The Nation Newspaper

Category: Barometer

  • Japa doctors: avoiding rash solutions

    Japa doctors: avoiding rash solutions

    The disruptive effects of Nigerian doctors and health workers migrating to greener pastures may lead the government to consider radical but perhaps counterproductive measures to stem the outflow. The temptation to seek extralegal and unconstitutional solutions should be resisted, notwithstanding the magnitude of the problem. So far, for instance, and by some estimates, over 12,000 Nigerian doctors are believed to have been licenced to practice in the United Kingdom. The figures were not always dire. From a low estimate of about two or three hundred doctors migrating abroad yearly, the estimate has soared to some 2,000 annually. It has led to disruptions on surgical waiting lists, closure of wards due to lack of personnel, unbearable pressures on health workers who stayed behind, and retardation of progress in healthcare delivery.

    As part of the solutions, there are indications that medical training institutions may be encouraged to expand admission quotas. But given the surging demand for healthcare workers in parts of the world, it is unlikely that Nigeria, with its rather retrogressive approach to sustaining and retaining doctors and nurses in its hospitals, will benefit from that expansion. There have also been some attempts to legislate the retention of healthcare workers by bonding them during training to include mandatory three or five years of service before being eligible for migration. This measure would be shortsighted, unconstitutional and discriminatory. Apart from worsening the migration of health workers by its insular economic and social policies, the Muahammadu Buhari presidency also attempted retrogressive and divisive measures to stem the flow of doctors and nurses abroad.

    Nigeria cannot wish the crisis away. So far, the Bola Tinubu administration has not attempted to directly grapple with the worsening crisis. It met a broken economy and to all intents and purposes, an empty and debt-ridden treasury. Its objective is to mend the economy, restore sanity to the country’s finances, and sensibly prioritise the problems. Ranking the crisis low is understandable. Yet, the problem cannot wait; and the longer the disease is left unattended, the greater the danger of it metastasizing. In some forms, the current administration must without delay attempt to restore order in the healthcare sector. But in finding a solution, or solutions, it must avoid the mistakes of its predecessors who either foolishly ignored the problem preferring it to resolve itself, which it didn’t because it couldn’t, or worsened it by administering conceited and heavy-handed measures such as splitting the unions in the healthcare sector.

    Read Also: EFCC: We’ll go after those keeping looted funds abroad  

    The new administration must understand that the problem is not foreign countries poaching Nigeria’s health workers. Doctors and nurses cannot be singled out for discrimination when they seek greener pastures. And as desirable as expanding the training of healthcare workers is, this will make only a little dent on the crisis, and certainly not in the short run. If the administration is really as bothered as the rest of the country is, it must look for the low hanging fruits of enhanced pay and allowances, which it has been reluctant to pay on account of the distressed economy, while it must staff and equip the hospitals to a reasonable degree. This will mean declaring an emergency in the sector. Retaining the current regimen is nothing but an invitation to disaster. The administration should, therefore, urgently set up a committee to look at the problem with a view to suggesting realistic and manageable solutions. The short-term solutions will stretch the system a little beyond what the administration expects, but it really has no choice. The problem cannot wait.

    However, it is not only health workers that are migrating in droves, university teachers are also migrating with such intensity and severity that it qualifies for a veritable brain drain approximating a tragedy. The past administration mismanaged the university crisis that engulfed the nation in the closing months of 2022. The new administration has made some token concessions to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) by offering to pay four months withheld salaries out of eight months impounded by the Buhari administration. The offer was condescending. If the Tinubu administration understands the problem as comprehensively as its election manifesto pretends, paying all the withheld salaries, maybe in tranches, is non-negotiable. More, the payment should be included in a package of panaceas to revivify tertiary education, stamp out strikes, and institute innovative ways of funding higher education and research and development. Government spokespersons have not given any indication that the administration has a grasp of the fundamentals and scope of the problem, let alone the far-reaching solutions the crisis calls for. The past administration broke up the unions, believing that hurting them and depriving them of unity would quench the desire for strikes. Balkanising the unions is meaningless when the issues predisposing the unions to strike have been left unattended.

    Neither the healthcare crisis nor the tertiary education imbroglio can wait for order to be restored in the country’s finances. The Tinubu administration must take meaningful and steady steps to address the crises and forge understanding and build confidence among stakeholders. The crises can no longer be ignored or left in abeyance. The time to act is now, and the action must be sensible, restrained, comprehensive and impactful.

  • Army’s error drone strike

    Army’s error drone strike

    The challenge before the Bola Tinubu administration in respect of the error drone strikes in Kaduna last Sunday is how to strike a balance between pacifying angry victims and their families and sustaining the morale and fighting spirit of Nigeria’s overstretched military in the war against bandits and terrorists. The Nigerian Army accepted responsibility for the drone attacks on Tudun Biri village in Igabi local government area of Kaduna State which left 86 people dead and 75 injured. It has instituted a probe and pledged to re-appraise its rules of engagement and improve on them. The federal government is also rightly instituting a probe. Neither probe is likely, ultimately, to recommend prosecution as some commentators have advocated and despite initial promise to punish erring soldiers. Investigations, not rhetoric, should determine what should be done.

    Read Also: EFCC: We’ll go after those keeping looted funds abroad 

    In their preliminary assessment, the Army indicated where it thought the error came from: inaccurate intelligence. It has promised to improve significantly on its war tactics. But whether the country likes it or not, this mishap will probably make the military more cautious than it has been. Whether that caution would prove harmful or not to the anti-terror war remains to be seen. The error strike and the massive backlash it elicited will, however, unfortunately slow the hands of the military and strengthen the hands of terrorists in wreaking havoc. But if the anti-terror war is not to flag, the federal and state governments must intensify efforts to enable accurate intelligence gathering, especially in terrains like Igabi LGA where bandits had tended to roam fairly freely. It is not an easy task. But that balance must be found.

    The military will undoubtedly review its operations, which may lead to some reshuffling and movements in the ranks, and the federal government will deal with the issues of compensation and community rebuilding. The Igabi bombing is of course not the first time mistakes will be made, and despite hoping it will be the last, there is no guarantee it will be the last. The unsavoury and troubling fact is that no military in the world has yet found the formula to make collateral damage nonexistent.   

  • Nigeria must prepare for Trump

    Nigeria must prepare for Trump

    Hopefully, ex-president Donald Trump of the United States will not return to office next year as he desperately wishes. His eccentricities, bigotry, lack of profundity, and racist inclination did a lot to undermine the image of his country and the world order in his first four tumultuous years in office. Recognised by many even in the US as a narcissist of the first rank, Mr Trump will not be expected to change his worldview, nor his unpredictability. His failings gave nightmares to America’s European allies in NATO, and incensed his neighbours to the north and south of North America. By the time of his exit, he had rendered international relations so fraught and tentative that the world waited with baited breath for his next apocalyptic action or statement.

    Read Also: Donald Trump gag order reinstated in New York civil fraud trial

    In all this, his contempt for Africa was loaded and exemplary. As Nigeria tries to reset its economy after years of ineptitude and depredation, a hostile, indifferent and unpredictable US president could be very beffudling. Should he win, there will be consequences for Africa and Nigeria. There is sometimes wisdom in getting to the bridge before crossing it; but given Nigeria’s economic crisis and the social ferment brewing below the surface, it is not out of place to plan for the uncertainties ahead. Nigeria should find out in what ways it can profit from Mr Trump’s unpredictability, or how to lessen the impact of his wild assumptions and indiscriminate verbal and policy attacks. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. The rest of the world, including Russia and China, must already be planning for Mr Trump’s second coming in case US voters are unable to stop him. Nigeria should not be caught napping.   

  • Edo’s Philip Shaibu bites the bullet

    Edo’s Philip Shaibu bites the bullet

    After agonising for weeks about whether he should contest the governorship or not, and then enduring reprisal for months from Governor Godwin Obaseki determined to ensure his deputy does not succeed him next year, Edo State deputy governor Philip Shaibu has finally decided to throw his hat in the ring to contest the 2024 governorship election. The feud between the governor and his deputy broke into the open in September when Mr Shaibu dragged the governor and the legislature to court over what he termed a subterranean move to impeach him for daring to indicate interest in next year’s governorship poll. Mr Obaseki had been hostile to him, he said, since August when his political ambition came to light. In fact, the feud between the two men had been simmering since February 2022 when the voluble Mr Shaibu warned that he would turn against the governor should the latter attempt to play the godfather over the 2024 succession. The governor noted the threat and bided his time.

    That time came last September when Mr Shaibu went to court. With alacrity, the governor bared his teeth, gave the deputy governor the cold shoulder, embarrassed him at state functions, and eventually kicked him out of the Government House into exile in a nondescript office nearby at Number 7, Osadebey Avenue. Chastened and humiliated, but immoderate as ever, Mr Shaibu ate crow before the whole country, in terms that amplified his total lack of principles. “I am missing my governor and by the grace of God, He will touch the governor’s heart and touch all of us and even those that are between us,” Mr Shaibu began ignominiously. “I mean well. If there is any mistake I have made as a human, it is not out of wickedness because I know I’m not wicked. I have a very clean heart. I want to use this medium to appeal to Mr. Governor that if there is anything I don’t know that I have done, please forgive me so that we can develop our state together.”

    For a few crazy days, it seemed the deputy governor’s blandishments would work, especially with the governor who is himself unaccustomed to nobility driving the knife deeper into his deputy’s back in the manner he eventually accepted the apology. Sadly, the rapprochement was too good to be true. By last week, it was clear Mr Shaibu was simply baiting the governor, hoping that his boss would reset the relationship to its pristine days. But Mr Obaseki is an old warhorse who knew his sabre and could predict the enemy from one hundred miles away. He accepted his deputy’s apologies quite alright, but he was cautious about a man who thought nothing about ‘betraying’ him and who was flippant about it. He would bide his time again. True to prediction, and fearing that the governor was taking too much time in resetting and restoring the relationship he had craved and alluded to, Mr Shaibu went for broke and bit the bullet. The first time he broke ranks with the governor, Mr Shaibu loved the taste of blood, especially seeing the governor so flustered and livid. Practicing ‘betrayal’ a second time would do nothing spectacular to hurt a man who was already down and needn’t fear any fall.

    Though the deputy governor claims to be consulting, it is all but clear he has made up his mind. He will contest the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary, and if he wins, he will go on to fight for the governorship. Here is his argument to justify his final break with fear and with Mr Obaseki: “With the 2024 Edo governorship election fast approaching, the state cannot afford to experiment again with someone who does not understand the politics of the state or the needs of the people. Edo people need practical governance and you cannot experiment again with somebody that does not understand the politics of a good state and the needs of the people…Are we going to experiment with a new person again? And the person will spend the first four years learning on the job and he will spend another four years trying to embezzle, set up his businesses in the name of consolidating on the gains of the first term. Or do we need a governor that from day one will hit the ground running?”

    Read Also: Philip Shaibu and curious case of phantom impeachment

    After playing the rhetorician so elegantly, Mr Shaibu threw this clincher in response to the governor’s argument about zoning and fairness: “Whereas other senatorial districts have had more than one turn in the governorship position in the state, Edo North had only one turn. We have had four governors from South, two from Central and only one from North. Just like my ambition to be the deputy governor was not mine, but I made myself available, so also the ambition to be governor is still not mine. I’m only making myself available.” Here are two extraordinary things in one. Firstly, his foes interpret zoning from the perspective of the Fourth Republic, starting from 1999. But Mr Shaibu goes farther back than 1999 to give his audience a more comprehensive background of the Edo sons who have had the privilege of governing the state. The PDP and Edo public will determine which perspective to choose as the campaigns begin and the aspirants become known. Second, Mr Shaibu is not just a rhetorician, he is alarmingly also an equivocator. The public adorned him with the robe of ambition as deputy governor, he says; they will do the same again as they clothe him with the ambition of governor. In other words, he is not greedy for power. It is unlikely he believes himself.

    How far can he go? Not very far, it seems. No matter how much he detests the governor’s godfather status, he will be unable to match Mr Obaseki’s resources in fighting for the PDP ticket. He will also not be welcome in the All Progressives Congress (APC) should he take flight from his party, for the leading opposition party in the state is wary of those with betrayal in their genes. Indeed, should Mr Shaibu find accommodation in a third party, he will fare very badly in the poll. Does this mean Mr Obaseki will have his way in enthroning a successor in 2024? If Edo agrees with his perspective on zoning, and if the PDP produces a more acceptable candidate than the APC and Labour Party (LP), he will get his way. But ultimately, being a betrayer himself, it is hard to see the governor retaining any hold on whoever he installs. He flabbergasted ex-governor Adams Oshiomhole, and wiped the smile off the face of ex-governor Nyesom Wike, his backer at a point in time in his moment of distress. He is as unscrupulous as they come. Those who live by the sword, as Mr Shaibu will doubtless be attesting in the months ahead after coming to grief, will also die by the sword. It is karma; but in these parts, it is the beautiful art of politics.

  • Gov Adeleke flouts NJC, Industrial Court

    Gov Adeleke flouts NJC, Industrial Court

    Last Thursday, Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State finally suspended the state’s chief judge, Justice Oyebola Adepele-Ojo. He rested the suspension on the State House of Assembly resolution asking the judge to step aside pending investigations into allegations of abuse of power, misconduct, corruption, and subversion of the rule of law. When the controversy swirling around the chief judge began, she headed for the National Industrial Court (NIC) which granted an interim injunction restraining the governor from removing her. The court also adjourned the case till December 12 for hearing. But the governor’s spokesman, Olawale Rasheed, announced her removal and hinged it on the legislature.

    Like everything else about Osun, state policies and decisions are not often based on carefully debated and well thought-out rationalisations. Opposition parties, including the All Progressives Congress (APC), have accused the state government of mediocre performance as well as outsourcing governor’s powers to unelected officials. The governor denies the allegations, but he has been unable to explain why he is avoiding Government House in Osogbo, or why one of his siblings seemed to be acting in his place in everything but the ceremonial. By suspending the chief judge, a fact he is said to have denied, Mr Adeleke easily flouts constitutional provisions regarding the discipline of judges, and bypasses the National Judicial Council (NJC) on which the authority to discipline judges is vested.

    By next week, it will be clear whether the governor has changed his mind on the suspension of the chief judge or whether he has simply bought time. But there is no doubt that apart from his spokesman issuing a statement indicating that the chief judge had been suspended, the House of Assembly had also passed a resolution asking for her suspension from office. It is, however, strange that both the legislature and the executive could plead ignorance of constitutional provisions regarding the removal of judges. The constitution is unambiguous on the subject. The absence of ambiguity has, however, not deterred some state governments from flouting the constitution and disregarding the NJC.

    Read Also: Fed Govt seeks more lands for irrigation farming in states

    Removal of chief judges has been litigated up to the Supreme Court. But despite such judicial history, it is surprising that Osun State has not learnt any lesson on the futility of abridging the process. In 2018, the Kogi State government and legislature removed Justice Nasir Ajanah and the chief registrar of the High Court, Yahaya Adamu. In deciding the case in 2019, Justice Alaba Omolaye-Ajileye, who had adjudicated a similar case in 2008 when the then Kogi State chief judge Umaru Ali Eri was removed by the legislature, established as follows: “The issue that arises here is the first question formulated by the claimants which is whether or not the defendants can jointly on their own validly remove the 1st claimant as the Chief Judge of Kogi State. The fact that the 1st claimant is a Judicial Officer within the meaning of section 318 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), is not in doubt. He is also the Head of Kogi State Judiciary. By item 21 of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the National Judicial Council (NJC) is the body empowered to exercise disciplinary control over all Judicial Officers of Nigeria. It is also the said National Judicial Council established under Section 153 (1) of the Constitution (as amended) that has the power to recommend to the Governor, the removal of a Judicial Officer. Where a Chief Judge of a State is to be removed, for whatever reason, it is the National Judicial Council, not a state House of Assembly, that is empowered to make recommendations to the Governor of a State under item 21(d) of the Third Schedule to the Constitution. In Elelu-Habeeb v. A.G. Federation & Ors, the Supreme Court held: ‘It is after the recommendation of the 2nd appellant under paragraph 21 (d) of part 1 of the 3rd schedule has been made to the State Governor that the provisions of Section 292 (1) (a) (ii) comes into operation.’

    “In this case, there is evidence that the 4th defendant had approached the National Judicial Council, through a petition (Exhibit D), over this matter. The defendants ought to exercise patience to await the outcome of the petition. To allow only the House of Assembly and the Governor of a State to remove the Chief Judge of a State or any Judicial Officer for that matter, without the input of the National Judicial Council (NJC), will be monstrous and outrageous, as it is capable of destroying the very substratum of justice and introducing a system of servitude, utterly inconsistent with the constitutional independence of judges. It is all about the independence of the Judiciary, which must be preserved!  In some climes, the battle for independence of the Judiciary had been won, though, not on a platter of gold, but had been the work of ages to establish, and the sacrifices of courageous men to attain. In Nigeria, it is still a work in progress. I answer the first question with a negative. The defendants cannot, either jointly or unilaterally, validly exercise any power of disciplinary control by way of removal of the 1st claimant from office as Chief Judge of Kogi State…”

    Should Mr Adeleke fail to retrace his steps, he will plunge Osun into a judicial crisis. Neither he nor the House of Assembly has the power they have appropriated to themselves. Even if they contrive a long stalemate by refusing to reverse themselves, they will still come to grief eventually, for they have no constitutional leg to stand on. The Osun governor is known to be inattentive to policy matters, especially when they are complicated and nuanced. In the suspension of the state’s chief judge, he may have snarled himself in a needless crisis, regardless of whatever political undercurrents inform the move.

  • Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi again

    Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi again

    Last week, this writer suggested in another place that the APC would win Imo while the PDP would take Bayelsa. He also suggested that the APC was undeserving of victory in Kogi, regardless of the political and ethnic permutations of the state. The outcomes of the off-cycle November 11 polls in the three states bore out these predictions. The elections might have been fiddled with a little, but no matter what arithmetic the courts use, including deducting excess votes or adding uncounted votes, APC will still keep Imo, and PDP, Bayelsa.

    Read Also: No more strike in varsities, Tinubu declares

    The sticky point still remains Kogi State where abominable politics and balloting took place. Kogi governor Yahaya Bello may have done enough to pocket Kogi Central senatorial district votes for his preferred candidate, but there is no moral or political justification whatsoever to present his hometown man to succeed him. Kogi East cast that ugly precedent in granite; now they are also reaping the benefits of unobtrusive unfairness. As indeed the trusting and seemingly conniving Kogi West voters will discover in four years’ time when they encounter the fickleness of Governor Bello and Governor-elect Usman Ododo, the incentive to be fair in Kogi hardly exists.

  • Coalition of the damned and defeated

    Coalition of the damned and defeated

    The Bola Tinubu administration has for long been embroiled in a bruising battle with a determined and unyielding band of hostile enemies, most of them anti-democratic. They will not relent. Privileged for more than a decade, these enemies had cohorted themselves into a powerful counterforce that went for broke immediately the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the presidency in February. They ranged from civil society activists and labour unionists to lawyers and political parties, and from retired generals and businessmen to former presidents and clerics. A number of stragglers have joined their ranks and are wreaking havoc on social media and other fora. They are implacable, unforgiving, and are assured that the administration has been too weakened by criticism to be able to respond with the kind of coherence and vigour needed to pacify the enemy.

    Ex-presidential candidates Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) may have, in a manner of speaking, resigned themselves to forming the core of the political opposition in the democratic sense, but they are not the only ones still hoping that one way or the other a force of nature would break out to put the administration’s nose out of joint. That has not happened. But the enemies have not been deterred. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is among the number, and he is still seething in his presidential library in Abeokuta, hoping against hope. Like Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi, there has been no congratulatory message from him. John Cardinal Onaiyekan is as waspish as ever, granting occasional press interviews excoriating the president. The bitterness and malice are palpable.

    After suffering a momentary pang of conscience, during which he hemmed and hawed, Afenifere factional leader Ayo Adebanjo has lent and overspent his weight in the service of opposing and damning President Tinubu. He is a lawyer, and has presumably read the judgements of the Presidential Election Petition Court and the Supreme Court in respect of the suits brought by the PDP and LP. What did he honestly make of the court decisions? The judgements are profound and easy to understand, with perhaps the justices taking extra care to ensure that the judgements do not become an arcanum, irrespective of their profundity. But like Chief Obasanjo who had no patience with legal issues and logic and truth, Chief Adebanjo could not care less what the facts and circumstances of the cases are. What mattered to him most, what gave him enormous pleasure, is the fact that as a Yoruba man he seemed fair and unbiased to support an Igbo man.

    Then there is of course the new kid on the hostile block, the unwary, insensitive and rambunctious Joe Ajaero, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). His labour union birthed the Labour Party, and though he claims not to hold a party card, he is and has acted and spoken as the chief patron of the LP, and has even broken the law in fighting the opponents of his LP chiefs. Mr Ajaero has demonstrated unalloyed animosity, and has deployed everything and every tool the NLC can summon in the fight against the administration. He and others like him may acknowledge the end of litigation, but they have not reconciled themselves to the end of the war. He has led the NLC to threaten, rage, and rave with all severity and intransigence at the slightest whiff of government’s economic policy. For him, it is never too late to do everything to collapse the administration in the name of popular revolt supposedly against a president whom they describe as tainted.

    Read Also: Angola wants improved bilateral relations with Nigeria

    At the beginning, when the campaigns for the February 25 poll were kick-started, the list of APC and TInubu enemies was long and variegated. There were some northern and south-eastern irredentists proud to be numbered among the APC/Tinubu haters. And there was also a fiery assortment of preachers and Islamic clerics making up the hostile number. Winners Chapel, Dunamis International, Salvation Ministries, and a host of other less known faith organisations and pastors and imams were listed in the fighting opposition. Many of them have since kept their peace. But others are still breathing threats and wishing Armageddon against the APC administration. Yet, despite all this, the country has gradually started to experience peace, especially at a time when global economy is tanking and many countries are exploding into paroxysms of war and bitter recriminations. The Nigerian economy has been so damaged for over a decade that it has so far proved inured to every known economic panacea; but the cohort of the enraged is still plotting revenge for February’s electoral defeat, of course not in the courts, where they came to grief, but on the streets where they have been awkward and hesitant in directly calling out their foot soldiers.

    Unsure how to gauge the level of its popularity, especially given the attacks on the president’s image inspired by the opposition on social media, the APC administration has so far shirked every fight brought against it by its enemies. They have quaked at every threat by the NLC to shut down the country, and have stuttered every time retired generals and former presidents triggered the undertow of resistance. Sooner or later, the administration will come to the conclusion that the enemy cannot be appeased, not now, not in the months ahead, and not in the years to come. If the administration is reluctant to declare open war, it must nevertheless find the chink in the armour of its enemies and exploit it to the hilt.

  • Ajaero’s curious Imo story

    Ajaero’s curious Imo story

    Joe Ajaero, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), is so ubiquitous in the news that he must be feeling like president of the country. He and his union have threatened strike so many times that the media have lost count. In some parts of the world, rotten tomatoes and eggs are frequently hurled at leaders to no consequence; but spit on any NLC leader in Nigeria, and the country is bludgeoned with the threat of strike. Last week in Imo State, Mr Ajaero was beaten by thugs with the police allegedly conniving at the assault. The result is of course a national strike, with some old grudges thrown in for maximum effect and legitimacy. Mr Ajaero and his men have become untouchable.

    Read Also: Ajaero: IGP orders investigation into alleged assault of NLC president

    Before the NLC president came out with his own account of how he was assaulted, his men said that the police did the job of beating him up, and a strike was threatened and even declared. But by his account, the police merely aided the thugs by withdrawing the about 20 security men around him. How in the first instance did the police assign 20 policemen to one man? Are they so overstaffed? When he was freshly assaulted, Mr Ajaero mused that had God not made him differently, his backbone would have been broken. But in his few days of absence from the public after the beating, NLC officials said he was so brutalised that he would need foreign medical attention. Perhaps after the heat has died down, the real and true story of what happened in Owerri, Imo State, two Wednesdays ago, will be told.

  • Many contradictions of Israel-Hamas war

    Many contradictions of Israel-Hamas war

    Nearly 30 days after the Palestinian militant group in Gaza, Hamas, attacked Israel and killed 1,400 people and abducted over 200, war has raged between the Jewish state and Hamas. While statistics are not entirely accurate, the death toll has surpassed 10,000. The trigger for the latest war is Hamas’ October 7 incursion into Israel, which analysts have suggested was timed to frustrate the détente with some Arab countries, notably Saudi Arabia. Had the peace deal between the Saudi Arabia and Israel been consummated, it would probably have put the Palestinian issue on the back burner and strengthened the three-year-old Abraham Accords between Israel and Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Morocco, and Sudan.

    Despite repeated calls for ceasefire, the war seems fated to continue for a considerable length of time until Israel achieves its stated goal of eliminating Hamas both as a fighting force and a governing group. Whether that aim is achievable or not is hard to determine in the short term. But the war may have raised a number of daunting contradictions that are hard to resolve, contradictions that appear potent enough to complicate and contaminate, if not dangerously calcify, relations in the Middle East. It would appear that Arab countries are dedicated to the victory of Hamas. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, chief among the complications is the uneasy relations between the ambitious empire-building Iran and the rather conservative Saudi Arabia which deplores the growing influence of Iran in the Middle East.

    More than any other Middle Eastern governing elite, Iran’s Ayatollahs succinctly capture the interest and ambition of the ordinary Arab. At the core of that ambition is the elimination of Israel as a nation, the development of (Arab) nuclear bomb, and making the region religiously and ethnically homogenous. To achieve these ambitions, Iran has placed itself in leadership position to cobble together an axis of resistance constituted by Iraqi Shiites, Yemeni Houthis, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Gaza’s Hamas who are, however, Sunni. The Iranians have had a running battle with the Saudis for decades, and have fought proxy wars against them using Yemeni (Shiite) Houthis against the Sunnis. This was one of the reasons the Gulf States joined Saudi Arabia to intervene, albeit unsuccessfully, in Yemen. The Sunni-Shia balance of power in the region had been disrupted by the United States intervention in Iraq after 9/11.

    The Iran-led ‘axis of resistance’ may serve the broader Arab interest of restoring the Palestinian issue to the front burner, but at bottom, most other Arab states in the region view the rising profile of Iran with suspicion and fear. They may consent to Hamas tactics against Israel on the surface, but they are in a quandary whether to connive at the militant group waging a successful war that will indirectly strengthen the hands of the Ayatollahs. Egypt, with its economy on tenterhooks, is extremely reluctant to be drawn in into the conflict in any way. It has little or no interest in Gaza, and does not wish to champion the Palestinian cause beyond rhetoric and hosting some refugee camps. Even the Palestinian authority in the West Bank led by Mahmoud Abbas has paid lip service to the cause of Hamas, having been violently upstaged in Gaza by the latter in 2007. Mr Abbas has publicly demonstrated support for Hamas, but the militants’ success may make his administration less relevant or even legitimate.

    Read Also: Kogi, Bayelsa, Imo polls: Parties, candidates sign peace accord Wednesday

    In the end, Iran is probably the only country in the region that demonstrates unalloyed support for Hamas. The Hamas and Palestinian objectives may cohere, but those objectives are complicated, if not attenuated, by their supranational support casts. There is hardly any Arab country, including Turkiye, which does not advocate the Palestinian cause, but with Iran poised for regional dominance and on the verge of becoming a nuclear force, the Hamas struggle is seen a little differently from the more desirable and uncomplicated Palestinian cause. Both Iran and Hezbollah have been deterred by the belligerent US presence in the region from opening a second front in the Israel-Hamas war. Despite threatening brimstone against Israel, both countries will be less eager to open another front. They fear being met with unequivocal countermeasures from the US. A US response could once again decimate Hezbollah and worsen Iran’s economic crisis already depleted and weakened by sanctions. Iran is unlikely to fire directly at Israel; it will rely on proxies, particularly Yemeni Houthis. A massive strike by the US, if not in concert with Israel, could devastate Iran’s nuclear facilities and retard progress in that domain. It could also complicate its economic crisis and open the prospect for regime change.

    Egypt has watched the crisis from a distance, Jordan has kept up its fierce rhetoric and may do little else, and Syria has become hors de combat – all three regionally powerful countries which had in time past led the fight against Israel. Iran may prove smart at calibrating its responses better than others had done decades ago. But the contradictions militating against the success of Hamas may doom the militants’ efforts, despite fighting a fairly advantageous urban war. However, even if it wins the war as expected, Israel may thereafter also confront its own contradictions of war and peace.

  • Justice Dattijo’s bitter exit

    Justice Dattijo’s bitter exit

    For connoisseurs of anti-establishment politics, Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad’s valedictory speech seemed to have been delivered with the force and cadence of liberation theology. The speech resonated well at two levels. One, the eminent justice sounded a clarion call for reform of the justice system. He speaks about the need for transparency in the financial management of the judiciary, with special emphasis on the Supreme Court. He denounced what he observed as the dictatorial tendencies of the Chief Justice of Nigeria in general, and perhaps with the current CJN in mind, struck at creeping nepotism in the appointment of judicial officers, and without any hint of irony, lampooned what he concluded was sectionalism in the court. He drew attention to so many other issues, but did it vituperatively and shockingly without the customary temperateness many associate with jurists. For instance, when he railed against creeping sectionalism, could he by any stretch of the imagination not be promoting federal character in the dispensation of justice?

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    Two, by coming out forcefully and so unsparingly against his former colleagues and the entire Supreme Court that had ennobled him for years, Justice Dattijo did not seem to mind the small talk everywhere regarding his predilection for political partisanship, nor worry about the innuendoes that he scorned the composition of the panel that presided over the PDP/LP/APM presidential election petitions. The problem, in short, is not that he observed certain deficiencies in the administration of justice in Nigeria, but that he chose to ventilate those observations in a language and style that were distinctively and juridically unflattering. Indeed, by choosing to burn the barn to smoke out a rat, the eminent jurist makes the world wonder what manner of judges are appointed into the top court, why they seem shorn of the temper and philosophy many analysts thought they were capable of manifesting effortlessly. There was anger in Justice Dattijo’s admittedly sensible complaints; but there was no nobility.