The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • Atiku and Obasanjo as his political leitmotif

    Atiku and Obasanjo as his political leitmotif

    In 2019, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, perhaps ‘against his personal wish and desire’ endorsed the man he loved to hate, Atiku Abubakar, for the presidency. The bid ended futilely. In 2023, the former president also endorsed Labour Party’s Peter Obi for the presidency. The favoured and animated LP candidate came to grief. It is either the candidates are not what they are cracked up to be or the former president’s political antennae had been dulled by too much rancour and animosity. Two years before the 2027 presidential election, a number of former presidential aspirants, starting early and ingratiating themselves with the aristocratic Obasanjo, are again craving his approval. They know his electoral credibility and value are unproved, even by the standards of the 1999 and 2003 elections, but they would rather have him in their corner pissing out than risk his acerbic dismissal of their ambitions. They privately grieve that his political value cannot fetch them more than one vote, his vote, but they see his deep and abiding detestation of President Bola Tinubu as at least resonant.

    Alhaji Atiku imagines that the 2023 presidential race will be his last, and seventh if previous attempts are counted, and for this urgent task he has consequently embarked on a feverish attempt to assemble a coalition. He may not have addressed the reasons for his previous failures, nor attempt a rational understanding of what he needs to do to get his futuristic coalition transformed into an engaging and effective organisation, but he is fixated on the race and fascinated by the enduring allure of the presidential office. But here, he exaggerates his ambition considerably. The 2027 race will not be his last; his last was actually the 2023 race, the one in which he stood the highest chance of winning, yet foundered because of his appalling choices, hubris, and disgraceful opportunism. As vice president to the same man his visits and rhetoric now ennoble, he provoked Chief Obasanjo into deep exasperation by his political restiveness and undisguised and fanatical desire to supplant his boss. In response, the former president loathed him so generously that it is still unequalled anywhere. That they tried halfheartedly to collaborate in 2019 is an indication of their noteworthy unscrupulousness, their lack of principles, their obsession with presidential office, and, together with Mr Obi, their overweening incompetence to build a political party from the scratch and run it with any discernible expertise.

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    Chief Obasanjo renews his youth by giving all his visitors a hearing, whether he means what he says to them or not. In the past few years, he has indeed become the former vice president’s political leitmotif. On Monday, Alhaji Atiku visited the former president in Abeokuta in company with a number of PDP stalwarts, including former Sokoto governor Aminu Tambuwal and former Cross River governor Liyel Imoke. No one has given an indication what they discussed, whether 2027 political permutations as some sources said, or nonpolitical matters, as the former vice president tendentiously averred. What is clear is that given the urgency of the task ahead of the former vice president, not to say the high-powered delegation he took along with him, it could not have been a courtesy visit as he swore. Months before, Alhaji Atiku had met or spoken with anyone of enough political heft willing to be met or consulted, particularly a few former presidential candidates and sulking and disaffected leaders of the ruling party. Had the devil himself shown some dexterity in political mobilisation or influence, the former vice president would be willing to court him.

    All Progressives Congress (APC) national secretary, Ajibola Bashiru, insists the ruling party is neither bothered by Alhaji Atiku’s consultations and merger talks nor worried that Chief Obasanjo could suddenly become an asset to merger proponents, especially given their political antecedents as repeated failures. Time will prove Sen. Bashiru right or wrong. At the moment, however, the PDP is destitute of a leading light capable of imbuing the party with resilience and character after years of discouraging and debilitating losses as well as championing the party’s reorganisation and renewal. These failings may explain the ruling party’s confidence that the opposition appears structurally and behaviourally incapable of transcending its weaknesses and ideological barrenness.

    So far, the PDP has shown no desire to carry out the brain surgery urgently needed, permanent healing for its stultifying divisions and inertia, or the capacity to procure the perspectives and futuristic ideals capable of mesmerising the electorate. There is in fact no proof that the many angry rejects they are magnetising from other parties would not in the medium run become a burden too heavy for the party to bear. If Alhaji Atiku would make any political headway – a very serious doubt given so many considerations – it will not be because he had conferred with Chief Obasanjo. There is no presidential aspirant or candidate the former president endorsed who made hay while the ‘Abeokuta’ sun shone, especially when the sun is still standing still at ‘Gibeon’.

  • Nnamdi Kanu’s fulminations

    Nnamdi Kanu’s fulminations

    Last Monday, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, put up a spectacular show at the Federal High Court in Abuja as he fulminated against nearly everyone, judge and advocates alike. He spoke as one who knew the law more than anyone else, and insulted and dismissed experienced and elderly lawyers as legal ignoramuses. To make the simple point that he would not be tried by the recused Judge, Binta Nyako, he embarked on prolonged legal histrionics that kept the court enthralled for many minutes. During his eruptions, he hesitated between insulting the trial judge and respecting her. He, however, reserved the full length of his tongue for the prosecutors whom he chastised as morons.

    Unused to being interrupted when he was in full flight, as his own lawyers were chitchatting beside him, he poked a finger at the chest of one of his counsels, almost as if prodding some sense out of him, and slapped another in the back, reproving him for talking when the imperial Mr Kanu was gyrating in legalese. There is nothing to suggest that Mr Kanu is not deploying extensive melodrama to prolong his trial until everyone gets tired of the whole thing and in exasperation release him like they let go the equally dramatic Omoyele Sowore after they tired of his antics. It may work, but the credit and honour will not go to the government if they don’t release him before then.

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    Mr Kanu is not as dangerous as the charges against him suggest. He is full of too much bombast. If allowed to give full rein to his displays, the booboisie he claims to lead will sooner or later get tired of his buffooneries. If the government is wise, they should prise tough pledges from the political and traditional leaders of the Southeast and release the IPOB leader into their care. Mr Kanu will find that ‘freedom’ more restricting and suffocating than the comical trial he is undergoing. If the public didn’t see through his court drama, if indeed he was serious about his cathartic eruptions, Nigerians would be worried about his tragic and dysfunctional personality. Alas, for the IPOB leader, the whole gay drama aligns with his pecuniary interest and farcical cause.

  • Adebanjo departs unobtrusively

    Adebanjo departs unobtrusively

    Factional leader of the Yoruba socio-political group Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo has died aged 96. He lived exceedingly well and long by any global standard. Apart from his successful legal and political careers, he was also a principled and dogged fighter for popular and progressive causes. However, in his twilight years, he became more controversial than his age and ebbing strength should permit, while his summations, particularly on politics, also became more brittle than expected of so experienced and avid a politician.

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    He was a stand-in Afenifere leader, but after running into needless controversies that rankled with the group, the substantive but tiring Afenifere leader, Reuben Fasoranti, 98, tried to retake the reins of leadership. Chief Adebanjo resisted, leaving Afenifere factionalised till he died. That should be one of his regrets. Though age did not temper his fighting spirit, it enfeebled his body, and sadly also rendered his judgement less perspicuous. He should have done everything to heal the divisions in the group, particularly by reaching accommodation with his compatriots, so that his departure, which he knew was imminent, could stimulate fond and lingering memories of him. He probably has his reasons.

    It has, however, become the lot of Afenifere that its successive leaders over the years have attracted some disquiet than exuded lustre, perhaps because of Nigeria’s worsening political complexities and the dominance of self-willed national leaders who exploit national cleavages for private goals. It would be tragic if Chief Adebanjo’s faction let the divisions ossify. 

  • Remaking political opposition

    Remaking political opposition

    Those who suspect that opposition parties in Nigeria are dedicated to taking or retaking office rather than offering realistic policy options to the parties in power are not far from the mark. Both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), but more accurately both former vice president Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, exemplify this suspicion. They have sometimes spoken copiously and abusively about certain government policies, but they have done little else to explicate the foundations of the policies, particularly the economic ills those policies are targeted to address. Oppositional imperfections and wild assumptions, including the opinionatedness of political candidates and party leaders, are not peculiarly Nigerian. These failings are fairly global, leading to the conclusion that great leadership has been greatly diminished everywhere.

    That the PDP is embroiled in crisis today does not mean it cannot solve its problem and go on to offer Nigeria great leadership. But it has not shown any likelihood that it is capable of meeting the country’s idealistic yearnings. Indeed, for its 16 years in office it went from being a divisive and overbearing party to a divided and cowering party without the redeeming grace of being a promising or inspiring party. Since it lost the presidency in 2015, it has teetered on the brink of implosion, careening from the desire to become Africa’s leading and biggest party to managing to rein in its recalcitrant members and fractious leaders. Its leading lights, such as the politically nomadic Alhaji Atiku, are flawed and tightfisted, and its platform ideologically suspect and detached from reality. Hobbled by internal dissension, and weakened by tenuous ideology, the party has so far been unable to unite behind a common cause. But without putting its house in order administratively and ideologically, a task they are now undertaking clumsily, amateurishly and frantically, it is impossible to champion any oppositional cause, let alone fight the ruling party.

    The LP has not fared better. In fact there is little hope it can unite its members around a common cause, seeing that the party leadership is reviled by the sometimes lawless and obtruding unionist leaders who founded it. Factionalised into two, much like the PDP, it nevertheless boasts of one factional leadership under Julius Abure, a lawyer, who has had the good fortune of winning nearly all the court cases brought against his faction or suits his faction filed. Though founded by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the union has unimaginatively tethered the party to its withered apron strings, and hoped that such linkage would be enough to guarantee discipline and control. It has not. Worse, the union has been successfully resisted by the court-sanctioned faction; and so far, everyone other than Mr Abure aspiring to the leadership of the party has come to grief, including the unresourceful and pretentious ideologue, Mr Obi. To the dismay of those who support the party at the instance of Mr Obi, the party has appeared to lack ideological direction, having never been imbued with any philosophical paradigm by the NLC at its founding. The union has sometimes pretended to be left-of-centre, or at times practical, but it has been unable to produce a consistent and coherent ideological foundation for a party which, in its hands, has turned into a disreputable special purpose vehicle for taking power.

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    Both the PDP and LP must, therefore, find solutions to their existential crises before they can aspire to real opposition or take/retake the presidency. The PDP may be able to achieve unaccustomed unity among its cantankerous members and leaders, but it is likely to create a worse tear in the party’s fabric. Whatever is left of the party, and whatever forced concessions it makes in order to present a smiling face to the electorate, will not include an administrative and ideological remake of the party powerful and convincing enough to drive its campaigns in the years ahead. It will need a tectonic overhaul to create a synergetic effect capable of unifying the party and catalysing its electoral drive for power. That overhaul will have to involve forcing out the main combatants who have turned the one-time ruling party into a relic, men like Alhaji Atiku, Nyesom Wike, Bala Mohammed, Iliya Damagum, Adolphus Wabara, et al. Unfortunately, the party is unused to such massive decapitation. It has a foreboding history, not to say habit, of bandaging its gangrenous wounds and pouring on them nothing more than medications that have only analgetic properties.

    For the LP, no one really holds out hope that the fractious party can be salvaged, not even the unusually optimistic and romantic Mr Obi. It is a lot of headache for him to have to battle to smother the crises in his borrowed party. He has never formed a party, and has always preferred to hitch a ride when the steed is close to being described as a thoroughbred. When he latched on to the LP and began to mouth his sectarian rhetoric and fulminate against the Muslim religion’s capture of Nigeria, it was fun for him riding the pedigreed stallion he thought for one crazy moment he could dashingly ride to power. Once he failed and was exposed as an opportunist, and once the mob he inflamed to cause havoc seemed finally spent, he began to dither badly, wondering what next to do beyond propagandising the absurd theories of opposition. Accused of being disinterested in offering the requisite leadership to manage the crisis in the LP, he waded in belatedly and half-heartedly, huffed a little in one breath, sounded grandiose in another breath, but finally resigned himself to fate as he sought succour elsewhere, preferring to meet minds with PDP, APC and New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) rejects in a political merger they love to describe as a mega party.

    The APC has not operated flawlessly, and some of its policies and appointments have raised eyebrows. There are, therefore, enough reasons for a resourceful and imaginative party to play the opposition role fittingly and productively. That they are not doing it is not because the ruling party is fostering division in the opposition or crippling their efforts; it is simply because the opposition parties have found themselves in unfamiliar territories, unable to appreciate their roles in a presidential as opposed to parliamentary system. They will need to develop sound administrative frameworks for their parties, unite their members as much as it is practicable, and anchor all their existence and operations on very sound, if not sounder, ideological and ethical principles. They must be able to give what the APC does not have, both in style and in party philosophy. And they must engender discipline on a scale that makes them far more appealing than the ruling party. Can they do it? In fact, are they capable of it? If they have no idea what ails them, why on earth would they feel compelled to do what needs to be done, not to talk of give what they do not have?

  • Rethinking the Lagos Assembly impasse

    Rethinking the Lagos Assembly impasse

    The January 13, 2025 removal of the Lagos State House of Assembly speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, came out of the blue. He was on holidays when the putsch took place. On his return, he has quibbled about the legality and semantics of the removal, insisting that during and immediately after the process some people used the words removal and impeachment interchangeably to describe what was done to him. It is true that some reports described his removal as impeachment, but it is equally true that the Assembly described his ouster as removal. Regardless of his book knowledge or his conviction, there is no semantic stalemate regarding his removal. His colleagues, all 32 of them out of 40, knew what to call the process that led to his exit, and they are comfortable and adamant about it. They deserve the support of everyone.

    There are indications that in one form or the other the Governance (or Governor’s) Advisory Council (GAC) was involved in the removal, perhaps even sanctioning it. The Council may be an extra-constitutional body, but it has remained influential since it was set up under the Bola Tinubu governorship. Soon after Hon. Obasa was unhorsed, his successor, Mojisola Meranda, visited the GAC and received their blessing. Their assent as well as the visit should have been more nuanced, lest many analysts begin to squirm over the role of the Council, even believing erroneously that it was behind the putsch. But since the mistake was made, both the GAC and the Assembly have battled to sustain the action the state’s lawmakers took against Mr Obasa. It has turned out that a few members of the GAC, perhaps three or four out of about 24 have balked at the former speaker’s removal, but regardless of the stridency of their voices and protests, they have been unable to give traction to their reservations. There are speculations about All Progressives Congress (APC) hierarchs wanting to return Mr Obasa to his seat, but no one is sure the rumours are not just amateur name-dropping or red herring.

    The procedure adopted by the lawmakers to remove Hon. Obasa was democratic. His removal over alleged financial misappropriation, misconduct, and high-handedness cannot be downplayed. Indeed, the lawmakers could even remove him if they happened to take a dislike to him at any time and at any point. It is unclear what role the GAC played in the removal beyond merely assenting it. If the party and its hierarchs begin to nitpick over such removals, ignoring the sensibilities of the lawmakers, and overplaying their hands, they risk alienating the rank and file. Worse, they risk becoming accessory to the many alleged misdemeanours of errant officials. Hon. Obasa was in his tenth year as speaker; he had become complacent, imperious and garrulous. For these and other reasons, his colleagues got tired of his tyranny and wanted him out. The removal may upset the political permutations of the party, but they would be courting disfavor, if not disaster, to insist on reinstating him. If the removal blindsided them, they must find intelligent and democratic ways of closing ranks and regaining control of the party and the legislature.

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    Hon. Obasa makes it hard for party leaders and members to defend or back him. Regardless of his misunderstanding with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his response to the governor’s budget presentation on November 21 exhibited poor judgement and a lack of grace and understanding. He was not only mortifyingly indecorous, he was also bombastic and boastful. How he managed to hold down the speakership position for so long must remain a mystery. It is uncertain whether party leaders looked deeper than the surface of his leadership; but the near unanimity of opinion against him by most of his colleagues, past and present, speaks to the poor choice they made of him when they first elected him speaker nearly 10 years ago. It is possible the GAC had been uncomfortable with him for some time, perhaps after recognising his limitations; but they were probably too noble to force the matter. His colleagues, therefore, had to endure him.

    The GAC and the party must now move beyond Hon. Obasa. Their speakership choices have not always been flawless, as evidenced by their election and sustenance of the former speaker. It is, however, time for them to begin seeking ways to match the election of their legislative officials with a clear vision, in fact grander vision, of the dizzying heights where they hope to take and put Lagos. If their vision of Lagos remains lackluster and pedestrian, then they could continue electing principal officers who cannot transcend the ordinariness of their collective aspirations. Lagos has attracted an incredible influx of people from other parts of the country, many of them young but ethically unmoored. The state, therefore, needs men and women in key positions who can think fast and loftily on behalf of the state, without sacrificing the interests of the indigenes. So far, Lagos has not quite transcended its amorphousness; and Hon. Obasa was simply incapably of embodying the hopes and aspirations of a new, bigger, more modern, and cosmopolitan megacity.

    It is disturbing that the GAC and the party have hemmed and hawed over a fairly straightforward matter. Mr Sanwo-Olu himself has kept discretely silent so as not to be accused of having a hand in the removal of his combative nemesis. The problem with Hon. Obasa, however, is not just his politics, as fairly ineffective as that was, nor even his serial indiscretions, as mortifying as they were, nor yet his mistreatment of his colleagues, which was enough to earn him a place in the guillotine, nor even the suspicion that his successor could be overwhelmed by the speaker’s office. What ailed the former speaker so profoundly is what all these damning attributes say of his person and his judgement, in short what they say of his lack of leadership character. That cannot be remedied by any reinstatement, no matter how temporary it is designed to give him a soft landing. And from all indications, given his age and the level he has attained in politics, not to talk of the undignified and ignoble way he has handled his removal, it would be a mistake to give him any kind considerations when he does not even know what that means.

  • Buhari embraces mirage

    Buhari embraces mirage

    Gradually, after many months of reticence or monosyllabic responses to national issues, former president Muhammadu Buhari has begun to find his voice. On January 25, speaking in Katsina at an All Progressives Congress (APC) caucus meeting, he addressed the subjects of frugality and transparency, declaring that he really never learnt to live above his means. He talked about owning only three houses, one in Katsina, and two in Kaduna, one of which he let out to cover his daily and living expenses. He strangely omitted to speak about his retirement benefits and pension, which are sizable. There is no reason to doubt his frugality or that he actually owns only three houses. It is thus really impressive, and despite receiving flak over what he said next in the same Katsina last Wednesday, he must be commended for his physical and financial asceticism.

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    When the former president speaks about himself and his lifestyle, he manages to sound believable and even endearing to Nigerians. But when he speaks about his record as president, or before that, as military head of state, few Nigerians want to give him a hearing. They neither believe what he has to say nor think he has a commanding knowledge of the principles of great governance and leadership. In fact, he exaggerated his leadership prowess when he spoke without blushing that he left Nigeria better than he met it. In his words: “Nigeria’s security and economy improved significantly under my administration compared to what we met in 2015. Things will continue to improve in Nigeria.” His analysis of what he met as a carryover from the Goodluck Jonathan presidency was correct. The situation was indeed dire, which explained why he was elected.

    But when he exclaimed that he bettered the security situation of the country, perhaps his mind was fixed only on Boko Haram, and not the banditry and herdsmen pillage that was birthed and accetuated under his presidency. And when he added that the economy ‘improved significantly’ on his watch, it is unclear whether he was not being astigmatic. The fact, as everyone knows, but which the APC would be loth to admit, is that he ran the economy aground. It is true that he met a troubled economy; but he never improved it. Whatever improvements he thought his administration made were erected on flimsy anchors and borrowed futures. Let him stick to rhapsodising his private principles and endowments whenever he receives guests. They would resonate. As for his leadership qualities, even he is unqualified to speak.

  • Aregbesola’s controversial APC exit

    Aregbesola’s controversial APC exit

    Last week was a momentous time in the political career of Rauf Aregbesola, a former Osun State governor on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Interior minister. His group, the Omoluabi Progressives, sensing impending expulsion from the All Progressives Congress (APC), had resolved last Sunday to exit the party. News of their exit was published on Monday. Three days later, the APC wielded the big stick, disregarded the voluntary exit of the Aregbesola group, and expelled them. Whether voluntary or compelled, Mr Aregbesola is now in limbo. Soon, however, he and his group are expected to berth in another political party, for he is still determined to have the last laugh over his opponents whom he has continued to excoriate.

    Mr Aregbesola occupied a commanding height in the Bola Ahmed Tinubu political family for about 15 years, seemingly unable to put a foot wrong in the eyes of his political mentor. There was of course no foundation to his prominence, not ideological, though he pretends to some amorphous form of socialism, and not even private or public principles, for he was incapable of both. But he was mildly charismatic, voluble, self-absorbed, and capable anytime of promising more than he could ever deliver. His mentor, however, trusted him and canonised him. For eight years between 1999 and 2007 he was a commissioner in Lagos State, and worked quite well under supervision. But as governor of Osun, again for eight years between 2010 and 2018, he floundered badly, subjecting the state to all kinds of sophomoric Cuban-style regimentation, and strewing the state with half-baked social organisation experiments.

    If his mentor and party began to doubt his administrative capacity and temperament, they did not betray their suspicion. But the boisterousness of his youth and his appointment as Interior minister for eight years soon led him to the idiosyncratic overreach that plagued his past, revealing the speciousness of his philosophy, the indiscipline that permeated his governorship and politics, and the wild assumptions that persistently undermined his judgement. In 2018, he was determined to impose a successor as Osun governor, but failed for a number of reasons that were not beyond his feeble ability to manage had he possessed the right temperament and judgement. In 2022 he also aligned his political group with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to prove the point that he was a force to be reckoned with in the state. But his characteristic impatience made his victory Pyrrhic.

    By 2022, his fate was sealed. There was little he did in the past, including his contributions to the APC presidential election victory in 2015, that was capable of sustaining his self-confessed prodigious talents for political mobilisation. But circumstances propelled him forward and upward until he climbed the dizzying height from which he has now plunged to earth precipitately. Believing he had an unbreakable hold on his political group, and assuming that his popularity in Osun had not waned as much as his enemies imagined, he took on his mentor with the thunderous blather about how God abases the proud. Said Mr Aregbesola with inflated pomposity: “As it was in Lagos yesterday, so shall it be in Osun today. What is good for the goose is also good for the gander. Only God can terrify us, not man. Go and tell them wherever they are, we own this party. We own this Afenifere group. We own this people-loving group started by our patriarchs, Obafemi Awolowo and Bola Ige. This was Elder Akande’s group before he temporarily left us. That was how it was in Lagos at a time; a governor derailed and the party members unseated him using the ballot boxes. We exalted him beyond his status and he turned himself to a god over us and we had sworn to ridicule anyone who compares himself to God. God has no competitor; He is enough to be God.”

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    The problem was not that he disagreed with his party or his mentor, or that he insulted everybody who did not kowtow to him. The problem was not also that he felt genuinely aggrieved that he was stripped of any significance in Osun, and castrated in Lagos Alimosho local government politics. The problem was not even that it was despicable that he looked his mentor and party in the face and imperiously cautioned them about their political choices. Mr Aregbesola’s problems are two-fold: his impatience borne out of his hubris, and his poor judgement borne out of his lack of depth, contrary to the impressions he had created since 2010 when the courts validated his election as Osun governor in place of the usually somnolent former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola. Regarding his feistiness and impatience, they were intrinsic to his mental constitution. No surgery could help him, and no shrink could mollify his moods. As for his superficiality, he needed it to bamboozle the impressionable youths of the Osun backwater. He made casual allusions to Marxism and Fidel Castro’s Cuba to which he was unquenchably besotted, but without contextualising his beliefs within the global pushback which that ideology was experiencing. And to worsen his plight, he menaced the state and everyone with his closet fanaticism, leading the state’s intelligentsia to feel wearied by his propensities.

    Having fallen from his Olympian heights, and disdaining wise counsel to stop struggling when trapped in quicksand, Mr Aregbesola must now ponder his future. He could not conceivably jump into the PDP, for that major opposition party is itself engaged in a titanic struggle to stay afloat and remain politically relevant following the schisms that have skewered its administrative organs. The former governor had helped the party take Osun to prove a point, and would be tempted to cavort in it for the coming 2026 governorship election; but he cannot seriously see a pathway to any continuing relevance in the state through the PDP. Not only that, the PDP governor in the state, Ademola Adeleke, apart from being fundamentally incapable of ruling anything, has formed the atrocious habit of elevating trivia into a governing art and dancing the day away in the heat of competition among Nigeria’s governors. Osun has always been regicidal, but it is hard to imagine that they are also impervious to the national ridicule they are been subjected to on account of their governor.

    Mr Aregbesola is not endowed with significant administrative acumen. To opt for the PDP despite that party’s troubles is to believe he possesses the magic wand capable of affecting the fortunes of the party positively or bathing and salving its wounds. As large as his hubris is, it is unlikely the former governor can be so optimistic. Worse, PDP leaders, though temporarily distracted by in-fighting and sloppy politicking, are unlikely to see a largely diminished Mr Aregbesola as an asset. To join the PDP would also mean adopting the frolicking Governor Adeleke as his party leader in Osun, a prospect so galling to even a fake communist that he has probably never contemplated it beyond using the party as a tool to exact revenge on the APC. Some media reports suggest that the former governor and his group, knowing full well that they must berth somewhere, might be considering an association with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) led by Shehu Gabam. Indications are that some key PDP leaders, including former vice president Atiku Abubakar, disaffected Labour Party (LP) leaders such as Peter Obi, and even New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) leader, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, might be eyeing the SDP if reconciliations in their parties proved intractable. But the fringe party also harbours a few acolytes of the late Gen Sani Abacha.

    The choices facing key opposition leaders regarding how to proceed politically in 2025 and 2026 are obnoxious. For Mr Aregbesola, they are horrendous. Not only would he go into the SDP, if it came to that, a very diminished man without party and shorn of reputation, the other party leaders who might saunter into the party would keep a wary eye on him and cast furtive glances at him. They would wonder whether he could be trusted, considering how close he was to President Tinubu but did not bat an eyelid in denouncing him violently and persistently. Unfortunately, once a politician acquires the reputation of a betrayer, rightly or wrongly, fairly or otherwise, it is hard to reignite confidence in him. Every step Mr Aregbesola takes will be dogged by his now sullied reputation. His new party may relish his role as an attack dog, especially against the president, but as reckless and ruthless and boastful as he has become, he would feel demeaned being turned into a feral beast. He would like to be rated fairly and highly, but there is nothing in him or about him to indicate that his new party leaders and associates would not prefer to see him through their own cautious lenses.

    What is certain about Mr Aregbesola is that he does not have a political party at the moment. It is inevitable he must find one very soon, where he can probably feel comfortable. But he is condemned to joining other aggrieved politicians united by their common animosity towards the APC, and perhaps by their common detestation of President Tinubu. With his long years of unprincipled politicking, Alhaji Atiku is now fated to be lumped together with other waspish firebrands like the inconsiderate Rotimi Amaechi, the intransigent Mr Kwankwaso, the stormy petrel el-Rufai, and the immoderate Mr Aregbesola. There are some associations in which one must never be found, and ideas one must never be associated with. It is the humiliating irony of life that all these eminent men started out well in their political career, but, given their famous lack of prudence, are now condemned to joining a motley crowd of jaded politicians united for the common cause of taking the presidency in 2027.

  • Trump angles for third term, already

    Trump angles for third term, already

    Deeply mortified Americans may soon discover that in voting Donald Trump as president last November, they bought a pig in a poke. They thought they knew him, but they failed to really and cogently inspect the commodity they have now installed in the White House as the 47th president of the United States of America. President Trump utterly lacks circumspection. He was barely two weeks in office when he began to suggest a third term for himself, adjudging that his second term would be insufficient to transform or remake America in line with his dreams. As he put it while addressing the 2025 annual conference of the House of Representatives near Miami, Florida: “I’ve raised a lot of money for the next race that I assume I can’t use for myself, but I’m not 100% sure. Because I don’t know, I think I’m not allowed to run again. Am I allowed to run again?”

    It is unlikely that the worst of African leaders could, less than two weeks in office, begin to campaign for an unconstitutional third term. The US Constitution’s 22nd Amendment makes it impossible to get a third term, except the constitution is amended. To amend the constitution, both the House of Representatives and the Senate would first have to pass an amended bill by two-thirds majority. That would mean 290 agreeing to the amendment out of 435 House members, and 67 out of the 100 senators. At the moment, there are only 218 Republican representatives, and 53 Republican senators. But it gets worse. To complete the amendment process, 38 state legislatures will have to approve the change. However, the Republicans have a majority in 28 state legislatures. President Trump, however, appears willing to defy the odds, convinced that since he defied the odds to win a nonconsecutive second term as president, he could reorder the galaxies.

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    President Trump, it is turning out, in case anyone still doubts, to be much worse than any African president. Still feeling euphoric over his election and inauguration, he assumes that his party would clear the mid-term elections and one way or the other go on to cobble a coalition to do the job of entrenching him as president for a third, or as he joked in November, fourth term. In addition, after failing to learn a thing or two from President Joe Biden’s sudden disintegration, he assumes that he would still be cognitively sound and physiologically agile to run another campaign after four years. Talking about and flying the third term kite is overall a waste of time, perhaps to keep Americans preoccupied with fruitless debates.

    What is more remarkable is that no sooner President Trump flew the third term kite than Republican representative Andy Ogles of the State of Tennessee took up the battle cry. President Trump, he said, “has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal…To that end, I am proposing an amendment to the Constitution to revise the limitations imposed by the 22nd Amendment on presidential terms. This amendment would allow President Trump to serve three terms, ensuring that we can sustain the bold leadership our nation so desperately needs.” Flattery, it is sadly clear, is not limited to ‘shithole’ countries. It is a human failing, and it is universal. Both President Trump and Representative Ogles ensure the continuing demystification of America. The US may be militarily powerful and economically dominant, but many of their leaders are as ordinary, if not more deplorable, as any third world leader most of whom would never dare this effrontery.

  • Needless uproar over Sharia in Southwest

    Needless uproar over Sharia in Southwest

    The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) completely misread the apprehensions of the Southwest over the attempt by some individuals in Oyo and Ekiti States to establish Independent Sharia (Arbitration) Panels or Sharia Courts. The apprehensions are well grounded, and it is not surprising that NSCIA can’t seem to grasp that probably the most secular region in Nigeria wants more secularism rather than any genuflection to anything that proposes more religion. There is no judicial system that is intrinsically unqualified to mediate disagreements and conflicts, but in a country where religion has become so badly politicised and even weaponised, and at a time when the country is immersed in unending insurgencies, some of them inspired by religious fanatics, it is unhelpful to accentuate religious differences.

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    Contrary to the impression the NSCIA gave in its public statement of January 29, the groups advocating judicial status quo in the Southwest are a mix of Christians, Muslims and other indigenous religions. They remember how in the name of Islam, the traditional authorities in Ilorin, Kwara State, attempted to unconstitutionally suffocate indigenous religious worship and observances. They also recall and indeed worry that Sharia courts and panels in the North have been unable to stanch the flow of blood in that region, let alone promote tolerance for other religious practices. When it comes to intolerance, the Southwest advocates for secularism allege that the North appears to be the guiltiest.

    After decades of bloodletting in different parts of the world, everyone yearns for more inclusiveness, tolerance and secularism, not the birthing of more religious organs. When about 12 northern states opted for Sharia law during the Olusegun Obasanjo years, beginning with Zamfara State, few expected that the region would become convulsed with mayhem. The Southwest is right to be apprehensive. That apprehension is neither intolerant nor discriminatory; it is instead precautionary. Better not go down a slippery road whose gradient and culmination are unpredictable, especially in a region that continues to remain the enviable bastion of peaceful, harmonious and inclusive living in Nigeria.

  • Trump speech: repudiation of US global leadership

    Trump speech: repudiation of US global leadership

    United States president Donald Trump is used to being insulted. But luckily for him, not only has he developed a thick skin against insults, he has also become proficient in hurling invectives. His inaugural address last Monday was an example of how inaugural addresses should never be written. The speech was most remarkable for its repudiation of America’s global leadership. In his first term, he enunciated that repudiation and attempted to execute it. But Americans and the rest of the world were so shocked by that seismic redirection that they attempted a pushback. That pushback led by President Joe Biden lasted for four years, and enjoyed only partial success. Now, as Mr Trump doubles down on his first term policies in his inauguration address, that audacious and provocative policy of isolationism will now be reinforced to the hilt.

    If a million commentaries were written on Mr Trump’s inauguration speech, it would clearly still not be enough. He treaded on many old grounds and beliefs, and casually broke new ones. He barely acknowledged his predecessors, who silently endured the ordeal of listening to his long and dreary speech, and largely ignored their contributions to America’s greatness. And, with all the grandiloquence and foulness he could muster, he deprecated their presidencies and insulted their persons. The speech was all about him, his deep sense of insecurity, his messianism, his superficialities, and lack of historical perspective. It mimicked and is suffused by his colloquialisms, and it lacks any iota of inspiration in language and style as well as in substance and reality. The speech chased shadows, or was chased by shadows. It was not just unworthy of being called a speech, let alone an inauguration address, it was also provocatively bad in every detail.

    No single paragraph holds redemptive value. Four of his predecessors sat grimly and listlessly through the thoroughly vexatious speech, hoping that every next paragraph would ameliorate the badness of the preceding paragraph. But every next statement is worse than the previous, until finally the ordeal comes to an end in a string of hubristic attestation of American strength and boasting that seems eerily apocalyptic. In the very second paragraph of the address, President Trump begins needling his predecessors, insinuating that they wasted opportunities and that America got worse under them. “From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first. Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponisation of the Justice Department and our government will end. And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free. America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before.”

    Put simply, to Mr Trump, he is the all-American icon: resplendent, transcendental and unparalleled. He thinks his first four years unequalled; now he is convinced the next four years will set him above George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, or all of them put together, as he makes America ‘far more exceptional than ever before’. The phrase ‘than ever before’ will go on to be the leitmotif of his address, and probably his presidency. He is not just a narcissist, he is also delusional and megalomaniacal. Hear him: “Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250 year history, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you.” He thinks he was challenged more than President Washington (War of Independence), Lincoln (American civil war, Emancipation Act) and President Roosevelt (World War II). The mere hint of that megalomania is not just fiendish, it is also inflammatory.

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    In the sixth paragraph, there is no let up on his boasting. It seems muted at first, but it soon soars to crazy and unpalatable heights as he rechristens his inauguration. Says he: “For American citizens, January 20th, 2025 is Liberation Day. It is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country.” It takes excess of stupidity and sycophancy to contemplate that Mr Trump’s election ‘is the greatest and most consequential ever’. The statement is remarkable for what it has not said openly, that the election, in his deluded mind, is all about reclaiming the country for white America. All other gestures to all religions, race and gender are mere tokenism.

    Now to his aggressive agenda borne out of his eclecticism. “As Commander in Chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions and that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody has ever seen before.” Everything about his programme, in line with his insecurities, must simply be compared with those of his predecessors, or they were not worthy or grand enough. Everything is about upturning other leaders’ legacies. It is a miracle that President Biden walked out of the Capitol Rotunda unaided at the end of the inauguration, given how Mr Trump savaged him and his policies, so gracelessly, so peevishly, and so populist. His supporters hailed him, validating the description Hillary Clinton gave them as the deplorables. He would end the Green New Deal and…revoke the electric vehicle mandate, “saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers. In other words, you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice. We will build automobiles in America again at a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago.” While the world is marching furiously ahead with new technologies, under President Trump, America would march furiously backwards repudiating clean energy, climate change ameliorations, and electric vehicle. Four years of marching backwards will ineluctably cost America dozens of years in the future.

    And then there were a number of non sequiturs in Mr Trump’s address, ideas and inchoate policies so befuddling that only a warped and uneducated mind could contemplate them. Hear him: “I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.” He presumes that there will be no retaliations, or that the countries at the receiving end of his tariffs and taxes will roll over and die. In his first term, he had limited success in that sector; now he plans to revive and strengthen suspect policies. They will, of course, end up being counterproductive; and will injure American interests far beyond what he hopes to gain in the short run.

    And still on his chimerical pursuit of American greatness, he exhales: “Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.” But they already have the strongest military. Perhaps he sees the Abraham Accords that seeks a rapprochement between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain as the pivot on which to build a great foreign policy. Well, it took a few bombings by Iranian Middle East proxies, chiefly Hamas, to torpedo the agreement. Mr Trump trivialises the dynamics of international politics; he will come to grief sooner than he thinks, for rather than be bullied, the rest of the world will ignore, scoff at and ridicule his naivety.

    He will rename the Gulf of Mexico, he thunders, and take the Panama Canal back. Beyond the revisionism at play, Mr Trump has become a regular Rip van Winkle. But the world has changed in ways which old-fashioned, gung-ho American policies can never reverse. He disdains his neighbours, Mexico and Canada, and taunts and affronts them, and boastfully swears that he could end the Russo-Ukrainian War in one day. He tried similar tricks in his first term, even lobbying and romancing dictatorships; but he came to grief. He will soon find out how hard it is to pacify the world. The danger, however, is that once the world moves beyond America’s renascent isolationism, there will be no going back, and it might very well sound the death knell of the American Empire, or at least the beginning of the end.

    It was tough for President Biden to endure Mr Trump’s harangue, but the old warhorse bore the childish vituperations of his successor with fortitude. Mrs Clinton repeatedly blanched with horror during the speech, and President George W. Bush winced now and again. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama kept an expressionless face. They must all be genuinely petrified that America, the America dozens of great US presidents built on the foundations of a great and incomparable constitution, stands the risk of being irreparably and irreversibly damaged by a churlish, dysfunctional and self-centred president who, in another clime, could never have risen to the presidency. There is something about democracy that is inherently good and contradistinctively evil, inspiring and depressing at the same time. Mr Trump exemplifies the latter without giving any hint of the possibility of engendering the former. Incredibly, he speaks of the beginning of America’s golden age, but not his contrasting lack of competence and capacity, nor of the deep and countervailing fissures of American society. There was nothing uplifting or soaring about his speech, except coarseness, bullying, street language and religious pettiness. No empire lasts forever, as Rule Britannia attested to in the last century, and no great power retains its strength and vitality for all time, as also the Empire of the Incas, Napoleon’s France, and Carolingian Empire’s Charlemagne illustrated centuries and millennia ago. Having elected Mr Trump as their president, America must now brace up for a rough and disquieting ride; so, too, the rest of the world, which may soon discover that their fascination with America was built on dangerous illusions. And as he leads the US to exit the global power stage, an ambitious nation will seek to exploit the vacuum.