Category: Idowu Akinlotan

A LITTLE over a week ago, Kingsley Moghalu, an economist and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), suggested on a Channels Television programme that Nigerian youths had no clue how to pursue their interests. They were full of talk rather than action, he moaned, referring to what he described as their near absence in the last presidential election in which he ranked 14th with a paltry 21,886 votes for his Young Progressive Party (YPP). Said he: “The biggest disappointment was with the youths. The youth vote was absent. They make a lot of noise, they rant and rail but you will not see them on the voting day. And when they vote, they don’t vote in line with their rhetoric.” It is clear Prof Moghalu was unwilling to take solace in the fact that his party won one seat each in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Though he was unsure whether to contest again in 2023, probably because of the depth of his frustrations with voters and his extreme disillusionment with Nigerian politics, insisting that “it’s too early to make that kind of decision”, it seems obvious that he is as guilty as the youths, whom he blamed for his loss, for misreading and misjudging Nigerian politics. The youths were impressionistic and talkative; but what would Prof Moghalu say of himself seeing that he announced his interest in the presidency barely one year before the election was due? He is probably right that Nigerian youths sometimes misread politics and appear not to know what is even in their own best interests, but the eminent professor also showed little adeptness in appreciating the dynamics of Nigerian politics and elections.

When he announced his interest in running for office in February 2018, Prof Moghalu suggested that his interest was fired up by the “successive leadership failures of our civilian political class”, adding that “With love for our country and a fierce commitment to a vision of rapid progress for our more than 180 million citizens, and following wide-ranging consultations, I offer myself to serve you as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as from May 29, 2019”. At 56 years of age and as a lecturer in international business and public policy, he is vastly equipped theoretically to run a good government. He was in the Central Bank of Nigeria for five years as deputy governor, and had stints with the United Nations. Had he won the election in the dreamy manner Emmanuel Macron won the 2017 French presidential poll, Prof Moghalu would no doubt have been a breath of fresh air in the stale and anti-intellectual corridors of power in Nigeria.

But his freshness and intellectual capacity notwithstanding, Prof Moghalu knows very little of Nigerian politics. He may disagree with its rubrics and feel ashamed that it has tended over the decades to elevate nonentities to office and prominence, but his ignorance of its dynamics, as attested to by his vituperations against Nigerian youths, is truly inexcusable. Contrary to his accusation, the youths he claimed railed and ranted but disappeared on election day, actually voted more than any other segment of the population. And he was only partially right that they often voted against their rhetoric. The electoral body, INEC, is yet to give a breakdown of the voting dynamics of the last polls, but Prof Moghalu will be surprised to discover that the youths he thought so little about could actually teach him a thing or two.

The biggest question in the last presidential election was who among the 78 presidential candidates to trust with the country’s money. The dominant opinion before the poll was that President Buhari, despite his many warts, some of which violently negate his good attributes, fit the bill much more than his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president. In the opinion of this column, Prof Moghalu would have been a far better manager of the country’s finances than the two leading candidates in the last election, since President Buhari does not even understand modern finance, and Alhaji Atiku never quite managed to dispel doubts about his fidelity to financial ethics. It was, therefore, important that the eminent professor proceeded from the mindset that there was nothing inevitable about that biggest question. He was at liberty to coax the country into reframing the “biggest question” just as former United States president Bill Clinton boldly did in 1992-1993, and Mr Macron suavely also implemented in 2016-2017.

Prof Moghalu, however, concentrated his efforts in presenting himself as the best alternative available, emphasising his financial and policy skills, and reiterating the lack of capacity of his opponents, particularly the leading candidates. There was nothing wrong with focusing on his capacity, which was far higher than the two leading candidates’, but in the face of the leading questions of the day, the eminent professor was preaching only to himself. Every segment of Nigeria’s voting population has its peculiarities and weaknesses, and the youths are not exempted. But it was left for an astute politician to understand those idiosyncrasies, probably help to redefine them, circumvent their booby traps, and reshape and redirect the thinking of those population segments. Prof Moghalu was obviously taken in by the rhetoric of the youths; but he did little or nothing to help channel their convictions to something more positive and noble.

One year was not enough for Prof Moghalu to make the impression needed to win the presidency. He should not compound his deficiencies by dismissing youths as full of tendentiousness and rhetoric. If he is made of sterner administrative and intellectual stuff as he gives the impression, he should know that he will still need the same youths in the near future. The youths are in equal measure the hope and bane of the future. A wise politician and candidate will find ways of penetrating their suspicions, dissipating their loathsome superciliousness, and helping their flimsy ideas and expectations to coalesce around something far bigger than they are. The professor should learn from politicians in other parts of the world who rose from ashes and impossibilities to take their countries by storm.

This piece is of course not to endorse Prof Moghalu, for little is known of his temperament or inner qualities. All that can be seen in public is his intellectual prowess, and perhaps too his oratorical flourish. Little is known about the things that have shaped his worldview, assuming his worldview can be discerned from his insecure and tentative approach to politics, and even littler about his views on ethnicity, religion and ideology — whether they are as transcendental as he gives the impression or are significant only to the extent of the treatises his intellectual pronouncements open a window into. Whatever the case, if Prof Moghalu wants to be taken seriously, he must first define himself and impress that definition on the minds of the electorate, particularly the youths. He must also refine his understanding of the issues that shape Nigeria, particularly its politics, economy and society. And then he must recognise that it takes much longer than he romanticises to become an avatar.

It is too early for him to become nasty simply because the manner of his repudiation at the polls was exceedingly humiliating. He was wrong to blame the youths, whether in part or in whole. And it was impolite of him to begin to exhibit the kind of exasperation with the electorate that older and complaisant politicians often display. Far worse for him, especially for a politician who exaggeratedly tries to pose as one of the country’s leading pathfinders, is his disconcerting advocacy of zoning. In the Channels Television programme in reference, he argued that the presidency should be zoned to the Southeast in 2023, presumably to augment his chances. Instead of that fruitless campaign, he should concentrate on becoming an acceptable politician with countrywide contacts, one who is not afraid to champion great and sometimes controversial issues, and one who would not want to be stereotyped. Why, for instance, can he not become the most respected unofficial opposition to President Buhari whose policies and style hark back to the 1950s, and whose promotion of ethnic exceptionalism has contributed significantly to the turmoil in the country?

The next general election will be fateful in ways probably never anticipated. The issues at play will become more complicated; the country will badly fray at the edges because of a long history of hugging illusions; and the divisions and conflicts between ethnic and religious groups will become very difficult to manage. These issues have already become deeply and fearfully problematic. Unfortunately, there are no initiatives of any kind to tackle them. Prof Moghalu and other politicians with an eye on 2023 will have to undertake a fresh examination of these problems and be ready to defend their ideas on how they should be managed. The time to start is now. The old order of instinctive infatuation with retired military officers is disappearing, and President Buhari is probably the last army general to be voted into the presidency, at least for decades to come. A new future beckons for aspiring leaders who are clear-sighted about what should be done with the country’s stultifying and unworkable structure, or with the poor and unthinking style of governance, or with the appallingly poor and damaging policies that emphasise and reinforce sectional and insular interests.

Indeed, if President Buhari will not open up the system to all Nigerians, and humble himself to ask for help from knowledgeably and patriotic experts in finding solutions to the country’s multidimensional problems, 2023 itself will be endangered. It is shocking that the only people who can see and feel the looming danger are those outside this government, a government that seems deliberately impervious to the catastrophe being plotted by Nigeria’s deeply alienated millions, a government that appears not to appreciate how badly the image and influence of Nigerians has waned everywhere.

ONCE the Muhammadu Buhari presidency latched on to the controversial January 23, 2019 ex parte order given by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) to effectuate the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen, it was all but clear that the jurist was a marked man, in fact a dead man walking. It is only on rare occasions that a citizen is vindicated by the law in his battle against the state, particularly a state that pretends only to constitutional rule but is at bottom authoritarian. Even when the lone warrior is squeaky clean, the outcome is rarely in his favour, let alone when some dirt is found ensconced in his cupboard. It took a little over two crazy and dizzying months for Justice Onnoghen to fight the system, a fight that was both hopeless and ruthless, but in the end, with his retirement last Friday, the case has appeared to end anticlimactically.

It no longer matters whether Justice Onnoghen was innocent or not, or whether he will get a soft landing or not, or even whether the case against him will continue in the courts or not. What matters is that even before he was confirmed as CJN in March 2017, after occupying that office in acting capacity for three months, he was still not the president’s choice. In fact the president did not seem averse to enduring a constitutional crisis in his bid to bar Justice Onnoghen from becoming the CJN. Was the president guided by concerns over Justice Onnoghen’s competence, or was he persuaded by ethical concerns in view of the reports in some quarters that the eminent jurist was mentioned in the Justice Kayode Eso report that indicted some judges for corruption? The president did not say, and perhaps may continue to resist any attempt to coax him to give an explanation. But by keeping silent, the president allowed suspicion to fester that his action was inspired by ethnic rather than national considerations.

After a valiant two months or so of fighting the state in a case that traversed the CCT and the Court of Appeal, Justice Onnoghen finally threw in the towel. He thus disappointed those who hoped he would fight to the bitter end, no matter the cost, and especially because he was beginning to look good in the eyes of the law just as the presidency was becoming more desperate and reckless. He had been tried in the media and found guilty to the dismay of the judicious but the satisfaction of government supporters. However, the government’s case against him was wilting badly under cross examination. Justice Onnoghen suggests that his notice to quit is based on his desire to spare the judiciary further punishment and bad image. But he knew the dangers his initial determination to pursue the case exposed the judiciary, including the unprecedented humiliation of putting him in the dock before the chairman of a quasi-criminal court.

Even though the real reasons for throwing in the towel are probably known to only him and his counsel, there are suspicions in other circles that perhaps he had had enough, his mind becoming wrought up, and his blood pressure too agitated by the attention and relentless battering in the press to keep responding very positively to medication. There is a limit to which the heart can be tormented. Others suggest that the government was prepared, in its desperation, to push matters up a shattering notch in order to stave off a constitutional crisis which the effort to confirm Acting Chief Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad might elicit. Justice Muhammad is a product of an illegitimate CCT order, not the advice of the National Judicial Council (NJC). It would take a careless and indifferent NJC building something on the CCT’s nothing to butt in on the process and recommend an extension of the acting appointment of the Acting CJN. But if Justice Onnoghen could be cajoled into retirement, the NJC, having already been inoculated against reason and the principles of natural justice, would feel relieved to make the long-awaited recommendation. They were not expected to feel embarrassed to recommend someone who by their rules should be forced to quit on account of being used by the executive branch to supplant the natural order of appointment of judges.

If in the beginning Justice Onnoghen thought he could get justice, especially someone of his calibre and juristic experience, many Nigerians, including this writer, had felt drawn to associate with his idealistic and legalistic dreams and daredevilry. They hoped he would keep fighting, even though they knew more than he that the fight was unequal and hopeless. His sympathisers were more shocked and disturbed by the impunity of the government and the persecution it had authored and inspired than by whatever administrative or ethical warts were alleged against the CJN. As it turned out, the CJN’s case was holding up surprisingly, if a little admirably, well in the courts despite the hostility, bias and incompetence of the judges arraigned against him. But Justice Onnoghen himself, it turned out, had more sense than many gave him, and than the government and the media gave him. He knew when to quit. He had entertained some slim hope that the NJC would be smitten by conscience and would lend his cause, nay the cause of an independent judiciary, some solid support by resisting the meddlesomeness of the executive branch. He was cured of that disease last week. On Wednesday, after many rigmaroles, the NJC finally threw their CJN under the bus and hissed at him. Despite his idealism, Justice Onnoghen should have known the character of the NJC he headed for more than a year and a half.

The legal profession is regarded as conservative, even when some judicial activists happen along the way. But the NJC is even more conservative than the law. The law on its own has some character. But it is difficult to determine what resides in the heart of the NJC, character or something unmentionable else. They are trained to be sceptical about the guilt or innocence of an accused. But like many lawyers and general commentators, they seemed easily persuaded that Justice Onnoghen had been damned over and over again. They may know the law, but as far as the law goes, the practitioners of the law need spine to push and defend their knowledge of the law. When Justice Ayo Salami stepped on powerful judicial cum political toes in 2011 under the Goodluck Jonathan government, a few top members of the NJC were instigated to rise against him. When it became clear that Justice Salami had indeed been the wronged man rather than the wrongdoer, the NJC could not muster the grit to defend or exonerate him, even when he confronted them openly and with witnesses with enough exculpatory evidence. Justice Onnoghen unwisely reposed too much hope in the NJC, not minding whether they had many ambitious jurists among them and others whose calculations had nothing to do with the law, constitution or reason.

When Justice Salami was sacrificed in August 2011, and stayed suspended for more than two years, few knew how far down the misty and murky road the country’s judiciary would be compelled to travel less than one decade later. Now the NJC has behaved true to type and done even meaner things than they did eight years ago. The decision they took to recommend Justice Muhammad as the next CJN, regardless of the atrocious use of ex parte order by the CCT to emplace him in acting capacity, will still return to haunt them. When the Justice Salami suspension took place, it was on the recommendation of a compromised NJC frivolously punishing the President of the Court of Appeal for refusing to apologise to the then CJN, Aloysius Katsina-Alu. No one thought the country would one day witness a president seizing upon the flimsy order of a tribunal to suspend the CJN. Well, it has happened, and the NJC is at peace with that anomaly. Indeed, the country, short-sightedly thinking the president’s unprecedented measure enhances the fight against corruption, has backed it with a ferocity and recklessness typical of the black race’s lack of perspective thinking.

In the two or more obscene months that the case lasted, Justice Onnoghen had seemed to weather the surprising collusion of the judiciary with the executive arm. Whether he meant it or not, he gave the impression that he would be exculpated at the end of the mistrial. But gradually, his confidence began to erode when the chairman of the CCT, Danladi Umar, forsook the law and began to approach the case conspiratorially  and inquisitorially like a presidential appointee. It got so bad that Justice Onnoghen’s defence counsels wondered whether this was still the Nigeria they knew, or whether what was happening in the CCT had any pretence to be described as justice. In the matter of recusal, the CCT chairman bluntly refused to recuse himself. In the matter of jurisdiction, Mr Umar, despite the provisions of the law, insisted he would rule on that at the judgement stage pari passu with the substantive case. And what of the controversial ex parte order? Why, of course, it would be addressed after the final judgement. All three issues are before the Court of Appeal, already argued, but obviously kept meanly in abeyance. The obvious interpretation is that the Court of Appeal simply stayed away from the matter because it was too risky and they too were living in a glass house.

The last few months have been very bad for the judiciary in Nigeria, with judges and many legal experts playing ignoble roles. On the whole, under the Buhari presidency, the judiciary has not fared well at all. It will get worse. In the coming months, with the ruling party dominating the legislature, and the judiciary weakened by relentless assault by a presidency which can’t seem to understand the principles of democracy, Nigeria will need special effort to stave of fascism, open or disguised. It will become harder to get justice in Nigeria in any case the government is interested in. In the past one or two decades, appointment to the bench had been corrupted by sundry considerations, and increasingly judges without depth and character had begun to populate the bench. The consequences are beginning to manifest. Unfortunately, the Buhari presidency, which sees itself in the military mould as a corrective government, has also failed like its predecessors to understand the urgency of laying a solid and inspiring foundation for democracy. It doesn’t understand the principles of democracy, not to say of federalism, and so it can’t fathom why the future implications of a policy must always be taken into cognisance.

It is possible that Justice Onnoghen may be guilty of one or more of the allegations levelled against him by either the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) or the increasingly politicised Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). But it was important that the judicial process must not be corrupted, distorted or abridged in bringing him to book. President Buhari has spoken disdainfully of the judiciary as a whole and the exploitation of technicalities in particular. Had he spent a part of his first four years in office reforming the law, rather than hating it, technicalities could have been written out of the Nigerian legal system like some other legal systems elsewhere in the world have done. Until he does that, however, he and his government must find the discipline to respect the law, whether some of the provisions favour them or not. In any case, to what extent did Justice Onnoghen even exploit technicalities in seeking justice? The Buhari presidency has not been profound at all, and it has seized upon a country so superficial in its approach to and understanding of the rule of law that it is exploiting mass ignorance and emotions to build a dangerous legal and legislative template for a disastrous and illiberal future.

The interventionist rot in the judiciary started, in recent years at least, with the suspension of Justice Salami, President of the Court of Appeal. Now, it is Justice Onnoghen, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, who is being thrown casually under the bus. Who is next? Inconclusive elections began with Kogi State in November 2015. Now it has become a national and despicable template for controversial polls. What is next? A people’s liberties, as Germany in the late 1930s showed under the NAZIs, are lost inch by inch, not in one fell swoop, until the whole society is itself imperilled. Can’t Nigerians take a look at their country and see whether it is becoming more liveable or less liveable, more democratic or less democratic, more secure or less secure? Who has bewitched them? It must be stated clearly and forcefully that nothing good will come out of the appalling manner Justice Onnoghen has been treated, whether he offended the law or not. The future is indeed pregnant with terrible auguries, particularly because of the presence in office of a government which no one has ever accused of acting with altruism in anything.

• The second part of APC, Buhari and 2023 will be published next week

WHETHER they liked him or not, few Nigerians feared President Muhammadu Buhari would lose the 2019 presidential election. In the end, he won by a statistical margin that no court, pliant or independent, could hope by law to overturn. The president had not done enough or said the right things, or even thought the right, visionary thoughts, to win the election as handsomely as he has done. But he did anyway. It had been imagined early in 2018 that perhaps a dark horse would emerge, as many all-purpose political parties peddling fringe candidates romantically thought. That didn’t happen either. Then it was also thought that perhaps a third force would materialise from the bowels of the earth to shake the system up a bit and put paid to the complacency of the country’s powermongers. That also proved illusory.

It was clear some two weeks to the election that neither the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nor its candidate in the election, Atiku Abubakar, had triggered enough tremors in the system to seriously trouble both the underperforming President Buhari and his chaotic ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Indeed, two Sundays ago, though this column gloomily predicted the victory of the APC standard-bearer, it more importantly bemoaned the dreary politics of Nigeria and the superficial and convoluted issues that drive it. It noted that the PDP woefully failed to inspire the right kind of reforms and purges needed to convince the electorate to give it a hearing just four years after it was ignominiously booted out of office. The column also added that Alhaji Atiku himself had been unable to dispel suspicions about his personal and business ethics, not to talk of his controversial economic ideas and manifesto.

President Buhari was on the way to victory, the column sighed, but he would be undeserving of it, not only because of his personal approach to governance which was both messianic and offensive, but also because his policies, many of them enacted and executed outside the framework of logic and the law, were atrocious in the extreme. Should he be returned to office for a second term, this column reasoned, and finding himself absolutely not indebted to any power or voter, there was no telling what schemes so immoderate a man and politician might concoct. Indeed, shortly before the ballots were cast and counted, he had hinted very ominously that he would toughen his stance, shake things up, and even probe the power contracts of the Olusegun Obasanjo years, all the while repeating the erroneous figures carelessly drummed up during the Umary Yar’Adua presidency.

The country must ready itself for what may yet turn out to be its most interesting years ever. President Buhari has now been rewarded with a second term, as predicted, despite his poor records on the economy, security, rule of law and the desultory fight against corruption. But the votes for him may in fact indicate the country’s unrealistic hopes rather than its excruciating experience, though the president will take the huge figures returned for him in the poll as a plebiscite on his style and policies. Therefore, rather than moderate and refine his style and policies, or infuse a lot of thinking and logic into the many wars he had fought and is about to fight, he will inject more oomph into his campaigns regardless of their medium to long-term implications.

Five days or so after his victory, neither President Buhari nor those around him have yet indicated the reflectiveness expected of them after the polls. They had won by a huge plurality of almost four million votes, and had made inroads into the forbidden regions of the Southeast and South-South. The APC would now dominate the National Assembly so implacably that no one, not least the opposition, could hector them as the PDP, in coalition with rebels, did last year, or heckle them as principal officers of the legislature did with gusto nearly throughout the president’s first term. The more moderate Yakubu Dogara has returned to the lower chamber, his power considerably attenuated; but the much fiercer and intransigent Bukola Saraki has been humiliated out of the Senate and his empire ripped to pieces, perhaps irrecoverably. And the uppity coalition around the country dedicated to thwarting the president at every turn has been completely demoralised. Their chin was too glassy to enable them joust with the president and his aggressive and sanctimonious team. The content and context of the president’s victory calls for sober reflection. Is the APC capable of taking the long-term perspective?

But first some statistics. Whether they like the president and his policies or not, Nigerians must concede that President Buhari won the poll despite the best efforts of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and other retired generals in their power bloc. Those who voted for him, even if they were the most ignorant in the world, have the legitimate right to do so. If the Buhari presidency goes on to undermine democracy and subverts national interest, as it seems likely to do, the electorate should know that they have bought a pig in a poke. The president and his aides have exulted over their victory. No matter how insignificant that victory is statistically, it is still, in the eyes of the constitution, a victory. But the president must properly contextualise his victory, regardless of its lawfulness. Only some 18.08 percent of registered voters trusted him enough to return him to office. In an election where the turnout was a little over 31 percent, much of it badly and unfortunately skewed, it is important for the president to recognise the enormity of the work ahead of him and the divisions he must heal. And he has barely two years more to etch the kind of Buhari legacy he wants in the memory of Nigerians. By 2021, his presidency will be transiting into lame duck territory.

The president and his party may wish to argue that his base was fired up to deliver the victory he is savouring today, thereby justifying the huge turnout witnessed in some states in the North. The voters in those parts may even argue that since all politics is local anyway, and the president’s sometimes narrow politics favoured them, it was not unusual that they should turn out in large numbers to repay the president’s kindness. Despite these, it is hard to defend the almost 45 percent turnout in the Northwest and about 40 percent turnout in the Northeast, when the Southwest, Southeast and South-South registered turnouts of about 23 percent, 21 percent and 26 percent respectively. The figures become even more curious when a few states are isolated for a closer examination. In the poll, Jigawa, Katsina and Kano registered more than 50 percent turnout in an election where the card reader was abandoned in some places. It is unlikely, however, that the president or INEC will interrogate the deviation in these figures or the anomalies that threw them up.

In an election where the total registered voters in the Northwest are almost equal in number to those of the Northeast and Southeast combined, a reflective presidency should be anxious to find out how to better secure a more perfect union in which the structure of the country and the outcome of elections and revenue system do not engender acrimony, instability and chaos. Any thinker of moderate ability can see already in the 2019 election statistics that the seeds of future troubles are embedded and germinating. President Buhari will need more introspection to glean the signs of future trouble in the election statistics placed on his table for his study, not just perusal. The present situation is unsustainable in the long run.

Both President Buhari and the APC may be tempted to limit their appreciation of why they won to a few factors, such as the president’s honesty and integrity in respect of the anti-corruption war. They should expand their analysis far beyond the surface. It is true that in terms of perception of who can be trusted with the resources of the country, President Buhari has an advantage over Alhaji Atiku. Indeed, before and during the campaigns, the PDP candidate was unable to erase the perception of him as an unscrupulous and flighty politician. It is also true that in terms of the programmes enunciated by both candidates, those of President Buhari resonated better with the electorate. However, the president must be humbled by the fact that in many quarters, the election was reduced to a choice between two evils, especially when he had four years to mould his presidency away from the dangerous perceptions of him as an irredentist and religious extremist.

The victors must examine why they barely won the Southwest by 53.41 percent of the votes to Alhaji Atiku’s 46.59 percent of the votes. The Southwest not only occupies the vice presidency, they also have hugely significant presence in President Buhari’s cabinet. Yet, they appeared indecisive. If Alhaji Atiku had won, going by the zoning arrangement already adopted by the PDP, the Southwest was likely to hold the short end of the stick. Yet, they gave the PDP both Ondo and Oyo, nearly upended Osun, and ensured a brutally close fight in the other three states. Internal rivalries may explain a little of the dissonance noticed in the voting pattern; but they do not explain everything. The zone may in fact be more keenly aware of the importance of finding a more workable structure for the country, contrary to President Buhari’s adamant resolve to sustain the present diabolical structure. It is also likely that the Southwest may be unconvinced about the president’s qualities as a secular and impartial leader, and as a modern thinker.

The president and his party may also wish to ponder the fact that on balance they lost the South and inadvertently emphasised the division between the North and the South. If that polarisation is not dissipated, if the chasm between the North and South is not bridged, it may be futile to hope that building one or two bridges and extending the railway network here and there would be sufficient to engender a new Nigeria. There is no historical basis to hope that a new Nigeria could be created simply because corruption had been knocked into a cocked hat, or that the presidency had been subjected to rotation, or that insurgency had been curbed. World history, including those of Canada, Belgium, Britain, Russia and others, do not bear out that proposition. This presidential election, which is often the most significant in indicating the health of the country’s unity and stability, has merely accentuated divisions and called into question the middling effort President Buhari has made in his four years in office.

Crucially, too, the president and the APC may wish to look again at the barometer of the country’s politics from a fresh and invigorating perspective. They are likely to enjoy a suffocating dominance of the National Assembly, and perhaps impose a new hegemony on the states too. That dominance should ordinarily confer on them a greater sense of responsibility. But given their weak appreciation of issues in the past few years, not to say their incompetence in managing the rebellion in the legislature, there is no reason to believe that they will manage their electoral triumphs with the brilliance and moderation these times require. The president is a natural monarchist, and his aides and other party leaders have been even more naturally obsequious. Since the party is undisciplined, and thinkers within its ranks have often been emasculated, the president may have a free rein to trivialise the economy, stultify the NNPC under the presidency without reforms, and blatantly denounce any attempt to rework the country politically.

Indeed, for the party and its members, there are two centres of power they must henceforth grapple with: the cabal around the president, which has deployed and projected power using the secret service and the anti-graft agency with a fury and remorselessness that is hard to explain; and the party executive chaired by the sometimes imperious and impetuous Adams Oshiomhole. While the former, which in fact the electorate implicitly voted for on February 23, 2019, is often reckless and irresponsible, the latter is dreamy, cantankerous and idealistic. The country will have to manage both contending forces and see how best democracy and its undergirding institutions can be protected from their relentless battering. If anyone thinks the cabal around the president will be dismantled because he made a vague promise of inclusiveness in his victory speech, that person is hopelessly optimistic. The cabal is his brain and soul. It is going nowhere.

If democracy is to be protected, it is unlikely to be through the agency of the National Assembly or the diminished influence of the power bloc anchored by Chief Obasanjo. Even when the legislature under the misguided Dr Saraki and the cerebral Hon Dogara gave the president a good fight, they were consistently undermined and humiliated, to the raptures of the public baying for blood. There are already signs that the incoming legislature will lionise the president and grovel before him. They stand and live in awe of him. They will give the president only feeble challenge when he embarks on the castration of democratic institutions, a castration he will justify on the excuse of fighting both graft and the so-called disreputable elite he and his aides have accused of not voting for him. The task of playing sentry over democracy will now, it seems, devolve to the media and civil society. A significant number of civil society organisations are, however, available for hire, and the media, when they are not bought, are irredeemably partisan. But the country must still rely on both groups to fight for democracy since the president and his aides neither know what the concept means nor care about it.

President Buhari’s legitimacy is tenuous, despite fulfilling the demands of the electoral law. If Alhaji Atiku had won, his legitimacy would have been even more tenuous and questionable. Let both of them correctly assess their strengths and weaknesses. The PDP has indicated that candidate Atiku will go to court to, as it were, reclaim his mandate. It is not clear whether they have patiently examined their chances. The judicial system has been deliberately and systematically inoculated against justice by the Buhari presidency, starting with the Court of Appeal and on to the Supreme Court. Even without the swollen votes from a few states, President Buhari would still have won, though not on the scale seen in the recently concluded poll. To overturn that victory, as questionable as it is in terms of its magnitude, and especially in the courts as currently constituted, the Atiku crowd will have to displace the earth from its axis. This is impossible. World powers understand this, and have sensibly congratulated President Buhari.

Alhaji Atiku should save his money and spare the system of any aggravation. The case, if brought to the courts, will not advance jurisprudence in Nigeria. After all, Nigeria’s golden judicial era is gone, and no effort is being made to inspire a second coming, especially given the manner of appointments to the bench and the operating philosophy of the bar. Its a vicious spiral of mediocrity and lack of profundity. And where are the clean and brilliant jurists anyway? What is more, the kind of legal advice available to the president is undoubtedly retrogressive and designed to nurture totalitarianism. With many people already compromised in all facets of life in Nigeria, it is not clear who will champion the fight against what is certain to be the lurch towards tyranny in the name of righting societal wrongs. The country is undisciplined. True. But it requires a very coherent and scientific body of ideas and laws to fight that illness. That scientific programme will, however, not come during the Buhari presidency. If all he can do is to arrest the descent to chaos in a way that Alhaji Atiku, had he won, could not have done, perhaps the country can allow itself some respite.