The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • LG financial autonomy not quite the solution

    LG financial autonomy not quite the solution

    The entire country, including governors swearing under their breath, is unabashedly euphoric about last Thursday’s Supreme Court judgement granting financial autonomy to the local governments. Some have gleefully touted this legal victory as the early beginnings of restructuring. Unfortunately, nearly everyone is mistaken, not excluding the Supreme Court. Insisting that a ‘literal and narrow interpretation’ of Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution would amount to ‘injustice’ to the local governments, and preferring instead a ‘purposive and teleological interpretation’ in order to enable the federal government use ‘discretion’ in paying the allocations of the LGs, the Supreme Court all but rewrote the constitution. In the end, last Thursday, the Supreme Court was happy, the governors winced but also grinned lest they be regarded as sore and pampered losers, and the public, giddy with delight, shouted hosanna. It is not in every high-profile case that everyone strains to be happy; but this time, the excitement and satisfaction were nearly unanimous. Nigerians at the receiving end of bad governance were painfully aware of the excesses of the states in their dealings with the LGs. They can now heave a sigh of relief that at last the judicial knight in shining armour had come to the rescue of starved and beleaguered LGs.

    Thursday’s judgement brought to an ecstatic and probably cathartic end the suit filed by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi, in May praying the Supreme Court to order the direct allocation of funds from the federation account to the local governments, and another order prohibiting the dissolution of local governments by governors or appointment of caretaker committees. The AGF knew that without litigating the distortions in local government funding and administration, the states, which had remained obdurate on the subject and continued to flout the constitution, would remain unyielding. If the issue of paying allocations to the LGs through the states and their national and state legislatures was a little ambiguous, the issue of caretaker committees was not by one jot ambiguous. Over 20 states deliberately flouted the constitution on the issue of LG caretaker committees. Now the federal government has unalterable legal backing to withhold allocations to any such unelected local government. No Nigerian, and not the constitution itself, doubts the justness of the Supreme Court decision in its interpretation of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution. But while the states cannot appeal to any higher court on the issue of how to pay the LGs, for the sake of the integrity of the constitution the National Assembly should quickly amend Section 162 to save the blushes of the Supreme Court, national lawmakers, and bewildered Nigerians discomfited by how expansively the Court stretched its interpretations.

    Errant states will now hurriedly schedule elections for their local governments. They will move mountains to elect pliable LG administrators, and seizing upon Section 7 of the Constitution, will through the backdoor conjure stratagems to run the LGs. Generally, the various states, under their local government law, prescribe the establishment of what is called a Local Government Service Commission.  The functions of these commissions and their operations are usually spelt out in their enabling laws in addition to those spelt out for the Local Government Councils in the fourth schedule to the constitution. Where the state has not established such a commission under law, then the State Civil Service Commission can be interpreted as possessing oversight responsibility over the Local Governments under S. 318 of the 1999 Constitution. States may no longer be able to reroute the finances of the LGs, nor touch those funds in any way, but wherever possible, they will aim to take control of the chairmen and council, especially where seizing control of LG funds has become unlawful.

    Read Also: LG autonomy: Campaign group hails Tinubu

    The controversies over the funding and operations of LGs are a needless distraction. The judicial mitigation embarked upon by the federal government through its attorney general is superfluous. LGs have undoubtedly been oppressed for decades and their functions unconstitutionally curtailed or even neutralised by visionless and dictatorial state governments. But irrespective of the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement, there is indeed no telling what ‘hostile’ LGs might do to defy their state governments, notwithstanding the leash the state assemblies have on them. In fact, until Nigeria restructures and develops fiscal federalism instead of relying on federation account handouts, and until states and LGs generate their own revenues, the contentious relationship between the various tiers of government will persist. The federal government may have the legal backing to withhold LG funds in case of caretaker administrations, but it is guaranteed that the last has not been heard of the LG matter, despite the judgement. Because of the absence of fiscal federalism, the states still retain the means of prevailing on the LGs or punishing them.

  • Zamfara’s Keshinro and North’s exclusion politics

    Zamfara’s Keshinro and North’s exclusion politics

     The dates are instructive. On June 28, presidential spokesman Ajuri Ngelale announced the appointment of eight federal permanent secretaries. Keshinro Maryam Ismaila, a paediatrician from Zamfara State, was listed as number six. However, on May 24, more than a month before the appointments were made, Zamfara State’s head of service Ahmad Liman was quoted as suggesting that Dr Keshinro was not an indigene of Zamfara, and could, therefore, not be appointed to fill the slot reserved for the state. He was both dismissive and sarcastic in couching the state’s repudiation of the paediatrician. After advancing a lengthy argument to underscore the unsuitability of Dr Keshinro, the state’s head of service concluded: “It’s against this background that I am, therefore, directed to appeal to the collective conscience of the offices of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and indeed all critical stakeholders to drop the candidacy of MARYAM IBRAHIM ALIYU or by whatever name called (Keshinro Maryam Ismaila) for the post of a Permanent Secretary in the Federal Civil Service in representation for the good people of Zamfara State to allow an indigene of Zamfara extraction in the Federal Civil Service to legally and positively compete for the post.”

    Once it became clear the federal government would not relent, Zamfara State made a volte face and accepted Dr Keshinro as their representative. Mannir Haidara, the state’s Information commissioner, told the Daily Trust newspaper that they had since confirmed her bona fides as an indigene of Tsafe town, in Tsafe LGA of the state. Indeed, two days after her appointment, Governor Dauda Lawal received her in his office and promised to support her, while also soliciting her cooperation in projecting the state at the federal level. It was not immediately obvious last week where the mix-up came from, or why, before May 24, when the state caused the repudiation letter to be written, Zamfara failed to do due diligence on Dr Keshinro. Simple checks later revealed it was not only her parents that hailed from Tsafe, even her paternal and maternal grandparents hailed from the same town. That feigned administrative tardiness has led to some controversies about the real motives of the state: whether they were playing politics of ethnic and religious exclusion, as many states in the core North have become adapted to for decades, or they were reinterpreting spousal rights and obligations to suit their private and exclusionary purposes.

    Read Also: First Lady tasks women to lead food security campaign

    Governor Lawal, 58, a new breed politician and finance expert, holds a PhD in Business Administration. He is a product of some of the most prestigious business schools in the world. Courageous and charismatic, he seems to have his eyes on the future, an aspiring leader discontented with restricting himself to being a former governor. Governors Dikko Umar Radda, 54, of Katsina, Mohammed Bago, 50, of Niger, and Agbu Kefas, 53, of Taraba all belong to the class of highly educated, prospective national leaders. It would be self-destructive limiting themselves to the stultifying politics of religion and ethnicity that undid many of their predecessors. Thankfully, Dr Lawal retraced his steps, whether his recantation is heartfelt or not. Some of his predecessors, faced with similar scenarios, simply ignored the furore raised by their chauvinism, and have sunk into nothingness. Just a few years ago, in Bauchi, Gombe, and Kebbi States, indigenes belonging to minority ethnic or religious groups had been shockingly discriminated against, particularly when it came to judicial appointments. Appointees who managed to scale the caste hurdle erected in their paths had done so against the indifference and conspiracy of their governors. Such shameful discrimination was last week nearly replayed in full view of Nigerians in Zamfara State.

    From the tone of the letter preemptively addressed to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation regarding Dr Keshinro, it is clear that the campaign of disownment predated the appointment by more than one month. It is to the credit of the federal government that it rebuffed the prejudices whipped up to arrest or stymie the career and progress of potential appointees, particularly those of the minority groups. Youthful and highly educated political leaders are emerging from the North; they have an obligation to rethink a region convulsed by banditry and Boko Haram, twin and wasteful phenomena that cannot be delinked from the decades of prejudice, oppression, intolerance and religious fanaticism instituted by past leaders. That morass has spread to the South, along with thousands of dispossessed and frustrated northern youths, causing tremors and dislocations in the more liberal but now ossifying and increasingly disoriented southern states and societies.

    By upholding Dr Keshinro’s appointment, the federal authorities demonstrated that a new regime of respect for fairness and equity must find expression in private and public sectors without consideration for ethnic or religious background. But the tragedy is that if Kano State, for instance, finds it hard to respect the rule of law in the controversies over the dethronement and enthronement of emirs, why would anyone expect that justice would be given to 74-year-old Bridgette Agbahime who was murdered by a mob in 2016 for disallowing a Muslim trader from performing ablution in front of her shop in Kano? Not only was the Imo State indigene denied justice and viewed as a loathsome expendable, it was clear that the case against her murderers was deliberately and badly botched by judicial officers. If Nigeria is to approximate the hopes of its founding fathers and the spirit that at least tenuously resonates in all of its hotchpotch constitutions from 1960, a new breed of politicians not defined by age or petty prejudices but by integrity and character must take the reins of office and ensure the workability of state police and state judiciary, where the constitution will be regarded as sacrosanct, and rules and processes will remain inviolate. At the moment, there are still too many bigoted characters in the corridors of power completely inured to the concept of justice and fair play, and who, wallowing in abject ignorance, fail to even acquaint themselves with the seismic changes taking place in other parts of the world, including Saudi Arabia and Tajikistan.

  • It’s time to discontinue Kanu’s trial

    It’s time to discontinue Kanu’s trial

    The treasonable felony case against the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, begun in one form or the other since 2015 is unlikely to end anytime soon. Returned once again to the trial court after many detours to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, it is fated to snake its way back to the appellate courts. The charges against Mr Kanu, once 15, but now seven, will almost certainly be amended a few more times and hotly contested before its lifespan expires. Yet, it remains a case that is, strictly speaking, more political than legal. In terms of the legal side of the case, and given the jurisprudential labyrinth the case had navigated first between 2015 and 2017, and, after a clumsy and controversial three-year hiatus, between June 2021 and now, no one can tell which way the justice pendulum will eventually swing. But in terms of its politics, the case will try the patience of the federal government to its elastic limit, especially in the face of a pro-Kanu Southeast coordinated campaign which the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration will find hard to discountenance. And who can even tell whether in the end the case will not be so stalemated that a political solution would have to be found that leaves all the honour with the undeserving Mr Kanu.

    As testy as the Kanu case may be, it has strangely not yet become a cause célèbre. It won’t be, regardless of the defendant’s histrionics and the stumping rhetoric of the Southeast political elite. First arrested in October 2015, the IPOB leader was detained for about 18 months and his trial later commenced, and was eventually admitted to bail in April 2017. A few months later in September, he fled the country, citing the invasion of his home in Abia State by rampaging soldiers. For the next three years starting from 2018, after he had caught his breath, he had kept up a fiery propaganda against the federal government and individuals who drew his ire until security operatives rearrested him in Kenya and extraordinarily renditioned him back to Nigeria in June 2021 and later arraigned him on a 15-count charge. In April 2022, the trial court struck out eight of the 15-count charge for lacking in substance. And in October of the same year, the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, quashed the charge against him, ordered his release, but later stayed the execution of the judgement, until the Supreme Court in December 2023 voided the appeal and ordered Mr Kanu to face trial on the subsisting seven-count charge. There are still cross-appeals, and Mr Kanu’s lawyers are insisting their client cannot be tried on the grounds that his rendition violated certain international treaties. Meanwhile his bail application has just been turned down.

    Read Also: 142 Nigerians get EU scholarships for postgraduate studies

    The Tinubu administration can rest assured that the legal rigmarole will know no end. The back and forth and the cut and thrust will certainly continue, legally and politically. In the interim, over the past few years, Southeast political and socio-cultural leaders, including Ohanaeze N’digbo, Igbo Union, and Southeast Governors’ Forum which met last Tuesday, have repeatedly called for Mr Kanu’s release. The campaigns, whether strident or equanimous, did not ruffle ex-president Muhammadu Buhari’s feathers. Though President Tinubu does not shirk difficult situations or political jigsaws, he must now find the wisdom and courage to contend with the vexing issue. The country will wait to find out whether he can resist the blandishments of the five Southeast governors, two of whom belong to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and most of whom actually warm the cockles of his heart. It is a delicate situation, but not irresolvable. Whatever the president does, he cannot afford to delay a decision till close to the next general election. What he is being called upon to decide is not the legal purity of the case against Mr Kanu, whether innocent or guilty as charged, but very clearly the politics of it. A former Ohanaeze Ndigbo president, Nnia Nwodo, had in 2017 campaigned for the IPOB leader’s release. And in 2021, Southeast leaders under the aegis of Highly Respected Igbo Greats also pleaded with ex-president Buhari to release Mr Kanu. Now is the time for the president to show that he respects the region and their leaders.

    It is indeed time President Tinubu cut to the chase. The evidence against Mr Kanu is weighty and profound, but it is now time to lend a sympathetic ear to Southeast leaders, including their governors who will soon be seeking an audience with him. It will be inexpedient for the president to wait for the courts to complete Mr Kanu’s trial. He should dialogue with an expanded meeting of Southeast leaders led by their governors to determine the framework by which the IPOB leader would be released. They should give guarantees, for Mr Kanu is as flamboyant and irrepressible as he is garrulous, incitive and mendacious. The IPOB leader has little or no qualms, lacks any sense of moderation, and comes closest than any living Nigerian to the perfect definition of an anarchist. Indeed, his guarantors would be hard put to keep him mollified and untalkative. He charms crowds as well as holds them in thrall like a liege lord. Depriving him of the propagandist fuel that gives him essence would be a tough job for the region’s governors and political elite. Yes, they need him to end the security nightmare that keeps the region on edge, for he appears central to the resolution of that tricky problem in a way the Southwest’s tempestuous Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho, was not, but they will then have to grapple with the prohibitive cost of keeping him soundless and motionless after his release.

    If President Tinubu heeds the governors when they visit him, it will not be because he hopes to get political mileage from that munificence. Unlike the late civil war rebel leader Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu who was pardoned in May 1982 and drafted inelegantly into the National Party of Nigeria’s reelection campaign, Mr Kanu has a visceral loathing for the president. He will neither campaign for nor support, directly or indirectly, President Tinubu. In fact, as the last elections showed, the rather insular Southeast would prefer to support their own candidate or a northern candidate for the presidency. Ebonyi and Imo State may belong to the APC column, and Anambra’s more liberal and cosmopolitan governor Chukwuma Soludo, a professor of Economics, may have inspiring view of how the Igbo can produce a credible presidential candidate, but the ordinary south-easterner appears inclined towards voting a non-Southwest candidate into the presidency for historical and perhaps cultural reasons. The president must, therefore, have no illusions about what political advantage Mr Kanu or even the entire Southeast would confer on him, as the implacable ex-president Buhari also found out in 2015. Despite all this, releasing Mr Kanu is probably the best thing to do, both at the humane and political levels, whether he acknowledges his wayward views or not.

    It is pointless keeping Mr Kanu prancing on hot judicial coals. If he is released now, especially after years of trial, bail violation, and controversial rendition, President Tinubu will have all the honour. Mr Kanu’s captive supporters and reluctant admirers will rally triumphantly around the region, and the president may not even get the deserved credit that should accrue to him. But the region’s elites would know who to give all the honour. More than that, the ball of keeping Mr Kanu quiet and his narcissism in check would thereafter fall in their court, and they must play it deftly and sensibly lest it should tear, go offside, or go out of play. But if the president will not discontinue the trial, he will find little profit in keeping Mr Kanu in a case that could never serve as a deterrent to sensible or senseless self-determination advocates. The president may even later discover that after releasing the IPOB leader, his supporters may begin insulting the administration, arguing that he was released because it was no longer tenable to keep him. No one should bother about such posturing, especially seeing how regionwide the campaign to free him has become. It is crucial to know that the region has reached the end of its tether in finding a solution to the bloodletting orchestrated by unknown gunmen desecrating the Southeast. And since the region’s governors take Mr Kanu’s word for it when he suggested during one of his court appearances that he could end the violence in Igboland, the federal government has nothing to lose giving them what they want. After all, years of militarising the region and erecting interminable checkpoints have done little to stanch the flow of blood or win the federal government goodwill.

    More importantly, it is also time President Tinubu infused a healthy dose of populism into his politics and administration. Even if releasing Mr Kanu does not appear to be legally sound, it is sound populism. So far, the president has seemed to eschew the populist act of reaching accommodation with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) by paying them their eight months withheld salaries. Yet, before he assumed office last year, and despite showing keen interest in placating them, he has left them holding the short end of the stick. More, he has also seemed to be in a quandary over the campaign for lower electricity tariffs. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, he will rekindle his intuitive grasp of Nigeria’s political dynamics beyond his incomparable capacity to strategise electoral triumphs. Apart from reaching an agreement with ASUU and keeping youths in school with upgraded facilities, he will also hopefully relieve the country of inflationary pressures, set personal examples starting with his office, and, after meeting the Southeast governors, release Mr Kanu. 

  • Atiku, the Minna and Daura visits and 2027

    Atiku, the Minna and Daura visits and 2027

    Whatever anyone thinks of the Minna and Daura trips of former vice president Atiku Abubakar, he is unmoved. On June 19, according to his own post on X (Twitter), he merely paid Sallah visits to former military rulers Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar in Minna, and on June 22 to ex-president Muhammadu Buhari in Daura. Expatiating a little further, Alhaji Atiku’s aide, Paul Ibe, described the Daura, Katsina State, trip as a condolence visit to the family of former governor Lawan Kaita, with a detour to ex-president Buhari’s residence. There is no consensus on what the visits were all about, especially in light of the high-powered retinue that accompanied him on the three trips, the Daura visit being the most notable. However, consensus, if not common sense, is gradually growing that the visits were chiefly political, with an eye on Presidential poll 2027.

    Alhaji Atiku‘s Daura visit was in company with former Sokoto State governor Aminu Tambuwal and former Adamawa State governor Jibrilla Bindow. A few newspapers quoted some unnamed sources close to the former vice president as suggesting that the visits were strategic political moves towards Poll 2027. The former vice president would scoff at anyone describing the visits as strategic. But realpolitik? Perhaps. For the former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), it was really an open, unapologetic, in-your-face visit. He is unbothered by however the visit is canonised or draped in conspiracy. He was not really a fan of ex-president Buhari with whom he fell out in 2017, making scathing remarks about his first term and leadership competence. And he had once brutally outplayed Gen. Babangida in a 2010 PDP shadow primary to pick a consensus aspirant for the North towards the 2011 presidential election. Despite the controversy and misgivings about what Alhaji Atiku’s 2024 Sallah visits were all about, it can be safely assumed that they have political undertones.

    The former vice president is all about ambition without tactics. He does not pick his fights well, burns his bridges without reflection, and lacks both the guile and strategy to upstage his opponents in national polls. He has contested the presidency many times without success. In 2003, while still vice president, he scorched the snake but didn’t kill it, and he paid dearly for his vacillations. His best chance was last year’s poll, but he was pigheaded about his choices, and again paid a huge price. No candidate ever snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as brilliantly as he did in the 2023 presidential poll. It was clear he had no great footing in the PDP before the poll, having earlier traipsed around other parties before retracing his steps in the nick of time. Now, he has seemed to master the art of conducting opposition politics without doing anything to heal the rifts in his party or even repair the party’s conservative platform, or imbue it with a coherent ideology consistent with his own eclectic ideas of running organisations, sustaining personal relationships, and ruling a country.

    It is his right to run for the presidency at any age, even after crossing the nonagenarian mark. But if he ever hopes to win, there are a few basics he must respect. One is loyalty to party and respect for its platform. Two is cobbling together a network of contacts and allies in nearly all of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. And three is developing the intuition for victory. Alhaji Atiku has so far been unable to remedy his failings in these three significant areas, and now he has embarked on junkets to former leaders’ houses in the hope of securing their endorsements or at least acknowledgements. It is unlikely the three former leaders he visited a week and more ago will endorse him. One or two may okay his ambition privately, but they won’t risk it openly because it would be impolitic. Two years ago, Gen Babangida, waxing lyrical as they say, wrote off Alhaji Atiku as too old to run or win. The aspirant will be 80 at the next poll, and is already languid and shuffling. Who will endorse him?

    Read Also: Atiku’s plan to unseat Tinubu in 2027, mere wishful thinking – DOJ

    Gen Abubakar, having secured an uncanny reputation for making the right leadership choices, especially following his smart and rapid transition programme culminating in the 1999 elections, has patented the art of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Now ensconced in a national committee for peace, he is unlikely to be of any significant help to the former vice president, preferring to stay above the fray where he will keep nurturing his dignity as a sage. Ex-president Buhari has long memory; he rarely forgets slights, not to say wholehearted insults and attacks, nor does he easily forgive. He has learnt to be accommodating, even playing politics and associating with former enemies, as his presidency showed; but if it rests on him alone, he will heartily withhold his support for a traducer as remorseless and Machiavellian as Alhaji Atiku. Besides, despite enormous pressure, and regardless of his considerable waffling, the former president managed to resist the temptation to side with one aspirant or the other before the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary in 2022. He was unsure of everything and anything, and would not commit himself. Worse, he ended up being apathetic before and during the 2023 presidential race, occasionally letting himself be beguiled by some other candidates, including, surprisingly and secretly, Alhaji Atiku. He will be a worse ditherer now. Having got his fingers burnt once, he won’t let it happen a second time. He has only one lifetime.

    Overall, Alhaji Atiku is letting his primordial politics show up early in all its ugly details again. He made recourse to ethnic politics in the last presidential poll, in company with Senator Tambuwal, and in deep antipathy towards party chieftains like former Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike. Incredibly, he is again courting northern leaders in a display of regional politicking that illustrates the leitmotif of his politics, not to say his ethnic exceptionalism which made him bitterly resentful of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu victory in the last polls. He is rumoured to be inclined to running for the presidency in 2027 with ex-governor Peter Obi, the former Labour Party presidential candidate who emblematised religious politics. There are many errors Alhaji Atiku should correct before the next poll, assuming his ambition is not thwarted before then. But he won’t pay attention. Instead, he will scour the hottest part of hell to cobble together what he thinks will be a winning formula or coalition. As far as he is concerned, however, every such formula or coalition is a chimera.

  • Kenyan tax revolts and Nigeria

    Kenyan tax revolts and Nigeria

    It is not surprising that the lingering bitterness that still trail Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election has led some sympathisers of those who lost out to suggest the replication of the Kenyan tax hike revolts in Nigeria. Last week, Kenyan youths, self-characterised as Generation Z, took to the streets to confront President William Ruto‘s proposed 2024 Finance Bill. For a financial year that runs from July to June, the bill was planned to structure the East African country’s 2024-2025 revenue and expenditure projections. In one intense and riotous week of violent protests involving some 35 of the country’s 47 counties, the youths battled security forces, suffered casualties, and finally compelled President Ruto to completely disavow the bill, instead of tinkering with it as he initially promised when the protests broke out. Comparisons are said to be odious, but Nigerian instigators inspired by the effectiveness of the Kenyan revolt long for a similar revolt to break out in the country. Could they determine how far the revolt would go, given the vagaries of Nigerian history?

    Kenya, like Tanzania, has never witnessed a coup d’etat. The closest they got to that tragic option was the 1982 coup attempt against the Daniel Arap Moi administration. It is not clear whether Kenya’s insulation from coups had anything to do with the Mau Mau rebellion of 1952-1960 against British colonial administration, or whether the country was just plain lucky. It is, however, instructive that while last week’s Kenyan youths’ revolt lasted, they only went as far as calling for the resignation of President Ruto. Of course the protests have not been completely smothered, and it may still recrudesce, but Kenyan elites, probably aware of the unique position their country occupies in the global scheme of things and its status in East Africa, have been lackadaisical in pushing for reforms, narrowing inequality, and responding effectively to deepening poverty. The Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is the biggest telecommunications and financial hub in the region. Much more, the country has been an oasis of relative peace in a region wracked by war and state failures, the consequences of which are not lost on the country. It has tried to broker peace in Ethiopia, Sudan, eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and has deployed peacekeeping troops in Somalia. Its port city of Mombasa handles cargoes for Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and eastern DRC. But whether in these protests Kenyan Gen Z are capable of cutting their nose to spite their face, thus jeopardising their unique regional status, is not certain. At the moment, they are in a quandary how to proceed.

    A few days after the protests began, President Ruto halted his bluffing and promised not to sign the finance bill. His promise came on the heels of the storming of the overindulgent parliament and the killing of dozens of protesters. Everyone, except perhaps the youths themselves, feared that any escalation could lead the country down a disastrous and unpredictable path. The youths, mainly under 34 years old, and who constitute about 70 percent of the country’s estimated 56m people, had tasted blood and liked it. They were thus no longer satisfied with only checkmating the finance bill; they had also begun to call for the resignation of the president, in a move that closely resembled Nigeria’s October 2020 EndSARS protesters who shifted their protests’ goalpost until they lost the gains of the revolt and nearly lost the country itself. The Kenyan protests are not about crime, but about poverty, corruption and debt peonage. The finance bill, adjudged burdensome and insensitive, was designed to raise the country’s revenue by an extra $2.7bn in order to qualify for IMF loan. It would have led to the imposition of levy on sundry consumables like bread on which a duty of 16 percent was projected, cooking oil with a duty proposal of about 25 percent, and sugar etc.

    Read Also: Ruto agrees ‘for conversation’ with Kenyan protesters over tax hikes

    This, unfortunately, is a country in the throes of devastating flooding which killed over 200 people, and food shortages, among other setbacks. With about four out of every 10 people of working age unemployed, a debt figure of about $80bn or about 70 percent of GDP, and one-quarter of revenue spent on interest payments, the country was sinking deeper into poverty and hardship. Compounding the crisis is the fact that some 30 percent of the people live below poverty line. And while growth stays at some five percent, about half of annual budget is still spent on debt repayment. The country was, in short, heading for default. If the protests are not brought under control and President Ruto’s promise of government austerity measures to curb spending not faithfully executed, it is not certain that the country would not go into a tailspin. The Gen Z may be justified in their protests, but they also must learn from other countries’ experiences and moderate both their anger and expectations. In the late 18th Century, France overthrew their monarch after bread riots. And after much bloodshed, in which even the children of the revolution were consumed, they found themselves under Napoleon Bonaparte’s dictatorship and military expansionism that cost more than 3.5 million lives. In 2014, Ukraine fought tooth and nail to overthrow the pro-Russia administration of President Viktor Yanukovych. But while Ukrainians bickered, Russia annexed Crimea, advanced on Eastern Ukraine, and then about two years ago, citing security and cultural concerns, invaded the entire country. Yet, former Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev (born near Ukraine), Leonid Brezhnev (born in central Ukraine), Mikhail Gorbachev (Ukrainian on the maternal side) all ruled the Soviet Union as if they were Ukrainians. Konstantin Chernenko was, however, Ukrainian. Josef Stalin, on the other hand, was not even ethnically Russian, but Georgian. In fact, ‘Ukrainian-origin’ leaders presided over the Soviet Union for about half of its 70 years existence. Draw the inference.

    Two more examples of immoderate and excessive demands and expectations leading to tragic outcomes should suffice. The Arab Spring of 2010 begun in Tunisia was a revolt by youths dissatisfied with corruption, economic hardship and dictatorship. But while a few governments were overthrown in the Maghreb, the revolt left in its wake worse dictatorships, bitter and still continuing civil wars, massive disruptions by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other non-state actors, and forced migration, state failure, uncertain future, and consequences still reverberating through coups in the Sahel region. The Arab Spring mirrored Europe’s Revolutions of 1848 (Spring of Nations), and the Prague Spring of 1968 in which Czech student Jan Palach, like Tunisia’s Mohamed Bouazizi, immolated himself. Indeed, the major slogan of the Arab Spring was that ‘the people want to bring down the regime’. Alarmingly, Gen Z everywhere, including in Nigeria, do not acquaint themselves with the lessons of history. They want to assume leadership quickly, and would as soon commit regicide to displace the older generations as turn on one another through cancel culture and the distortion and weaponisation of wokeism. In Nigeria as in Kenya, through protests brutally repressed or indulged, societies and leaders must begin to find ways of narrowing the dichotomy between the younger and the older generations. Their destinies are too interwoven to be extricable; and if a country must survive it must learn to miscegenate the vigour of youths with the wisdom of elders. 

    There is indeed a sense in which Nigeria’s labour unions, election losers, and other agitators are eager to trigger mass, leaderless revolt. Unable to reconcile themselves to their losses, they have seized upon the legitimate anger of the poor who protest against the profligacy of the National Assembly, corruption in high places, contradictory government policies and programmes, wasteful spending, and the restriction of belt tightening to the poor and underpaid workers and the unemployed. Kenya has just discovered the dangers of taking the people for granted. It is suspected that Nigerian authorities are trying to take the wind out of the sail of agitators and their champions, assuming they have not switched on the panic button already with a plethora of hastily considered financial giveaways. How successfully proactive that measure will be will depend on the depth and integrity of the advice they are getting and implementing. Contrary to the expectations of the Gen Z, Kenya may have forestalled the possibility of a coup or revolution by its peculiar demographics in which the three largest ethnic groups in the country are almost evenly spread between the Kikuyu (17.13%), Luhya (14.35%), Kalenjin (13.37%), Luo (10.65%), and Kamba (9.81%). Mr Ruto is Kalenjin. But before getting giddy over Kenya, Nigerians should take another look at their country, relearn their history, particularly of the 1966 coup and countercoup as well as the 1967-1970 civil war. There should be safe and democratic ways to advocate good and prudent governance instead of whooping for war and revolution on social media or promoting ethnic and religious exceptionalism simply because of political setbacks. There is nothing to indicate that should Nigeria again sail near the wind, it won’t shipwreck altogether.

  • Fubara, Kwankwaso and leadership crisis

    Fubara, Kwankwaso and leadership crisis

    In both Kano and Rivers States, the causes of their political and administrative unrest are still being unravelled and litigated. It is unlikely the litigations will last more than a few more months, or even weeks. But the governors of the two states, Abba Kabir Yusuf and Siminalayi Fubara respectively, and their backers are unwilling to wait much longer. Despite enjoying the fruit of democracy, they have nevertheless indicated their preference for strong-arm tactics. Both governors are enraged by the audacity of the opposition. In Kano, Mallam Yusuf and his main backer, Kwankwasiyya Movement leader and ex-governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who hovers over the governor like an apparition, are determined much more than anything else to efface the memory of Abdullahi Ganduje, former governor and current All Progressives Congress (APC) chairman. The governor and Mallam Kwankwaso are driven by and obsessed with vengeance.

    The conflict in Rivers State is only a little different from Kano. While Kano is prepossessed with vengeance, Rivers is haunted by what Governor Fubara and his supporters have described as their emancipation struggle. They wish to be rid of the pernicious influence of former governor and FCT minister Nyesom Wike. In the case of Kano, ex-governor Ganduje was unable to foist his party’s candidate, Nasir Gawuna, on the state. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Kwankwasiyya Movement appears determined to obliterate his memory from the state. Kano is probably the closest approximation to a civic culture in Nigeria. Had Mallam Gawuna won, the state would not be in the throes of conflict as it is currently experiencing. But the struggle in Rivers has left many people truly bewildered. Mr Wike rammed the heedless Mr Fubara down the throats of both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the state’s longsuffering electorate, clearly without knowing who he really was. Nothing qualified him for both the post and the job, except that he sounded, looked and acted loyal and apolitical. That he fooled Mr Wike so effectively and comprehensively is a testament to the former governor’s lack of depth and capacity in judging character.

    Read Also: APC slams PDP, dispels alleged plot to forcefully take over Rivers

    Kano’s Kwankwasiyya were combative from the outset. Once the governorship crown settled around Mallam Yusuf’s ears, the movement embarked on a demolition spree, instigated a legislative amendment to reclaim the Kano Emirate from the quarters where Mallam Ganduje sequestered it, and appointed verbal pugilists who gave the APC chairman as much as he dared to voice. Rivers’ case began with a few tremors here and there; but soon, the reticent Mr Fubara began to convulse and consternate his foes, determined to be his own man sooner rather than later. He took his benefactor by surprise. Believing him to be as tame as he looked, the Wike crowd hurled a few disdainful and bellicose words at him. Unsure whether the governor’s initial unflappability was out of fear or his stoical disposition, they soon threatened him with impeachment. The sum of all the happenings in the state is that the parliament building was torched and then demolished, and the legislature balkanised. Worse, the state is now ethnically divided in such a manner that healing would take ages, if at all. On top of these, the consequent litigations launched to resolve the crisis have been snarled in the courts. If Kwankwasiyya are unprepared to give Mallam Ganduje any quarter, Mr Fubara and his supporters are even more prepared to move mountains to hang Mr Wike literally and figuratively.

    The conflicts and litigations in Kano and Rivers sadly indicate the poverty of leadership in Nigeria, and the decades of inattention paid the important subject of leadership recruitment and succession. Not one of the combatants in the troubled states exemplifies sound leadership. Governors Fubara and Yusuf show contempt for the rule of law, with both of them not only eager to demolish anything that irritates them, including buildings that stand in their way, they would not mind even instigating a revolution to wipe out their enemies or put the whole country at risk. It is alarming. Kano has been a little more wary of instigating street protests and actions; but Rivers’ Mr Fubara has recklessly procured the services of local toughs, whether they are militants or trade unions. Apart from speaking violence and defiance, he has harboured suspects wanted by the police. His chief-of-staff and former factional speaker of the state legislature, Edison Ehie, was even on the streets marshalling agitation and whipping up bitterness and resentment against Mr Wike and the Martin Amaewhule-led House of Assembly. Meanwhile the suits filed to resolve the impasse are only days or weeks away from final resolution. But they cannot wait. Kano’s Mallam Yusuf has not been as abrasive and extreme, but he has equally been provocative. On Thursday, Kano’s Justice commissioner, Haruna Dederi, took the liberty of interpreting the Federal High Court ruling on the case in a way that suited the liberal postulations of the state government, insisting that since the court refused to pronounce on the merit of last month’s Emirate repeal law which restored the Kano Emirate to one unified whole instead of five, it underscored and validated the government’s position. It was time to demolish the Nasarawa palace occupied by the deposed emir Ado Bayero, he added grimly and apocalyptically.

    Farther down South, Mr Fubara is impatient to let the law take its course. He embraces a three-man legislature that vets his budget and screens his cabinet and local government caretaker chairmen. His men, led by Victor Oko-Jumbo, also went to court to get the seats of Hon. Amaewhule and 24 other lawmakers declared vacant. The State High Court obliged them, but the Court of Appeal, to which the 25 lawmakers have made recourse, is yet to pronounce on the case, having reserved judgement until sometime later. Meanwhile, Mr Fubara has disregarded the tenure extension granted elected LGA chairmen by the legislature and has appointed new caretaker chairmen, whom he swore in last Wednesday, giving rise to a totally new set of crisis on top of the existing crises in the state. All the cases seem destined to end up in the Supreme Court, but they are unlikely to take long in resolution. It would be a hallmark of democracy and rule of law, were the governor to exercise a little more patience until the courts exhaust themselves. But having framed the Rivers imbroglio wholly and exclusively in terms of Mr Wike’s intransigence and desire to run the state from behind the curtain, Mr Fubara has rallied a vocal and vehement group of Riverians behind his banner willing to use strong-arm tactics to force the former governor’s capitulation and humiliation.  

    It is not certain that Kano State’s Mallam Yusuf and Mallam Kwankwaso will have their way. If they do, it will be because their animus against Mallam Ganduje, not to say the reunification of Kano Emirate, is popular. This column has no interest in validating the positions of the two contesting groups in the Kano conflict. It is also not clear that Mr Fubara will have his way in unseating the Amaewhule-led House of Assembly. But if he does, it may be because the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court have aligned their interpretation of the law with his position. Whatever the courts decide for both riotous states will be the position of the law, and should settle the crises. But one thing is without controversy: both Kano and Rivers governors have demonstrated inept leadership, and those who sponsored their enthronement, including Mr Wike and Mallam Kwankwaso, are poor judges of character. Worse, all of them have demonstrated a lack of altruism without the redeeming virtue of knowing the littlest thing about leadership. Kano and Rivers are of course not isolated cases in Nigeria. It will take more than democracy and elections to produce the kind of leaders the country needs, if Nigeria is not to be continually assailed by the tomfooleries of Mr Fubara and Mallam Yusuf. The problem is not whether Mallam Kwankwaso or Mallam Ganduje is right or wrong, or whether Mr Fubara is humble and Mr Wike proud and meddlesome. The tragedy is that these gentlemen have no business in leadership, let alone governing states and becoming custodians of democracy.    

  • Opposition politics: Atiku, Obi out do each other

    Opposition politics: Atiku, Obi out do each other

     Months ago, after they finally but grudgingly conceded defeat in the last presidential election, former vice president Atiku Abubakar and former Anambra State governor Peter Obi announced to the world that each of them would be the main opposition to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his All Progressives Congress (APC). True to their forecast, not to say their individualistic approach to politics, they have begun a dogfight to supplant each other as the leading opposition to the ruling party. Alhaji Atiku, former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was the first to unsheathe his sword last November barely weeks after his presidential bid was anticlimactically buried by the courts. In April, days after an opposition coalition defeated the ruling coalition in Senegal, and still presuming himself to be the chief galvaniser and anchor of the opposition in Nigeria, the former vice president advocated the formation of a coalition to unseat President Tinubu and the APC.

    Mr Obi, 62, former presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the last poll, would have none of that bragging or presumption. Believing himself to be younger and more vibrant than the 77 years old PDP leader, and convinced he had a captive force of belligerent and impudent social media warriors inelegantly labelled as Obidients, the former Anambra governor issued a fanciful war whoop early January pronouncing his readiness to assume the vacant leadership of the opposition. Having come third in the February 2023 presidential election, and having taken advantage of his ethnicity and the biases of many Christian enclaves, it was not immediately clear how he hoped to transcend his self-limiting politics or the geographical and demographic encumbrances he animated. Regardless of any reservations anyone might have and unbothered by the scornfulness of those who see him as a usurper, Mr Obi has shown incredible temerity in playing the lead character in his sophomoric playlet.

    Read Also: Atiku, El-Rufai, Kwankwaso won’t agree to contest with Peter Obi in 2027 – Omokri

    Now, the two leading politicians, with Alhaji Atiku easily the more recognisable before the fateful poll and Mr Obi the more scarified after the poll, have tried to outdo each other in unleashing verbal fusillade against the ruling party, particularly the president. The former vice president began the salvoes last November, and has ensured that neither the volume of his denunciations of the president nor the vitriol is diminished by time or space. Barely two weeks after the Supreme Court upheld President Tinubu’s election, Alhaji Atiku was at the barricades sounding the alarm about Nigeria sliding precipitously into dictatorship and one-party state. This was just five months after the president assumed office. Since then, the former vice president has guaranteed that there is no let-up in his attacks. His attacks do not always have to make sense; all he cares about is that they resonate with the people and flow spontaneously. And in light of the fuel subsidy removal crisis and the terrible divisions that have rent the polity since the elections, he knew that Nigerians were looking for scapegoats upon which to vent their spleens.

    In March, after bandits attacked Rafi LGA in Niger State, Alhaji Atiku exclaimed that Nigeria under President Tinubu had become a killing field. Before then, in January, he had also accused the president of ‘playing the fiddle while the country was drowning in an ocean of insecurity’. The attacks have been relentless for as long as the president has been in office. Relinquish office if the ‘shoe is too big for you,’ he had said in January, and in February he described the president as a ‘hypocrite’ for throwing former president Muhammadu Buhari ‘under the bus’ over the exchange rate volatility unnerving the country. In April, Alhaji Atiku also savaged the president over the Lagos-Calabar coastal road and questioned the integrity of his relationship with businessman Gilbert Chagoury, insisting that in the award of the contract, the president prioritised ‘personal business’ over government business. And about two weeks ago, he also denounced President Tinubu for allegedly lying about fuel subsidy, which he calculated might rise to N5.4trn from N3.6trn. Then he excoriated the president for recklessly taking loans without regard for transparency.

    Alhaji Atiku has found his rhythm in launching broadsides against the Tinubu administration. He will not relent. He will sustain the attacks until the PDP repudiates him as leader or candidate in the next poll, or he is spurned by any other coalition party he might conjure. But for as long as his chances of becoming a party’s standard-bearer remain bright, he will retain his bullishness and savour every word he flings at the enemy, every syllable, every shade of meaning. As far-reaching as he thinks his statements have been, and as effective as they seem in a country bifurcated with hunger and anguish, Mr Obi on the other hand appears confident he could do more damage than the former vice president in ladling boiling oil out of LP’s social media jar. Undoubtedly, he has connected with a few uppercuts. The only problem, however, is that his blows have no bigger impact than feather dusters, effeminate verbal blows that rely on homilies, wisecracks, and tenuous philosophies. Since he issued tentative statements about being the main face of the opposition in Nigeria, he has grown more confident in seeing himself as a potential candidate in the next poll. The only problem is that the next election is still some three years away, enough time to weaken imaginations, wreck reputations, undermine courage, and dissipate confidence.

    Indeed, both Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi have one major political weakness: their insurmountable lack of capacity and depth in administering a political party. Mr Obi is of course the worse in this field, but the former vice president is also irredeemable. Founding a new party to practice what they preach is impossible for them. They do not have the time, and will not commit the money. Both gentlemen must, therefore, hope to sustain the PDP or LP, as the case may be, until 2027. Sustaining the LP till that time is almost impossible, assuming Mr Obi and his fractious and irascible group of followers can even muster the intellect and stamina. In the PDP, Alhaji Atiku is a philosophical outlier and a detached administrator and financier. The party’s top hats cast furtive glances at him, deprecate his opportunism, are galled by his constant electoral fiascos, and are superstitious about the jinxes that have dogged him for decades. But if against the run of play, he can coax the party to favour him, any contemplation of a coalition, as he has implied and even rhapsodised, will unleash a fierce undertow in the party. To then proceed, notwithstanding these apprehensions, into a coalition with Mr Obi will lead to an ineluctable diminution of their chances, with the North secretly anxious about a Southeast running mate to the ageing Alhaji Atiku, and the Igbo unable to rouse themselves into the kind of ecstasy that stoked their quest for the presidency under Mr Obi’s candidacy.

    Having tested their mettles separately in the last presidential poll and found themselves to be made of Teflon, Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi have now probably recognised their limitations. In the past few months, they have found their niches in excoriating President Tinubu and the APC. To hope to go beyond those niches may be a futile attempt at reaching for the stars. They lack the spaceship, lack the engineering, and lack the skills. There is indeed a deep foreboding of what the next few years hold for the two gentlemen who seem better suited to running businesses in formless and unregulated environments than in playing politics or running a government.    

  • Agenda for Tinubu’s second year

    Agenda for Tinubu’s second year

    As his reforms take longer than expected in yielding fruit, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must by now be accustomed to being abused by his opponents, or constantly hectored if that opponent is the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). He could, like his predecessor, choose to be indifferent to the campaigns against his administration and person, or he could choose to be impatient and intolerant. Fortunately for him, despite the trenchancy of the opposition, he has chosen to respond to the attacks with the equanimity of a true democrat. At every turn, such as at last week’s Democracy Day celebrations, he boasts of his democratic credentials, and he is justified to exult; but he is from now on fated to thrive or perish on that scaffold. He spent his first year in office laying a great foundation for the future, resetting the economy, paying off critical debts, retuning the country’s finances, and turning his gaze on some legacy infrastructural projects. Despite the relevance of these policies and programmes, none of them has definitively yielded direct or immediate benefits to an increasingly famished population.

    Unfortunately for the administration, only the president’s die-hard supporters and knowledgeable economists think he has done the right thing or is headed in the right direction. Of course, he and his team believe that without the resetting of foundations which he has embarked on, the future would be fraught with extreme danger. They are all probably right, but his critics and abusers, particularly the hungry and the dispossessed battling with life-and-death situations will remain unimpressed, if not disgusted. They will get testier as hunger deepens and as the months pile on without a significant amelioration of their conditions. The president’s salesmen may not have sold his reforms and efforts with panache, but their nervousness does not diminish what he has accomplished in one dizzying year. His confidence in his plans and policies is infectious, though minified by incomprehensible reversals; but until his plans and policies begin to translate into a substantial softening of the hardship many are experiencing, his attitude would be viewed as intransigent, World Bank/IMF-inspired, or even altogether incompetent.

    Read Also: Tinubu condoles Emeka Anyaoku on brother-in-law’s passing

    In his second year, he will gradually discover, as many great leaders have experienced, that he will need forces higher than he is to make the economic weather inclement. He has planned and promoted policies, but like wartime leaders, he must hope that the elements will flow in his favour. He probably already knows that, especially what it means for unseen forces to coalesce to someone’s advantage, as his election itself demonstrated last year to the consternation of his opponents. And as president who must take responsibility for virtually everything wrong or well with Nigeria, seeing that the buck stops at his desk, he must be wary of espousing celestial interventions or giving such interventions precedence over his efforts. Overall, in the second year, he must instill bigger confidence in his measures, work doubly harder than he has promoted, and make far fewer mistakes and reversals than he has done so far. The work clearly strains him, as some of his infrequent and unexplained trips overseas suggest, but fortunately for him, the strain is countervailed by the pure, almost unearthly sense of joy and accomplishment he feels being in Aso Villa where instead of continuing to postulate from the sidelines and be rebuffed or even rebuked, he now makes things happen.

    He has a listening ear, and will in his second year continue to read all sorts of analyses, both foreign and local, about his social, economic and political programmes, with many of those essays ignorant, some of them unsparing, and others encouraging. Rather than take umbrage, the analyses must serve as an opportunity for him to receive a fresh perspective from outside experts not beholden to him or his government. One year is more than enough to steady his policy and administrative gait. He should now proceed more deliberately and surefootedly, be less given to impulsiveness, and be cleverer at consulting widely and building consensuses. It probably took a few months to convince himself he had won the presidency he once dreamt of. Now he has the diadem, and he must now walk it, talk it, and more loftily cast visionary glances at the future of his presidency. He has gloated about his democratic convictions, but it must never be at the expense of letting his opponents or even organised labour trample the rule of law underfoot. During last week’s Democracy Day dinner, Senator Shehu Sani lauded him as the father and funder of Nigeria’s recent protest movements. The senator is partly right, but the president has the constitution, not sentiments, to guide him. Besides, the shoe is on the other foot now, and he has more than 200 million people to lead. He must find the wisdom and resolve to balance patience with firmness in dealing with those who allow themselves considerable latitude with the law.

    More importantly, sensing that the people he leads have become increasingly impatient, especially as their misery appears to be compounded by the administration’s policies and programmes, it is time the president adopted a more radical approach both in his public engagements with the people, despite the occasional sneers, and in his measures. He needs to orchestrate a massive and overwhelming nationwide return to the farms in his second year, including deploying prisoners to designated farm settlements, and he should find the sword to slay the insecurity ogre hindering that return. The war against insecurity, as it is currently waged, will take far too long. Other than his kerfuffle with the states over the status of local governments, the president has seemed to cede, at least publicly, to national lawmakers the responsibility of championing political reforms. Yes, plausible deniability comes to the fore here, but whether this ‘indirect’ approach is also the wise thing to do in a polity operating an unsuitable and seemingly calcified constitution remains to be seen.

    It is doubtful whether President Tinubu can postpone doing something about the justice system. It is overdue for reform, both in the appointment of judicial officers and the administration of criminal justice system itself. He has started by dramatically augmenting the wages of judicial officers; he now needs to do more by retuning the practice of law in Nigeria and dealing effectively with the politicisation of the courts in the states and, in some instances, their wilful and humiliating subordination to governors. Simultaneously, the president must find ways of cajoling the national legislature, despite the independence of the three arms of government, into being less flagrant and provocative in their expenditures and lifestyles. It won’t be easy, given the near unanimity of the lawmakers in inspiring and defending their luxurious lifestyle. President Tinubu needs to reconnect them with the reality of living in Nigeria. Asking him to prune the legislature into a unicameral assembly may be farfetched, for it would amount to asking the lawmakers to fall on their swords, but getting them to be more prudent in their spending might be a conceivable request to make.

    President Tinubu’s predecessors did little to entrench democracy in Nigeria, starting from the hyperbolic Olusegun Obasanjo era, through the sedate Goodluck Jonathan period, and, worse, through the hybrid and detached Muhammadu Buhari presidency. During the June 12 Democracy Day dinner, speaker after speaker lionised the president’s contribution to the revival of democracy in Nigeria. He deserves the praise; in fact, it is believed that his contributions have been understated. He may in this wise be anxious to live up to the expectation of being the first real progressive and democrat to occupy Aso Villa. However, his presidency will be challenged by the country’s religious and ethnic ossifications as well as by the nuanced fact that democracy or elections alone are not sufficient in putting the best man in office. It is, therefore, not too early in his second year to begin rethinking the subject of leadership recruitment. The inattention paid to this issue nearly undid the country in the First Republic. It can undo the Fourth Republic if it continues to be treated cavalierly.

  • National Assembly barking up the wrong tree

    National Assembly barking up the wrong tree

    Fresh from their feeding frenzy on the new national anthem, which they passed with dizzying speed on May 23, exultant national assembly members have now trained their guns on a new target. Starting with the House of Representatives, the lawmakers appear determined to make hay while the sun shines. They seem convinced that there are many sharpshooters among them, some of them connoisseurs of lawmaking of the uncanny kind. But they don’t seem aware that their national anthem bill left many Nigerians reeling from the pace of the process as well as the shock of seeing it passed and assented in quick order by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on May 29, just days after. But regardless of any reservations, particularly by a skeptical public wary about the vaunted motives and altruism of the legislators, the lawmakers have already gone ahead to gleefully embrace a new tenure campaign.

    Their new crusade is an old gelding, a dead horse called six-year single term. Ex-president Goodluck Jonathan promoted the idea barely three months after winning the 2011 presidential election. He did not specify at the time how long that single term should be, but it was widely believed he had six years in mind. And despite promising not to take advantage of that amendment should it be passed by the legislature, he was roundly condemned for disingenuously campaigning for tenure elongation. The six-year single term proposal had repeatedly attracted newspaper headlines, but without any matching attempt to railroad it through like the new national anthem which became law late last month. Unlike the national anthem, term lengths and limits are very impactful and problematic, not to say deeply political. It is at the root of Nigeria’s democratic unease since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, and indeed since independence. Amending it will require far more efforts and negotiations than the wordings and inspiration of an anthem.

    Read Also: Sallah: Abbas congratulates Muslims, urges more sacrifice by Nigerians

    How far can the House of Representatives go, assuming they get the buy-in of the senate? Not very far, it seems, especially because they have included in their crusade a welter of difficult and controversial amendments. Some 35 Reps members led by Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere (Ideato North/South – Imo State) have lent their weight to the proposal, perhaps believing like Dr Jonathan that a single term would obviate the bloodletting, waste and acrimony that accompany every election cycle. In their words, “We are a group of over 30 reform-minded lawmakers from different political parties that have come together and are committed to ensuring a working Nigeria using legislative instruments within our power to ensure the reduction of cost of governance and campaigns, unite our country, ensure a seamless transition, continuity, uninterrupted development, justice, equity, independence of INEC, efficient use of state resources, tackle nepotism, state capture, and corruption in electoral processes, etc.”

    Hon. Ugochinyere adds, “There is no doubt that our country is in desperate need of a long-lasting solution to our poor economic situation, insecurity, disunity, weak institutions, weak health and education sector, corruption in public sectors, and waste of state resources. We have now a critical phase where what is at stake is the very survival of Nigeria as one political and economic unit. We must rise to the challenge, and what we do with this opportunity given to us by our people matters a lot. We, the reformers, elected representatives of the people of Nigeria, are concentrated on proving that we are fully capable of managing our affairs together as a nation.”

    Some of the changes the Group of 35 seeks are rotational presidency among the country’s six informal geopolitical zones, constitutional formalisation of the zones, provision for two vice presidents, and a host of other amendments. The lawmakers acknowledged that the amendments were not original to them. They traced the amendments’ historical course and deplored the abandonment of the efforts to birth constitutional reforms despite spending so much money promoting change. Soon, however, they will discover why their predecessors abandoned their efforts and wilted before the challenges posed by the proposed reforms. Not only must reformers get the amendments passed through the two legislative chambers without significant dilution, they must also get them passed by at least 24 state assemblies. Getting the amendments through the national assembly will be truly herculean; passing them through the states will be like forcing a camel through the eye of a needle. The lawmakers can surely not have forgotten that last February, some 60 members of the House began advocating a return to the parliamentary system, forgetting, interestingly, that in December 2018, more than 70 national lawmakers also campaigned for the same system to replace the presidential system. Legislators seem to love flogging dead horses.

    So far, the reformation many national assembly members romanticise has not really taken off. Presuming the new national anthem, not to say the brevity of the efforts that heralded its passage, to be the new leitmotif of constitutional amendment, they have displayed undue optimism and greedily expanded their shopping list. However, amending any constitution is exhausting drudgery, probably the worst kind in these parts due to ethnic and religious suspicion. Amending a constitution is also riddled with many unassailable procedural pitfalls. Nevertheless, the lawmakers can try where their predecessors had dared and failed, and hope against hope that they are not barking up the wrong tree. But they must finally try to answer the global conundrum surrounding term limits wherein many countries attempt to counterbalance the drawbacks of extended one term for incompetent leaders against the costliness and sometimes disruptiveness of competent leaders campaigning for a second term. After all, one term helps a country cuts its losses when grappling with an inept ruler.

  • Datti Baba-Ahmed, Aisha Yusuf hone extremism

    Datti Baba-Ahmed, Aisha Yusuf hone extremism

    Apart from being remorselessly extreme in supporting the candidacy of Peter Obi in the last presidential election, not to talk of still irrationally propagating his phantom victory, both Datti Baba-Ahmed, Mr Obi’s running mate, and Aisha Yesufu, activist and politician, have continued to strain credulity to its elastic limit. Until last year, Mrs Yesufu had foresworn politicking; now she is an ardent fan of the former LP presidential candidate, and his foot soldier to boot. Mr Datti on the hand cuts a very urbane figure as an educationist dedicated to research and finding the truth. His virtues, it is clear, are exaggerated.

    What indeed binds the two together is not just their fanatical loyalty to Mr Obi, which is bad and embarrassing enough, nor even their depressing inability to separate truth from falsehood, but their flippant talk and silly caress of chaos and revolution. Until the 2023 elections and their aftermaths, no one could guess the depth of extremism Mr Datti was ready to plumb. He tells himself infernal lies, and stupendously believes them. Activism, particularly the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, had masked the chaos and wishful thinking wreaking havoc on the mind of Mrs Yesufu. Sadly, just like Mr Datti, she still seems blissfully unaware of how odiously she drains the dregs of infamy with election denial and fact warping. It is shocking.

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    Both Labour Party (LP) politicians do not have to like President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; they may even loathe him. They are entitled to their views. But surely they can’t be saying that had their favourite man won, the vituperations of Obi haters would be justifiable and excusable on the grounds of free speech and democracy; yes, the same democracy the lady and gentleman have done their utmost to undermine and ridicule with lies and perverse logic.