The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • Nigeria’s northern protesters and Russian flag

    Nigeria’s northern protesters and Russian flag

    The August 1-10 hunger protests, much more than the October 2020 EndSARS protests, serve as the clearest indication of how easily a country united only in law rather than in fact is susceptible to failure. In the core North, where the protests were the most sever, Russian flag became the totemistic indication of the rebellion afoot in a region ravaged for years by hunger, squalor, banditry and Boko Haram insurgency. The offending flag did not pop out suddenly and accidentally. Its introduction was the deliberate action of a few masterminds, domestic and external, intent upon signaling their hidden objectives, hoping the unrest could cascade into a revolution as the national organisers of the protests planned. The protests might not have been planned to deliberately culminate in the waving of the Russian flag, however, given the manner it was sewn by tailors, it seemed to have taken advantage of the protests. The government saw through the plot and warned of the protests’ hijack, but many Nigerians fussy about the law and protesters’ constitutional rights refused to give the government the benefit of the doubt.

    Waving the Russian flag, or any foreign flag for that matter, was until the recent protests unprecedented in Nigeria. Whether the legal and constitutional purists of the South who vociferously championed the protests realised the significance of the Russian flag in the hunger protests is hard to tell. A few activists immediately denounced the novelty and distanced themselves from the flag and the protests, but some others were too embarrassed to condemn the novelty outright, preferring instead to focus on the government’s response to the criminality unleashed on the streets two or three days after the protests began. In any case, the introduction of the Russian flag accounted in large part for the fizzling out of the protests, particularly in the South, except Rivers State which belatedly tried to take advantage of the crisis to settle political scores. More people will be wary next time in embracing protests with amorphous objectives and indiscernible leadership. But it is now too late not to recognise that, truly, the republic is endangered. The republic was never really a republic, and Nigeria was never really a nation, a disturbing fact now accentuated by the Russian flag. But far more worrisomely, it is clear that the events of the past one year or more in Niger Republic, especially the coup by military officers and their cohabitation with Russia, not to talk of the substitution of France and the United States, hold tremendous attraction south of the border.

    It remains uncertain, however, whether that attraction is spread evenly among the populace in the core North or limited only to a few members of the political elite eternally infatuated with power and besotted to ethnic exceptionalism. If the protests had lasted for a few more days, there is no telling whether the flag-waving would not have snowballed into a full-scale rebellion. The government is still trying to unravel the protesters’ fascination with the Russian flag. Was it because of the vaunted blood kinship between Niger Republic and the northern Nigerian states of Katsina, Kano, Jigawa and others? Or was it because of the new suitor the military rulers of Niger Republic, Burkina Faso and Mali have found in Russia? Or was it even more primordial than that, a throwback to the religious idealism that had seen the North convulsed by decades of fundamentalist eruptions such as Maitatsine and now Boko Haram and banditry? Russia’s attraction to some countries may be because it does not impose its worldview on any satellite state, but it is also a country in great flux, bedeviled by wars, amoral politics, and human rights violations. Worse, unable to pacify its intransigent neighbours, and still bleeding badly from battle reverses, Russia may not be as effective in defending its African satellite states as France and the US had been for decades.

    Read Also: Fed Govt terminates Kano-Maiduguri road contract by Dantata & Sawoe

    After dissociating themselves from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have formed a confederation called the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Their young and dashing military rulers, not to say their ambitious economic and social programmes which they say are designed to help form a politically united AES, may fascinate the youths of Nigeria’s far North. But that fascination has probably glossed over the many contradictions rearing their ugly heads in the three countries. The new military rulers have painted a rosy picture of economic progress and inspired citizenry, but the reality has been numbingly different. Neither the fight against jihadist insurgencies in the three states nor economic revival, nor yet social and political stability, has proceeded as the military rulers planned or glamourised. However, the common denominator of the coups is the backing Russia gives to the three countries to cement their independence from France and give them the freedom and latitude to be masters of their own fate. But freedom has its limitations, and power has its responsibility. Until Russia is able to vanquish Ukraine, the AES is unlikely to receive the volume of help needed to defeat the jihadist insurgencies convulsing the three Sahelian countries.

    But while Nigeria’s northern protesters fantasised about Russia’s national flag and what it symbolised for their ‘freedom’, Nigeria appears concerned that some of the Nigerian protesters as well as elements from Niger Republic may be synergising the flag-waving stratagem to cement their consanguineous relationship. It is not clear whether discrete probes will unearth the whole truth behind the flag-waving antic, but it was no accident. If it was not a bluff by northern politicians engaged in political brinkmanship, then it may indicate something far more sinister – a tentative move towards secession from Nigeria and union with the Sahel States of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

  • Protesters go for broke

    Protesters go for broke

    The severest form of the protests begun on August 1 occurred in the core North. A day before the protests began, Vice President Kashim Shettima told media executives from the North that President Bola Tinubu was neither anti-North nor anti-Islam as some people in that region have been led to believe. His refutations meant little to a region that has remained adamant about protesting the hunger and hardship in the country, despite being Nigeria’s granary. Of course, to southern protesters, Mr Shettima’s argument about the president’s bona fides was not in consideration. Nostalgia over the October 2020 EndSARS protests and the euphoria they felt flexing youthful muscles that discomfited and perplexed the older generation, much more than hunger, helped them make up their minds to pour into the streets on August 1 and to try and sustain it for much longer than anyone was willing to give them credit.

    Mr Shettima’s refutations suggest that the government heard tangible but disturbing whispers about the real undercurrents of the protests. He knew, and even the South also squirmed, that the president had by series of strategic and copious appointments bent over backwards to placate the North. When the protests broke out, it became clear that the president’s overtures had had little effect. He may have finally realised that there is not much he can do to counter the narrative of the biases insinuated into his policies and, strangely, even his appointments. He and his team, including the vice president, probably understand, but will not voice it, that the hatred the president is accused of showing the North and Islam is really all about the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) probes, his radical and peremptory policy on subsidy, and the unprecedented Forex  measure. These are impactful policies that attempt to dislodge powerful cabals. The powerful interests will not give up without a fight.

    It is suggested that the Tinubu administration had carried on as if the economy was crisis-free and there was no hunger or hardship in the country. Here, the protesters’ arguments and observations are incontrovertible. The president was supposed to lead the cost-cutting measures, starting with himself and his office, and then spread the sacrifice to other arms of government and agencies and departments. Instead, his cabinet became swollen, and other provocative and lavish expenditures by appointees, lawmakers and agencies mocked the sufferings of a wearied people. Regardless of whatever other reasons informed the protests, the failure to demonstrate prudence became the main highlight of the street actions. The president will have no choice now but to address these concerns and lead the effort to urgently rationalise costs and run an efficient administration. He will also tread more carefully regarding the kind of projects he embarks upon.

    In the months ahead, however, he will be in a perfect quandary. He will heed public anxiety to conjure an efficient government, but whether it will be enough to allow him run a crisis-free administration, one not beset with distractions and public and opposition animosities, remains to be seen. From all indications, given his loathing for the flip-flop that pervades Nigerian politics, he is unlikely to abandon his monetary reforms or reintroduce fuel subsidy beyond its present, discrete level. He cannot also help himself with regard to his 2023 election victory for which his co-contestants have sworn not to give him peace of mind. Potentially, therefore, President Tinubu’s nightmares have just begun. He will survive this challenge, as this column predicted last week, and indeed he will serve out his term; but whether his enemies will let him rest or give him the latitude he needs to pursue the comprehensive reset of the economy is not altogether clear. He is famous for being stubborn; but so are his enemies. They will bruise his heels; but he will also break their backs. It is not that he cannot attempt to find common grounds with his hidden opponents; it is simply that his enemies have dug their heels in very firmly.

    The administration did its best to stave off the protests. When officials suggested the street actions might be hijacked, and advocated for either dialogue or total cancellation of the protests, sceptical Nigerians accused the administration of incipient dictatorship or fabrications. The spontaneous hijack of the protests in the North confirmed the government’s worst fears, seeing how the region easily became combustible, including, surprisingly, in states ravaged by banditry and insurgency. The South fared far better in smothering the predilection for violence. Apart from this superficial difference, the protests exposed very vividly the alarming fissures in the polity. In the North, considering the avalanche of children numbered among the protesters, a time of reckoning appears imminent. Decades of leadership failure in the region, years of governmental profligacy, and a long period of sustained sense of entitlement borne out by huge federal allocations have paradoxically produced millions of young, uneducated and angry northerners. They may be manipulated today, and deployed to secure more concessions from the federation, but not too long from now, they will become uncontrollable. The signs blaze forth in the ongoing protests over a region that is sitting blissfully on a powder keg. The inescapable explosion will, however, not be confined to the North, as indeed banditry and insurgency have shown by leaving their destructive trails in every home in the country.

    Something can be done to mitigate the looming catastrophe; but will that something be done? There is nothing in the protests to suggest that anything will be done. The only ray of hope lies in a few brilliant and ambitious and visionary governors that are beginning to take office in the region. They see the dangers ahead, do not exhibit or promote any sense of entitlement, and are desperate to reshape their societies. The country must hope that their efforts are not too little too late. Last week and the week before, this column warned that the protests, if allowed to hold, might unleash an irreversible process that could doom the country. The predictions are alarmingly being borne out. If anyone in leadership is unable to see the storm brewing ahead, he is not worth his office, including those encouraging the protests and gloating over the discomforts of the administration. When the explosion occurs – for the forces are pressurized in a small but overpopulated container – no one will be spared.

    There is also a second and even more apocalyptic fear that exceeds the misdirected rage of abandoned children. The narration of youth versus elders, and the extrapolation that the latter do not care about the former, is a despicable expansion of societal hierarchies and classifications. This obnoxious differentiation is gradually calcifying in Nigeria, not in terms of targeting goods and services for the various classes, but in fanning political and societal discord that drive resentment and hostility. Much more than EndSARS, some elderly Nigerians and government officials have begun to sense the danger this definitional excess constitutes to the body politic. Futures and destinies of youths and elders are inextricably intertwined. It is fallacious to argue that youths are excluded from governance. While federal and state governments have an obligation to deliberately and systematically recruit and train young people into leadership cadre, just as is being done in the private sector, the youths themselves must show the inclination, character, hard work, discipline and brilliance necessary to receive attention. Nigerians should stop promoting nonsense. More than 99 percent of those interviewed at the protest grounds have no coherent understanding, beyond clichés, of the economic and societal issues assailing the country. Even the Lagos crowd, which is supposed to be fairly more cosmopolitan, showed a horrifying staleness in rationalising their revolt.

    Apart from the generational and parental crises the protests exhumed, not to say the failure of government to be proactive about the issues in dispute, there is also the worrisome legal dimension to the protests. The protesters abhor the government’s alleged manipulation of the justice and electoral systems, but they also show disdain for the rule of law. Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides for the rights of Nigerians to freely assemble, including for the protection of their interests. Verbatim, the section reads: “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests; Provided that the provisions of this section shall not derogate from the powers conferred by this constitution on the Independent National Electoral Commission with respect to political parties to which that commission does not accord recognition.”

    Read Also: Abiodun never called Nigerian protesters sore losers—Ogun govt

    The scope of this section is derogated by both the Independent National Electoral Commission with respect to political parties, and by Section 45 of the Constitution with respect to the nature of these assemblies. It is trite law that a peaceful assembly may be dispersed by any means when it morphs into the unwelcome ogre of a riot. The government warned that there were reasonable suspicions and intelligence that agent provocateurs were being commissioned and deployed by enemies of the polity to vitiate the protests and ensure it morphed into that most undesirable of things — a riot. The provision in Section 40 is echoed in Chapter 9, Article 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Right which Nigeria is a signatory to. It enshrines the Right to Freedom of Assembly. But, in their haste to enjoy the benefits of Section 40 above, Nigerians often forget the Public Order Act of 1979, Section 1 of which empowers a state governor to prescribe the route by which and the times at which any procession may pass. Anyone desiring to organise a protest should familiarise themselves with all the provisions of this Act.

    It was not until a day or two before the protests began that the government secured pre-emptive court orders to restrict the protesters to certain designated spots for their rallies. While the interim injunctions were largely obeyed in the South, they were discountenanced in the North, especially Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), on the grounds of inaccessibility to protest venues. But at the root of bad governance is disobedience to court orders, the contempt for the rule of law. If those who seek an end to bad governance fail to appreciate the centrality of the rule of law, the basis of their campaigns become questionable. The disregard for the rule of law flows seamlessly into the disregard for logic in the presentation of the protesters’ 12-point demand to the government. The demands are as follows: “Revert petrol pump price to N100/litre; Combat insecurity and hunger; Close all IDP camps and resettle the campers; Total electoral reform; Independent probe into the electoral budget of N355 billion; Immediate release of ENDSARS protesters still in detention; Implementation of a living wage (the minimum wage of N300,000); Compulsory free education from primary to secondary school; Children of public office holders must attend public schools in the country; The government must patronise made-in-Nigeria goods; Transition to unicameral legislation; Judicial and constitutional review.” Previously 20, the list has been pruned down to weed out demands like freedom for IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, and other items that involved completely jettisoning the 1999 constitution.

    The protest was obviously hurriedly put together, and the demands largely farcical, sentimental and indefensible. The demands do not do honour to the education, rationality, and competence of Nigerian youths. The appalling incompetence of the drafters of the demands may explain why they are reluctant to present themselves for negotiation with the government. They will simply make a fool of themselves. But despite public misgivings, the about two weeks notice they gave the government was enough to kick-start meaningful reforms of governance process and the introduction of massive cuts in cost of governance. Instead, the government concentrated on averting the protests. The administration is nevertheless expected in the days ahead to address some of these issues, particularly how to cut the cost of governance and publicise their resolutions. They are already doing so much to retool the economy, but they have not done enough to ensure the government is running efficiently and officials, whether at the executive or legislative and judicial levels, are aligned with the wishes of the public. The administration must also coax the legislature to systematically enable constituencies engage their representatives in order to resolve some of the controversial issues needlessly promoted to the level of national discourse, not to say national protests.

    What is obvious from the protests is that the legislature is sitting pretty and aloof on the perfumed heights of fictional mountains, with no real engagement with their constituencies, while state and local governments have, in military command fashion, ceded responsibility and blame to the national government. The North has been the more violent in the protests, but when it comes to midwifing substantial change, in light of the protesters’ demands obviously largely drafted in the South, the region is the more conservative and less amenable to comprehensive restructuring. Too many things reek of bad faith in the demands and the execution of the protests, too many contradictions, too many secret plots, and too much cavalier treatment of issues and controversies that could easily fracture the country irreparably. Worse, the country may not yet be out of the woods; for if matters, particularly the economy, remain unimproved for long, there is no telling what convulsions might yet shake the country to its foundations, whether those protests are sensible or foolish. For now, the public may focus almost single-mindedly on the Tinubu administration, and they are justified, for he is president, and the buck stops at his desk. But the quality of the opposition is even much poorer, in fact, humiliating to the country.

  • North and protests: unleashing rage of children

    North and protests: unleashing rage of children

    On August 1, the so-called hardship protests exposed the ugly face of the North, perhaps in ways unintended. Yes, the narrative is being promoted that the August 1-10 protest is youth-led, but in the northern part of Nigeria, it is almost children-led. It was incredible days ago seeing hundreds and hundreds of youths at the forefront of the protests, wielding sticks and other cudgels, and baying for the blood of all manner of victims, quite unable to understand anything. There is video evidence of this boundless folly, if the authorities have the stomach to do anything about it.

    The region has been battling banditry and insurgency for years, and the war has cost the country billions of naira and the blood of thousands of young men and women. What on earth were the elders of the North who are preoccupied with leadership politics looking at when their pre-teens and teenage children poured into the streets and became instantly incorporated into the looting frenzy that ravaged the region on August 1? What point were they trying to make? Does it not corroborate the fear many Nigerians harbour that the North’s unregulated population growth, especially without a corresponding responsibility of parents to their young, constitutes both a dread for individuals and a security threat to the nation?

    Read Also: Protests: Ondo PDP, APC trade words over alleged bribery of residents

    Mayhem was unleashed on some states in the North on August 1, and public infrastructure consumed in the mindless rage of those who have no clue how facilities are funded. The children all mouthed the same anti-government, anti-president refrain. So far, perhaps as proof that some of the protesters might have been sponsored, there has been little public outrage in the North about the scandalous presence of thousands of children learning to storm the barricades. It is probably the most horrendous abuse of children in any nation, an indication of the criminal negligence for which northern elders are directly culpable. 

  • North and protests: unleashing rage of children

    North and protests: unleashing rage of children

    On August 1, the so-called hardship protests exposed the ugly face of the North, perhaps in ways unintended. Yes, the narrative is being promoted that the August 1-10 protest is youth-led, but in the northern part of Nigeria, it is almost children-led. It was incredible days ago seeing hundreds and hundreds of youths at the forefront of the protests, wielding sticks and other cudgels, and baying for the blood of all manner of victims, quite unable to understand anything. There is video evidence of this boundless folly, if the authorities have the stomach to do anything about it.

    The region has been battling banditry and insurgency for years, and the war has cost the country billions of naira and the blood of thousands of young men and women. What on earth were the elders of the North who are preoccupied with leadership politics looking at when their pre-teens and teenage children poured into the streets and became instantly incorporated into the looting frenzy that ravaged the region on August 1? What point were they trying to make? Does it not corroborate the fear many Nigerians harbour that the North’s unregulated population growth, especially without a corresponding responsibility of parents to their young, constitutes both a dread for individuals and a security threat to the nation?

    Read Also: Protesters vow to storm Lagos streets if demands not met

    Mayhem was unleashed on some states in the North on August 1, and public infrastructure consumed in the mindless rage of those who have no clue how facilities are funded. The children all mouthed the same anti-government, anti-president refrain. So far, perhaps as proof that some of the protesters might have been sponsored, there has been little public outrage in the North about the scandalous presence of thousands of children learning to storm the barricades. It is probably the most horrendous abuse of children in any nation, an indication of the criminal negligence for which northern elders are directly culpable. 

  • Protesters go for broke

    Protesters go for broke

    The severest form of the protests begun on August 1 occurred in the core North. A day before the protests began, Vice President Kashim Shettima told media executives from the North that President Bola Tinubu was neither anti-North nor anti-Islam as some people in that region have been led to believe. His refutations meant little to a region that has remained adamant about protesting the hunger and hardship in the country, despite being Nigeria’s granary. Of course, to southern protesters, Mr Shettima’s argument about the president’s bona fides was not in consideration. Nostalgia over the October 2020 EndSARS protests and the euphoria they felt flexing youthful muscles that discomfited and perplexed the older generation, much more than hunger, helped them make up their minds to pour into the streets on August 1 and to try and sustain it for much longer than anyone was willing to give them credit.

    Mr Shettima’s refutations suggest that the government heard tangible but disturbing whispers about the real undercurrents of the protests. He knew, and even the South also squirmed, that the president had by series of strategic and copious appointments bent over backwards to placate the North. When the protests broke out, it became clear that the president’s overtures had had little effect. He may have finally realised that there is not much he can do to counter the narrative of the biases insinuated into his policies and, strangely, even his appointments. He and his team, including the vice president, probably understand, but will not voice it, that the hatred the president is accused of showing the North and Islam is really all about the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) probes, his radical and peremptory policy on subsidy, and the unprecedented Forex  measure. These are impactful policies that attempt to dislodge powerful cabals. The powerful interests will not give up without a fight.

    Read Also: Benue NASS caucus hails youths for shunning protest, acknowledges Akume, Utsev efforts

    It is suggested that the Tinubu administration had carried on as if the economy was crisis-free and there was no hunger or hardship in the country. Here, the protesters’ arguments and observations are incontrovertible. The president was supposed to lead the cost-cutting measures, starting with himself and his office, and then spread the sacrifice to other arms of government and agencies and departments. Instead, his cabinet became swollen, and other provocative and lavish expenditures by appointees, lawmakers and agencies mocked the sufferings of a wearied people. Regardless of whatever other reasons informed the protests, the failure to demonstrate prudence became the main highlight of the street actions. The president will have no choice now but to address these concerns and lead the effort to urgently rationalise costs and run an efficient administration. He will also tread more carefully regarding the kind of projects he embarks upon.

    In the months ahead, however, he will be in a perfect quandary. He will heed public anxiety to conjure an efficient government, but whether it will be enough to allow him run a crisis-free administration, one not beset with distractions and public and opposition animosities, remains to be seen. From all indications, given his loathing for the flip-flop that pervades Nigerian politics, he is unlikely to abandon his monetary reforms or reintroduce fuel subsidy beyond its present, discrete level. He cannot also help himself with regard to his 2023 election victory for which his co-contestants have sworn not to give him peace of mind. Potentially, therefore, President Tinubu’s nightmares have just begun. He will survive this challenge, as this column predicted last week, and indeed he will serve out his term; but whether his enemies will let him rest or give him the latitude he needs to pursue the comprehensive reset of the economy is not altogether clear. He is famous for being stubborn; but so are his enemies. They will bruise his heels; but he will also break their backs. It is not that he cannot attempt to find common grounds with his hidden opponents; it is simply that his enemies have dug their heels in very firmly.

    The administration did its best to stave off the protests. When officials suggested the street actions might be hijacked, and advocated for either dialogue or total cancellation of the protests, sceptical Nigerians accused the administration of incipient dictatorship or fabrications. The spontaneous hijack of the protests in the North confirmed the government’s worst fears, seeing how the region easily became combustible, including, surprisingly, in states ravaged by banditry and insurgency. The South fared far better in smothering the predilection for violence. Apart from this superficial difference, the protests exposed very vividly the alarming fissures in the polity. In the North, considering the avalanche of children numbered among the protesters, a time of reckoning appears imminent. Decades of leadership failure in the region, years of governmental profligacy, and a long period of sustained sense of entitlement borne out by huge federal allocations have paradoxically produced millions of young, uneducated and angry northerners. They may be manipulated today, and deployed to secure more concessions from the federation, but not too long from now, they will become uncontrollable. The signs blaze forth in the ongoing protests over a region that is sitting blissfully on a powder keg. The inescapable explosion will, however, not be confined to the North, as indeed banditry and insurgency have shown by leaving their destructive trails in every home in the country.

    Something can be done to mitigate the looming catastrophe; but will that something be done? There is nothing in the protests to suggest that anything will be done. The only ray of hope lies in a few brilliant and ambitious and visionary governors that are beginning to take office in the region. They see the dangers ahead, do not exhibit or promote any sense of entitlement, and are desperate to reshape their societies. The country must hope that their efforts are not too little too late. Last week and the week before, this column warned that the protests, if allowed to hold, might unleash an irreversible process that could doom the country. The predictions are alarmingly being borne out. If anyone in leadership is unable to see the storm brewing ahead, he is not worth his office, including those encouraging the protests and gloating over the discomforts of the administration. When the explosion occurs – for the forces are pressurized in a small but overpopulated container – no one will be spared.

    There is also a second and even more apocalyptic fear that exceeds the misdirected rage of abandoned children. The narration of youth versus elders, and the extrapolation that the latter do not care about the former, is a despicable expansion of societal hierarchies and classifications. This obnoxious differentiation is gradually calcifying in Nigeria, not in terms of targeting goods and services for the various classes, but in fanning political and societal discord that drive resentment and hostility. Much more than EndSARS, some elderly Nigerians and government officials have begun to sense the danger this definitional excess constitutes to the body politic. Futures and destinies of youths and elders are inextricably intertwined. It is fallacious to argue that youths are excluded from governance. While federal and state governments have an obligation to deliberately and systematically recruit and train young people into leadership cadre, just as is being done in the private sector, the youths themselves must show the inclination, character, hard work, discipline and brilliance necessary to receive attention. Nigerians should stop promoting nonsense. More than 99 percent of those interviewed at the protest grounds have no coherent understanding, beyond clichés, of the economic and societal issues assailing the country. Even the Lagos crowd, which is supposed to be fairly more cosmopolitan, showed a horrifying staleness in rationalising their revolt.

    Apart from the generational and parental crises the protests exhumed, not to say the failure of government to be proactive about the issues in dispute, there is also the worrisome legal dimension to the protests. The protesters abhor the government’s alleged manipulation of the justice and electoral systems, but they also show disdain for the rule of law. Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides for the rights of Nigerians to freely assemble, including for the protection of their interests. Verbatim, the section reads: “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests; Provided that the provisions of this section shall not derogate from the powers conferred by this constitution on the Independent National Electoral Commission with respect to political parties to which that commission does not accord recognition.”

    The scope of this section is derogated by both the Independent National Electoral Commission with respect to political parties, and by Section 45 of the Constitution with respect to the nature of these assemblies. It is trite law that a peaceful assembly may be dispersed by any means when it morphs into the unwelcome ogre of a riot. The government warned that there were reasonable suspicions and intelligence that agent provocateurs were being commissioned and deployed by enemies of the polity to vitiate the protests and ensure it morphed into that most undesirable of things — a riot. The provision in Section 40 is echoed in Chapter 9, Article 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Right which Nigeria is a signatory to. It enshrines the Right to Freedom of Assembly. But, in their haste to enjoy the benefits of Section 40 above, Nigerians often forget the Public Order Act of 1979, Section 1 of which empowers a state governor to prescribe the route by which and the times at which any procession may pass. Anyone desiring to organise a protest should familiarise themselves with all the provisions of this Act.

    It was not until a day or two before the protests began that the government secured pre-emptive court orders to restrict the protesters to certain designated spots for their rallies. While the interim injunctions were largely obeyed in the South, they were discountenanced in the North, especially Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), on the grounds of inaccessibility to protest venues. But at the root of bad governance is disobedience to court orders, the contempt for the rule of law. If those who seek an end to bad governance fail to appreciate the centrality of the rule of law, the basis of their campaigns become questionable. The disregard for the rule of law flows seamlessly into the disregard for logic in the presentation of the protesters’ 12-point demand to the government. The demands are as follows: “Revert petrol pump price to N100/litre; Combat insecurity and hunger; Close all IDP camps and resettle the campers; Total electoral reform; Independent probe into the electoral budget of N355 billion; Immediate release of ENDSARS protesters still in detention; Implementation of a living wage (the minimum wage of N300,000); Compulsory free education from primary to secondary school; Children of public office holders must attend public schools in the country; The government must patronise made-in-Nigeria goods; Transition to unicameral legislation; Judicial and constitutional review.” Previously 20, the list has been pruned down to weed out demands like freedom for IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, and other items that involved completely jettisoning the 1999 constitution.

    The protest was obviously hurriedly put together, and the demands largely farcical, sentimental and indefensible. The demands do not do honour to the education, rationality, and competence of Nigerian youths. The appalling incompetence of the drafters of the demands may explain why they are reluctant to present themselves for negotiation with the government. They will simply make a fool of themselves. But despite public misgivings, the about two weeks notice they gave the government was enough to kick-start meaningful reforms of governance process and the introduction of massive cuts in cost of governance. Instead, the government concentrated on averting the protests. The administration is nevertheless expected in the days ahead to address some of these issues, particularly how to cut the cost of governance and publicise their resolutions. They are already doing so much to retool the economy, but they have not done enough to ensure the government is running efficiently and officials, whether at the executive or legislative and judicial levels, are aligned with the wishes of the public. The administration must also coax the legislature to systematically enable constituencies engage their representatives in order to resolve some of the controversial issues needlessly promoted to the level of national discourse, not to say national protests.

    What is obvious from the protests is that the legislature is sitting pretty and aloof on the perfumed heights of fictional mountains, with no real engagement with their constituencies, while state and local governments have, in military command fashion, ceded responsibility and blame to the national government. The North has been the more violent in the protests, but when it comes to midwifing substantial change, in light of the protesters’ demands obviously largely drafted in the South, the region is the more conservative and less amenable to comprehensive restructuring. Too many things reek of bad faith in the demands and the execution of the protests, too many contradictions, too many secret plots, and too much cavalier treatment of issues and controversies that could easily fracture the country irreparably. Worse, the country may not yet be out of the woods; for if matters, particularly the economy, remain unimproved for long, there is no telling what convulsions might yet shake the country to its foundations, whether those protests are sensible or foolish. For now, the public may focus almost single-mindedly on the Tinubu administration, and they are justified, for he is president, and the buck stops at his desk. But the quality of the opposition is even much poorer, in fact, humiliating to the country.

  • A motley collection of farcical demands

    A motley collection of farcical demands

    1. Return of fuel subsidy

    2. Addressing issues in the power sector

    3. Release of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu from DSS custody

    4. Allowance for Diaspora voting during general elections

    5. Scrapping of the 1999 constitution and replacement with a people-made constitution

    6. Abolition of the Senate and introduction of part-time lawmaking

    7. Minimum wage increase to N250,000 monthly

    8. Investment in education and grants for students

    9. Free and compulsory education for children

    10. Release of EndSARS and political detainees with compensation

    11. Rationalisation of public-owned enterprises

    12. Establishment of a special energy task force for corruption-free power sector development

    13. Reconstitution of INEC to remove corrupt individuals

    14. Massive investment in public works and industrialisation

    Read Also: Group raises the alarm on alleged plans for arrest, detain Inegbeniki

    15. Shake-up in the judiciary to remove corrupt judges and judicial officers

    16. Reinstitution of a corruption-free subsidy regime

    17. Probe of past and present leaders who have looted the treasury

    18. Restructuring of Nigeria to accommodate diversity, resource control, and regional development

    19. End to banditry, terrorism, and violent crimes

    20. Reform of security agencies to stop human rights violations

  • Fumbling over protests

    Fumbling over protests

    A little over a week ago, as the needless tension over the August 1-10 protests began to heighten, one of the opportunistic groups cashing in on the crisis swore that should one protester be killed, the protesters would campaign for the ousting of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The promoters of the protests obviously have unrestrained contempt for Nigeria. In their opinion, a nation of over 200 million people, having made their choice in last year’s presidential election, could be summarily subjected to the whims, caprices and arrogance of a few people hiding behind the existential crisis numbing the country. The promoters’ list of grievances is long, diffused and provocative (See box). But its leitmotif, perhaps imperceptible to the composers of the list, is not actually hunger or economic distress, but their adamant refusal to accept last year’s presidential election which ended more than a year ago.

    Unfortunately, the Tinubu administration seems hesitant and even fearful as protest promoters sneeze, perhaps because of the hashtags deployed to propel it, such as #DaysOfRage and #EndBadGovernance. The demands, drawing inspiration from Kenya and Bangladesh, are diffused and disguised to achieve other goals. Merely perusing the list of demands indicates the lexical signatures and sophomoric philosophies of the Obidient movement, despite Peter Obi’s threat to litigate the allegation that his supporters are behind the call for protests. The promoters’ shopping list should have encouraged the president to stiffen his resolve and deal with the call for protests with courage and professionalism. The list, whether by the Omoyele Sowore group or the other groups, includes items like freedom for Nnamdi Kanu, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, without suggesting how that demand relates to hunger and bad governance. They also ask for the reinstatement of fuel subsidy, exhibit an extremely naïve understanding of economic issues relating to exchange rate management, conflate Diaspora voting with hunger, peremptorily call for scrapping of the 1999 constitution, and make bullish demand for minimum wage increase to N250,000 despite NLC reaching agreement with the government, etc. The demands are a sickening indication of the crass politicisation of the last presidential poll and a mindless rehash of the objectives of both the Obidient movement and anarchic so-called activist groups.

    But for months, unable to fully settle down since his election as president because of relentless opposition, and having himself made some mistakes in policies and appointments, President Tinubu has continued to yield ground to those snapping at his heels, perhaps hoping that he could placate them. It is clear now that for the duration of his first term, he could not hope to placate them or mollify their anger. Protests help leaders fine-tune their policies and restrain their sometimes boundless enthusiasm for painful and unpopular measures. But the president needs to become more resolute, rejig his kitchen cabinet to take advantage of the best advice in an atmosphere of brilliant debate and scenario-building, and go on governing in the face of threats and distractions. He has made concessions to too many groups and sometimes seemed to sacrifice efficiency in favour of costs, but it is impossible for him to satisfy everybody. The pains felt on the streets are real, and hunger is one of them, but it is atrocious that all protest promoters have directed their anger at the federal government rather than including the states and local governments. This may be partly due to the country’s misshapen political structure.

    Read Also: Protest: Goronyo urges Nigerians to remain patriotic, hopeful for Tinubu

    In addition, it is clear that the destructive Kenyan protests have inspired the promoters of the Nigerian protest, especially with particular reference to the rapidity with which they achieved their demand of getting the 2024 Kenyan Finance Bill abrogated. But they have been unable to force the resignation of President William Ruto. While President Tinubu considers some of the grievances listed by the protest promoters, especially the unavoidable need to run an efficient and trim government, he should encourage himself to handle the budding crisis dispassionately because the threat to force him out of office will lead Nigeria down a very slippery slope. There are probably two possible outcomes in all this: one is anarchy in a replay of the Sudan, Libya, Somalia, etc mould; or disintegration. Nigeria, given its religious and ethnic dynamics, cannot sustain the kind of stalemate dogging Kenya. In 1966-67, it travelled that road when what seemed a routine matter of Western Region political impasse snowballed into a civil war. Those threatening unconstitutional means of solving Nigeria’s economic crisis and lacing it with private and political demands probably know little of that era. In the past two weeks or so, the Tinubu administration made the mistake of helping the call for protest assume the status of a threat to his presidency. Protests are constitutional and should be seen as normal and routine. There will be many more, some massive, diffused and even catastrophic, and others small, focused and episodic. Whether the government wants it or not, the August protests will take place in one form or the other, but they are unlikely to severely threaten his presidency.

    Instead, the president should be worried about a number of spinoffs from the call to protest, not the protest itself, for much of it is inspired by those who are reluctant to accept last year’s electoral outcomes against all their projections. One of the issues President Tinubu must contend with is the ease with which the protest promoters have managed to reshape the current hunger narrative and have created an age and generational dichotomy in governance and public discourse. This is truly apocaplyptic. Families and nations consist of youths and elders who live and sometimes die together in symbiotic relationships, with common ambitions and inextricably intertwined destinies. Parents and their children, particularly fathers and sons, may sometimes see things from different perspectives, but only dysfunctional homes solve difficult problems by patricide. Many homes in Nigeria may be dysfunctional, and through the use of extreme and irreconcilable languages, project that dysfunctionality onto the national stage, as indeed many political players promote regicide as catharsis for their electoral losses, it is, however, time for the government and the people to begin finding ways of narrowing the schism between the young and the old, such as institutionalising leadership recruitment and training processes. China has managed over the years to get this system right much more than the democracies of the West. Indeed, those calling for violence, death and destruction in Nigeria are projecting nothing but their backgrounds.

    A second issue that should preoccupy the president is how to help raise and crystallise public discourse in such a way that legalism is not confused with expediency. It is shocking that some members of the administration at first focused on the legalism of the protests before acknowledging the constitutionality of public expression of grievances. On the other hand, lawyers, activists and the political opposition have simply discarded the place of expediency in national discourse and affairs in favour of the legalism of the protests. After correcting themselves, the government has warned that nothing guarantees that, given the state of the economy and the ferment in many countries, any protest tagged days of rage could not quickly spiral downhill. The warning is germane. But those promoting the August protests tend to think that they could achieve their aims without a corresponding and unplanned cost to national unity and cohesion. Nigeria’s structural imbalance has endured decades of stress, but the cord that binds the people together have been strained for too long to give assurance that the country can withstand prolonged protests and violence. The government warns that the cords can snap, with unfathomable repercussions. But the heady promoters of the protests are unimpressed. In short, the problem is not the legality of the protests, but whether it is expedient at a time when the country’s security situation remains taut. Hunger is a volatile issue capable of triggering much more than the system can manage. (See last week’s piece for what could be done to manage the crisis).

    A third issue relates to the damaging role the social media is playing in the whole saga. There is hardly any group chat where incendiary and bigoted speech is not deployed to savage opponents, or where utterly mendacious stories and analyses are not recklessly fabricated to secure maximum advantage. There is of course the Cybercrime Prohibition and Prevention Act, 2015, but it has done very little to attenuate the savagery on display on social media. Unfettered and mind-boggling hate speech is given free rein, and iconoclasm of the worst kind runs rampant baiting ethnic disaffection and anger. Raging against one another, rather than against common economic foes, is seething not too far from the surface. Of course social media madness is a global concern, but societies such as Nigeria which have so far been unable to settle their national question are becoming increasingly vulnerable. If social media does not furnish Nigeria a war, it will be because the administration finally bestirs itself to do something. The Tinubu government must give a thought to this issue if it hopes to bequeath a better society to the next generation. To do this transcends anthem substitution, for the problem is far more exigent and deeper and complicated.

    A fourth issue relates to the mistake the preceding Muhammadu Buhari administration made in not painstakingly prosecuting those who either planned or hijacked the EndSARS protest some two years ago, whether they are in the country or have fled the shores of Nigeria. Too many Nigerians hate their country, and have propagated lies and other falsehoods against it. Somehow, despite many panel reports proving the contrary, some people still believe that EndSARS protesters were massacred in their dozens. Now, they also believe, despite government protestation, that some of those protesters are still in jail. Not prosecuting those who perpetrated violence in 2020 has enabled promoters of the August protests to talk offhandedly of days of rage. President Tinubu must not repeat the same mistake. If days of rage are enacted next month, if the rights of non-protesters are abridged for any reason, at the end, there must be prosecutions and convictions. The Nigerian Constitution, which is so glibly quoted as if it has become a personal document, does not confer a greater (moral) right on anyone. The constitution considers everyone equal. Burning hundreds of vehicles and destroying public utilities must attract commensurate response from law enforcement.

    For this and other future protests, here are a few free tips for President Tinubu to use in formulating the kind of leadership he wants to project. In 2012, when he was said to have backed the fuel subsidy protests during the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, the protests were restricted to a few spots and remained focused all through until the then president made concessions and everyone returned home. It was not necessary for Dr Jonathan to project anything because the protests were peaceful, focused and carnival-like. When the EndSARS protests broke out in 2020 under President Buhari, the protesters instinctively knew that because of the ethnic undertones of Nigerian politics, not because of his managerial skills, they would be stoking fire to ask for his resignation, despite the attendant violence.

    But under President Tinubu, even before the protests began, some have sworn to ask for his ouster should one person be shot. Now, here is the tip: clearly the protest promoters sense two things; one, that the president has projected weakness since last year in the face of every challenge. They suspect that he does not seem capable of drawing a line between respecting the tenets of democracy and using firm hands to deal with every test against his administration. And two, the protest promoters, some of whom are from his native Southwest, sense that the Southwest would not rise in his defence should the tables be unconstitutionally turned against him. Those who think so forget the lessons of the MKO Abiola election and its convoluted aftermath. Sooner or later, the protesters will discover too late that Nigerian politics, not to talk of its ethnic dynamics, is far more complicated and unpredictable than they think. Nevertheless, it is clear that by yielding to his challengers again and again, including those who questioned the integrity of the election he won, the president has not projected strength. He should learn from great leaders. Projecting strength is not the same as brutally repressing the people. A few biographies should show him how.

    More crucially, it bears restating that while the president has tried to reset an economy left prostrate for nearly two decades, a task he has done far better than his predecessors, yet not altogether coherently, he must now also pay attention to the other things that matter, including resetting the country’s politics and leadership and integrating the next generation into leadership, not the farcical Gen Z whose arrogant sense of entitlement has led them to costly errors. He has brought in more youths and women into his administration than his predecessors, but they are not satisfied. The reason is that too much is happening behind closed doors designed to subvert his administration or make it impossible for him to aspire for a second term. He will survive the August test, but he must then take the battle to his opponents rather than dithering over his definition of democracy. There is nothing he will do, even if he grows the economy at unprecedented double digits, that will cause the animosity against him to abate or his enemies to grudgingly admire him. If he continues to shirk a fight, he should not be surprised that his inaction paradoxically endangers democracy as more and more activists and protesters ensconced in distant lands, like Mr Sowore, belabour him. He has made tremendous progress in arresting the drift towards the precipice, but his opponents, particularly the hurting mafias whose economic interests he has affected, will continue to gloss over those achievements and attempt to force him to backtrack. After the protests, he must find time and ways to now engage the public, empathise with them outside of Aso Villa press statements, and be the lightning rod of their anger, criticisms, discomfort and sufferings.

  • Tinubu, opposition and planned protests

    Tinubu, opposition and planned protests

    Since the election and inauguration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu last year, the threat of protests, much more than the ballyhooed spectre of coup, has hung over his head like the sword of Damocles. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC), which have just reached a minimum wage agreement with the government, had wielded the protests sword a few times, often for economic reasons, but also sometimes for reasons as flimsy as a trade union leader being whacked by political hoodlums. University lecturers, students, social media warriors, and all kinds of social and political journeymen have either threatened to lead protests or actually, but perhaps half-heartedly, carried out their threats. That President Tinubu is not yet decapitated must be due to his staying power or good fortune. He has admittedly not helped his own cause sometimes, given the plethora of policy and appointment reversals he has undertaken, not to say the crippling severity of some of his policies that survive attrition, but both he and his ardent supporters will hope that he has, after one year in office, gone beyond his learning curve and may soon reach cruising altitude. That is if his unrelenting opponents and enemies will let him soar.

    Another round of threat to embark on street protests is proliferating virally on social media. Slated for August, but with largely indeterminate objectives, the promoters already smell blood. The president and the country’s security and law enforcement agencies are undoubtedly aware of the subterranean manoeuvers. The police have in fact issued a counterthreat of their own; but years of flying in the face of the constitution have weakened their resolve, inured them to the rule of law, and stifled their competence. The secret service on the other hand is understandably far more restrained and less flagrant, and perhaps more resolute; but it sometimes gives the impression of a somnolent organisation operating in fits and starts. The military packs the biggest punch, but it also dithers in the face of what the law really says. Despite the ferment in the land, none of the three organisations has really being tested on the scale the law enforcement agencies in Haiti and Kenya have recently witnessed and are ineffectively combating.

    On the surface, the Nigerian conditions are truly so severe that they merit protests. Inflation has remained untamable at over 34 percent, so too unemployment and insecurity, while the currency volatility – which the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had suggested had finally flamed out – continues to ‘stabilise’ undesirably at increasingly higher levels. The economy, in short, is still in the doldrums, only bestirring itself now and again to make a few discerning Nigerians hold on to hope. With the highways unsafe, and many parts of the Northwest, Southeast, and North Central still frothing with discontent and bloodshed, some Nigerians have begun to lose faith in the assurances given by the federal government that the nation would soon turn the corner. Measures such as distributing less than a thousand rice trucks around the country, some cash transfers to the poor and vulnerable, suspension of taxes on some imported food items, and also suspension of cybercrime levy, have had the paradoxical effect of hardening national paranoia. The ongoing Kenyan revolt, which some Nigerians have unguardedly called to be replicated in these parts, merely adds to the panic.

    When President Tinbu was sworn in last year, his men, brimful with confidence, gave the impression that the country’s distressed economy could be revived in a jiffy. When that seemed far-fetched, they promised a year. That again proved unrealistic; and the officials suggest that anytime from now, the economy would mend. For an economy that had been left unattended to for about a decade, with previous administrations pussyfooting around difficult decisions, mending in two years an economy abandoned in bastardy would take a miracle. It is possible the Tinubu administration underestimated the depth of the crisis they inherited. Had they gauged the crisis fairly more accurately, they would have found innovative ways of rallying the public behind the tough decisions they needed to take. But assailed by protests and threats on all sides, they began promising quick fixes completely alien to their culture and which they were utterly incapable of administering. They have unfortunately now found themselves running the gauntlet of devious protest promoters and an economy that remains stubbornly unresponsive as well as election deniers who remain adamantly opposed to the outcome of the last presidential election. The Tinubu administration could, therefore, not totally avoid being singed by everything politically and economically inclement.

    There are indeed grounds to justify public protests. The economy has impoverished millions of Nigerians, and the remedies applied to rescue it from the edge of disaster have not always been propounded or applied with the coherence and consistency capable of inspiring hope, endurance and rebirth. In fact, in some instances, such as the Hajj rebate authorised by the administration and the 49 burgeoning ministries, not to talk of some cabinet members and appointees who scorn bureaucratic ethics, the government itself may not have set the most inspiring example to elicit public confidence in their style and policies. What is more, the protests are indeed lawful, contrary to what the police say. But for a number of reasons, which far outweigh the argument against any popular revolt, the protests are undoubtedly inexpedient. Firstly, Nigeria is not the only country battling inflationary spirals or economic downturn in general. Nearly every country in the world is being flogged by inflation, and as a matter of fact, despite complications imposed by insecurity on food production, Nigeria is even doing a little better than many other countries. Street protests whose outcomes and ends no one can ascertain will definitely complicate and prolong the Nigerian food and political crises.

    Secondly, Nigeria’s existential crisis has remained unresolved, putting the country on tenterhooks for decades. The Northwest is afflicted by banditry of the most pernicious kind; the Northeast is once more grappling with resurgent insurgency manifesting in suicide bombings and unsafe road corridors and farming outposts; and the Southeast erupts in bouts of bloodletting masterminded by so-called unknown gunmen. Until the Tinubu administration peacefully resolves the Southeast’s peculiarly regional problem, that crisis will defy his cannons and howitzers. Meanwhile, the oil wells of the South-South and the food basket of the North Central are still being bled by saboteurs and herdsmen respectively. There are also of course entitled politicians, particularly in the North, who, though suspicious of the relevance of any protest at this time, may not really be opposed to any stratagem to pressure and humble the Tinubu administration into granting more concessions. Already, the Hajj rebate and the Livestock Development ministry proposal are being interpreted as needless and unwholesome concessions. The whole Nigerian crisis is feared to be compounded by the reluctance of the administration and the security services to break the mould in their tactics and strategies of countering insecurity.

    Read Also: Tinubu launches agric empowerment programme in Yobe

    Unfortunately for promoters of the August protests, not to say the country as a whole, the exercise is already politicised and, more especially, couched in ethnic terms. Even before they break out, the protests are seen potentially as a sequel to the highly disruptive October 2020 EndSARS revolt hijacked by shadowy figures to achieve nefarious political objectives. Unsurprisingly, next month’s protests are being labeled as EndSARS II, and because the so-called Obidients (Peter Obi’s social media warriors) are accused of fanning the protest agenda, the campaign is alarmingly being described as an Igbo agenda. This has led the leadership of the Igbo community in Lagos to openly dissociate themselves from the protests. Whether anyone likes it or not, should the protests begin, they will be seen and analysed from ethnic prism, and the country would be lucky if the revolt does not escalate into a sectarian conflict. With the military spread thin conducting what they call internal security operations, and with too many hungry and angry people itching for an opportunity to crack a head or two, it is impossible to tell just how far the protests would go. When the Gen Z-led Kenyan tax revolt began, this column had feared that even after they had achieved their limited objectives, the youths would expand their demands and expose Kenya, which had never experienced a coup d’etat, to instability and ethnic conflict. Ominously, the ongoing uprising in many parts of Kenya is confirming that fear.

    Should protests break out in Nigeria as social media mobilisers project, it is unlikely it will stay confined to a test tube. The protests will explode as the EndSARS revolt showed, and with large-scale insecurity ravaging many parts of the country, there is nothing to indicate that the uprising would not spiral out of control. The country is currently on tenterhooks. In sum, everybody may end up a loser, including opposition politicians galled by the outcome of the last presidential election, politicians who promote ethnic and religious exceptionalism, ethnic groups which resent the winner of the poll, youths who would likely become cannon fodder should the crisis blow out of proportion, and the country itself whose tenuous unity and untenable political structure have triggered tectonic shifts in the body politic. Nothing is certain, and this is no scaremongering. The country already perches so delicately on the precipice of disaster to hope to survive the kind of mass hysteria promoted by Kenyan youths who have transited from defeating their country’s new tax proposals to now foolishly calling for President William Ruto’s resignation. In Nigeria, businesses are groaning, the economy is in turmoil, trade unions are threatening fire and brimstone, and too many people who have nothing to lose are priming themselves for what they describe as the final showdown. Would sense prevail over anger and stupidity, as the United States is beginning to realise in their presidential campaign, particularly the controversial attempt on Donald Trump’s life? Nigeria is in a far more precarious position to trifle with the madness going on in some parts of Africa and the world.

    Those hell bent on fomenting rebellion in Nigeria are, however, unlikely to be restrained by common sense, lessons of history, examples of other failed and failing nations, or political logic and precedent. If the Tinubu administration had been a little more surefooted in political mobilisation as a tool of governance, the country’s crisis would probably not have degenerated to the point where the government would begin embracing panic measures of doubtful relevance. Far beyond national orientation or reorientation, the administration had needed to identify key economic and social causes, whether they pertain to a massive return to farming as a few countries did in the last century, or general and massive mobilisation of thousands of shock troops to fight banditry and insurgency, or educational revolution on a scale that makes the eyes pop out, or declaration of health emergency capable of reshaping healthcare delivery and teaching the world a thing or two. No such identification took place. What is, however, awkward is replicating previous administrations’ measures and style, even if a little better. No, the crises demand much more than staying on the defensive or fending off opportunistic attacks. Cuba and India gave the world examples of how to mobilise a country around great and inspiring goals. And they were successful. Had the Tinubu administration coalesced its efforts around a few great objectives and went at them hammer and tongs, no politician, whether of the Atiku Abubakar or Peter Obi mould, or tin-pot messiah of the Nasir el-Rufai kind, let alone irreverent social media troublemakers, would be threatening the country and mobilising dreamy youths to carry out protests or insurrection. Hopefully, August is still a few weeks away, and the administration can still enunciate and execute policies to obviate the need for protests, assuming the powerful interests behind those indefensible schemes can really be assuaged.

  • That Livestock Development ministry proposal

    That Livestock Development ministry proposal

    Many Nigerians are predictably skeptical about President Bola Tinubu’s plans to resolve Nigeria’s livestock crisis triggered in recent years mainly by herders-farmers clashes. The clashes may be one-sided, with herders often on the attack and farmers on the defensive, but they have caused so much damage and brought so much chaos upon the country’s food security that the old methods of mitigating the conflict need a new shot in the arm. About two weeks ago, many months after a committee had studied the crisis and made recommendations, the president finally inaugurated the Renewed Hope Livestock Reform Implementation Committee and hinted at the possibility of creating a Livestock Development ministry to greatly reduce the clashes between migrant herders and farmers as well as boost dairy and meat production. He was quite upbeat, even boisterous, when he disclosed his intentions.

    The clashes have lasted decades, and are yet to abate. In the Northwest, they have morphed catastrophically into wholesale banditry, while in the North Central the risk of all-out ethnic war continues to loom very large. All over the country, thousands die annually as a result of the clashes. Clearly, in the estimation of the Tinubu administration, and flowing from the ruling party’s manifesto, the situation was no longer tenable. Indeed, previous administrations had made strenuous efforts to curb the farmers-herders clashes threatening food security and national stability. As an indication of the severity of the crisis, the Muhammadu Buhari administration had articulated about three policy initiatives to deal with the problem, ranging from the National Ranching Policy, Rural Grazing Area (Ruga) programme, and National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). But virtually all the initiatives wilted under a hail of sever public criticism and cynicism.

    Read Also: Obi’s supporters behind planned protests, says Presidency

    No one knows yet what the key elements of the Tinubu administration’s livestock programme are, other than the inauguration of the implementation committee and the possible creation of a Livestock ministry. In the initial committee’s study of the problem, what have been their findings, what timelines are they looking at, and what are their projections? However, given the robust speeches the president has so far made on the subject, he believes it is not a hard nut to crack, and that finally, where others had failed, he is capable of turning a maelstrom of bloodletting into wealth creation. He had said during the inauguration: “This presents a unique opportunity also to delineate and establish a separate ministry called the Ministry of Livestock Development. We will develop the economy, give people the opportunity to excel…Our vet doctors can give us the necessary opportunity to rear, crossbreed and stop the wanton killings, even animal feeds is a huge economy…This sector will boost agricultural productivity, enhance export opportunities and stimulate economic growth by fostering a robust value chain that benefits farmers, processors, herders, distributors and consumers alike.”

    The possibilities are truly immense if the president can really crack the nut. But it is not clear why he thinks it is practicable for him to chair the implementation committee, with former electoral commission boss, Attahiru Jega, serving as co-chairperson. He is too busy for such tasks. And in view of the effort to trim the size of the federal bureaucracy and significantly cut costs, would it not amount to boundless enthusiasm to add another layer of federal bureaucracy, especially one that is unfortunately being seen as another needless concession to herders? Unwittingly, the message is being transmitted that if any interest group in Nigeria needs concessions, it should simply generate and stoke a crisis. Thus the country is emblazoned by development commissions. However, Livestock business is indeed a huge one, if done well in line with the president’s vision; but there is nothing to suggest it cannot, to start with, operate and flourish under the Agriculture ministry.

  • Nigeria and UK elections: the lessons

    Nigeria and UK elections: the lessons

    A day after the July 4 United Kingdom general election, the results were published and the new prime minister, Keir Starmer of the Labour Party, assumed leadership. No court cases, no controversies. Even before the election, opinion polls had indicated that the ruling Conservative Party would suffer a bloodbath, and the Labour Party would win a clear majority. The polls did not lie, and, to boot, the transition from one party to another was seamless. The seamlessness and immediacy of the transition and the speed with which the results were released have led many Nigerian political analysts, particularly in the newspapers, to inflict on Nigerians what they described as the lessons of the UK elections. The analyses, mostly dishonest or superficial, were essentially a comparison of Nigeria with the UK, with strict reference to the February 23, 2023 Nigerian presidential election.

    Nigerian analysts, perhaps with a wistful and censorious gaze cast at what transpired in Lagos during the 2023 polls, especially the ethnic dimension brought into the governorship poll, idolised the freeness, fairness, and multicultural overtones of the UK polls. The analysts reminded everyone that about 30 candidates with Nigerian roots contested the UK polls and eight of them won. They said there were no witch-hunt, no threatening and open fetish practices, and no flagrant inducements. But the English themselves say comparisons are odious. Is Nigeria the UK? And how can anyone scientifically and safely compare unlike terms? The same analysts who decry Nigeria’s lack of nationhood, describing the country as nothing more than a geographical expression, expect their country’s electoral behavior to imitate the UK which over the centuries had imbued itself with all the accoutrements of nationhood before it even became an empire ruling over a quarter of the world at a point. There are copious safeguards in the UK’s political system, and centuries of electoral memory, to guard balloting and elections; yet, the Scots, Welsh and Irish are still rumbling below the surface. Nigeria operates a depersonalised and awkward unitary system that suffocates its supposedly federal components, yet analysts denigrate Nigeria for not resembling or matching the UK.

    The UK parliamentary system is anchored on an unwritten constitution, and undergirded by discipline and convention. It practices a democracy that survived many continental revolutions, including notably those of 1848. It has endured centuries of bloodthirsty monarchs, incompetent prime ministers, bloody and sapping wars, and economic depressions far worse than what Nigeria is currently experiencing. They have managed to produce and operate a political system that is unique, imbued with enough tensile strength, and is both flexible and enviable. Analysts can indeed remark the strength and achievements of the British political system as well as admire their electoral democracy; but comparing the UK with Nigeria is misguided and pigheaded. It is bad enough that somehow Nigeria has sentenced itself, partly as a result of its colonial experience, to wholesale copying of alien constitutions, whether presidential, parliamentary or diarchy; or even advocating for coups and revolutions when poll results or economic conditions do not meet their impatient and conceited expectations. The first two systems had produced very poor results, and the third was a stillbirth.

    In short, the analysts suggest, though clearly cynically, if not downright derogatively, that Nigeria should learn some lessons from the July 4 UK poll, particularly the art of seamless and unpretentious transition, the idea of multiculturalism that permits everyone to stand for elections wherever they live, and the repudiation of the atavistic culture of deploying fetish objects and ritual sacrifice to disenfranchise ‘unwanted or alien’ voters. But these are not lessons that can be imbibed through motivational speaking. For instance, multiculturalism is an overrated and fanciful term that is almost impossible to apply in Nigeria’s cultural milieu. Without a clear structuration of the concept of national identity and nationhood, it is unclear how more than 250 Nigerian language groups can coalesce into one determined group, especially when they fiercely compete for, and have a metaphysical attachment to, land in an atmosphere of religious divisions and mistrust. Multiculturalism is not doing well in the United States of America, hence the Donald Trump appeal. It is also not faring well in many parts of Europe where right-wing politics anchored on anti-immigration and sometimes racist policies retain constant appeal. Both Pax Romana and Pax Brittanica produced ingenious definitions of citizenship that transcended cultural divisions and sowed the seed of today’s British multicultural politics. Yet, even in the UK, multiculturalism is not considered a permanent feature of its politics, as Brexit amply demonstrated and future eruptions will indicate. Lagos is the closest in Nigeria to the idea of multiculturalism, but even there, in the context of Southwest politics and Lagos politics itself, nothing can be taken for granted. And in any case, what use is multiculturalism when only one part of the country is expected to make that sacrifice? Asking Nigerians to learn from the UK, and showcasing the elections of some eight Nigerians as proof of the sanctity and inevitability of multiculturalism, is wishful thinking. Until Nigeria can produce a coherent and acceptable definition of what it means to be a Nigerian, it is futile to expect Nigeria’s fiercely competitive ethnic nationalities to bell the multicultural cat.

    Nigerian analysts also point at the organisational brilliance of conducting the UK poll and the seamlessness and inexpensiveness of the transition, sans judicial interventions, as something to emulate. Yes, there is something to learn there. But the same people who advocated a coup d’etat to preempt the inauguration of the Bola Tinubu administration because of disputed and skewed election results are applauding the smoothness of the UK election. It is obvious that they have not had time to study the UK poll results. First, the UK electoral system is anchored on a first-past-the-post vote to win a constituency seat. The February 23, 2023 presidential election in Nigeria was essentially also first-past-the-post or simple majority, regardless of the votes won by a combination of opposition parties. In the UK, Labour won the election with about 9,731,363, (33.8%) while just four of the other parties – not all the others – won almost 17 million votes. The British had no quarrel with the skewness of the votes nor declared any wish to change the goalpost midway into the poll. Last year, the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the presidential election with 8,794,726 votes (36.61%) to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 6,984,520, Labour Party (LP) 6,101,533, and New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) 1,496,687. The combined opposition votes nearly doubled that of the APC. How is this different from the UK results now sold on social media as advanced and flawless politicking? The constant and eternal denigration of Nigeria, the shallowness of analyses on both traditional and social media, and the masking of ethnic and religious exceptionalism under altruistic concepts like multiculturalism do nothing but complicate and ossify Nigeria’s existential dilemma.

    For many Nigerians unimpressed by 25 years of unbroken democratic rule, who indeed prefer to accentuate the country’s many electoral faults, and who fail woefully to contextualise Nigeria’s democratic and electoral process, not minding the age of the country and its democracy, are evidently pursuing a private agenda. They ignore the militating factors of ethnicity and religion, and think that the UK had just performed wonders, while the eternal laggard, Nigeria, is doomed to atavism and retrogression. Decades ago, the United States used to be the poster boy of democracy and electoral fidelity. None of the praise singers foresaw the advent of President Trump. Worse, though Nigeria has not exactly produced inspiring leaders, either military or elected, none of the domestic denigrators lauding everything British has cared to spare an analysis or two on the slew of inept Conservative prime ministers from David Cameron who told tall stories, to the vacillating Theresa May, and on to the bungling Boris Johnson, the naïve Liz Truss, and the dithering Rishi Sunak. Would Labour’s Skeir Starmer, despite his party’s overwhelming 412-seat dominance in a 650-seat House of Commons, do better? Instead of Nigerian analysts acknowledging that LP and NNPP took votes away from the PDP in the last presidential election, thus paving the way for APC victory, they excoriated the victorious party, questioned, vilified and downplayed the margin of its victory, and bemoaned a political structure that did not admit a run-off. The same analysts now rhapsodised the UK polls, applaud Mr Starmer’s victory, and damn Nigeria for its tardiness in learning great lessons from the masters.

    Read Also: Nigerian equities market performed best in Africa in Q1: 2024 –Report

    Nigeria’s electoral process and political system are not perfect. Far from it. It is also not clear that even the foundation of Nigeria’s presidential system is durable, given its pretension to federalism when it is in fact a mélange of borrowed and plagiarised ideas alien to any of the country’s civilisations. President Bola Tinubu is attempting to stitch incremental federalism on this old garment sewn by British colonialists. He will have to take care not to end up with a worse tear. But Europe is also contending with their own constitutional and systemic gargoyles, causing them to oscillate between extreme political ideas ranging from left to ultra-right, and assimilation to extreme nationalism. Who knows what will become of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the UK in the next few decades, not to say the tapestry of multiculturalism which they are weaving and waving before the world? Deploying a desperate and ingenious coalition of left and centrist parties (New Popular Front and Ensemble alliance), France has had to claw its way back from the vise-grip of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. It must now contend with a hung parliament, and it will continue to wonder just how long it can hope to fence off the resurgent far-right and nationalists.

    Nothing guarantees that Nigeria will soon transcend its crisis and resolve its systemic and political dysfunction. Judging by the contempt with which many Nigerians view their country and the extremism and narrow-mindedness many political leaders and their parties display, it is not certain that unresolved or long-lasting economic and social discontent would not tilt the country over the cliff. Hopefully, in the nick of time, reason will prevail, and many Nigerians, particularly the ebi’n pawa generation, the entitled Gen Z, and the coterie of inept and detached political leaders luxuriating in perfumed splendour would become amenable to the give and take necessary to obviate the tragedy looming in the horizon. That is if they are not too obsessed with thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side – in the UK, Kenya, and other revolutionary countries.