The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • Obasanjo and Ladoja’s damning reminiscences

    Obasanjo and Ladoja’s damning reminiscences

    In the past one week, former Oyo State governor Rashidi Ladoja’s reflection on ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, and the statement by his former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, on rotational presidency showed how embarrassingly limited many Nigerian leaders are. The former VP had made a representation to the Senate Committee on Constitution Review suggesting, among other things, that presidential tenure should be limited to one term rotated among the country’s six informal geopolitical zones. It was a clearly mercantilist approach to solving the national question. Perhaps he still hopes that in 2027 he could take the presidency without the corresponding drawback of his age and the fear that should he desire a second term, it would gall and repulse the electorate. Like Chief Obasanjo who seldom gave deep thought to his actions, Alhaji Atiku is probably the most intransigent of politicians, if not also the most excessive and self-absorbed.

    Senator Ladoja is a perceptive and tenacious politician, an enigmatic leader who has accomplished so much in politics and in Ibadan where he is top on the line to the revered traditional throne. Days ago, on a radio programme, he gave insight into the direct role Chief Obasanjo played in how he was impeached as Oyo governor in January 2006 until his reinstatement some 11 months later after grueling litigations. It was not the first time he spoke about the former president’s perverse role in the impeachment. In 2019, when he marked his 75th birthday, he disclosed to the media that his opposition to Chief Obasanjo’s third term agenda triggered the said impeachment. “You just came out of prison and had no money,” he said he told the former president. “And with all those minuses, God said you would be the president for eight years; let God be the one who would decide the next president. He said ‘thank you very much, I appreciate it.’ He knew I told him the truth and I was convinced I told him the truth. At the end of it, he also said he didn’t even ask for a third term, which is not true. He did. So when I got home in the evening, the then Ogun State Governor, Gbenga Daniel, called and asked what I came to Ota to discuss with Obasanjo. I said I discussed the third term agenda with him. He said ‘Oh God, you have pinched Baba on his sore, Baba said he would turn you to a nobody.’ I said ‘if God allows him’.”

    Last week’s interview on radio was no less scathing. Here is Sen. Ladoja reminiscing about the impeachment moves against him in 2005: “You see, some people said, it was Alao-Akala, it was Adedibu. No, it was not any of them. It was Obasanjo. It was during the time of Ileya [Muslim festival Eid-el-Kabir]. We went to see Baba Obasanjo. I think it was on a Friday or Saturday that we went to see him in Abeokuta. I was there with Oyinlola, Daniel and Agagu. We did not call Fayose, because we knew that Fayose was Baba’s son. So they knelt down and I knelt down with them. They were begging him, ‘Baba, please, let Ladoja be’. Baba then said ‘Rashidi, go and resign!’ I said ‘No, I won’t resign!’  He said, ‘if you don’t resign, you would be removed’. I said ‘No, they cannot do it.’ He said ‘why’”. I said ‘because you cannot get two-thirds.’ He said ‘two-thirds my foot’ and then he left the place in fury. (Gbenga) Daniel ran after him.”

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    Still in doubt as to Chief Obasanjo’s sanctimoniousness? Sen Ladoja continued: “While we were reflecting on what we were going to do, myself, Agagu and Oyinlola, a man came in; it was the former World Court Justice, Prince Bola Ajibola. He said ‘what is wrong with you?’ He said ‘I know your problem. Your problem is that you don’t want Ladoja to be impeached. They (Oyinlola, Agagau and Daniel) said yes. Justice Ajibola said ‘well, I’ve talked about it to Segun, he’s just adamant. He said ‘but you’re leaders in your own rights. There comes a time when you must have to stand up and fight.’ …When eventually we got the judgement of the  Appeal Court, Baba said no. People said this is a declarative judgement; he retorted that they were going to stay its execution. And eventually, it stayed until the Supreme Court confirmed the judgement of the Court of Appeal.”

    Before 2006 was over, Chief Obasanjo had masterminded the impeachment of four other governors, to wit, Joshua Dariye of Plateau State; Peter Obi of Anambra State, yes the same Mr Obi he tried to railroad into Aso Villa last year, a goal he was even prepared to destroy democracy to achieve; Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State; and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State whom he almost hounded to death. None of the five, including Sen Ladoja, was impeached constitutionally. Apart from lying about his third term agenda, Chief Obasanjo also still feigns interest in the survival of democracy, albeit democracy with African touch. Few of his contemporaries are impressed with his style or principles. They know his style is abominable, and his principles inexistent. They thought he was fated to be a great leader, a president who would lay the foundation of a great and thriving Nigerian democracy, one who would make the country a continental leader and a globally competitive democracy. But he failed the test and has since gone on to posture, rail and flail, blaming everyone but himself for the country’s tragic shortcomings.

    It is not clear whether Chief Obasanjo will write his definitive memoires. If he does, they will be full of half-truths or outright mendacities, for nearly all his contemporaries know him to be fundamentally averse to truth and accuracy. It is strange that last year, the Machiavellian Mr Obi allowed himself to be brought under the wing of the former president. Perhaps they share much more in common than many Nigerians think. Sen. Ladoja himself came under the wing of celestial forces who paved his path in life with diamonds. His last hurrah in life will likely be even far more glorious, and he will likely not grieve the angels who cuddle and caress him. Not so, Chief Obasanjo. Probably the luckiest Nigerian alive, to whom legions of angels appear to be at his beck and call, including gifting him long life which, during Bishop David Oyedepo’s 70th birthday, he hinted would exceed 100 years, the former president has nevertheless shown only casual gratefulness for the angelic cares and absolutely no remorse for the evils and failings he had masterminded nearly every waking moment of his life. Sen. Ladoja has alleged how unworthy Chief Obasanjo is to receive honour and applause; let the old soldier rebut the allegation, if he is capable.

  • Protests, misconceptions and opportunities

    Protests, misconceptions and opportunities

    The federal government has not disclosed exactly how many protesters from the August 1-10 #EndBadGovernance action are still in detention, or what is being done about them other than a few haphazard arraignments. But some independent estimates, mostly by human rights organisations and other civil society organisations, suggest that over 1,000 might still be in detention in some nine or more states awaiting trial or freedom. The campaign for their release, some reports show, is being undertaken by a number of media establishments and CSOs, with some of these groups calling for the detainees’ unconditional release. There were no indications of any arrest during the largely symbolic and unenthusiastic Fearless in October protests organised in some states on October 1, Independence Day anniversary.

    Published reports about the August and October protests, both before and after, had been curiously inciting and patronising. The expectations of the offending media were, however, not met for many reasons. The organisation of the protests was shambolic, the reasons were tenuous, and the execution incompetent. The reasons included the restoration of fuel subsidy without any convincing economic argument, return to fixed currency exchange regime without any sensible argument woven around why currencies weaken or strengthen, and the release of Nnamdi Kanu against which nearly the whole of the old political North was dead set. Right from the beginning there was no consensus about the protests, despite the obvious pervasion of hunger and hardship in nearly all parts of the country.

    If the campaign for the unconditional release of detained protesters received attention nationwide and gained traction in the media, it was because the state and federal governments had been noticeably tardy in arraigning suspects, were slow in assembling evidence, and together with a ponderous and demotivated judiciary were inefficient in prosecuting the detainees. There is indeed a clear reluctance by state governments and the police to prosecute the protesters thereby allowing the media and many commentators to reframe the protest narratives away from the burglary, robbery and unmitigated violence that accompanied the protests in some states. Protests are a fundamental right, but the brazen criminalities that sometimes accompany them are not a right. Until the government firmly applies the law, violent protests that threaten and destabilise the polity will not cease. After all, there will always be reasons to protest, as long as the constitution guarantees that right.

    The October protest fizzled out partly because the government managed to uncover the destabilising plots that fuelled the August 1-10 protests. Disturbingly, no high-profile suspect is being prosecuted for inciting an insurrection despite the seizure of billions of naira and millions of dollars slush funds funneled to energise the action against the government and the country. In August, some states foolishly reasoned that the protests would be directed solely against the federal administration. The expectation proved shortsighted, for no sooner the protests began than all hell broke loose, without discrimination. Businesses were lost and properties looted and destroyed. On October 1, having learnt a few lessons, and despite the strangulating economy, Nigerians were predictably loth to embrace any street action with undetermined outcome.

    Had protesters sharpened their focus and limited it to, say, fuel subsidy removal, it would have stood some chances of succeeding. Comparing the August 1-10 protest to the 2012 fuel subsidy removal protests during the Goodluck Jonathan administration was, therefore, far-fetched. The 2024 protests were childish, amorphous, ineptly led, and unduly politicised. They were a clear example of good causes bastardised by hatred, bigotry and sundry ulterior motives. The economics of fuel subsidy removal are so compelling that it beggars belief that any group could seize upon the fatuous logic of inflation to galvanise a protest. In 2012, there were some intellectual underpinnings to the protest of that time and era. They proved shortsighted, but they made some sense. The leaders of the August and October protest made no pretence to logic or common sense. As this column has consistently argued, no administration will restore the subsidy. It is both senseless and counterproductive to do so. Where the present government errs is not in policy conception but in policy execution: some of the spade work that should assuage the misery of the people were either glossed over or casually applied.

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    The policy of floating the naira could also no longer be avoided, especially given the dire straits previous administrations had consigned the economy. A few factors influence the strength of any currency, but before the floating of the naira, previous administrations had ignored those factors because of the attendant pains. Lessons from the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, the Japanese Yen gyrations of 2008 to mid-2013, and the European Union break-up fears of 2010-2012 serve as potent examples of how and why currencies lose value and what could be done to restore sanity. Protesters mouthing piffle about artificially restoring naira value made nonsense of their arguments for street action. For them it became protest for protest sake. If protesters had a basic understanding of why currencies fluctuate, with particular reference to the naira, and had suggested ways to tackle the crisis, their protests would have gained considerable traction. Currency fluctuations, such as Nigeria is experiencing, has huge impacts on the economy, but it is nevertheless a reflection of the strength or weakness of the economy as a whole. Policy fiat would not provide the remedy, nor would the emotional nonsense about what the exchange rates used to be years ago compared to what it is today.

    After the massive breakdown of law and order during the August 1-10 protests in the North, Lagos stood the only chance of a fairly successful protest in October. But the interviews granted by some of the Lagos protesters showed they were a disgrace. They complained of hunger, but their indolence blinded them to why Southeast and northern youths made no such silly arguments. The Southwest youths adopted area boys tactics, grumbling and complaining about everything, while the Southeast youths worked their buttocks out in apprenticeship of all kinds, and northern youths stayed back on their farms or came down to the South to make significant inroad into the Okada and Keke businesses. The Nigerian economy is being reset, admittedly awkwardly; but only hard working and enterprising youths will take advantage. No one can abort the reset, and no one can delay it; not even with a thousand protests. The hardship is real, and the economy is in turmoil, but that is why youths must show ingenuity in navigating what is clearly a hard and treacherous economic and social terrain. Instead of complaining and whining about what the state has not done, it may be time for everyone to buckle up, particularly entitled Lagos ‘ebi’n pawa’ youths in order to envision a tantalising future. The war in Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East will make life much harder for everyone. While protests may help the government to fine-tune policies and significantly cut costs, which they are yet to do, it is either Nigerians adapt or they die.

  • Fubara and the Rivers tragedy

    Fubara and the Rivers tragedy

    The problem in Rivers State is not whether former governor Nyesom Wike or Governor Siminalayi Fubara is right or wrong, particularly as shown by the controversial local government poll. The problem is not even Mr Wike’s obtruding personality and his sometimes flawed arguments and abrasive remarks. The real problem is the infantilism of Mr Fubara. The former governor imposes himself needlessly on his subordinates and mentees, including, sadly, the governor. But the governor is tragically a dictator of the meanest variety without the competence of a dictator of modest capacity.

    The Electoral Act spells out how the LG poll should be conducted, a fact rightly reinforced by the Federal High Court in Abuja. But having been wrong-footed, Mr Fubara has reframed the narrative away from what the constitution provides to what his fight with the former governor entails, a polarisation that unnecessarily veers into utter and disreputable leadership failing. The governor abuses the Inspector General of Police, curses his opponents, threatens everyone and any institution except perhaps the president, at least publicly, and just because he is governor, blithely pronounces every property, including the parliament and judiciary buildings as well as legislative and judicial quarters, in Rivers as his own. This is not sophistry; it is ignorance par excellence.

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    It is unlikely the Rivers LG poll will stand, regardless of the constitutional alibi Mr Fubara pounces on consequent upon the Supreme Court decision on LG autonomy. The law is the law, and it must be followed to the letter, especially in the absence of ambiguities. Yet, Mr Fubara is the product of Mr Wike’s incompetent leadership recruitment process. The former governor birthed a Frankenstein out of his disparate thoughts; it is his duty, assuming he can control his hubris, to manage the catastrophe he helped unleash on the state.

  • Edo poll: the morning after

    Edo poll: the morning after

    No one in Edo State thinks Governor Godwin Obaseki is a democrat or a liberal. His loss of the September 21 governorship election, much more than the loss by Candidate Asue Ighodalo, is a fitting rebuke to his person and politics. No one will shed a tear for him, or for the fractious and divided Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which reluctantly rallied behind the governor and the party’s candidate. In the weeks ahead, Mr Obaseki will discover how severely isolated he is and how vulnerable he has become in ‘enemy’ territory, especially after he ill-advisedly drew the ire of the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II. Edolites were not in any confusion as to how deeply they resent Mr Obaseki’s politics; but they appeared somewhat uneasy about the seemingly genial Mr Ighodalo. However, convinced they could not isolate the candidate from his backer, they opted to err on the side of caution by throwing both of them out two Saturdays ago. It is good riddance.

    The PDP knew they went into the election a divided house, with the legacy PDP, upon which Mr Obaseki clumsily grafted his defection, alienated and resentful of his obtruding style. They also knew that the itinerant and defecting members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with whom he rode dashingly into the PDP had been left disgruntled. But despite the transparency of the defeat and the irrefutable manner the cards were stacked against Messrs Obaseki and Ighodalo, party leaders, including Adamawa State governor Umaru Fintiri, nevertheless went through the routine of nitpicking the election to fulfill all righteousness and to give the impression that their defeat at the hands of the disfavoured opposition was caused by factors completely extraneous to the poll itself. But defeat is defeat, especially when irregularity alleged by the ruling party in the state has been difficult to substantiate. Mr Obaseki’s attempt to transmute into a godfather of his own came a cropper thereby taking with him campaign funds he will find difficult to balance or reconcile in the books as well as dooming the chances of the hapless PDP candidate.

    After eight years of orchestrating a thoroughly unpopular and antidemocratic government in Edo, Mr Obaseki and his supporters should be ashamed of the stories the election tells beyond revealing the losers and winners, not to say the quantum of disgrace they will face in the weeks ahead. Eight years of Mr Obaseki’s damning and depressing rule, yet only about 11.67 percent of Edo’s 4. 8m population felt enthusiastic enough to vote. Even as a percentage of those who registered to vote, only about 25 percent of 2.249m mustered the will to vote. But it gets much worse. As a percentage of Edo population and percentage of registered voters, only 5.18 percent and about 11 percent respectively endorsed Mr Obaseki’s candidate and point of view, while about 6.11 percent of the total population and about 13 percent of registered voters voted APC. Should the statistics be interrogated further, of those who voted PDP, whether as a percentage of total population or registered voters, fewer than one-quarter would be willing to fight to reclaim what party leaders said without evidence was a stolen election.

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    While the APC victory is emphatic, at least vis-à-vis the PDP loss, it is still not flattering overall that less than 13 percent of registered voters and 6.11 percent of total population endorsed APC candidate, Monday Okpebholo. In the foreseeable future, the contest in the state, and in the entire country, will be generally limited to the two leading parties. The Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections was an upstart and a spoiler, probably more the latter than the former. But as this column has maintained, the LP, regardless of the outcome of the internecine conflict in the party, will be an insignificant factor in the next elections. Its former presidential candidate, ex-Anambra governor Peter Obi unleashed the demons of religious division from the pit of hell to savage the ballot last year. He failed, though he and his running mate, the cantankerous and hysterical Datti Baba-Ahmed, mendaciously argued they won. In every election since that 2023 debacle, the LP has foundered badly. Once again, in the Edo governorship poll, the LP and its convivial candidate, Olumide Akpata, experienced a shellacking, beaten black and blue with only 22,763 votes out of 561,704 votes secured by the first three parties. The LP’s taking of 1.01 percent of registered voters or 0.48 percent of Edo population was a humiliating and devastating loss. The party has no future in the state, and it is not too early, especially in light of its lack of ideology and unity, to prognosticate that it has little future elsewhere.

    By repudiating Mr Obaseki and his candidate, Edo sends a clear signal about the kind of politics they expect of their leaders. In 2020, when former governor Adams Oshiomhole plotted to deny the governor a second term, Edolites were swindled by Mr Obaseki’s pithy catchphrase ‘Edo is not Lagos’ to submit to the fear that the former governor was a true mimic of the classical godfather. But in the September 21 poll, the state saw through the gimmickry, judged that their governor lacked the democratic ethos and unifying politics to govern the state, and were also dismayed by his highhandedness and aloofness. If Mr Okpebholo disappoints them in the years ahead, they will also punish him. Their voting record may have been awkward in the past, being a mixed grill of electoral adroitness and blatant self-immolation, but today, Edolites seem prepared to slay their giants in equal measure with punishing their minions. For Mr Akpata, he obviously exaggerated the value of Mr Obi in the poll. After September 21, he and perhaps the former LP presidential candidate must have come to the painful reality that Edolites suffer from no such exaggeration, nor indeed suffer fools gladly.

  • Nigeria at 64 and missed opportunities

    Nigeria at 64 and missed opportunities

    Put dramatically, Nigeria entered old age four years ago. By this time next year, it will be well into that age classification, its strength drained by divisions, in-fighting, religious extremism, structural and political dystrophy, populism, and entitlement. But that is one year away. Will there be a change for the better, a reversal of the lethargy that has stagnated and disoriented it? No one can tell. Indeed, there are chances things might get worse, given the country’s predilection for majoring in minor things. In the 1950s and 1960s, Nigeria was as primed for development as the four Asian Tigers of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, all of which put premium on exports, industrialization, and integration into the world economy, emulating Japan and growing at over seven percent. Decades later, and despite the slump of 2008, they have sustained their prodigious leaps, more or less.

    On the other hand, after one military intervention or the other, a civil war that is yet to produce a closure, and deepening cleavages underscored by ethnic rivalry and poisonous infusions of religion into politics, Nigeria has continued to reel under its self-inflicted limitations. Tomorrow, it will be 64 years old. It ought to have outgrown its colonial past, but it has sunk deeper into neocolonialism. It proclaims secularism offhandedly, but it has acted more non-secular than many theocratic states, and funded religious travels, practices and observances with reckless abandon. If its cloud is to have a silver lining, it must show capacity to take the wind. So far, for more than six decades, Nigeria has mastered the art of disowning the opportunities nature and circumstances gift it. Nigeria does not lack skilled economists or seasoned administrators, but at every turn in the past, just when the silver lining appeared, it had seemed fated to self-destruct.

    In the past 64 years, Nigeria repeatedly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Gifted a federalist constitution anchored on regionalism and the Parliamentary system at independence in 1960, Nigeria’s idiosyncratic impatience, poor appreciation of the salient issues of the day, and indiscipline of the highest order led to a military takeover, arrest of democracy, enthronement of a unitary system of government, and a civil war. Were any lessons learnt? None whatsoever. What of those who played key roles in destroying the First Republic? They remained remorseless and justificatory of their roles, and until their dying days refused to accept responsibility. In fact, the bitterness and ethnic suspicion instigated in the system have become gangrenous. Alarmingly, in recent years, social media has accentuated the divisions and fuelled national distrust with inflammatory language. The problem appears set to worsen.

    Gifted another chance to make a fresh start in 1979, the country seemed unanimous in believing that the structure, rather than the political actors, was the problem. Parliamentarianism was, therefore, peremptorily jettisoned, and the American-inspired presidential system was adapted in a disjointed and bastardised form. There was little federal about the constitution, not to talk of its many unfounded suppositions and pretences; in fact it retained many essential elements of a unitary system of government. The departing military government simply projected its command structure worldview upon the Second Republic constitution and thus weakened it from the beginning. Nothing was done to create an enduring template for leadership recruitment, and though some attempts were made to export and industrialise and integrate the economy into the world economy, there were no safeguards to prevent the vitiation and ultimate abandonment of the progress of the 60s and 70s.

    Many more incompetent military leaders followed until circumstances offered the country yet another chance in 1993 with the election of business mogul Moshood Abiola as president. In one fell swoop, his election held the promise of obliterating religious and ethnic divides, two cankerworms gnawing at the national fabric and exposing the country to instability and retardation. But even before the last ballot was counted, the oligarchs of the day subverted popular will by annulling the poll and retaining power in the hands of unimaginative military leaders with no sense of history or politics, or even sense for sense. It was unremittingly bad. The same elements who acted against popular will in the 1990s have begun their politics of brinkmanship again. Eight years, presumably, of Chief Abiola would have ended in 2001, and power returned to the North, with democracy nurtured and strengthened. Instead, those years produced a mimic civilian leader, another bloodthirsty military ruler, and finally a foisted former soldier elected as president. That great chance of 1993, which produced an elected person on his own merit, was lost, to be replaced by an imposed president incapable of appreciating democratic norms and, worse, beholden to a cabal.

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    But sometimes, nature can also exceed expectations. It is not only capable of producing destructive hurricanes and storms, it is also adept at gifting second, third and fourth chances. If Nigeria was good at self-destruction and other excesses, nature was even better at offering redemption. In 2023, after welcoming a slew of lethargic and visionless presidents, Nigeria was again gifted with the election of the self-made Bola Tinubu as president who ran on same-faith presidential ticket. Rather than sense the redemptive value of a ticket capable of again dealing massive blows to religious interference in politics, nearly half of the country rose up in arms against the ticket. But just as nature conspired to produce an unlikely victory after the poll, some Nigerians disavowed the election, tried to instigate a coup d’etat, prophesied doom and death for the victorious candidate, and recklessly pushed the country to the brink. They proved incapable of recognising nature’s gifts, and in order to avert a Tinubu presidency, they shockingly announced they were indifferent to the collapse of the whole national edifice.

    Despite their worst efforts, President Tinubu was inaugurated. It was a godsend to encourage faith in the country that anyone, even if not beholden to a cabal, could win the highest office. Apart from inaugurating a man who believes in himself and has had the courage to take actions and make appointments without recourse to special interests except political mobilisers, the election also helped to tame the influence of religious considerations in electing the president. In addition, the election averted the damaging potential of regional and ethnic self-succession, and then also offered the opportunity to reset the country’s economy, in the first instance, and greatly attenuate the sense of entitlement that has weakened the country’s productive base. More, it seems set to realign the value of the Naira with production in a move that will revivify the country’s industrial base of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. Ten more years like the last one year, with of course the pain of adjustment considerably reduced, should make Nigeria re-imagine and recreate the Asian Tigers. But, notwithstanding all the opportunities offered by the unusual 2023 political outcomes, many analysts are still fixated on the old and dying economic templates that have made Nigeria uncompetitive – fuel subsidy, fixed and unrealistic exchange rate, suffocating monthly federal allocations, and overbearing political centralisation. If Nigeria does not change, it will collapse, especially having atrophied for some 64 long and distressing years.

  • Israel, Iran, Hezbollah and World War III

    Israel, Iran, Hezbollah and World War III

     In the past few weeks, and up till the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a Beirut strike, Israel has almost completely decapitated the leaderships of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. But in doing so, it has made the imminence of all-out regional war in the Middle East nearly inevitable. Shiites in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza will probably unite against Israel, deploying indiscriminate force. For the Iranian-led axis of resistance, success will, however, be qualified. Iran itself will be more calculating, undoubtedly chastened by how the ’empire’ it was attempting to carve out in the region is being taken apart. If it miscalculates, it could also become a direct victim, particularly its armament programme, including its nuclear bomb project. After the 2006 war with Hezbollah, Israel learnt its lessons from the one-month war and began to prepare for the next conflict in Lebanon they knew would be unavoidable. The effort bore fruits in the manner it penetrated the Hezbollah leadership and dismantled it in a matter of weeks.

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    Iran has sounded the bugle for its regional allies to join forces in eradicating Israel. Only its allies will heed the call, perhaps taking cognisance of the Sunni-Shiite divide. The other powers in the region deeply distrust and loathe Iran’s regional ambition. While they may sound concerned about Israeli aggression, they will only pay lip service to the mustering of a countervailing force. For them, Israel wants to defend its territory, while Iran wants to be the dominant regional power influencing and meddling in Middle Eastern affairs. They will choose carefully, just as they feigned neutrality during the Iran-Iraq war. They are wary enough to know that it’s all about politics, not strictly religion or territorial dispute.

    Could the all-out war in the region lead to World War III? It is unlikely, even if the United States is sucked in. What is happening is that Iran is being baited to be destroyed, particularly if it joins the fray directly. Should it take up the gauntlet, it may in fact take Yemen down with it, but the crisis will in the end be contained. The Israeli-Gaza-West Bank-Hezbollah affair will in the years ahead recrudesce if no solution is found after this round of fighting, while the Middle East, and particularly Lebanon, will change in profound ways reminiscent of the era when the United States blundered into Iraq in the long-running Shiite-Sunni battle for regional supremacy.   

  • Nigerians mystified by economic crisis

    Nigerians mystified by economic crisis

    It is a little tiring writing on the same subject week after week. But since the economic hardship buffeting Nigeria has not abated, everyone seems condemned to either discussing it or writing about it, and doing nothing else. It won’t matter how rancorous the debates are, or what dangers lurk in street corners; as long as the pains the economic measures inflict last, the lessons history teach on how not to navigate the rapids will continue to pale into insignificance. Last week, former military head of state Abdulsalami Abubakar warned that the hardship seems to be getting out of control. He is not the only one to warn of looming danger. Since the beginning of the crisis, torrents of warnings have issued from well-meaning leaders and politicians, regardless of their limited grounding in economic analysis. Some advisers indeed proceed almost entirely from emotions, swayed by the sufferings so many people, particularly the vulnerable, are going through. Gani Adams, Odua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) leader, insists hyperbolically, for instance, that everyone will be dead before President Bola Tinubu’s reforms are over. 

    Opinions are not evenly split on the president’s economic measures. Most people think the measures are being implemented without a human face, or in modern parlance, without sufficient palliatives. A significant number of economists, however, think that the administration is too fixated on its macroeconomic measures to substantially mind both the sufferings Nigerians are enduring and the political component of the reforms. A collation of the criticisms against the administration’s economic measures and reforms indicate that reservations have been voiced about the relevance of the policies, their volume, their timing and spacing, and lack of public engagement. The president seems convinced that the fiscal and monetary measures, including the fuel subsidy removal and currency float, not to say rising tariffs at a time of low and stagnating wages, are appropriate but need a little more time to register impact. His critics beg to differ, a difference accentuated by schools resumption and rising school fees without any succour, particularly at the lower levels of the educational system. They scoff at the integrity of the measures and deride the incoherent administration of palliatives, wondering if it would not have been better to target palliatives at school fees and massive availability of cheap basic food items.

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    It is left to the president to step a little away from his policies to assess the complaints of the people he governs, to see whether they still have any ingenuity left in them in coping with the crises engendered by the country’s economic crisis and the measures being applied to redress decades of economic damage and stultification. He’ll probably shudder to see how unprepared they are to cope with the hard times, and how ineffective their puny coping mechanisms are. He still has more than two years of grace to positively and heavily affect the lives and welfare of the people. And he has the next few months to reexamine his policies to see whether some tinkering could still not be done to lessen the sufferings of the people without derogating the salience and effectiveness of his macroeconomic measures. What is indisputable is that Nigeria’s economy has been heavily though not irreparably damaged. But what is also unavoidable is that drastic and painful measures need to be administered. Both the damage and the panaceas will, of course, cost the country a lot of pains and sufferings. The president’s task is to find the right balance, not to exult at the courage he has brought to the task before him, nor to go so far ahead of his people that he would lose them in the thicket, but to inspire them to own the policies, brave the punishments and consequences, and together with him arrive somewhat unnerved but fairly unscathed at the right destination.

    It was crucial to explain and convince Nigerians about the hole the previous administrations had dug for the country, the pit into which their fortunes were sunk. Decades of unitary government had wreaked havoc as states and local governments abandoned the responsibility of generating revenues in preference for free money from Abuja. That fiscally irresponsible distortion was bound to unravel sooner than later. That day finally came in the closing years of the last administration. Unpopular administrations since the 1960s also instituted a panoply of placatory economic policies and benefits that created and reinforced a national sense of entitlement evidenced by cheap fuel, cheap tertiary education, and a host of freebies that encouraged huge and unsustainable birth rates. The consequence is that every Nigerian looks up to the federal government for their daily fix in foods, handouts, and remedy for every small thing that goes wrong at the local government and state levels. It is scandalous, for instance, that anyone could still argue, as Mr Adams and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), that fuel subsidy should be restored, or that the federal government should feed everyone. It is urgent that Nigerians be weaned off their dependency status. The only problem is that that objective needs to be calibrated. Weaning a child off her mother’s milk, except for a precocious child, often comes with pains and tears. Nigeria, given the manner of its founding, was not precocious; and it has acted pampered and stunted since independence. Not to lose the child, however, the administration must display a sense of judgement and foresight uncommon to the times and these climes.

    Incontestably, should President Tinubu fail to push through his measures, or the measures prove either incompetent or inadequate to redress the decades of damage done to the economy, whoever succeeds him will not restore fuel subsidy in any form or return the naira to the old exchange regime. It will not happen, not under the chimerical former vice president Atiku Abubakar nor under the utopian Peter Obi, should either of them linger in the fond imaginations of wearied Nigerians. It was thus unhelpful that former head of state Abubakar spoke to the failing resolve of the people in the face of hunger and hardship instead of speaking to their patriotism, strength and resilience. Taking the sufferings of the people as a peg for their interventions, virtually all top Nigerian politicians and leaders think the administration is headed in the wrong direction. Yet, beyond urging a cosmetic change of style, they have not said what they would do substantially differently. They agree broadly with the current administration’s policies but disagree with the manner of implementation.

    Previous interventions by this column exposed what seems to be the Achilles heel of the Tinubu administration. Firstly, it was, for obvious reasons, unwilling to paint a vivid and convincing picture of just how deeply broken the country’s treasury was, and how two or even three years would not be enough to remedy the financial disaster the country had been plunged. Secondly, it did not also get the right rhythm for its palliatives policy. The rhythm was panicky, haphazard, and in many instances even inappropriate and riddled with loopholes. Thirdly, there was no substantial executory coherence, with some ministers and agencies going off on a tangent, brandishing executive approval. Fourthly, debates consultations, and appointments might not have been far-reaching or thorough and representative enough, especially given the politically and culturally variegated nature of Nigeria. And fifthly, the administration has sometimes wilted in the face of daring challenges to the rule of law, thereby sending wrong signals as to the resolve of the government. Imagine, then, if the untested and pliant Godwin Emefiele, former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, had assumed the presidency.

    Notwithstanding these handicaps, the Tinubu administration got it right that reforming and retooling Nigeria could no longer be postponed. It had to be done to stave off total collapse, and drastically enough in order not to prolong the pain and the punishment. No matter how gingerly it acted, given the country’s precarious fiscal health, the administration was bound to be unpopular whatever it did. Every patient, given the choice, would opt for anything but surgery. But herein lies the dilemma for the Tinubu administration: it is conducting a surgery without anaesthesia. Upon recovery, the patient may even hate the surgeon. President Tinubu has dared to be different, striking a bold and new course from the fatigued ordinariness of the past. He should now take inputs from the right quarters in order to help refine and even tone his measures, seeing especially how some of his past acquaintances dismiss him as cocky and impervious to contrary views. Should he fail to turn the country around fairly quickly, virulent critics and violent protesters could create conditions that might expose the country to a referendum or, worse, fragmentation. The pains felt in the streets are real, and the sacrifices by the wearied and vulnerable heavy, but there is no unity and common purpose forged to enable the country easily endure the grueling journey ahead.

    President Tinubu has rightly and sensibly paid considerable attention to tackling the calcified economic mess he met. He now needs to spare some time to shuttle a little around the country to meet key stakeholders and powerful opinion moulders strategic to helping him rally everyone around him. He has received a few of such people at the Villa. That is good. But he should also flatter his friends and critics by visiting them. It is politics. His predecessor nearly became a recluse; he should resist the temptation to become a mystic. The job of a president is admittedly draining; but, as he has said, he asked for it. Now, let him do it with gusto and panache. If his policies are too difficult for the people to comprehend, let alone own, perhaps because they are bitter, he must find ways of coating them with some honey, and tinkering them with novel ideas. For too long, Nigeria had projected weakness and irresoluteness in the face of daunting socio-economic and political challenges, with too many Nigerians feeling entitled, birth rate going out of hand, and religious and ethnic groups sowing hatred and distrust in an increasingly irrational and volatile world. Nigeria’s survival is clearly not guaranteed. The current economic crisis must, therefore, be an opportunity to do a reset. If it is missed, there will be no other easy or controlled way to repair the damage which messianic military rulers and incompetent and visionless elected presidents had caused over the decades. It is time the president came out of his lair to mobilise the people, starting of course with a comprehensive rejig of the people around him. 

  • Edo poll and Obaseki’s hysterical politics

    Edo poll and Obaseki’s hysterical politics

     Governor Godwin Obaseki of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) probably judged that the only way to retain the governorship of Edo State for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was to adopt hysteria as a political tool. The All Progressives Congress (APC) planned to rig the poll, he hollered. The police might rig the election in favour of the opposition, he exclaimed, unfazed his supporters could view every police officer with suspicion. Then he likened the election to a do-or-die affair, completely oblivious he was inciting the electorate to violence. His protégé and PDP candidate in the election, Asue Ighodalo, weighed in by suggesting that he and his party would denounce the poll should he lose, but later modified his threat to say that he would accept the poll result if the election was fair.

    In Edo’s three-horse governorship race, the other two candidates, Monday Okpebholo of the APC, and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP), were less frenzied. They noted the reluctance of Mr Obaseki to campaign against the godfather phenomenon in Edo politics, for he had himself ironically become a godfather. Then they deplored the governor’s resort to general blackmail in which the PDP campaigners hinted that President Bola Tinubu would bear ultimate responsibility should anything go wrong with the poll, with the wrong of course defined as anything that disadvantaged the PDP or caused the state’s ruling party to lose. In his campaign, Senator Okpebholo had been unsurprisingly tame, mostly limiting himself to the issues he would urgently address should he win, and refusing to rebut PDP’s sarcasms on his elocutionary difficulties. Mr Akpata, on the other hand, had generally minded his business and continued to promote his ineffective feel-good brand of politics, complete with ecstatic dancing and joie de vivre.

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    It is uncertain whether both Sen. Okpebholo and Mr Akpata had convinced the Edo electorate about the dangers inherent in Messrs Obaseki and Ighodalo’s politics and campaign styles. If the voters repudiate the PDP, it would be because they saw through the political smokescreen spread by the PDP to mask the dictatorial tendency of Mr Obaseki and the inflexibility, not to say the messianism, of the 65-year-old Mr Ighodalo. It was not until Mr Obaseki took the reins of office for the first time in 2016 that it became clear to former governor Adams Oshiomhole he had helped install an autocrat. Eight years later, the autocrat has spawned a nest of other autocrats, chief among whom is Candidate Ighodalo. Secondly, should the PDP candidate lose, it would probably be because voters had sensed his authoritarian streak and were tired of being led by the nose by men who could do no wrong. Edo had not always voted right, having developed the tendency to embrace charlatans disguised as liberators as well as host a crossbreed of cultures that diffuse and enervate their worldview.

    But Edo is not alone in this hysteria, despite being the archetype, and regardless of the outcome of yesterday’s governorship election in the South-South state. Last year, Kano State exemplified this new kind of politics, with the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) leaders threatening fire and brimstone upon the state and the country should the courts declare APC candidate Nasiru Gawuna as victor. Between the threats and the integrity of the courts’ jurisprudence, Abba Kabir Yusuf’s election was eventually upheld. It has thus become clever to threaten the Republic in order to secure concessions, deserved or undeserved. Worse, in many states, the APC is increasingly painted as the party holding and monopolising the rigging franchise. In addition, a new kind of excess has also started to take root and even bear fruit. If it is not second-rate leadership, as Osun State dramatically shows through its inattentive governor Ademola Adeleke, it is utter contempt for the rule of law as Governor Siminalayi Fubara showed in less than a year. Former governor Rotimi Amaechi also did it in Rivers with the courts, and for eight years, Mr Obaseki replicated the malaise, starting with some Edo legislators whom he disliked.

    If the federal government does not begin to move firmly to counter the weaponisation of threats and violence as a means of securing political advantage, if the administration does not condemn and explode the threats as tools of blackmail, and if the president does not begin to speak to the disgraceful style of governors maintaining control by desecrating the rule of law, the country will be susceptible to instability, if not anarchy. Nigerian democracy should have grown beyond today’s level; instead governance has declined in many states and sprouted diverse threats to the Republic, as the completely deluded Datti Baba-Ahmed illustrated on the campaign rostrum in Edo last week. This column has maintained that except the Tinubu administration does something major and radical in the next one year or so about streamlining, institutionalising, and codifying Nigeria’s leadership recruitment process, worse leaders could emerge from the local government, state, and federal levels. The administration has a few models in the world to choose from. It should choose well, for the current leadership recruitment process, as most states indicate, is middling.

  • NLC, Ajaero, media and Tinubu presidency

    NLC, Ajaero, media and Tinubu presidency

    If President Bola Tinubu had adjusted fuel price marginally, declined to float the naira or minimally depreciated it, pandered to powerful interests within and outside the ruling All Progressives Congress, and grovelled before one or two former presidents, he would have remained a darling of the media and leading opinion moulders, while the country went slam-bang downhill. But he would have been untrue to himself, and would probably have ended up a very dissatisfied man and president. Instead, as he is wont, he chose the more difficult option. The consequence is that he is having a running battle with the trade unions, is having a hard time reining in inflation and lowering the cost of living, and has attracted much derision from impatient and frustrated Nigerians uninterested in growth figures and balance of trade statistics that have not translated into anything meaningful for them.

    With perhaps the exception of one or two media outfits, the president is roundly condemned in the media, whether traditional, social, or online. In fact sections of the media show their detestation by remaining silent on the president’s achievements and successful policies, while focusing almost exclusively on the hardships his policies with higher gestation periods have engendered. The president and his administration are blamed for the inability of local governments and states to conceive, execute and operate subsidised public transport systems, as well as ensure adequate food production. Decades of misbegotten unitary governance begun under the military and perpetuated by elected governments have encouraged a shift of blames away from the lower rungs of government, the so-called federating units, to the centre. Uncritical thinking has also meant that the great and beneficial byproducts of the radical, if not revolutionary, policies have been totally ignored or downplayed.

    In just one exemplifying day last week, the traditional media, particularly the newspapers, completely and unapologetically skewed their headlines against the Tinubu administration. They are of course not under obligation to support or praise the administration, for they may also have been hard hit by the government’s policies, but they owe their readers objectivity. On the arrest of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) president Joe Ajaero by the Department of State Service (DSS) last Monday, the newspapers screamed various revelatory headlines after he was released. One paper psychoanalysed the Service by emblazoning its front page with “DSS succumbs to pressure”. What if other considerations, including legal, prompted the release? Another screamed “Crackdown on NLC, SERAP sparks tension” in their report of the arrest of the NLC president at the airport on his way to the United Kingdom. Though the NLC reached a wage negotiation deal with the government in July and opted out of the August 1-10 protests, it has pleased the union to equate the ordeal of their president with the fate and fortunes of the NLC. Many newspapers unfortunately and hastily draw the same parallel.

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    Yet another newspaper, in a headline rider, regurgitated the untested and unverified submission of Amnesty International which concluded that the Tinubu administration was “Setting new record of impunity”. The main headline itself was that “Ajaero arrested, released, CSOs condemn action”. When the newspaper reported that CSOs condemn what befell Mr Ajaero, the devil was of course in the detail. How many CSOs? Perhaps a handful, maybe two or three. Well, it is a headline, isn’t it? But it cleverly fits the overall agenda of the newspaper and its detestation of the administration’s policies. Such biases, other media establishments in the world have shown, appear permissible. Here, however, it may be necessary to consider just how tenuous Nigerian unity is, and how increasingly unstable the polity has become in the face of unremitting ethnic and religious rivalry and provocations. The government may bear the higher responsibility for stabilising and unifying the country, but media organisations also have a huge role to play, particularly in calibrating the tenor of their reports and headlines.

    Still on the same subject of Mr Ajaero’s arrest and release, one other newspaper growled “Ajaero released as outrage trails arrest”. There is nothing anyone can do to coax the NLC executive committee to separate the foibles of Mr Ajaero from the fate and future of the union. The union members and executive committee believe that the administration is persecuting Mr Ajaero. But regardless of the pains caused by the Tinubu administration’s policies, should the goal of objectivity not lead the media to a higher degree of discrimination in news reports and headline casting? Outrage is a strong word involving disgust and revulsion. Did the media find out exactly why Mr Ajaero was arrested? Did they, by their reports, other than the conclusions of the union, investigate whether the DSS and police were not acting within the remit of their founding laws in inviting Mr Ajaero for questioning? Or are the media convinced that the fleeing Andrew Wynne, the Briton connected to terrorism financing and who had rented a space in Labour House, told the true story about his work in Nigeria and relationship with the NLC president?

    A day before Mr Ajaero’s arrest and release, and writing on petrol price hike, another newspaper cast the headline “Nigerians at breaking point, NLC, Atiku warn”. Of course the headline, though attributed to politicians and unions, was inciting. It is one thing for politicians to give vent to their frustrations, indulging their excesses without a care in the world, but it is another thing for a newspaper to cast a searing and provocative headline that inferred its association and even agreement with the union’s and politicians’ sentiments. The question is, who measures the alluded breaking point? By just feeling the vibes or looking at the scowl on people’s faces in commuter buses and at bus stops? Do newspapers not owe the public and their readers the duty of deconstructing the government’s policies, and to present the pros and cons in such a manner that the reader would draw their own inferences without being prodded or incited?

    Whether it acknowledges it or not, the Tinubu administration has remained unpopular nearly everywhere. But its policies have, to many knowledgeable Nigerians, been largely appropriate in tackling decades of economic distortions stifling growth as well as correcting the fiscal, and to some extent monetary, excesses of the past two administrations. Not only is the fuel supply situation normalising, as marketers encouraged by a realistic pricing regime have begun to import fuel, local production is also gearing up, thus freeing funds for rapid development. The job of local, state and federal governments is to ensure subsidised and modernised public transport systems. If they do, they will lessen the impact of fuel price hikes on the populace. Indeed, already, petrol pricing has begun to impose lifestyle adjustments that curb wasteful use of funds and eliminate needless travels, while encouraging efficient deployment of private and public resources. Even the ballyhooed electricity tariff hikes are leading to more efficient use of energy in homes, companies and public institutions. The administration’s tough measures may have their downsides, but they also have their benefits, radically affecting the way Nigerians have lived wastefully for decades. The media has, however, turned a blind eye to some of these beneficial and revolutionary changes.

    The Tinubu administration may not have got many of its priorities right, especially in terms of cost-cutting and the shock absorbers needed to be emplaced before reengineering the country’s public finance. The administration may also have engaged in wasteful and haphazard distributions of palliatives in a desperate plan to assuage public disaffection. But its economic measures, ridiculed as Bretton Woods imposition, have been largely interventionist and effective. Nigeria’s public finance is being restructured for the future; it would be a shame if newspapers, which should know better, are co-opted into scuttling the brave effort. The financial reengineering of the country has imposed hardship and suffering, particularly on the poor and vulnerable, but it may be time for the Tinubu administration to begin rearranging the country federally in order to reduce the obsession with Abuja. States and local governments should feed their people, and the jobless and the underpaid who are crying about hunger must also find succour in their states and local governments instead of taking refuge in the disgraceful opportunism of protest merchants fixated on Abuja and unmindful of the consequences of their actions.

  • Protests and the threats from within

    Protests and the threats from within

    The seeds for today’s grave economic crisis were sown years ago, as analysed in this place last week. Having matured robustly and come to a head in the closing years of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the crisis is unlikely to be resolved quickly or without pains. But while the crisis remains, and even grows in intensity, public reactions through protests will become a desperate, cathartic tool to either lessen or deaden the pains. Unwilling to confront what was certain to be a virulent public reaction to the painful administration of long-term remedies, the past administration borrowed heavily to smother the crisis and kick the nuisance down the road for the next administration to handle. There is, however, no consensus that the Bola Tinubu administration adequately explained before the elections the grave economic threat the republic faced, nor has it satisfactorily broken the crisis down in ways Nigerians could grasp or endure. There is also no consensus that the sacrifices needed to weather the crisis have been equitably shared, nor have the panaceas themselves been unimpeachable.

    Despite the misgivings and apprehensions, nothing adequately explains or justifies the volume and virulence of protests that have inundated the country since the last elections. The protests have taken on a life of their own, and they seem increasingly less directed at extirpating the crisis than scuttling democracy. This is where abundant care is needed. Protests and their freedom corollaries are guaranteed by the constitution in many sections, particularly Sections 39 and 40; but they are also caveated by other sections and laws, particularly Section 45 of the constitution and the Public Order Act, 1979. Notwithstanding these freedoms and caveats, protests have become the casual weapon of civil society organisations and labour unions whose countercultural understanding of civil engagements is a marked departure from the past when strikes were specific and targeted. What should cause deep apprehension is that protests have today become an omnibus weapon in the hands of every internet guru adept at manipulating the social media. Literally speaking, as the Nigerian condition is demonstrating with the dangerous proliferation of irresponsible and often foreign-funded activists, anyone can conjure a cause out of the blue or, worse, furnish a war.

    Putting a lid on protests-induced centrifugal forces will almost certainly be complicated by a number of factors ranging from class, low literacy, religion, regional and ethnic biases, and gross misreading and misunderstanding of constitutional protections. Protests have, therefore, become badly distorted by these factors into extreme opposition tactics. It is no longer enough to have a great cause, say for instance a campaign for higher wages, the trend is to irrationally weaponise the cause and turn it into a tool for a far worse, but cleverly disguised, agenda. Most historical protests have either led to wars or worsened the plight of protesters, but ignorant of the past, unwilling to learn from experience, and sometimes determined to even cut their nose to spite their face, protesters bungle what should ordinarily be a great tool to advance the cause of democracy or better the living conditions of the people. Sudan, Somalia, Ukraine, Russia, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, France, among other countries, have too many unsavoury and bloody stories to tell. What was designed to be a tailored and forceful overthrow of elected government in Nigeria in January 1966 quickly snowballed, under heavy ethnic intrusions, into a civil war just months later. Given the intransigence of protesters, agitators, and critics, not to say their inflexible and opinionated discourses, it does not appear Nigerians have realised that there is no easy or controlled or healthy way to undermine or even overthrow an elected government outside of elections.

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    It is now more urgent than ever that defending democracy is far safer than the naïve optimism that a forceful change would lead to desirable outcomes. Had democracy being defended in 1966, imagine how entrenched it would have been today, not to talk of avoiding the embarrassment of now having to campaign for a return to the parliamentary system of government. And what if democracy, despite all its imperfections and electoral maladies, had been defended in 1983? The facts speak for themselves. Sadly, protest organisers today adopt the extremist goal of advocating forceful change, bloodbath, and disintegration, among other ignoble objectives, instead of policy correction or amelioration. The social media makes sloganeering of protests sexy and macho, with many ethnic supremacists with a grudge masquerading under social and economic activism. Political rhetoric has become flagrant and incendiary, and a dismal, spectral pall now hangs over the country, encouraged by irresponsible labour unionism and hard-line activists. Only last week, after having exhausted itself over threats to call a strike on behalf of their beleaguered president, Joe Ajaero, organised labour was again threatening to shut down the country over illegal and malfeasant miners. Clearly, separatist forces are at work, far beyond protesting the Tinubu administration’s harsh measures designed to correct the country’s economic disequilibrium.

    So far, the government has not found a practical and fitting answer to the maddening campaigns and incitement on social media. However, Nigeria is not alone contending with the social media malady. But while the chaos on social media predisposes many countries to danger, in Nigeria, with its unresolved national question, that danger is more imminent and its consequences dire. It is either the country steps back from the brink or takes a fatal plunge from which recovery might be impossible. The political opposition have incomprehensibly disallowed a closure to the 2023 presidential poll, and are setting themselves and the country up for a crisis that may consume everybody. It is not only the government that must rule responsibly, the opposition must also oppose responsibly by eschewing inflammatory language of framing discourses as winner takes all. Protests must also be responsibly directed at pertinent and specific issues, in order not to become a political manifesto underpinned by beguiling slogans. The August protests, egged on by sensational traditional and online media, were nothing but a potpourri of political agenda otherwise capable of propelling a well-organised political party into office. Too many disgruntled people are clearly looking for quick fixes instead of the careful, patient and methodical orchestration needed to win office and effect course changes.

    If the government is to pacify the country, it must understand and clearly enunciate the problems. There is the issue of the economic crisis caused by years of governmental incompetence, infrastructural decay, stagnation, and profligacy. There is also the controversial mix of policies designed by the current administration to arrest social and economic chaos such as fuel subsidy removal, currency exchange float, and hunger crisis exacerbated by insecurity and low wages. And there is the deep political divisions approaching chasmic proportions. Convulsing these problems is social media either gone berserk or unresponsive to any form of regulation or control. The administration must get the best brains together to help fashion a response a little removed from the fits and starts it has seemed accustomed to injecting in the past few months. The end result must be that the constitutional rights of citizens will be preserved, while the multifarious threats to the country will be extinguished, irrespective of whose ox is gored. The solutions will not be a cakewalk, especially in the face of mounting and provocative defiance by powerful interests now used to acting freely and irresponsibly.