human shields were a foolproof way of resisting the enemy and even defeating it. Gradually, both Hamas and Hezbollah may be compelled to reexamine their military doctrines and repose more hope in political and diplomatic solutions to longstanding political impasse. If the world made only a token gesture of rising against what they presumed to be Israeli genocide against civilians, and the Middle East itself paid only lip service to the cause of Palestinians championed by Hamas and Hezbollah, any future or replica erection of human shields against an enemy, particularly in a war triggered by the weaker side, may prove nugatory.

  • Osun’s jinxed airport

    Osun’s jinxed airport

    There are dozens of unviable airports around the country. But that has not deterred Osun State governor Ademola Adeleke from proposing a new one to be sited in Ede, his hometown. It is new because the unfinished airport sited in Ido-Osun, on which about N20bn had been spent, according to some estimates, is alleged by the governor to lack enough space for runway and is also susceptible to adversarial wind. More space for runway could be sourced, argued the state government, but only at a princely sum. He didn’t say whether he would spend more securing more runway space than starting an airport all over again.

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    But, Mr Adeleke, more reticent than convincing on any subject, has hardly sustained any piece of argument beyond a few languid sentences since he assumed office about two years ago. He couldn’t care less, however, about taking the airport to his hometown. Nor could he be bothered about what is logical or not logical, or thrifty or prodigal. It’s the state’s money, after all; and in his quaint, carefree worldview, he prefers to be seen from the levity of the world of entertainment, particularly his dancing. His opponents insist he is nepotistic and insular in relocating the airport to Ede. Oh, give the man a break; does he know a different world and can he be what he is not? For a governor who said his pension and gratuity payment outstripped his last two predecessors and made him a performer, why raise eyebrows about his measurements and what scales he uses, metric or imperial?

  • Atiku fancies himself as Trump

    Atiku fancies himself as Trump

    After more than one year of bellyaching, it is now certain that ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar cannot live down his defeat in the 2023 presidential election. After months of crisscrossing the globe to delegitimise the election result, including absurdly litigating the contest and contestants in United States courts, the former vice president, who was also candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has now begun to speak in the offhanded and irreverent fashion of the US president-elect Donald Trump. It is not clear what he hopes to achieve or what mileage that would give him, but in a series of tweets last Monday, he had declared: “Let me emphasise that the citizens who cast their votes in the 2023 presidential election are well aware that I did not lose; rather, we find ourselves in this predicament (economic hardship) because the election was criminally stolen from the Nigerian people…Like many fellow Nigerians, I firmly believe that we find ourselves in this current economic turmoil due to the Tinubu administration’s hasty ascent to power, devoid of a coherent plan. In stark contrast, my team not only devised a comprehensive recovery plan but also welcomed significant input from Nigerians, ensuring that our approach was inclusive and well-considered.” Is he still complaining or publishing another manifesto?

    After the 2020 US presidential election, Mr Trump had similarly declared that that year’s election was stolen, a lie he has repeated so confidently that even he, not to say his majority rural supporters, started to believe the mendacity. He still reiterated it last week even after his victory at the November polls, indicating that Americans may be witnessing the return not only of a fascist but a megalomaniac. Former Vice President Atiku litigated the APC presidential victory in and out of Nigeria, ridiculed the country and lowered its esteem globally, but still failed to get the courts in Nigeria at all levels from the election tribunal to the Supreme Court to agree with his unproven assertions and arguments. Yet, he insists the election was stolen. The dismaying incompetence of his arguments notwithstanding, yet nevertheless fancying himself in the mould of Mr Trump, Alhaji Atiku has continued to reiterate the allegation of electoral theft which he has not proven in the courts or even in the media. He probably believes that the hardship accompanying the ongoing economic reforms would both justify his wild claims and make them resonate among a groaning public. But his false claims tell more about his character than the flimsy narrative he has tried to promote.

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    In every statement Alhaji Atiku has issued since he lost the court case against the APC victory, there is nowhere he has argued or corroborated his election success. All he does is allege the stealing of ballots, the falsity of results collation, and the malfeasance of the judiciary. Everyone who has had one thing or the other to do with the election had, in the eyes of the former vice president, been bought or corrupted. Though he has privately nursed animosity towards his opponents within the party, he has barely said a word on the internal and external factors that contributed to his loss, not to say the stale and abhorrent politics he played before the fateful poll. His party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was divided into nothing less than three factions before the poll, much of the division flowing from the party’s presidential primary. And he had ruffled feathers by the disagreeable manner he abandoned the party when he lost the election in 2019 only to return nearly four years later to reclaim its soul. He also said nothing, and perhaps couldn’t care less, about the resistance he met within the party.

    Unable to undertake the reflection necessary to explicate how and why he lost the presidential poll, and unwilling to inspire the reforms his estranged party needs both to survive its fratricidal tendencies and project itself powerfully into the future, the former vice president has found it far easier to blame other people, groups, and political parties for his loss. In the election itself, he lost a part of the old political North despite his frenzied resort to ethnic politics and regional appeal, lost the entire Southeast to his grumbling and ambitious former running mate in the 2019 presidential poll, and could not entirely sweep the South-South because he had inspired a few enemies unwilling to overlook his contempt for them beyond eyeing their financial contributions to his campaign. Yet he thought the election stolen. Well, at least, to be fair to him, he has spoken more assertively about the result being stolen than speak about him winning. After all, Peter Obi, his 2019 running mate, also talks foggily about winning the poll without detailing the dynamics. From all indications, until he discovers that no serious party would give him their presidential ticket for the 2027 race, Alhaji Atiku will not stop whooping about electoral robbers who allegedly undid him, a chimera he had embraced since he began losing elections some six electoral cycles ago.

  • Onnoghen’s travail comes to an end

    Onnoghen’s travail comes to an end

    Hopefully, last week’s acquittal of former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, will bring a messy case begun since January 2019 to a somnolent end. Some five years ago, after a welter of shadowy intrigues against the former CJN, he was charged in the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) for false declaration of assets. He had been due to retire in December 2020, but they wouldn’t let him go quietly. However, after the courts failed to grant him the reliefs he asked for on account of the case being improperly brought, especially with the allegations against him not passed through the National Judicial Council (NJC) as demanded by law, Justice Onnoghen finally threw in the towel in April 2019 shortly before the CCT delivered its judgement.

    Last week, the Court of Appeal referenced his resignation and the acceptance of same by former president Muhammadu Buhari, and declared that the CCT judgement was superfluous, and his assets inappropriately forfeited. What is remarkable about Justice Onnoghen’s ordeal is that despite being the CJN, the courts failed him when his travail started. They declined to give him the reliefs he sought, threw him to the wolves, and he soon discovered that he was isolated. If as CJN he could not get the justice he thought he deserved, who else could?

    Read Also: Appeal Court quashes ex-CJN Onnoghen’s conviction on false assets declaration charge

    His reputation may have been badly savaged, leaving him little room to recover, but at least his assets are to be returned to him, while everyone who remembers the case will recognise that he was badly served at the time. The ultimate lesson is that in a broken system, no one is immune from degradation. It may have taken him about five years to finally get justice, but better late than never. His terminal benefits ran into billions of naira, and his previously forfeited assets also pack a significant punch. He probably rues the fact that ex-president Buhari never wanted him to assume the CJN position in the first instance, and he only became the number one jurist when former vice president Yemi Osinbajo held the fort. But notwithstanding the cost to his reputation and the shattering of his emotional composure, he survived long enough to fight for his vindication. A less stolid and adamant person would have wilted under the massive conspiracies by the executive and judicial branches.

  • Fubara, Wike and the Niger Delta threat

    Fubara, Wike and the Niger Delta threat

    Days before a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered Rivers State’s monthly allocations to be withheld, a militant group, the Niger Delta Development Force (NDDF), had threatened to shut down oil installations in the region if the federal government did nothing to stop Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister Nyesom Wike from undermining Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s administration. The threat came before the court order. Halting the release of any state’s monthly allocations in an economy still tied to Abuja’s apron strings can be excruciating, indeed more punishing than any other measure designed to give a governor nightmares. So, what will Rivers do now, blow up everybody?

    In the NDDF statement last Sunday, spokesman Justin Alabraba warned: “Our members will not hesitate to shut down oil installations if any judge in Abuja issues a pronouncement that financially incapacitates local governments in Rivers State, preventing them from fulfilling their duty to the people. We will act immediately. It will be a swift response, and we will shut down major oil installations in the Niger Delta. If President Bola Tinubu allows Wike to disrupt governance in the local governments of Rivers State, we will also disrupt governance at all levels…Wike must leave Fubara alone. For months now, Wike has continued to insult and intimidate Governor Fubara, wielding his federal influence. We won’t tolerate that anymore. Any further move against Fubara by Wike will be met with the destruction of oil installations. Since Tinubu seems intent on turning a blind eye, let us all face the consequences together. Rivers State does not belong to Wike…”

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    The court order followed the suit brought by 27 Rivers State House of Assembly lawmakers who accused Mr Fubara of flouting a court order ordering him to represent his 2024 Budget to the legislature and thumbing his nose at the constitution which prescribes the legislative quorum needed to legitimise the appropriations bill. Mr Fubara had presented his budget before a factional assembly of four lawmakers, arguing that he as governor – not the courts – did not recognise the 27 lawmakers whom he insisted had defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). In a number of convoluted cases, the courts had unanimously, at least so far, ruled that the defections by the 27 had not been done or consummated according to the law and the constitution. It was a tight elbow room seized upon by the 27, but in the eyes of the law, until an appeal upturns the ruling, they remain the legitimate legislature. When the eyes of the law meet the opinion of the public, the former always wins, regardless of the emotions surrounding the issue in dispute. Rather than put its house in order, present a sound and incontrovertible case before the courts, Mr Fubara’s administration has whipped up emotions, attempted to shame Mr Wike, name-call him for amorally disallowing the governor from governing, and threatening to bring the whole democratic edifice down.

    Obviously, as adumbrated by the NDDF and the Fubara administration, there are many in Rivers, perhaps a significant percentage, convinced that Mr Wike is the one troubling the state. Hence the twin threats of stifling oil production and scuttling the country’s democracy. But both threats, not to mention the arguments underpinning them, are an indication of incompetent logic and disturbing lack of leadership capacity. Admitting but not conceding that Mr Wike is the sole troubler of Rivers, does it absolve the state and Mr Fubara of running an administration that undermines the rule of law and incompetently prosecutes its cases in the courts? They seem to give the impression that Mr Wike is a magician, running rings round them; and that they are too dimwitted to respond with anything but emotion and anger. Mr Wike is probably more politically fleet-footed than all of them put together in Rivers, but it is not an excuse to subvert the rule of law and not find a few brains to help strategise Mr Fubara out of the needless stalemate he has constrained himself and the state. As it is evident, the highly emotive and entitled Mr Wike can be beaten at his own game. If Mr Fubara is unable to find the right strategy to undo his opponent, the fault is entirely his.

    Indeed, the Rivers governor has tried to make light of the current judicial impasse involving the federal monthly allocations. It is unwise. It is a serious blunder. Unable to convince the Appeal Court last month that the Speaker Martin Amaewhule-led House of Assembly is illegitimate, and the governor’s four-man assembly the legitimate legislature, Mr Fubara has embarked on a series of legislative and judicial self-help measures at which many Nigerians wince. The problem is, however, not irredeemable; but the resolution cannot be procured by force, intimidation or blackmail. The governor cannot propel the state to defy the constitution, and his team of supporters to deride the courts – except of course he is thinking of secession. Given the heat of indignation he has worked himself into, not to talk of his defiant speeches at political gatherings, cocktails and churches, it is not certain that a few subversive ideas might not have crossed his feverous mind. If he is not to soon discover that his state and supporters as well as the rest of Nigeria would find him dispensable, he had better change tack. He presumes his opponents don’t have supporters in the state, or that the rest of the country would be willing to abort democracy to help him win his argument against Mr Wike. These are misplaced presumptions. What indeed would it take to convince him that he could outfox his predecessor if he dug deep?

  • Rivers: Drawing far-fetched parallels

    Rivers: Drawing far-fetched parallels

    Until the federal government learns to put its foot down, the threats against the republic will not abate. Responding to the court judgement withholding the monthly allocations to Rivers State, some political actors in and outside the state have been threatening fire and brimstone, of course against both the federal government and the judiciary, and warning that democracy could collapse. From all indications, the threateners wish their prophecies to come true.

    As part of the disingenuous ploys to influence public opinion on the revenue allocations controversy, other commentators have also suggested that the Federal High Court judgement mirrored the case of the withheld allocations to Lagos local governments in 2004 during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, insinuating in addition that the governor who fought that case is now the president ‘enabling’ the current ‘anomaly’ against Rivers State. It is perverse logic; but taking a position in these parts is seldom about logic or law. As a matter of fact, positions are often taken according to which part of the ethnic, political or religious divide the commentator or politician belongs.

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    Has it occurred to those condemning the government and the courts that the real problem is the inability of Rivers State to convince any court, except a few state courts, that the governor has acted according to the law in any of the controversies he has got himself embroiled in? And have they attempted to interrogate the actions and political decisions of Governor Sim Fubara who has consistently been outmanoeuvred by his enemies? Apart from ignoring the law and accusing the courts of constituting a threat to democracy, the governor’s supporters and state elders prefer to see the Rivers crisis from the cracked prism of pro-Wike or pro-Fubara.

    The Rivers imbroglio is a reflection of the quality of both leaders and the led in Rivers as well as in Nigeria as a whole. It’s an African thing: full of raw emotions and rage rather than the substance of the case and logic, and full of pigheaded and Trumpian determination to get one’s way at all costs.

  • Obasanjo’s obsession with comparisons

    Obasanjo’s obsession with comparisons

    Former president Olusegun Obasanjo was in Bauchi last Sunday to commission road projects constructed by the Governor Bala Mohammed administration. As part of his itinerary, he visited the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Rilwanu Suleiman-Adamu, whom he lathered with his usual sanctimonious talk about his successors’ poor leadership ability. By now, whenever the former president waxes eloquent about his administration’s ‘flawless capacity’, his hosts have learnt both to accommodate him and to even sit grimfaced through his harangues. There were a number of inviting subjects the former president could speak on, but he chose in his inimitable style to dwell on using himself as a benchmark against which his successors should always be judged.

    His statement at the palace was ostensibly to promote the relevance of community policing, but even that innocuous topic had to be exploited for his advantage. He said: “The best form of security is community policing because everyone knows his/her neighbours within the community. With that, it is very easy to identify the bad eggs. The situation of insecurity in Nigeria today is so bad, unlike during our terms in office when we prioritise the security of lives and properties across the country. We need to do something urgently about this. During our service to the nation, we did everything collectively, our decisions were taken together to have a uniform focus. My brother, Ahmed Adamu Mu’azu, is seated here, and he will bear me witness. Whatever we achieved then was a collective effort. We need peace, unity, and collective support in this country if we must move forward. Things can be right and good again in the country, all we need to do is to get united and do things collectively.”

    More than any living or even dead past Nigerian president, Chief Obasanjo has perfected the art of presidential lecture circuit, the kind Western leaders have turned to cash cows for decades, if not centuries. He is the most invited former president, and he has done admirably well not to decline most invitations. Even where they are unsure he would grace the occasion, he surprisingly honours their invitation. He is strong, vibrant, frank to a fault, and no matter what anyone says, he will still continue honouring invitations until he transitions, a destination he has prophesied is still a long way off. It is not clear what his going rate is, but whatever it is, his hosts can afford it, for he adds value and lends respectability to their gatherings. Fortunately for him and his hosts, he rarely attacks his hosts or speaks ill of them. That would demarket his brand and make invitations to be few and far between. And with inflation biting hard in Nigeria, and naira value plummeting, the hard working ex-president cannot afford to trifle with his economic interests. What is more, his main goal is not even financial. Being Nigeria’s most accomplished narcissist, a man and leader who loves to hear himself speak and others listen, he covets the therapeutic effect of circulating on the political scene and newspaper front pages as well as staying medically fit by his travels instead of mummifying in anonymity.

    Not too long after he left office in 1979 and handed over to his preferred successor, he started to sound sanctimonious, first comparing himself in his little books to the man he didn’t wish to succeed him, Obafemi Awolowo, first Premier of the Western Region. Then, soon after the mid-term of the Shehu Shagari administration, the Owu chief also began to question his successor’s governing paradigms and policy orthodoxies. It was not clear that he understood that as a practical military head of state who relied more on instincts to rule and common sense to govern, he was not in a great position to compare himself ideologically with his successor. Nevertheless, two or three more military regimes after his, the former president happened upon his epistolary masterpieces through which he excoriated one head of state after another until he came to grief during the ghoulish rule of the Sani Abacha military regime. He learnt no lessons, however. In 2007, he again foisted a successor, Umaru Yar’Adua/Goodluck Jonathan, upon the country and when the duo spurned his meddlesomness and unsolicited advice, he turned exceedingly nasty, plastering his victims with unmentionable epithets.

    Read Also: Obasanjo: punishing Igbo for January 1966 coup, Biafra unfair

    It is, therefore, not out of character that he has begun once more, under the Bola Tinubu administration, to indulge his fantasy for comparison. He is reputed to have some metaphysical grasp of political realities, and may have seen the failure of all his best efforts to prevent the election and inauguration of the Tinubu presidency as implying the need for caution, but he will continue to launch the kind of scud missile he shot at the administration when he visited the Bauchi palace. The security and economic situations he faced in 1999 to 2007 pale in comparison with the current crisis, but Chief Obasanjo has never claimed to make scientific comparisons. More frequently, he limits himself to the street drivel that has become standard fare in political discourse. Energised by the social media, both the drivel and his comparisons get more mileage than they really deserve.

    The former president made two major points at the Bauchi palace last Sunday. Firstly, he spoke about how his administration ‘prioritised security of lives and properties across the country’, probably insinuating that the present administration does not. The Tinubu government may not have achieved the kind of results it hopes, but it stands logic on its head to say the reason for any shortcoming is one of low priority. Secondly, Chief Obasanjo also spoke about how his administration did ‘everything collectively…to have a common focus’. There is nothing today to suggest that there is a lack of common focus in the battle against insecurity. It remains to be seen whether in 2027, the former president will return to his hunting ground as a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) godfather instead of limiting himself to the innuendoes he has embraced and disseminated since he left active politics.

  • World Bank’s prefectural role in Nigeria

    World Bank’s prefectural role in Nigeria

    For decades, the World Bank has played an overweening role in the economic affairs of many developing countries, advising on public finance as well as lending money. Nigeria has not been insulated from the prefectural grip of an agency many Nigerians love to hate, a grip manifested in the kind of advice they gave last week to Nigeria to audit the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, even as they also passed judgement on Nigeria’s ongoing reforms and warned about deepening poverty. Their preening was not evident only during the Ibrahim Babangida military regime when they lauded the massive shift in Nigeria’s economic orthodoxy, the Bank’s condescension has in fact continued to have significant impact on public policy since then.

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    It is not certain that, other than sticking to the global financial organisation’s orthodoxy, Nigeria can do much in the near term to satisfy all the yearnings of the World Bank. But the longer the Nigerian reforms take to impact the lives of the people, the more the Bank will continue to sound pontifical. Increasingly, the results so far suggest that the reforms need to be perfused with local concentrates. The reforms may look nice on paper, but until they begin to aspirate local content, as indeed many developing countries which transited to developed status have discovered, the crisis may be prolonged and Nigeria could be predisposed to instability. Worse, should the crisis be prolonged, the World Bank would also become more probing, prefectural and condescending. It is time to pivot away from that ghastly desire for foreign approvals.

  • States bluffing their way through crises

    States bluffing their way through crises

    Just like Nigeria is trying to bluff its way through global economic crisis, most of Nigeria’s 36 states are also trying to bluff their way through the 1999 constitution, with the local government elections and revenue allocations constituting the triggers. Decades of destroying the nation’s industrial base and flinging doors open to all manner of imported goods, thus putting enormous pressure on foreign earnings, have pushed the country into a cauldron of rage, discontent and even rebellion. Submission to poor corporate governance culture, gross indiscipline, expensive taste for imports, and a sense of entitlement spawned by excessive reliance on oil exports have sadly not led the country to find remedies but to all manner of efforts to bluff the way through the ongoing global economic crisis. So far, the bluff has not worked.

    It is in the midst of Nigeria’s existential crisis that the states have also adopted the policy of bluffing their way through the Supreme Court judgement on local government financial autonomy. Miffed by how the federal government dragged them to the Court due to decades of fiddling with federal allocations to local governments, and deeply angered by how easily they lost the case, states have decided to take the battle to the feds. A little over a week ago, some 16 of them jointly took issue with three or so mainly anti-graft federal institutions, insisting that their enabling laws were constitutionally defective and based on inappropriate conventions. The states give the impression that the said agencies, to wit, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) have become a harassment tool in the hands of the federal administration. They want the Supreme Court to declare the three agencies illegal.

    The battle between the three tiers of government is now fully joined, and the gloves are off. On the one hand are the feds and the councils which want federal allocations to local governments paid directly to the local government; and on the other hand are the infuriated states who insist that the autonomy indirectly granted the councils will create needless friction in the states as well as promote insubordination. A few states have thus begun to enact laws to return the councils to full state control, thus subverting the recent Supreme Court judgement. Those who are not directly re-enslaving the councils have developed political strategies to return the councils to status quo as loyal and obedient servants. The battles ahead – for there will be many before the smoke clears – will no doubt enthrall blood sport enthusiasts.

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    Fighting on one front does not, however, appeal to the states. They are determined to open many fronts until they overwhelm the feds. In an apparent attempt to obey the court judgement circumscribing their powers over the councils’ finances, the states have unleashed a procession of local government elections to grudgingly satisfy public expectations. They know they can’t defy Abuja as Lagos did when President Bola Tinubu was governor. Under his governorship, he creatively engineered the states’ finances to cope with the federal siege which played out in withheld federal allocations to the 20 local government areas. The state and LGs did not go broke. Today, states are struggling to breathe financially and will thus be less inclined to any kind of constitutional adventurism. So, they have devised a better way of circumventing the court judgement. They will have the elections, but it will be on their own terms, with only loyalists and the state’s ruling party victorious. The states are determined to have the last laugh. They snicker at the Supreme Court, knowing it will be unable to determine how the ‘meddlesome’ feds can guarantee the integrity of the council polls.

    Will the states’ counterattack work? It is hard to predict. What is clear is that they won’t let go of the LGs easily. They have been compelled into burdensome council elections so that council allocations would not be withheld, but they are feverishly designing political weapons of their own to wipe the smile off the face of the feds. Going forward, they will keep throwing punches, and fighting tooth and nail to keep their snouts locked on the council’s trough. They have the staying power, the number, and the artifices. If they can hold on until the next elections, they think the feds will sue for some kind of peace. While it may not be clear that the states will win outright, it is nearly certain that they will compromise the potency of the Supreme Court judgement by weakening it as well as leaving legal and constitutional purists exasperated or deflated. The states may be bluffing their way through the constitution, and riding roughshod over the local governments, but everyone knows that the federation can hardly be the better for the ridicule of its constitution.

  • The adamant inciters of Nigeria

    The adamant inciters of Nigeria

    About two weeks ago, when former Rivers State governor Rotimi Amaechi spoke condescendingly to Nigerian youths about their reluctance to promote insurrection as a solution to the hardship they were experiencing, it was widely condemned as incitement. He could not be bothered. Self-righteous and entitled, especially after having spent 24 continuous years in public service, the former governor may in fact be suffering from withdrawal syndrome. In his view, the policy reforms of the Bola Tinubu presidency had brought untold hardship and hunger upon Nigerians, and the administration should be requited with street actions to show public dismay and anger. Not only was he surprised, as he put it, that youths could not sustain their protests, he dismissed them as feeble and vacillating.

     Mr Amaechi is not the only one inciting youths to rage; the social media is also incandescent in urging popular revolt. No day passes, and no platform is excluded, without stories and essays, many of them exaggerations or outright falsehoods, encouraging an inflexible and implacable approach to public discourse. Policies are prejudged, and positions hardened in the hope that one day, the incitement would reach a critical mass until an explosion follows. The incitement is cloaked as free speech guaranteed by the constitution.

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    What neither Mr Amaechi nor the social and traditional media have pondered is why no effort has been made to weigh the policies and issues causing grave distress in the land against the style these notable critics and inciters have adopted to mitigate the crisis bedeviling the nation. Why have they not done any introspection on their style of public engagements, particularly the manner they view their opposition to government policies as a zero sum-game? Protests in many countries are often geared towards defeating or modifying public policies; but in Nigeria, which also operates a democracy with periodic elections, they are often geared towards violence and regime change. That is where the problem lies. That is why Mr Amaech is disconsolate about what he sees as youth lethargy or indifference; that is why the social media repeatedly called for a coup d’etat after the 2023 elections; and why the impatient political opposition, unmindful of the sacrifice necessary for the sustenance of democracy, keeps dreaming that massive revolt could neatly position them to assume power. What if the romanticised revolt leads to something far worse.