One minor scandal is enough to down the ordinary police officer from his flight. Some other officers need more than one major scandal to make a dent on them. It has taken two major scandals to draw reasonable attention to the life and career of Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Abba Kyari, until his suspension, leader of the controversially celebrated Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT). Hopefully, notwithstanding his gilded position in the Police Force, the scandals will acquire enough amperage to down or irreparably damage him. Last July, the Police Service Commission (PSC) ordered his suspension after the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) indicted him together with notorious fraudster, Ramon Abbas, alias Hushpuppi. Between last July and when Mr Kyari went on another caper this January, the police dilly-dallied over the controversial officer’s case, particularly the request by the FBI to have him extradited to the US. After what seemed interminable investigations, the PSC, citing unsatisfactory reports, ordered another round of investigations. The second round of investigations was still in the works when, like a villain fated to destruction, Mr Kyari embarked on a drug scandal captured on video by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

What makes Mr Kyari’s case extraordinarily outrageous is not that it has taken two scandals to undo him, one of which was his self-immolating and audacious January drug gambit, but that the police pussyfooted for nearly seven months to take decisive action on his case. They had ignored series of complaints against him while he led the special anti-robbery squad in Lagos. Secondly, and perhaps even more perverse, for an officer on suspension and facing an international indictment, it was curious that Mr Kyari still had enough latitude during that suspension to continue to perpetrate all sorts of malfeasances. The implication, in case this image disaster is lost on the police, is that Mr Kyari was treated with kid gloves because of his connections, or because he had compromised many other officers. What does this do to the morale of diligent, ethical and hard working officers?

Another implication is that while still suspended, his case was inexplicably not handled by the police hierarchy with the sobriety and gravity it deserved. In short, it could be interpreted to mean that favoured police officers are hardly or often not properly supervised. Worse, for Mr Kyari to continue carrying out selected duties in one form or the other during suspension, and with some of his subordinates acquiescing to his orders, knowing same to be illegal, implies that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is not as tight and disciplined a professional law enforcement body as it publicly presents and sometimes asserts vehemently.

Compounding this abominable and nationally embarrassing situation is the jostle between the police and the NDLEA over a fairly straightforward case. The police did not demonstrate enough outrage, and should not have spared Mr Kyari at all, assuming other extraneous considerations had not intervened. It enabled the NDLEA, just emerging from its own lethargy and years of somnolence, to exult over the matter. But if the drug agency had not publicised the case through a press conference, would the police have surrendered their wayward officers? And rather than quietly lick their wounds, the police again pushed the envelope by insinuating the culpability of NDLEA officers in the drug caper that finally brought Mr Kyari down.

Not one to suffer fools gladly, the NDLEA responded in kind by asserting the sanctity of their investigations and reiterating the indictment of the arrested police officers. The scandalous fact that the suspended Mr Kyari led the ill-fated operations should have restrained the police authorities from seeking to make NDLEA an institutional co-accused. It is humbling enough that the police felt mortified by the adverse public perception expected to follow the unusual scandal; but what they needed to do was not to seek illicit relief in involving the NDLEA in the saga, but to pursue brilliant and effective ways of reassuring the public that Mr Kyari did not typify the police force, nor that the police routinely brooked favouritism in handling malfeasant officers.

Unfortunately, the presidency cannot also be absolved of blame in the saga. Nigerians witnessed the spectacle of the PSC crossing swords with the police in late 2020 over the recruitment of constables into the Police Force. The battle, which ended in litigation, quickly became one of who really controlled the police. The Court of Appeal resolved the matter in favour of the PSC. However, if the presidency paid attention to the disaster unfolding over the Kyari/Hushpuppi/cocaine cases, it would have been alert to the urgent need for a presidential overview and review of the Police Force in its entirety. The presidency probably hid behind constitutional provisions to allow agencies such as the police enough latitude to function without constraints. But the men involved are appointees of the president.

Now, much more than the police, the nation is affected by the sordidness of the case, a sordidness that has sadly assumed global dimension. In the eyes of the world, the case portrays the Nigeria Police as an undisciplined organisation, the government as incompetent and inadequate, and the presidency itself distracted or, worst, conniving. It has led to speculations that there is a grand plot to help the ‘favoured’ Mr Kyari evade extradition. Whether true or not, and whether justice is served in Nigeria or abroad, the case calls for a more attentive, disciplined and objective government, atop which sits the presidency. If they could respond fiercely and promptly to the killings of 22 Ondo-bound Muslim travelers in Jos last August, they have a responsibility to maintain the same tempo in all other cases involving threats to law and order.

PDP govs’ Ghanaian parley

Dissatisfied with the lack of result from their many meetings in Nigeria, some PDP governors, reported this newspaper, travelled to Accra, Ghana, last week to continue their deliberations over how to zone the 2023 presidential ticket. The governors had gathered in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State to celebrate Governor Duoye Diri’s second anniversary, and spontaneously decided to hop to Ghana in search of a consensus. If the air in Nigeria was not salubrious enough, might that of Ghana be of help? The meeting, which according to the report held between Tuesday and Wednesday, probably thought so.

Agreeing to a zoning formula, particularly in reference to the presidential ticket, has been especially difficult for the PDP. So far they have toyed with zillion scenarios, and have drawn blank. Those from whose palms the party feeds are interested in running for president. To them, if not now, when. Their collective answer is ‘now’. This explains why northern governors are pitched against southern governors, with hardly a room between.

They will eventually hammer out a deal in the nick of time. Since they can’t all be president at the same time, something must therefore give. But for now, for as long as there is still elbow room, the PDP governors will play hard ball. And as time goes on, they will realise that their disagreements have nothing to do with the air they breathe, and that until altruism takes over, there would be no balm in any Gilead, no matter where it is located on the map. As Shakespeare elegantly put it in his play Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves, that we are underlings”. The governors are responsible for their own stalemate.

Burkina Faso was, last week, the latest African country to embrace coup d’etat as a means of rectifying poor governance. Chad (strictly speaking a member of the Economic Community of Central African States, but shares border with Nigeria), Mali and Guinea had gone down that chute in 2020 and last year when soldiers shot their way into office. Chad got away with its coup because the change seamlessly accompanied the assassination of President Idriss Deby Itno when he visited the war front, and partly because his successor was his son Deby Itno Junior. ECOWAS leaders have tried to deal with their three renegade countries as best as they could, but have met with qualified success. Mali, the most recalcitrant, has lashed out at everyone – ECOWAS, France and the European Takuba task force set up to help the country combat Islamic State and Al Qaeda militants. Mali has instead invited Russian military advisers and mercenaries to do the job, while it called the bluff of every other country and power bloc.

On the many occasions this column addressed the Chad and West African coup crises, it had decried the mealy-mouthed approach of ECOWAS leaders in condemning the coups, not to talk of the long ropes they gave the coupists to make amend. The column warned that if regional leaders continued to pussyfoot over the coups, other ambitious soldiers would not only be encouraged to organise coups, they would also be emboldened to defy sanctions and every other diplomatic actions the bloc might propose or impose. The warning has proved prescient.

Worse, ECOWAS leaders have been befuddled by the massive civil society support the coupists have received in their unconstitutional efforts to revivify their weak and stuttering governments. Clearly, constitutional rule has remained incapacitated and unattractive in the region. No country has proved to be an inspiration, and Nigeria, which was supposed to be an example of how a democracy should function, has proved spectacularly inept, unmanageable and unwieldy. The region has a population of over 350 million people, more than two-thirds of whom are Nigerians. The continuing failure of West Africa, not to say its indolence and inability to delink itself from its colonial past, is a reflection of the impotence of Nigeria. Nigeria’s democracy itself teeters on the brink, with the country ravaged by insurgents and bandit terrorists on the one hand and the failure of its leaders to proactively address diverse and crippling challenges.

The unfurling of coups in the region may continue for a while longer, not only because forceful change of government appears attractive, but also because West African leaders have no practical answers to the coup crisis or possess the acumen to arrest poor governance. West Africa’s civil society has enthusiastically welcomed the coups, insisting that overthrowing incompetent elected governments had become a duty. There behaviour is probably due to their limited understanding of how democracy works, and its limitations, and because poverty, a byproduct of poor governance and meddlesomeness of foreign powers, particularly France in its continuing expropriation of Francophone West African countries, remain debilitating. Forced to choose between the stalling or even death of democracy and their economic wellbeing, the people have repeatedly opted to sacrifice ideas and idealism.

ECOWAS has handled the affairs of the region with embarrassing tameness and lack of surefootedness. Most of those whose democracies are surviving today are, strictly speaking, not better than those who have now lost theirs. Until there is a marked difference and significant improvement in the practice of democracy between military dictatorships and elected governments, the attraction for coups might continue to percolate. More importantly, Nigeria with a population of more than 200m people owes the region a duty to clean up its act. It often defied ECOWAS court rulings, truncated its own practice of democracy by undermining the rule of law, and offered its people appallingly low quality of leadership that birthed insurgencies and banditry on a scale that beggars belief. Even its elections are disgraceful and shambolic. Until it shows leadership by example and produces the zeal to make black people all over the world proud, and until it becomes an ambitious country of decent people and exemplary leaders, it is unlikely West Africa will make progress, let alone develop its democracies and dissuade its soldiers from forcibly overthrowing elected governments.

PDP’s 2023 dilemma

Probably the most convincing argument any high-ranking member of the PDP has made so far on the presidential zoning brouhaha is that the opposition party would not be bound by the mechanistic strictures that compel the ruling party to zone or rotate the presidency. He is right. Having had a northerner as president for eight years, the APC will be reluctant to push the aspiration and candidacy of another northerner. It would not make sense. There would be no way to defend such callousness. However, as sound and logical as the PDP position is, they may soon find out how interconnected the country is, an interconnection that strangely transcends tribes, parties, and sometimes religion.

For reasons partly coincidental, most of the well-known presidential aspirants on the PDP platform are northerners. Former vice president Atiku Abubakar, former Kano governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, former senate president Bukola Saraki, serving Bauchi governor Bala Mohammed and serving Sokoto governor Aminu Tambuwal, all northerners, have indicated interest in running for president. Contradistinctively, nearly all the major APC aspirants for the highest office in the land are southerners. This seemingly natural dichotomy may be more intuitive than calculated. The APC can’t defend the retention of the presidency in the North; but the PDP, whose last president was from the South, can.

But that is where the dichotomy ends. While it is not clear what the final positions of the parties would be when they hold their presidential primaries before the year runs out, they may discover before the next poll what the prevailing national sentiment concerning the highest office sounds like. Once discovered, that sentiment will probably impel the parties into fine-tuning their perspectives and choices and give them the boldness to judge which party and candidate are likely to win the presidency. Months before the 2015 presidential poll, it seemed all but clear who between Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari would win. That vague sense of who the winner would be in turn triggered Dr Jonathan’s futile desperation and challenger Buhari’s confidence. Would the country pass through the same furnace again?

In the months ahead, the PDP may increasingly feel being boxed into a corner. Everything about the party reeks of a northern candidate for the 2023 poll. But if the prevailing sentiment of the country shows a repudiation of another northern president, the PDP would discover its elbow room completely constricted. What the country thinks of another northern president? It is not certain yet; but Nigerian voters might be influenced by the fear of keeping the presidency in the North for another eight years, and if care is not taken, ad infinitum.

There is no consensus, even among those who think highly of him, that ex-head of state Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida was a great leader. He was affable when he chose to, mild-mannered in a deceptive and corrosive way, proud of his network of acolytes around the country, and loved policy experimentation. But beyond these, his military regime was swirled in controversies and expired in an even bigger electoral controversy. In 2011, around the age of 70, he attempted to return to office as an elected president but was roundly rebuffed. However, at 80, he has begun to pontificate on who the next Nigerian president should be in 2023 and what should qualify such a leader. It is hard to explain what gave him the confidence to speak on a subject in which he neither displayed rigour as military head of state nor stood out among the pantheon of great world leaders. But IBB, as he is more widely known, has never been incommoded by his own failings.

Speaking to Arise TV last August, he arbitrarily suggests, among other qualifications, that the next president in 2023 should be in his 60s. Why not 40s, 50s, or even 70s? He does not explain, beyond adding a few more qualifications to the effect that no student of leadership would accord any significance. IBB is of course casuistic. No one can predict him or tell where his arguments are heading, or what self-serving purposes he intends them. Hear him: “If you get a good leader that links with the people and tries to talk with the people; not talking on top of the people, then we would be okay. I have started visualising a good Nigerian leader. That is, a person who travels across the country and has a friend virtually everywhere he travels to, and he knows at least one person that he can communicate with. That is a person, who is very versed in economics and is also a good politician, who should be able to talk to Nigerians and so on. I have seen one or two or three of such persons already in his 60s. I believe so, if we can get him.”

And in another interview with Daily Trust TV last week, he further explicates his view on the next president. Says he: “Any person who fits these criteria, then he is the right person as long as he is a Nigerian, a politician, not old like I am, is very conversant with the country, he communicates, he is a very good communicator. He should be able to communicate because a president should be able to walk into a group of people and talk to them on issues concerning Nigeria; not all the time but most of the time. He must have somebody he knows in every part of the country. It is not a tall order. You could limit it to states, you could limit it to local governments, even to the wards if you can, but somebody such that once you hear the name, it is somebody you will say, yes, I have heard that name before either in the country or in his profession; if he is a doctor, a journalist or whatever, all areas, we have heard the name before; okay then I will make an effort to know more about him.”

It is hard to resist the temptation of thinking he was visualising himself when he was in power. At least he was a fair communicator, and had a network of friends around the country, among other qualities he has been very proud of. That he is, however, simply scratching the veneer of leadership, great leadership, that is, does not occur to him at all. Quite clearly, whether in power or out of power, IBB has spent little time reading up on leadership beyond Niccolo Machiavelli’s 16th century book, The Prince, and Sun Tzu’s 5th century BC Chinese classic, The Art of War. Contemporary books on leaders and leadership have escaped him. So, he is unable to appreciate the place of intelligence, intuition, judgement and character in forging great leadership. Having spent his years in power subverting the country and the principles and values that have shaped it, and creating antagonisms between the country’s elites as well as weakening them by his generosity, it is not surprising that what was uppermost in his mind was surviving in office rather than envisioning a great future for the country.

Now, IBB has the audacity to advise the country on leadership. And he talks about age and about being a great communicator. Really? Worse, rather than the deep mortification that should accompany his deliberate destruction of the Third Republic, which he spent huge amount of Nigerian money to erect, Nigerians hear nothing but justifications from him: annulment of the elections because a coup was in the offing, and retention of the crassly ambitious Gen Sani Abacha in office to ‘help’ undergird the Ernest Shonekan interim government contraption. Of Gen Abacha’s regime that sacked the Shonekan contraption, here is what IBB said in the Trust interview: “Abacha’s government was very smart. They knew who were the most vociferous discussants about the election, about the coup, about June 12 and so on. They started talking to them and sold a dummy to them and encouraged them to get rid of the interim government: ‘when we get rid of the interim government, we will bring you back to come and take over your democracy so that a civilian government would be installed’. They sold that dummy to the public and to some prominent persons within the society, and when Abacha stepped in, there were drumming and sighs; ‘Good thing! Next thing is going to be a democratically-elected government’. I knew, we knew, that it wouldn’t be because the argument was: ‘Why should I risk my life only to come and hand over power to you?’ That was what happened.”

Very smart, or very devious? And could he realistically absolve himself of responsibility for that destructive and murderous Abacha regime? Alas, he tried. More, he even blamed the country’s elite and civil society for being naïve. It is such a man that is now advising the country on their next president in 2023. The country would listen to him at their peril. He is 80; he really should be silent, considering that his views had neither changed over the years due to remorse nor improved in quality due to new knowledge. It is puzzling that anyone lends him an ear.

Gov Matawalle and endless banditry

After prognosticating the future trajectory of banditry, suggesting alarmingly that it would not end anytime soon, Zamfara’s governor Bello Matawalle went on to identify the chief reason for his doomsday prophecy. According to him, some notable politicians are playing politics with banditry to embarrass both the federal and state governments. He puts it balefully: “So you see with the kind of people we have in Zamfara State, I don’t think this issue of banditry will end very soon because, already, some people are behind it. Some people are using it. And all they need is at least to show Nigerians that both the federal and Zamfara state governments are not serious on the issue of insecurity, despite the fact that some of them are involved in the crisis of this insecurity. But we’re doing our best.”

This is scapegoatism at its worst. Perhaps tired of being accused of not doing enough to ameliorate the socio-economic conditions of the state, where poverty is endemic and school enrolment is dismal, the governor has veered into Nigerian politics’ familiar hunting ground – blaming others for woes engendered by years of governmental ineptitude. Religion, it appears, is no longer sufficient to blindfold poor and hungry people, and so violence, which banditry connotes, seemed the logical outcome for years of deprivation. Mr Matawalle was of course not the cause of the crisis, but he has had enough time to affect the problem. Scapegoatism is whining: it is not a panacea.

In his controversial interview with Channels Television and Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), particularly the former, President Muhammadu Buhari’s seemed to have walked back his earlier decision last November to consider the difficult request of releasing the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, following the intervention of eminent Igbo personalities. As if something or persons steeled his resolve against Mr Kanu’s release, the president was unequivocal on Channels about not ordering the IPOB leader’s release. He would not release him, he said, because the judiciary was already handling the matter, and he was unwilling to hamstring the judiciary. In the months ahead, and probably for as long as the suit lasts, his decision not to release Mr Kanu may be the final answer.

But incensed and unable to comprehend the president’s volte-face,  spokesman, Emma Powerful, fired a broadside at the president and those who colluded with him to deny Mr Kanu his liberty. The group pointed fingers. Said Mr Powerful impatiently and angrily: “We know that this position by Buhari after he had earlier promised a delegation of Igbo leaders that he would consider their appeal to consider a political solution for Kanu, was not unconnected with the visit by some foreign-based traitors and enemies of our struggle…But we want to tell Buhari and his cohorts that he is going to make a mistake capable of consuming Nigeria should he fail to release Nnamdi Kanu because this bunch of criminals he had a meeting with did not give him correct information about IPOB and ESN outfit. Why should the federal government release bandits and terrorists wreaking havoc across the country but fail to release freedom seekers? Federal government should not be deceived by blacklegs and sacked members of the movement who are feeding it with fake information about IPOB and ESN outfit for pecuniary interests.”

Neither in IPOB’s ringing denunciation of the president’s about-face nor in the eminent Igbo leaders’ November intervention could any discernible and coherent plan be found about what to do with Mr Kanu if he was released. There was of course nothing definitive about the president’s promise to the Igbo leaders in November, nor did he ask questions or think about what Mr Kanu would do once released. All the public knew and perhaps considered was that the Igbo leaders had promised to rein in Mr Kanu, tame his fierce rhetoric, and keep him on a short leash once the president accommodated their request. Mr Powerful’s intemperate response to the president’s January 2022 interview lends credence to the suspicion that the Igbo leaders’ intervention had the imprimatur of IPOB and perhaps of Mr Kanu himself. They were hopeful the president would concoct a solution to the imbroglio.

While Mr Kanu is already battling a lawsuit in Abuja brought against him by the state, including, as the president said, for running his mouth against the president and the country from the safety of a foreign country, Sunday Adeyemo, a.k.a Sunday Igboho, the self-appointed Yoruba defender and self-determination activist, is also incarcerated in Benin Republic at the behest of Nigeria. President Buhari and his law officers had wanted Mr Igboho extradited, but the extradition suit is bogged down in a Benin court by red tape and deliberate pussyfooting. In recent declarations, assuming his legal counsels faithfully represented him, Mr Igboho had started to become conciliatory toward the Nigerian government. Accustomed to years of luxury, his cramped accommodation in a Benin Republic jail has become punishing and excruciating. Like Mr Kanu, he does not seem to mind reaching some accommodation with the Nigerian government.

Comparatively, the glib Mr Igboho would be more amenable to keeping agreements with the Nigerian government than the grandiloquent Mr Kanu. Both fancy themselves as revolutionaries determined to save their people from the oppression and autocracy of Northern Nigerian oligarchy. Passionate, committed and feisty, both gentlemen gave the impression that they were willing, on pain of death, to walk the talk of revolution. Their conciliatory moves now belie their commitment and passion. Indeed, an observer can go as far as doubting whether both gentlemen had the character of the fight they tried so audaciously to personify. Other than the renowned historian, Prof Banji Akintoye, Mr Igboho had no one else of substance to back, encourage or defend him. Had he been promised release, it is not clear what kind of deal the professor would reach with the government on behalf of his radical protégé. The professor appears more hard line than his protégé.

Read Also: Sit-at-home: Suspected IPOB members burn vehicle, scare residents in Anambra

On the other hand, the Igbo leaders who met Buhari in November all but indicated that they knew how to smother Mr Kanu’s rage and temper his rebellion. They in fact assured the president that they would keep the IPOB leader in check, a condition both the leaders and IPOB elders seem to prefer than the endless adjournments dogging the federal suit against Mr Kanu. More worrisomely, they were no longer sure that his continuing stay in the Department of State Service (DSS) facility would not be detrimental to his life and health.

What is indisputable about the ordeal Messrs Igboho and Kanu are facing, including their clumsy bids for freedom, is that neither of the two ‘freedom fighters’ is truly a revolutionary as they had erroneously led their admirers and supporters to think. Surely they must know that the government could never contemplate releasing them on easy terms. The government would drive a hard bargain and all but extinguish their revolutionary ardour. Seeking accommodation on such grovelling terms would be a betrayal of their objectives, their people, and their own future. If the two gentlemen were capable of reading history, they would know that the choice they face in their peculiar circumstances is either to be revolutionaries or opportunists. Nothing they have done or said so far, as they wilt so shockingly before the government’s relentless fire, indicates that they are the revolutionaries they have all along feigned.

APC in a quandary

SINCE they overthrew their boisterous and irrepressible chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, in June 2020, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not seemed to know peace. They have reeled from one plot to another, and from one crisis to another, until they now appear to be completely trapped in a skein of convoluted crises and plots. They are not sure whether they still have a compass, let alone determine the political or electoral direction they are heading, and are even less sure of whom to back for which position in the months ahead.

Their immediate goal is to organise a national convention, which they have repeatedly botched. But, worse, even after setting a date for the party fiesta, they must then determine how to elect their national executives through direct, indirect or consensus arrangement. They are truly stuck. If they cannot even get a conve

ntion done, and many of their state chapters are still enmeshed in crisis, how do they hope to nominate candidates for the major elections next year? At a point, they dreamt of leapfrogging over the hard, unyielding and convoluted parts of their ordeal, and just head for the elections; then they realise it would doom their party and furnish more crises. Now, they know they can’t skip anything, but are rooted to one spot, paralysed by fear and incompetence.

President Muhammadu Buhari has read them the riot act. They will, therefore, hold their convention, even if it kills them, and they must nominate candidates for the general election, even if it dooms them. This is the sort of maze those who act mala fide always find themselves. If they cannot find someone to help them cut the Gordian knot, they will choke on their own vomit.

In the next one or two months, the National Assembly will have reworked the Electoral Act Amendment Bill to expunge the controversial provision on direct primary in order to facilitate presidential assent. The bill had been forwarded to the president last November, but he declined assent on the grounds, among other reasons, that mandating political parties to use only direct primary for nominating candidates violated both party and constitutional provisions. The president’s response was largely affirmed by the public after three or four weeks of dizzying and acrimonious debates. The Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) was among persons and organisations that supported the president withholding assent. However, IPAC anchored its support for the president on defective reasoning that should not go unchallenged.

In the opinion of IPAC National Chairman, Yabagi Yusuf, Nigeria is unripe for direct primary. It is not clear how he arrived at this conclusion, which he voiced at a media briefing in Abuja last Monday, but he was certain that direct primary is perhaps too arduous and complex to implement at this stage of Nigeria’s political development. He did not elaborate. As he put it, “We are of the view that, much as we may cherish its perceived benefits, the country, at this stage of the progress of its democracy, does not appear to be sufficiently ripe and prepared for the direct primary election model in the selection of political party flag bearers.” Mr Yusuf was right to back the president withholding assent on the bill over the issue of direct primary, but to suggest that Nigeria was unripe for a nomination method it had in fact used in various forms in the past is not only inaccurate, it is a gratuitous insult. What is so complex about direct primary, or expensive, or predisposing to insecurity?

Many Nigerians opposed the provision of direct primary in the bill simply because they thought it was not the business of the legislature to impose it, not because the method is hard to implement, or costly, or complex, or premature. There is nothing wrong with direct primary mode of nominating party candidates, as indeed Mr Yusuf himself acknowledged. It is probably, though not indisputably, better than indirect primary and consensus modes. It is also probably the most democratic. But regardless of its merits, it is strictly the business of the political parties to determine how they want their candidates nominated, not the business of the legislature.

Some analysts and critics are aggrieved with the president over his withheld assent because they hoped the provision on direct primary would clip the wings of imperious and meddlesome governors who have acquired so much power in their parties that they lord it over everyone, including the lawmakers who have been rendered almost puny in the affairs of their parties, and particularly in primaries. Sadly too, for many grieving analysts who had hoped that assenting the bill with the direct primary provision would help entrench democracy and provide level playing fields in the parties, they think that with the president’s refusal the governors now have the upper hand, and the hated Justice minister Abubakar Malami has been vindicated. Critics are right to conclude that expunging the direct primary provision has probably strengthened the hands of the despised governors and the suspect democrat, Mr Malami. But there is no justification to endorse the provision so as not to be seen to be endorsing the governors or Mr Malami.

Thankfully, national lawmakers have seemed to bowed to the reality. They will neither override the president’s veto nor make any deliberate effort to push the amendment as it is. Legislative leaders have promised to rework the bill in such a way that the president will find nothing else to object to. The lawmakers, like the IPAC chairman, have focused exclusively on the merit or demerit of the direct primary provision as a factor in the presidential assent controversy. For the umpteenth time, it must be stressed that the problem is not whether the mode is the best or too advanced for Nigeria. The problem is not also whether direct primary is costly or not, for after all, the Independent National Electoral Commission is to monitor not organise it, nor is the problem a question of security or even Covid-19 pandemic fears.

The main issue is whether the legislature should make laws on it or not. The National Assembly has not answered that question, and may in January begin to work on the bill without deigning to answer the question. But they must now come to terms with the limits of their constitutional powers, as indeed they will also soon find out that while they can vet the executive branch’s budget estimates, they cannot in the same breath introduce new elements into the budget, prompting the dilemma of who would in turn vet the legislature. It is close to the classic barber paradox: “A village has a barber in it, who shaves all and only the people who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?” But there are many geniuses in NASS; surely they can find one lawmaker who will solve this conundrum.

Eulogising Bashir Tofa

The obituarists who last week assumed the onerous task of eulogising the late Bashir Tofa, candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) defeated by MKO Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 1993 presidential poll, made heavy weather of the task. They cast Alhaji Tofa as a statesman, irreplaceable nationalist, true patriot, and many other superlatives. Perhaps he was all these, fundamentally and intuitively. Maybe he was even undoubtedly these and many more. After all, when it was clear he had lost the election in 1993, especially in view of his home defeat in Kano, he conceded defeat, until he was prevailed upon by the powers that be to recant.

It is not surprising that he was at bottom a decent man: he was an author, a brilliant one at that who wrote copiously but deliberately, not out of necessity, in Hausa language. And he did a damn good job. Why he opposed the 2018 decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to honour Chief Abiola and declare June 12 as Democracy Day is hard to fathom. It jarred against his essence. And though he was defeated in the 1993 election, he would lose nothing by the president’s 2018 declarations. Alhaji Tofa’s death reminds everyone, politicians and all those in authority alike, that there is an end to everything. What endures is the name each person has made for himself. As Shakespeare said loftily through the mouth of Marc Anthony in the play Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” It is inconceivable that so fine an author as Alhaji Tofa would not take that saying to heart in ordering his politics as he sought nearly vainly to order his life and bridle his tongue.

Last Tuesday was the third time in one year that  bandits  State governor Aminu Masari would be asking indigenes of the state to take up arms against bandits and other terrorists making life unbearable for them. He had first made the call in June last year, reiterated it again in August, and then asserted it last December, perhaps to erase all doubts. He of course didn’t begin his forays into rebel and bandit territory with the resolve to fight them to the death. Like Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai, but a little more measured, refined and less apocalyptic, he had begun very optimistically by negotiating with the bandits, taking photographs with them, and paying them stipends, all measures interpreted by some analysts as ransom payment. At the time, this column thought his efforts amounted to appeasement. Spurned and left with egg on his face, Mallam Masari had gently gravitated into a hard line posture, denouncing negotiations and threatening dire consequences. Over months, he had oscillated between tough stance and negotiations, until he could do no other.

Finally, by the middle of last year, he had come to the conclusion, again like Mallam el-Rufai, that carrot and stick policy was meaningless. He had nothing else left for the bandits, he growled, but guns and bullets. Then began his dilemma. First, he egged on the military and the police to take the battle to the bandits in their redoubts, promising to back the security agents with all the resources the state could muster. And when the security agencies seemed to falter, he praised them nonetheless, and swore to devote more resources and moral support. Second, soon after he realised that the country’s security agencies were overstretched and unable to deliver on the promises their oaths asked of them, he gradually drifted into the epiphanic reaction which pushed him into the gross pessimism that has kept him permanently flustered. This is probably one of the reasons he called for self-defence.

However, six months of calling for a measure that is troublingly unconstitutional, which he defends on the grounds of Islamic jurisprudence, has yielded very little but more massacres and horrifying violations of the sanctity of life by bandits. Many northern intellectuals, including some discerning political leaders, have argued that the crisis and the unending killings are clearly existential between Hausa and Fulani, and between farmers and pastoralists. That the crisis has morphed into banal anomie replete with all manner of crimes may increase the outrage, but it does not hide the fact that it is existential. By all accounts, the crisis in the north-western part of Nigeria is a mini civil war. The bandits are well armed, but the so-called self-defence forces designed to counter them, who are categorised as vigilantes, are poorly armed, when they are armed at all. Some of them, as recent reports indicate, are armed with nothing more than catapults.

When Mallam Masari made his call for self-defence on Tuesday in Katsina, newspapers reported that some jeered him. If they did, it is not clear why they did, whether it has anything to do with the nigh impossibility of procuring weapons, or whether they thought the governor’s promise to back them was misplaced. Perhaps they had expected the state government to procure the weapons and distribute to the locals. He could of course not contemplate that measure because it would be clearly illegal. And would the locals procuring weapons not be embracing a measure that is clearly illegal, despite the tenuous jurisprudential support Islamic canon allegedly confers on self-defence? Of course, it would be, though the governor attempts to circumvent that lacuna by admonishing them to register the arms with the police. This is obviously a legal and societal cul de sac.

Analysts have reminded the public that last February, Defence minister Bashir Magashi had also urged north-westerners buffeted by bandit attacks to embark on self-defence. He had sneered at how cowardly they turned and ran when bandits who were probably not armed with more than a few bullets intimidated them. The public had been stupefied by the minister’s panacea. In any case, video after video, not to talk of reports by victims of banditry, have shown that the bandits are well armed, not with a few bullets but also in some cases machine guns, RPGs and anti-aircraft guns. To urge locals to confront such men with nothing more than hunting guns, machetes and catapults, despite their vaunted bravery, would be utterly suicidal. Naturally, after being repeatedly worsted, such feats of derring-do have petered off.

Except on some few occasions, Mallam Masari’s admonition to the locals to form themselves into self-defence forces will go largely unheeded. There will be some activities in that direction, and angry and exasperated locals will be ready to take on the bandits with bare hands, but such efforts will be futile, sporadic and insignificant. The crisis, it is clear, is deeper than what bare hands and great resolve can handle. Nay, it is even more than what a state can handle on its own. The crisis is cultural, ethnic, economic, and to a little extent political. The federal government has responsibility for the security of the people. It cannot casually devolve that responsibility to the people or self-defence forces without amending the constitution. Should the constitution be amended to enable everyone bear arms, banditry would reduce considerably, and a group of bandits would think twice and arm themselves much more before taking on a determined people.

Bandits have their grouses, which they have incompetently and criminally expressed. States must acknowledge these grouses and proffer the right and relevant solutions. The federal government dithered for years in responding to and addressing the crisis, and even now has strangely not responded adequately and competently. It must eschew sentiments and respond firmly. No state can administer any panacea until some measure of pacification has been achieved in the Northwest. Mallam Masari was desperate to urge self-defence; but there are too many legal and constitutional strictures to enable whatever other measures he might adumbrate to work. Worse, despite the urgency of the problem, and how quickly it had festered, self-defence will only complicate the crisis. This is why the first meaningful step can only be taken by the federal government, assuming it understands what to do beyond deploying troops and fighter jets.

COVID-19 variants battle booster jabs

Tentative reports from the scientific community in Europe and America as well as the World Health Organisation (WHO) have suggested that the recent spike in Covid-19 infections globally could be fuelled by a combination of Delta and Omicron variants acting in synergy. They label the recombinant variant Delmicron. They, however, insist that no definitive studies exist yet on the new variant. But last week, another report suggests that WHO fears that worse news about Covid-19 infection could still be lurking around the corner. According to the report, a variant quite distinct from any existing variant, and which appears capable of evading existing vaccination, might manifest soon. Israel is thought to have already discovered another variant.

Existing vaccination protocols indicate that two jabs plus a booster jab should do the trick of mitigating the effects of Covid-19. No one is sure, however, that after the recommended two jabs and a booster, other booster jabs would not be indicated soon. But to now add the suspicion that a new and probably intractable variant could soon come that would defy existing vaccinations, regardless of booster jabs, is, to put it mildly, truly nightmarish. If Delmicron would soon be a child’s play, then the world should brace for heavy impact. Arguments about suspicious motives behind Covid-19 jabs will become pointless in the face of new, vaccination-resistant variants, whatever its futuristic name might be.

In the past two weeks, a gale of protests has swept through some northern cities demanding an end to the bloodshed caused by bandits and insurgents. The bandits and insurgents will of course not listen to the protesters, nor will they pay heed to the hysterical call by the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, to put them comprehensively to the sword, rank and file, rather than negotiate. Unlike the early years of the Boko Haram insurgency, when it looked like the militants promoted a religious objective and few northerners were interested in labeling them terrorists, the North is today enthralled by a court decision to categorise bandits operating in the Northwest and elsewhere as terrorists. Suddenly, the North is not only united in their views about terrorism in the region, they are unanimous in encouraging the government to fight the menace with everything at its disposal.

The protests sweeping through some northern cities sexily coalesced under #Northisbleeding, and though the law enforcement agencies have unconstitutionally clamped down on the organisers of the protests and even dispersed the protesters, they are fairly well received. There have been vitriolic attacks on the Muhammadu Buhari administration by many victims of banditry and insurgency, some of them women raped by bandits. Though some of their children and husbands were either conscripted into banditry or killed, these attacks and criticisms have not clearly translated into concerted protests capable of unseating the government or forcing it into taking drastic and effective actions to curb banditry and stem the flow of blood. The #Northisbleeding protests have been remarkable, particularly because it is targeted against an administration which, for most northerners, captures popular northern imagination. But the protests are still not of a scale that can be described as earth-shattering.

The reason may not be far removed from the dilemma many northerners face about the Buhari administration. The administration has acted sometimes in tandem with the power obsession and ethnic exceptionalism the region has cottoned on to since the 1966 countercoup. The administration has also gestured, sometimes very profoundly, in the direction of the religious activism the region seems constantly enamoured of. And, finally, with a national cabinet whose commanding heights have been dominated by indigenes of the region, not to say a kitchen cabinet also indisputably dominated by the region, northerners are in large measure conflicted about the administration. On the one hand, they bear the huger brunt of the bloodshed drenching the country; and on the other hand, they are well placed within the administration.

But the rest of the country is predictably reluctant to admire the spirit behind the protests or confer it with any degree of respectability. They believe that when it comes to the crux, the protests as well as the organisers will shrivel like worms on a hot stove. Having being disappointed for decades in the hope that northerners would join southerners to fight for justice and democracy, believing that these virtues do not have regional definitions and affiliations, they are now forever wary of any kind of activism that originates from the blighted region. This is, however, not to suggest that the North is not bleeding, or that the bleeding has not been considerably disruptive. What seems to be at stake is how to curb the menace and restore the region to its previous position as a bastion of quietude.

In the estimation of Mallam el-Rufai, bandits should never be negotiated with, but killed, all of them to the last man, because of the evil, disruption and setback they have caused the region. On the surface, he is right. In fact, it seems that after many years of dithering, the Buhari administration has finally come round to the realisation that bandits are incorrigible and should be bombed off. The government has, therefore, prepared a range of weapons to carry out the task. It is encouraged in its decision by the fact that some northern states had in the past negotiated with the bandits, reached a truce with them, only for the bandits to renege on the deals because of the benefits that accompany banditry. Last week, the president himself met with his security chiefs and, like ex-president Goodluck Jonathan did before him, resolved to stamp out banditry before the next general election. It is not clear just how successful he will be. But undoubtedly, the new-found resolve to single-mindedly go after the bandits will yield some fruits. The fruits may not last, and may not even be total or comprehensive, but they will be significant, if not substantial.

Mallam el-Rufai himself was an apostle of appeasement and ransom payment years back, just like most traditional monarchs in the region who previously placated the precursors of the bandits by denying their activities and then rationalising their nefarious deeds. Today, there is no dispute about who the bandits are or what they want. As some analysts alleged years ago, the president himself gave the impression that he was reluctant to label the bandits as terrorists or to authorise the use of deadly force against them. #Northisbleeding may not be total and encompassing, but it gives some sense of unanimity about what the North is going through and why the region is interested in saving itself from dissolving into anarchy. There is, however, no proof that it wants anything more than restoring normality and making the region and its highways safe for travel and economic activities.

But whether the region is interested in really getting to the bottom of the existential crisis it is facing is another thing entirely. If the North is capable of doing critical and comprehensive self-assessment, will its leaders be honest to acknowledge what they see of themselves, the years and regime of unfairness they have inspired, the religious dichotomy they have built to the extent of spurning the secularist provisions of the constitution, the unfettered corruption their elite have built into governance which has pauperised whole populations, and the defensiveness that drives their obsessive and remorseless contest for national office? They are concentrating on fighting and killing bandits and insurgents, but they must work pari passu on the factors that give oxygen and nourishment to the criminals which have made the region unsafe for everyone.

Osinbajo, Yusuf Buhari and turbaning

Is there anything abnormal about the Emir of Duara, Farouk Umar, turbaning Yusuf Buhari, the president’s son? Absolutely nothing abnormal. The emir explained that President Muhammadu Buhari’s contributions to Daura and the nation merited his son’s elevation into the Daura emirate council. The younger Buhari is now Talban Daura and district head of Kwasarawa community. He should be congratulated, and as he beamed two Saturdays ago when the honour was conferred on him, he was obviously pleased.

What is, however, incongruous is the presence on that occasion of some political heavyweights, including Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President Ahmed Lawan, Speaker of the House of Representative Femi Gbajabiamila, Governors Aminu Masari of Katsina State, and Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State. Prof Osinbajo wants to succeed President Buhari, and his contact men are busy wrapping up endorsements; but to dignify this kind of ceremony with his attendance takes obsequiousness to a new level. Mallam Masari is of course the state governor and host, but to also have the heads of the National Assembly in attendance offends the country’s sensibility and poorly reflects the Nigerian, and how low he is sometimes inclined to grovel for a selfish cause.

It took Justice minister Abubakar Malami going to court to get a declaration against bandits before the federal government’s zeal against the menace got enlivened. Before securing the declaration which pronounced and categorised bandits as terrorists, the government’s war against banditry had been largely desultory and characterised by embarrassing losses, reverses, and occasional gains and triumphs. But on November 25, the government got the Federal High Court in Abuja to make the declaration, which according to Mr Malami, was needed by the government to energise its war against banditry in the Northwest. Well, if a declaration is all they need, let them have it, as long as it would stiffen their resolve to fight.

There are indications that the court declaration will allow the government to deploy American-made Super Tucano aircraft against the bandits. The planes had been touted as the magic formula needed to incinerate the bandits. The government’s enthusiasm in welcoming the court declaration gave a hint of the enormous hope they reposed in the judicial intervention of late November. According to the Justice minister, “The government will gazette, publish and publicise the proscription order (against bandits),” adding that obtaining the proscription order will enable the Federal Government to take “bold steps to deal ruthlessly with all terrorists groups and their sponsors in effort to bring lasting solution to the myriad of security challenges in the country.”

Months before, the country had been in an uproar over whether to declare bandits as terrorists or continue to fight them conventionally as they were accustomed to do. The National Assembly pressed for the declaration because bandit attacks became more daring, ruthless and bloody. Many opinion leaders in the North also asked for the declaration, hoping that it would have a dramatic and dissuasive impact on the bandits themselves. But there were a few, like Ahmad Gumi, a Kaduna-based Muslim cleric, who denounced the declaration, insisting that it would prove superfluous and ineffective. Eventually, through the courts, Nigerians got the declaration they hankered after. But since then both the government and the people have been in a quandary regarding how best to deploy their judicial and military advantage against the bandits.

Other than the effect of altering and boosting the air component of the war against bandits, will the military tactics being deployed against the militants in the region change substantially? There are no guarantees. Most of the bandits and their leaders are ensconced in forest and cavernous hideouts that are inaccessible to ground troops. Meanwhile the air war can only achieve limited results, perhaps soften the ground and pound the militants for ground forces to take them out. But if after softening the bandits, there is insufficient ground troops to follow-up, of what use then are the Super Tucanos or any other star-spangled fighter aircraft?

And perhaps to put in perspective the expectations of Nigerians who think that simply declaring bandits as terrorists and getting modern fighter jets screaming overhead would do the magic, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Faruk Yahaya, told his audience at the closing of the COAS Annual Conference 2021 that they should expect more attacks in the coming year. He is being realistic. Bandit attacks will probably increase in the region, for those guys are so down and despondent that they no longer fear any fall. Said the army general last week: “Commanders must plan for possible increase in scope and dimension of the activities of violent non-state actors in the coming year. I expect that with the improved support we have in terms of logistics and other key combat enablers, we should strive to decisively defeat the adversaries in all theatres of operations.”

So far, other than how the military would defeat these non-state actors, there are no concise and coherent programmes to address the grievances of the bandits and mediate between them and farmers. Reports suggest that many politicians and traditional rulers, some of them first-class rulers, have shown sympathies towards the bandits. This is probably more ethnic rather than pecuniary. Until the shrinking economic opportunities faced by bandits are addressed in a modern and non-disruptive way, perhaps not as expected by the bandits themselves who are still steeped in ancient livestock practices, little will be gained by killing or defeating them.

The plunder and pillage the bandits are executing in the Northwest, not to say the large-scale connivance of their crimes by some top regional elites, must of course be checked decisively. There can be no mollifying the cruelty and bloodletting perpetrated by the bandits. But to achieve lasting peace, the federal government, which had at first embarrassingly excused the bandits’ rampage, must go beyond shooting the bandits to saving their livelihoods.

Malami’s speculated intervention

President Muhammadu Buhari has 30 days to sign the amended Electoral Bill or return it to the legislature. The date expires today, but the president travelled to Turkey without saying anything on the bill forwarded to him about a month ago. It is not clear what he will do, whether he will ask for some amendments on the direct primary provision or refuse assent altogether. Nor is it clear what the legislature will do also if the president withholds assent. The president had consulted widely. He had reached out to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which concluded that monitoring the direct primaries of parties would not be an issue, nor a costly one. And he had also asked for the input of the Justice minister Abubakar Malami.

Mr Malami is reported to have said it was inappropriate for the National Assembly to legislate a particular mode of primary for all parties irrespective of the provisions of their constitutions. The Justice minister is a difficult man to agree with on many issues, for he is often carried away by legal and judicial exuberance, not to talk of his weak democratic credentials. But regarding his counsel to the president, it is difficult to disagree with him. It is anomalous for lawmakers dominated by a political party, and all lawmakers with an axe to grind against governors accused of being too controlling of the state chapters of their parties, to herd all parties in one direction by regulating and unifying their mode of primary.

No one knows what the president will do. He will not want to offend the lawmakers who have been clearly and overwhelmingly supportive of his agenda, nor offend the governors nearly all of whom have supinely doted on him. But on this bill, it appears impossible for the president to sit on the fence. He will have to decide one way or the other. If he can lobby, he may get the lawmakers to back down, or get the governors to lower their opposition to the amendment. But one thing is near impossible: it is unlikely the legislature will override his decision should he be minded to spurn the amendment.

After many months of downplaying the complexity Boko Haram’s militant objectives, the Nigerian military may be gradually coming round to the reality of the insurgents’ shifty search for amnesty. Previously, the military gave the impression that it had come to terms with the continuing surrender of Boko Haram fighters and their families, some 20,000 in all so far, and was eager to press ahead with the government’s programme of rehabilitation and reintegration. The programme had hit a brick wall in the resistance of members of the public, particularly victims of the insurgency in the Northeast who had, everything considered, received less care than the so-called repentant fighters. But the military and the government appeared set to carry the programme through, insisting that there did not seem to be any other option.

But given the recent hesitations of the Theatre Commander of Operation Hadin Kai, Maj.-Gen. Christopher Musa, doubts may be surfacing as to what the military really thinks about the reintegration of the repentant fighters. Speaking on the sidelines of the Chief of Army Staff’s conference in Abuja last week, the general feared that while the programme could really not be questioned overall, some of the repentant fighters had manifested ulterior motives. In other words, some of the surrendered Boko Haram fighters could not be trusted. It is surprising that it has taken so long for the military to appreciate what the public had long feared. North-easterners have nothing against the fighters’ surrender, nor against whatever programmes the government might deploy to neutralise them as a fighting force.

What they opposed was the special treatment given the fighters, a treatment that seemed five-star compared to the treatment given the victims of insurgency. They also opposed their reintegration into the society which they had brutalised and ‘cannibalised’ during insurgency. The north-easterners’ argument was simple and logical. Indeed, their position could not be controverted. They resented being forced to live side-by-side with their former tormentors so soon after the violence visited on the indigenes, the trauma of which had neither being dissipated nor placated. It was an impossible task. That the military and the government persisted, not to say devoted so much money and training into the project, was a testament to their insensitivity and poor policy formulation.

Finally, however, it is hoped that after Maj.-Gen. Musa voiced the military’s suspicions and misgivings, both the security agencies and the government would reexamine the programme and see whether there are no better ways of achieving the same goals. Some of the repentant fighters reportedly found their way back into Boko Haram camps where the benefits in money, women and all sorts of sensuousness appear to be far more substantial than the strict regimentation of the reintegration camps and the censoriousness of a distrusting public. A few of the lawmakers representing Borno State had also warned of the limitations of the reintegration policy, insisting that it was hasty and poorly thought-out.

The problem now is what to do with the genuinely repentant fighters and their families tired of fighting and living on the edge of existence at Boko Haram camps. To what extent can they really be rehabilitated and how feasible and practicable is the policy of reintegration? The government may in the end find out that they will have to create and fund and run a huge internment camp to house the fighters and their families, while taking care to keep them occupied in skills acquisition and other gainful tasks. The federal government will, however, face the dilemma of running the internment camps more efficiently – in order to make it successful and manageable – than the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps which they have run cavalierly on low budget and with characteristic ineptitude.

The army general will be alarmed at the angle from which his comments on the sidelines have been interpreted, especially his view on the ulterior motives of repentant Boko Haram fighters. But he also made two other controversial points. One, he talked of money being the main ingredient reinforcing and expanding the insurgency in the Northeast. This may be true of Boko Haram foot soldiers, but it is unlikely to be true of ISWAP/Boko Haram sponsors. He should have differentiated the two. The foot soldiers are nothing more than mercenaries, hungry for loot, plunder and free women; but the sponsors harbour the political objective of gaining and running a caliphate. That objective is unlikely to be smothered by defeat or lengthy opposition. Two, the general denied that the military is overstretched. No one could overstretch the Nigerian military, he boasted. He is wrong, absolutely wrong. Not only is the military more than overstretched, even the country’s treasury is also hopelessly overstretched. A few weeks ago, the same military announced that it was involved in police operations in nearly all the 36 states of the federation, a task it was proud to do as far as orders are concerned, but nevertheless wearied that those operations were distracting it from its core responsibilities.

The country empathises with the military. The military can do better, and perhaps more efficiently. But it is exerting itself under old and archaic paradigms and culture, leading to confusion in its ranks, avoidable clashes with civilians that create image problems for it, and dissipation of its strength and resolve. Rather than modernising, it is gradually receding in rank among global militaries. Worse, it has found itself operating under leprous public policies promulgated by incompetent political elite. This problem is even more stultifying than the distracting policies that have become a burden to it in the states. As long as the political elite will not promote a workable national and federal structure to engender stability and peace in the country, its institutions, including the military, will continue to atrophy.