The Nation Newspaper

Category: Barometer

  • The saga of foreign herders

    The saga of foreign herders

    Two Thursdays ago, the Director of Defence Media Operations, Major-General Markus Kangye, told newsmen that most of those involved in violent and extremist attacks in Plateau, Benue and other states were foreign herders. He is probably right, especially given the brutal fashion those militants have levied war against local Nigerian communities. But he stopped short of stereotyping them as Fulani. The foreign herders’ racial identity is, however, not in dispute, despite loud protestations from a section of the Nigerian elite. What in fact puzzles Nigerians is how the said herders traversed the farthest parts of the North of Nigeria with all their weapons to perpetrate unimaginable violence against the Middle Belt. Victims of those horrifying attacks finger local conspirators who fantasise racial hegemony at all costs, facilitators for whom territorial borders and national identity mean nothing.

    Throwing more light on why the Nigerian military believes the attacks are planned and executed by foreign herders and their sponsors and accomplices, Gen. Kangye explained: “When you hear them talk in some instances, you’ll be able to decipher whether these people are from here or not, and from the North. For instance, if I speak Hausa and my brother from the South-East speaks Hausa, you’ll know that his Hausa is a borrowed one, and Hausa language, like any other language, has different versions and intonations. If somebody from Sokoto, for instance, speaks Hausa, and my friend from Katsina speaks Hausa, you’ll hear some differences, and somebody from Kano, you’ll hear some differences. So the Hausa spoken in Nigeria is different from the Hausa spoken in Mali, Central African Republic, or Ghana. So when we arrest these herders and terrorists, even from the way they speak and appear, it is clear to see, and even the hair will tell you that this person is not from Nigeria. I think the only community in Nigeria that has hair similar to the Shuwa in the Sahel region is probably the Shuwa Arabs in Borno State, but they don’t even have the same. So, one will also admit that many of those terrorising our people are foreigners, even though some of them are also Nigerians.”

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    There has been little doubt that foreign herders are the arrowhead of the ethnic cleansing going on in Nigeria, regardless of the contrary arguments adduced by some northern political and traditional leaders. Nevertheless the criminal herders constitute just one of the tripartite existential threats facing Nigeria. The bandits of the Northwest form a second vicious component of the threat, while the Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgents constitute probably the deadliest terrorist group threatening Nigeria. Smaller spinoffs have now arisen in the Northwest whose modus operandi borrow aspects of the ideologies and characteristics of the three other major threatners. These spinoffs are the Lakurawa group which operate from the Sokoto-Kebbi axis, and the Mahmuda group which operates from the Benin Republic and Kwara State sectors. The knives are out for Nigeria, with at least five terrorist groups fighting to carve huge slices of the country into either feudal enclaves or jihadist caliphates. In the face of these threats, however, Nigerian political and ethnic leaders have deliberately and conspiratorially equivocated.

    Gen. Kangye’s submission on the identity of just one the terrorist groups battling Nigeria, the foreign herders, need no further interrogation. One or two Fulani associations in Kaduna State and elsewhere have tried to argue that the problem is largely homegrown, insisting that the attacking herders are mainly local and are reacting to grazing restrictions and cattle rustling. In fact, to illustrate their audacity, after every attack, the associations come out to justify the herders’ actions as well as give the authorities conditions that must be satisfied for the restoration of peace. But none of the associations’ arguments persuasively contradict the assessment of the Nigerian Defence Headquarters concerning the identities of the marauding herdsmen, most of whom, the military has established, do not even engage in livestock business.

    In a recent television interview, Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa, identified international conspiracy and foreign sponsorship as factors explaining the viciousness and longevity of the terrorist threats facing Nigeria. He is right, even though there is also local conspiracy by political and traditional elites fascinated by jihadist and hegemonic ideologies. Because there has been no sense of national identity, and since Nigeria has remained structurally skewed, the country has become a fertile ground for all kinds of extremist forces. It is thus not only in the geographical sense that the borders are porous, in the ideological sense, the country is also fragile. That is why little or no effort has been made to restrict the influx of foreigners, whether herders or traders or clerics, and a sense of entitlement has been forged among the attacking hordes. What began as a manageable case of herder-farmer conflicts has thus morphed into a far more frightening and probably apocalyptic crisis deliberately orchestrated to carve Nigeria into fragments.

    The military may have got their analysis right, but together with the government, they have so far been unable to devise holistic solutions to the burgeoning threats. What began as Boko Haram after a few hundred militants achieved a foothold in the Northeast in 2009 has now morphed into recombinant ISWAP, banditry, Lakurawa and Mahmuda. The threats to Nigeria’s existence are real and foreboding, and the time to find an answer to the crises is running out. In the face of a lack of elite unity to tackle these cancers, even if the terrorists are pacified today, nothing suggests the diseases will not recrudesce tomorrow far more virulently.

  • Propping up Akinwumi Adesina

    Propping up Akinwumi Adesina

    Retiring president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, has had a stellar tenure at the foremost African bank, serving for two terms since 2015 when he was first elected into the position. A first-class scholar and economist, it is not surprising that the 65-year-old meets the classical definition of a technocrat. Perhaps bored by technocracy, he seems, according to wide speculations, to be interested in veering to politics. If so, he will be following in the footsteps of another illustrious technocratic forebear, the late Adebayo Adedeji, a professor of Economics and former executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) between 1975 and 1991. Like Professor Adedeji who briefly forayed into presidential politics before discovering that the presidency demanded a different kind of endowment, Dr Adesina, who is rumoured to be propped up like his illustrious forebear by the restless ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, may soon discover that the Nigerian presidency is a bridge too far for technocrats.

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    It is not clear whether there is any truth to the rumours, but Dr Adesina has been visiting people and dignitaries, locally and internationally, such as the Egyptian president Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and former president Muhammadu Buhari. It seemed like a goodbye tour of some sorts, but commentators are reading meanings, including asserting that Chief Obasanjo is toying with the idea of using him to rob the hated President Bola Tinubu of a second term in office. So far, Dr Adesina has not directly responded to the rumours, but soon he will. Whatever he decides, he will, like Prof. Adedeji, discover that running for the presidency is unlike anything taught or learnt in the university, whether the student is a first-class scholar like him, or a precocious scholar like Prof Adedeji who became a professor at 36.

  • Fallout from Delta defections

    Fallout from Delta defections

    The ripple effects of the defections that upended political calculations in Delta State and the country as a whole will continue to manifest for some time until and after the 2027 poll. Any analysis of the ripple effects will, however, be done piecemeal until the next election is done and perhaps forgotten. As most commentators have noted, the Delta defections, which involved nearly everyone that mattered in the PDP, were unprecedented and cataclysmic. The governor defected, his predecessor defected, their estranged mentor is rumoured to be preparing to defect, and it is a shame that, going by the fever burning the state, traditional rulers could not follow suit because they are culturally and constitutionally insulated from politics.

    Two or three fallout present themselves boldly to the analyst, not necessarily because they are the most impactful or volcanic, but because they simply seem remarkable in the way they have presented to the public. Much more than Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, who pulled the whole edifice down on his former party, former governor Ifeanyi Okowa gave what seemed to be the most colourful, robust and enthusiastic account of the defections, including their justifications and future outcomes. Not only did he second-guess the political intentions of former vice president Atiku Abubakar, who was the PDP presidential candidate in the 2023 poll, he also denounced his motives and political judgement. Alhaji Atiku, Dr Okowa groaned, regrettably vied for the presidency when the mood of the country was for a southern candidate in line with the party’s informal rotational policy. He also scoffed his association with that deviant step against the wishes of Deltans. He did not say whether if the ticket had won the presidential poll he would entertain any doubt or remorse – in short whether he was not just being wise after the event.

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    And to add insult to injury, Dr Okowa predicted that that the former vice president was also probably on his way out of the PDP, making it difficult for the serial presidential contender to cavil at his former running mate’s joyous leap into the embrace of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Were the feelings of Alhaji Atiku injured by the apostasy of his former comrade-in-arms? He was actually sanguine about his former comrade’s defection, perhaps because his own fateful leap was pending. It turned out, though it was not initially clear, that Dr Okowa had alerted the former vice president of his plan to jettison the PDP. He did not say whether he told his former leader that he was headed for the hated APC. Nor was it clear at first whether Alhaji Atiku grasped the seismic import of the defections, and how insanely speculative and scurrilous a section of the public would be once the news got out. Now, if the former vice president planned to leap into a chasm of his own making, it would certainly be impolitic to begin castigating those who do, especially seeing that he had been a serial and enthusiastic defector, the leaping cat of the Federal Republic.

    Summing up why he was remorseless about defecting, Dr Okowa suggested that once it was clear that the PDP Governors’ Forum had rebuffed Alhaji Atiku’s newfangled coalition, he knew that the game was up. Whatever other motives a skeptical public had read into Dr Okowa’s defection, once the PDP governors made short shrift of the plot to assemble a coalition to face the APC, it would amount to tilting at the windmill to continue hoping for a miracle mediated by the leading opposition party. Everyone, except perhaps the former presidential candidate himself, knew that 2023 was his best chance to win the presidency. But characteristic of his poor judgement and consistent poor calls, he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. He stood pat on the issue of rejigging the party’s zoning arrangement, remained intransigent on the subject of pacifying the G-5 PDP governors who broke ranks with him over his decision on the party’s zoning arrangement, trusted the wrong journeymen in the presidency who promised him support, and reposed unalloyed faith in the marabouts who promised him a rosy and glorious future on the throne.

    Who could have predicted also that in his response to the Delta defections, former senate president Bukola Saraki would sanctimoniously condemn Mr Oborevwori and his retinue for abandoning the PDP ship in the middle of the ocean? But he did, and piquantly for that matter, on his X handle two Thursdays ago. Sneering at the defectors, he said, “Yes, it is unbecoming and shocking for the running mate to the standard-bearer of a leading party to abandon ship to join the ruling party. This is unprecedented and nobody should try to justify such an act with the talk of being put under pressure. It is simply a sign of how low we have sunk as a polity.” He concluded with innuendoes by admonishing party faithful to stay the course. “The PDP is better with fewer members who are loyal, sincere, determined, dedicated, and committed to its ideals than with many who lack conviction,” he exhaled. He made no reference to his own past defections and political indiscretions, preferring instead to interpret the Delta defections from his episodic view of history, viewing them almost as a series of discontinuities.

    PDP chieftains, at least such among them as remained in the party, will buoy up themselves by exaggerating their capacity to reinvent their party. But they have had more than a decade to reform and reinvent their party, and they had before and after every electoral defeat spurned the need to engage in the customary and ineluctable introspection needed to reposition their party. Suddenly, the politically nomadic Dr Saraki has begun to believe that a reformation appears possible, and has glowingly spoken of that possibility in the context of the principles and nuances of democracy. He said with flourish: “Let the rest of us who want to stay concentrate on rebuilding the party and refocusing it to play the role of a viable opposition…Our democracy can only thrive with a strong opposition capable of holding the ruling party accountable and providing credible alternatives to the electorate.” Some people think it is a little too late for the PDP, which has now yielded so much space to the APC thereby strangulating itself. With double the number of states to the PDP’s, however, the APC must caution itself against any kind of exuberance. Today’s ruling party was once nearly down and out in their various legacy parties’ redoubts, as the PDP controlled about 28 governorship seats. The mill of justice grinds slowly, it is said, but it grinds finely. Nothing must ever be ruled out completely, not even when the polity is visited with volcanic eruptions of the kind that has sent Delta and the country reeling.

  • Bakare, Kukah and politics of religion

    Bakare, Kukah and politics of religion

    In their Easter homilies cum state of the nation messages, Pastor Tunder Bakare of the Citadel Global Community Church and Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto Matthew Hassan Kukah deployed diverse analytical tools to x-ray the societal and developmental crises facing Nigeria. Bishop Kukah’s address was more homiletical, even partly exegetical, while Pastor Bakare’s was more political, judgemental, and didactic. Both men delivered their addresses on Easter Sunday, with the bishop more mindful of the need to sound less political in a church environment. As a matter of fact, he tended to be more acutely aware of the indispensability of aligning his speeches with the person and doctrine of the Christ. In contrast, Pastor Bakare has obliterated the divide between the secular and the non-secular, probably because he believes that the goal of bettering the circumstances of the people had become urgent.

    The bishop described as expiative sacrifice the difficult economic measures in which the Bola Tinubu administration has got Nigerians to welter. Alluding to the transcendence of the cross on which Jesus Christ was hung, and directly calling on the president to vicariously feel the people’s pain, he said: “We all admit that you neither erected this cross nor effected our collective crucifixion. Notwithstanding, Nigerians have been dangling and bleeding on this cross of pain and mindless suffering for too long.” He then went on to ask the president to bring the people down from the cross if far more cataclysmic forces of destruction and despair were not to overtake the country. As he put it: “The bandits have not only become embedded in every sphere of our lives, they threaten to destroy all that holds our communities together. This self-destructive cancer has invaded our communities and kidnapping is now a dog whistle for undermining the very structure and foundation of our country. We now hang on the cross at the mercy of these forces of darkness…Mr. President, please bring us down from this painful cross of hunger. Now is the time to re-enkindle and renew that hope. We have all the ingredients to create a toxic mix of violence that can spin out of control. Right now, frustration has penetrated every spectrum of our society, especially as the government and its security agencies seem to have largely become spectators in the dance of death that has overtaken our country.”

    Bishop Kukah seemed to recognise the sinister forces at play in Nigeria, indicating that beyond the superficial events of apparent administrative laxities and complicities is a more terrifying undertow of forces determined to skew the structural equilibrium of the country or destroy it altogether. If it is not an exaggeration, the bishop seemed very circumspect in railing against the administration. He knew too well that to do so would surrender to the populist excoriation of the administration capable of emboldening the forces of disintegration. He, therefore, measured his words, attempted to give the people hope in the survivability of their country, and suggested that human and economic resources could still be marshaled to lift the country out of penury and instability. His message was thus familiar to exponents of the faith, if not the rest of the country.

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    Pastor Bakare was in contrast fiery and a tad populist. Dividing his message into two sections, either deliberately or accidentally, he launched into a fierce denunciation of both the administration and the legislature, inexplicably sparing the judiciary perhaps because he is a lawyer. He completed his message with quotes and annotations, managing in the process to eschew the rhetorical and scriptural balance famously associated with the New Testament. Without scrupulous interrogations or careful investigations, he turned the femme fatale, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, and the hypercritical Oby Ezekwesili into national totems of resistance and virtue, using both women to vilify the National Assembly and infer the complicity and indulgence of the Tinubu administration. His logic was far-fetched, and his quotations, both biblical and secular, were more meretricious than relevant; but overall, his address tilted largely towards the judgemental and populistic.

    The first part of Pastor Bakare’s address was mainly devoted to rhapsodising his idols and stigmatising the Tinubu administration. More, it was also shockingly consecrated to unedifying name-calling. “Those responsible for steering the course of our nation,” he said plaintively, “lack the humility and character this moment demands of leaders. Instead, what we have seen since the beginning of the year is a descent into tyranny and the brazen abuse of power.” He offered no substantiation except his interpretation of the state of emergency proclamation in Rivers State and the alleged orchestration inspired by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister and former Rivers governor Nyesom Wike. He threw in the tangential matter of what he implied was the role of the groveling national legislature in the president’s acts of ‘state capture’, concluding inelegantly that the “two main contenders in the ongoing institutional immorality Olympics are the executive and the legislature.” He also suggested that “The quality of leadership in Nigeria has become so repugnant that citizens must declare a state of emergency on governance.”

    The pastor was even fiercer on President Tinubu. He dismissed him as the guiding but graceless force in Nigeria’s political theatre. Said he: “…At the centre of this political banditry is the motor park brand of politics nurtured by the old brigade politicians and, in recent times, by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Mr. President, it is through your influence that the Nigerian National Assembly has become a haven for legislative rascality. Mr. President, it is under your watch that the National Assembly has become an extension of the executive, grossly violating the principles of separation of powers, and rubber-stamping the whims and caprices of your office, all the while singing the international anthem of sycophants: ‘On your mandate we shall stand.’ Mr. President, thanks to your political machinations, Nigeria is now bedevilled by a captured National Assembly, the most ineffective in its checks-and-balances role since the start of the Fourth Republic.”

    His denunciatory and sweeping dismissal of the president was music to the ears of the opposition, the social media, the Obidients, and the regional merchants of ethnic and religious bigotry. The pastor in fact showed no care about the subtleties of power relations in Nigeria, nor the dangerous political convolutions that have upended many nations, nor still the ecumenical restraint expected of his calling or that should reflect in his language. He was widely quoted days after with resounding approbations, which perhaps gratified his private, public and political longings. If he was worried that the brilliant second part of his address was vitiated by the excessively vituperative first part, the country may never know. It is, however, sufficient for him that he has remained in good standing with the social media and the vocal and significant majority of angry Nigerians.

    The second part of his address, which showed a lot of brilliance and scholarship, was hardly acknowledged in the media, let alone quoted or even understood by the jubilant rabble that approved his person and politics. But at least he got the headlines and publicity his brand of liberation theology crucially welcomed. His address might contradict his essential theology, but he had long made his peace with such contradictions, and constantly built and co-opted them into his pastoral undertakings. The contradictions may sometimes lead him to predictive errors, but in his interventions it is remarkable how he explains those fallibilities away in the same awkward manner he frequently reconciles his flawed politics with his controversial theology.   

  • Rivers, clash of protests and Tompolo

    Rivers, clash of protests and Tompolo

    Rivers State was last week preoccupied with a clash of organised women protests for and against the proclamation of a state of emergency. First to gather were the anti-emergency protesters who, two Fridays ago, sallied out almost from nowhere into the streets of Ahoada East local government area decrying the proclamation of a state of emergency in the state, and calling for the restoration of democracy. They were estimated to be about a few hundreds, and were clad in black. Piqued by the silence of the group of protesters when the fierce battle for the soul of the state raged between the Governor Siminalayi Fubara crowd and the ex-governor Nyesom Wike troops before state of emergency, a second but unrelated group of protesters poured into the streets of Port Harcourt on Monday in a startlingly far greater number. The second group decried the hypocrisy of the first group, and enthused that the state of emergency proclamation secured peace when all portents showed that anarchy was imminent. From the tone of the second group, and the tenor of their dressing, it was clear that peace, much more than the merits or demerits of the state of emergency proclamation itself, was uppermost in their minds.

    But not to be outdone, and unwilling to concede both the last laugh and slogan to the pro-emergency ‘peace’ protesters who rallied under the banner of Rivers Women for Peace and Good Governance, the anti-emergency protesters again rallied pari passu with the pro-emergency group in a different part of Port Harcourt under the aegis of Rivers Women Unite Prayer Group. However, noting the disparity in law enforcement control of the protests, Mr Fubara openly chafed at the unfairness of the police in allegedly repressing the anti-emergency crowd. He should have kept quiet. Unable to restrain himself, it was interpreted that he was lending support to the anti-emergency protesters, a trait he earlier exhibited when he failed to condemn pipeline vandals presumably trying to preempt the House of Assembly from impeaching him in the heat of the crisis in early March.

    Proclaimed on March 18, the state of emergency in Rivers is expected to last six months. During the period, it is expected that tempers would cool down between warring factions, the governor would be more statesmanlike, the House of Assembly less combative, and the state’s elders more diplomatic and conciliating. While most members of the elders group have sensibly kept quiet, and the lawmakers have distanced themselves from state activities, Mr Fubara has kept on talking. Before the state of emergency, he had acted and given the impression that he could browbeat both his enemies in and outside the legislature as well as the federal government into backing down from their intransigent positions. After the Supreme Court put paid to his effort to continue ostracising the Assembly, gave him a piece of their minds, and ordered that he should relate properly with the House of Assembly, he embarked on subterranean moves to undermine the judgement by feigning obedience to the rule of law. He was adamant about the justification of his cause, and was determined not to have his enemies laugh last.

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    That headiness has unfortunately continued. There is nothing, short of plotting a coup, that can unmake or reverse the state of emergency. Even if the country were to descend into anarchy, the state of emergency would still not be reversed. If Mr Fubara had this understanding, he would have declined to give support to any protests in his favour, restrained himself from commenting on state activities, whether by the sole administrator or any other caretaker officials, and shrugged off accusations about any financial malfeasance. If he must speak, it would be wise to talk about peace, support the sole administrator to reestablish law and order, and invite stakeholders and aggrieved indigenes to work for the peace, unity and progress of the state, even if he does not mean a word of what he says. Rather than secretly harbouring the unrealistic desire to upturn the emergency proclamation, his paramount goal should be to ensure that the state of emergency does not exceed the six months proclaimed by the president. He may not be the wisest governor to find himself in a similar position, but he needs to read the emergency proclamation again, especially the part that talks about the ‘six months in the first instance’ provision. If the crisis continues, if the swords are not sheathed in six months, if the combatants are still squaring off and warring recklessly, and if there are still threats to critical national infrastructure, the emergency period might be extended. And like all sides to the conflict in Rivers say, heavens will not fall.

    Mr Fubara’s goal must, therefore, be to ensure that the six months emergency rule should not be extended. The ball is in his court; but so far he has proved quite awkward in kicking the ball. He doesn’t even appreciate the gravity of his situation, and lacks the acumen to conciliate his enemies. He talks glibly about democracy, but he has undermined it at every turn and by every remark. Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, the pipeline protection contractor and notable Ijaw son, has said that Mr Fubara would return to office after the six months of emergency. It is not clear what gave him the confidence to make that pronouncement, but he should instead counsel his kinsman to mollify his rage and resentment against real and perceived enemies. The governor’s return is not in the hands of well-wishers, or the constitution, or animated protesters, or even the rule of law. His predicament rests on his absolute ineptitude in managing dissent and provocations. Only he can determine how the Rivers crisis would play out. Only he. And so far, he has not given anyone the confidence that he can make the difference the Rivers situation desperately urges him.

  • US and the Trump dilemma

    US and the Trump dilemma

    After resting a little, and waiting for about 100 days since the current president assumed office, former United States president Joe Biden has returned to give President Donald Trump a severe tongue-lashing. He seized upon the subject of social security, which resonated well with his audience. “In fewer than 100 days, this administration has caused so much damage and destruction. It’s breathtaking,” said the former president. “They’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security Administration…They’re shooting first and aiming later. The result is a lot of needless pain and sleepless nights.”

    President Trump’s economic policies may be unscientific and instinctive, and largely counterproductive, misguided and unpredictable, thereby signposting the decline of his country, but it is the atrocious manner he has infected all around him with his scurrility and meanness that has been perhaps the most off-putting to so many millions of people around the world who until now saw America as their lodestar. They may loathe his capricious tariff wars and denounce his resuscitation of the 19th century-style gunboat diplomacy by which he has bullied and alienated the rest of the world, but it is the projection of his own inadequacies and the anchoring of his self-worth on the denigration of others that rankle very badly.

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    Weeks after he assumed the presidency, he talked whimsically of getting a second or even third term should he desire. He’ll probably encounter a disastrous mid-term election, let alone secure another term. It is unlikely his presidency will end on a high note.

  • LP, NLC: made for crises

    LP, NLC: made for crises

    After the Supreme Court virtually washed its hands off intraparty crises, particularly leadership and nomination struggles, the Labour Party (LP) and its parent body, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), have renewed their bitter and acrimonious contest for the soul and body of a party which has served as a special multipurpose vehicle for many political candidates and office seekers. The summary of the judgement is that the courts have no jurisdiction to determine who leads a political party. It is an extreme judgement not backed by logic or the spirit of the law; but as at today, it has become the regnant wisdom in political organisations. Before the judgement, the LP was embroiled in a two-way contest for its soul. After the judgement, the contest has become a hydra-headed and bitter and ferocious three-way battle between the factional LP leadership led by Lamidi Apapa, which was earlier elbowed out by NLC toughs, the intransigent current leadership led by Julius Abure, and the usurper leadership led by caretaker Nenadi Usman, a former Finance minister conjured out of nowhere by NLC leaders to head the party.

    Pursuant to the Supreme Court judgement of two weeks ago that set aside the recognition of the Abure-led leadership of the LP by the Court of Appeal on the basis of lack of jurisdiction, there have been two interpretations of the judgement since it failed to clarify which leadership is recognised. The NLC claims the judgement automatically recognises the Mrs Usman-led caretaker leadership of the party. This was pure inference. The court made no such declarations. The second interpretation suggests that since the court offers no categorical recognition, the status quo remains until another convention is held sometime in 2026, implying that Mr Abure remains party chairman. But there is yet another tangential interpretation by the Mr Apapa-led, but almost inexistent, LP faction. He claims that since the court implied that the status quo should remain, and since the only known status quo he knows is his own leadership, then it is okay to lay claim to the party leadership. He is being theoretical.

    Clearly the three factions will have to fight it out one way or the other. In March 2024, the NLC bullied its way into the party headquarters, ransacking the secretariat and defying the law and resorting to self-help. But in the end, the labour union neither secured the backing of the law nor got the recognition of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Stuck in the middle of nowhere, the NLC gradually crawled back into its lair and waited for court arbitration. That search for arbitration led the combatants to the Supreme Court which paradoxically returned the contenders to square one. Determining what square one is in the LP has become the most confounding puzzle. Mr Apapa’s claim is of course opportunistic. He insists that as the most senior Deputy National Chairman of the party, he was assuming leadership consequent upon the court judgement, and would summon the National Working Committee meeting of the party for Monday, preparatory to planning a convention.

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    Mr Abure, on the other hand, continues to hold on to the party’s leadership position while threatening to impose stiff sanctions on anyone attempting to undermine the party. He specifically lambasted former LP presidential candidate Peter Obi and Abia State governor Alex Otti for flouting party rules and regulations, thus undermining the peace, unity and integrity of the party. Mr Abure and some members of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) affirmed their control of the party organs also based on their interpretation of the Supreme Court judgement. But confident that it had the upper hand by virtue of the same court judgement, the Mrs Usman-led caretaker committee summoned the party’s factional NEC to a meeting at the Transcorp Hilton, thereby avoiding the ugly scenario of having to physically battle for the keys of the party’s headquarters. Nothing of substance was discussed at the meeting regarding the leadership and unity of the party.

    With the case now out of the courts, it is going to be a test of wills between the three factions of the party. The propaganda war has already begun. Combatants are testing the waters by holding meetings, making declarations, and watching how the pendulum swings. The situation is not helped by the bullying tactics of the NLC which conflates unionism with political partisanship. NLC chairman Joe Ajaero worsens the problem by his impetuousness and cantankerousness. More damningly, there is no one of diplomatic stature in the party, not Mr Obi, not Dr Otti, not Olumide Akpata, not anyone as a matter of fact with the leverage and negotiating skills to bring all contending parties to the table to hammer out a deal. Everyone is busy threatening everyone. While Alhaji Apapa is scavenging for political carrion on the sidelines, and Mr Abure faces existential battle and is spitting fire and venom against usurpers, Mrs Usman is attempting to build something on nothing in alliance with the tactless Mr Obi and the guileless Dr Otti. The LP will for the foreseeable future be locked in a stalemate until someone in the party wakes up to wisdom. But finding that one wise man in that ill-fated party is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack.

  • The perfunctory protests

    The perfunctory protests

    Last week, the country woke up to hear that some agitators will be holding a ‘Take back the country’ protests in many cities. Led by Omoyele Sowore, a politician and media proprietor, the action, which hinted at some display of violence sometime in the future, perhaps August, was to get the government to end the Rivers state of emergency, annul the Cybercrime Act, and stop the demolition of properties at Oworonsoki in Lagos. Disappointed that the protests were uneventful, the organisers promised that when they reconvene in August, they would ‘shake Nigeria and the world’.

    They needn’t bother. The world is uninterested in Nigeria, concerned as they are with bigger fishes in US president Donald Trump and his tariff wars as well as the Gaza nightmare. If the world is to pay attention to Nigeria, it would be if the country became another Somalia or Sudan, which is probably what the protesters long for. What took place last Monday was protest for protest sake, an action probably fuelled by donors. Why should the country be bothered about Oworonsoki demolitions, and what is it about the Cybercrime Act that appears repugnant to law and order? And for Rivers State, where the executive and legislature were locked in a mortal battle for survival in the midst of spiraling pipeline vandlalisation, what alternatives did the protesters proffer?

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    Youth angst in Nigeria is real. But so it is in the rest of the world. As events in Asia, America, and Europe are showing, if Nigerian youths and the political opposition continue to see national events and crises from the cracked prism of rigid political dualism, rather than agitate for inclusion and political conciliation, the country, already threatened by massive insecurity, will explode. If that happens, it is the youths that will be consumed, and the world will not give a damn. Instead of threatening to shake the world, protesters should shake their common sense to see how national crises can be safely combated or mediated.

  • Uromi killings, threats and counterthreats

    Uromi killings, threats and counterthreats

    The March 27 lynching of 16 northern travellers at Uromi in Edo State on their way to their home state of Kano cannot be excused by any stretch of argument. The lynch mob disputes the narration that the murdered men were hunters, insisting instead that they were probably kidnappers with fabricated stories of cross-country hunting expeditions. Whatever they were, saints or sinners, lynching cannot be defended. Captured on video, the horrific act has incensed the entire country and instigated a rash of ethnic, regional and religious threats and counterthreats. Though the Edo State government has moved very quickly to douse tension and promised justice to the slain, it appears insufficient to assuage irate northerners who have promised revenge. The social media did a truly despicable job of amplifying the ensuing national rage.

    However, the Uromi lynching was not the first horrific mass murder on Nigerian roads orchestrated by vigilantes or protesters. There have been many others, both on highways and in the countryside. The March 27 killings will obviously not be the last because of the social and political dynamics that catalyse them. Just days after, on April 2, armed militiamen slaughtered over 50 people in Bokkos local government area of Plateau State, perpetrating the bloody cycle of ethnic cleansing and reprisals that have savaged the state for decades. Unfortunately, those killings have not elicited the kind of rage that followed the Uromi killings. It seems as if the country has become inured to the Plateau militia killings. Worse, the security and law enforcement agencies have not unfolded measures to curb the social media incitement that followed the Edo lynching, nor shown whether they have arrested those who uploaded videos openly threatening reprisals or promising ethnic and religious war. Consequently, there has been little deterrence.

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    More fundamentally, the Uromi killings, like other horrifying mob actions that unfortunately overlap ethnic and religious divisions, are symptomatic of deeper structural malaise troubling the country. Until this malaise is confronted and tackled dispassionately, expect further spirals of mob actions capable of tilting the country into the abyss. Every lynching that hues to ethnic and religious divisions moves the country closer to the precipice. The Uromi killings, particularly the regional dimension it has taken, speak to the failure of Nigerian leaders’ capacity to forge a nation out of diversity. When analysts compare the mainly northern outrage over the Uromi tragedy to their silence over the Plateau or Benue ethnically-inspired killings, they are not just searching for false equivalences. They are also deeply worried about the dangerous undercurrents frothing below the surface as well as the eruptions likely to follow in the near future.

    Nigeria’s ethnic and religious schisms have not abated; instead, they have become ossified. If nothing concrete is done, they will reach breaking point. Though the Uromi killings have little to do with the ethnicity or religion of the unfortunate travellers, considering that the Hausa community in the town was not attacked and unarmed Hausa travellers were let through, deep-seated suspicions about the connection between herdsmen and kidnapping in nearby forests easily turned the situation into a tinderbox. As long as the abductions and rape and murder in the forests and farmlands of many southern communities persist, attacks and reprisals such as were witnessed in Uromi, Edo State, will continue. It would be a mistake to conclude that the March 27 killings were targeted. They were not. Instead, they were a natural if tragic and indefensible consequence of the impotence of Nigeria’s law enforcement paradigms. The problem goes beyond the constant struggle between farmers and pastoralists. The problem now seems underscored by a strange and foreign ideology of struggling for living space, the Lebensraum that underpinned NAZI ideology during World War II.

    Now and again, communities may have boundary disputes that explode into open and violent confrontations. What is happening in Benue, Plateau, and the countryside of many southern communities, however, goes beyond such episodic eruptions. The attacks have been ferocious and orchestrated, with attackers fully armed, and locals suspicious of the impartiality of security agencies, especially under the last administration. In Plateau State for instance, many communities have been sacked and occupied by invaders, with the federal government unable or unwilling to vanquish the marauders and return stolen lands to their rightful owners. When the government demonstrates a lack of capacity, it leaves room for often untrained and uncoordinated vigilantes to sometimes take the laws into their own hands. If the government is honest enough to admit the ineffectiveness of their law enforcement paradigms, and recognises that whole swathes of farmlands, neighbourhoods and highways have become very unsafe, they might feel the urgency of devising new security initiatives to tackle the crises before they spiral out of control.

    In addition, given how easily and quickly the Uromi killings (and so many other killings in different parts of the country) were regionalised, ethnicised, and religionised, it is a pointer to the desperate need to settle the national question of how Nigerian national groups should relate in the same geographic space. It is far better to control the explosion than pretend the problem does not exist. Indeed, with so many youths unafraid to put up videos calling for war and pogrom, while insisting that the country is unworkable, how many of them would be arrested? If past administrations arrogantly pretended that Nigerian unity was not negotiable, and each succeeding administration has been reluctant to enact  Perestroika-type restructuring because they are afraid of unpredictable outcomes, the current administration should find a way to broach the subject and do something about it before apocalypse comes. To continue to pretend all is well, or that the situation can still be managed or left to chance or the elements, is to make doomsday inevitable. There is simply no other way to explain why the Uromi crime was escalated into a call for pogrom or war, with some of the videos bellowing anti-Christian and even anti-Igbo rhetoric.

  • Bayelsa’s Wike rally

    Bayelsa’s Wike rally

    Bayelsa State governor Douye Diri has been frenetic about the NEW Associates public rally planned for April 12 in Yenagoa by Mr. George Turnah, an ally of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Nyesom Wike. The organisers hope the rally would burnish the image of Mr Wike as well as underscore support for President Bola Tinubu. Mr Diri would have none of it in light of the stalemated turf war between suspended Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara, an Ijaw man, and Mr Wike, his predecessor. Since Bayelsa is the only majority Ijaw State in Nigeria, and considering that a mega meeting of Ijaw leaders had recently been concluded in Yenagoa, the state capital, to drum up support for their suspended kinsman, Mr Diri takes it as a personal slight to have to ‘host’ the Wike rally.

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    Firstly, he shouted himself hoarse about the impossibility of holding the rally, which he insisted would lead to a breakdown of law and order in the state. Then, secondly, he arrogated to himself the right to deny the rally organisers any public space in the state for the rally. Still, the organisers pressed ahead. Then, finally, out of desperation, the state got a court injunction to stop the rally, with a hearing scheduled for April 11. Mr Diri may have many reasons to be concerned about the rally, but he reminds Nigerians of the botched attempt to deny Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan the constitutional right to hold a rally in her hometown. Worse, Mr Diri has re-enacted the abysmal tactics of suborning the courts to legitimise anti-constitutional measures. It is ironic how many Nigerian governors, leaders and politicians claiming to be democrats and constitutionalists pass the dictatorship test. It was of course unwise to try to hold a pro-Wike rally in Bayelsa, but it is even more reprehensible to deny the rally organisers their constitutional rights.