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  • Kogi election petition: A most perverse judgement

    Kogi election petition: A most perverse judgement

    Last week, Palladium promised that the June 6, 2016 judgement of the Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal would be subjected to close examination. Here it is. This column is today donated to Bimbo Adewole, LL.M. to raise pertinent questions from a judgement that neither pretends to embrace logic nor dispense justice.

    1. Augustine, the ancient philosopher and theologian once said: “[t]he ignorance of the judge is the calamity of the innocent.” G.F.G. Mathison expatiated upon this immortal statement by saying that “an ignorant judge brings the law into contempt and will press and hurry on to judgment, so as to stifle all fair inquiry; but an able judge will detect the sophistry of advocates, and prevent its being made the cause of oppression”. Nothing validates these statements better than the judgment of the Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal in the case of James Abiodun Faleke v. INEC & Anor. (2016, unreported).

    On Monday, 6th June, 2016, the tribunal gave its much awaited judgment in the case. With a bang, the tribunal surprisingly upheld the election of Alhaji Yahaya Bello as Governor of Kogi State. Not a few Nigerians were shocked by the judgment. Indeed, the judgment of the tribunal can best be described as a judicial coup d’état as it has subverted some fundamental elements of our Constitution and principles of law.

    The judgment of the tribunal brings to light, once again, issues relating to the quality and capacity of some men and women who now adorn the sacred temples of justice in this country. The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended) is an organic document. It is necessarily dynamic and has the ingredient of a document that shows progressive tendencies. Therefore, it is expected that judges should be seen to be in the vanguard in expounding the horizon of the contents of the Grundnorm to give meaning and life into it without fear or favour. It is expected that the judges should use their awesome power to assuage the yearnings of the people who hope for a society where no one is oppressed or unjustly treated by the powers that be.  Such conceptualization envisages a judiciary that galvanizes brilliant minds  minds that are open to reasonable application of intellect to exploring or finding a remedy or solution to a problem that besets anyone who comes to seek refuge before them. Judges are to adjudicate based on the tenets of the constitution as epitomised in the nature of their oath of office. The judiciary, as established by the constitution, is to exercise its judicial powers to give strength and teeth to the notion and prescription that it alone is to state what the law is.

    The judgment of the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal headed by Justice Halima S. Mohammed exemplifies clearly the decline in the intellectual quality of our judges. The direct effect of this trend is the inevitable calamitous tendency of witnessing a spectacle of miscarriage of justice in many instances. After reading the judgment, an objective mind is bound to go away with a lingering question: “Did the tribunal really understand the case that was brought before it?” There is nothing to indicate that the tribunal understood the facts and issues presented before it. To put the matter most gently, the judgment is simply flabbergasting. The judgment is lacking in depth of knowledge, robust consideration of issues, scholarship, courage and independence of mind. It is, with due respect, an advertisement of gross ignorance and incompetence. In a most horrifying and disgusting manner, the tribunal adopted hook, line and sinker, the submissions of the respondents’ counsel and transformed same as its judgment. It did this at the expense of the dexterous submissions of the petitioner’s counsel. What can be seen is nothing short of a voyage in judicial adventurism where the substance of the case brought before the tribunal was deliberately ignored and the tribunal chose to pursue shadows.

    The President of the Court of Appeal, Hon. Justice ZainabAdamuBulkachuwa, who constituted the tribunal, must now, surely, be ashamed of the quality of the judgment that emanated from the tribunal she set up, especially having regard to the serious nature of the constitutional issues involved and the attention the case attracted not only in Kogi State and Nigeria but the whole world. Indeed, the judgment is nothing to write home about as it diminishes the Nigerian Judiciary in no mean measure. My task here is to examine some of the issues discussed in the judgment, the decisions of the tribunal on them and attempt to analyse them against the settled principles of our law. This is by no means a herculean task as a mere fleeting reading of the judgment reveals that virtually every pronouncement of the tribunal is erroneous and appealable. It is nauseating.

     

    BACKGROUND FACTS

    Hon. James Abiodun Faleke, the petitioner, contested the November 21, 2015 Kogi State Governorship election as a deputy-governorship candidate on a joint ticket with the late Prince Abubakar Audu (the governorship candidate) on the platform of the All Progressives Party (APC). At the end of the polls, the joint ticket of Audu/Faleke scored majority of lawful votes of 240,867. They (Audu & Faleke) also satisfied the constitutional provision of section 179 (2), by scoring the highest number of votes and not less than one-quarter but of all the votes cast in all of, not just two-thirds, the local government areas in Kogi State. Significantly, the results in all the 21 local government areas were announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). INEC, however, declared the election inconclusive on the sole ground that the margin of win between Audu/Faleke’s 240,867 votes and Wada/Awoniyi’s 199,514 votes was 41,353, which votes were less than the number of registered voters in 91 polling units where votes were cancelled for various reasons. The returning officer stated that by INEC guidelines, no return could be made for the election until a supplementary election was held in the areas where election was cancelled. It is to be noted that INEC never attributed the inconclusiveness of the election to Prince Audu’s death. Meanwhile, the supplementary election held on 5th December, 2015 where Alhaji Yahaya Bello’s name featured as a governorship candidate of APC, he was made to substitute the late Prince Abubakar Audu. At the end of the day, Alhaji Yahaya Bello was returned as Governor of Kogi State after winning just 6,885 votes in the supplementary election. He contested the election without a deputy governorship candidate.

     

    HON FALEKE’S CASE.

    The case of Hon. James Abiodun Faleke is simple and straightforward. He filed a petition seeking a declaration that election to the office of Governor of Kogi State, held on November 21, 2015 was already conducted, completed and concluded by the INEC. He further sought to declare that INEC’s proclamation that the governorship election held in Kogi State on November 21,2015 was inconclusive is unconstitutional, illegal, unlawful, arbitrary, null and void and ultra-vires the power of INEC. The fundamental question before the tribunal for determination, therefore, was whether or not the election of November 21, 2015 was conclusive. The petitioner predicated his assertion of the conclusiveness of the election on the following facts established in evidence:

    • That all the results of the 21 local government areas in Kogi State were duly recorded in the requisite forms and declared by INEC. Form ECA8Cs that contained all the results of the local government areas, duly filled, signed and certified were tendered and admitted as Exhibit P19
    • That the joint ticket of Prince Audu/Hon. Faleke already scored 240,867 votes as against Wada/Awoniyi’s score of 199,514 votes with a margin of 41,353 votes.
    • That in the 91 polling stations where election was cancelled, there were less than 38,000 eligible voters which cannot alter the success already recorded by Audu/Faleke ticket.
    • At the end of the supplementary election, less than 15,000 votes were recorded for all the parties.
    • That the scores announced by INEC at the November 21, 2015 election satisfied the provision of section 179(2) of the constitution which already deemed Prince Abubakar Audu as duly elected.
    • That INEC ought to have applied the provision of section 181(1) of the constitution that entitled him to be sworn in as Governor, following the demise of Prince Audu.

    It is compelling here to note that INEC, against who allegations in the petition were made, called no witness to proffer evidence in rebuttal or denial of the facts stated by the petitioner. The commission also never controverted nor contradicted the petitioner’s evidence. The position of the law is clear in such a circumstance. The petitioner would be entitled to judgment, the effect being that, INEC’s averments in its reply would be deemed to have been abandoned while the petitioner’s averments deemed admitted. (See: section 132 of the Evidence Act and Ndayako v. Dantoro) (2004).

    Essentially, the issue as to whether or not the election of November 21, 2015 was conclusive was the fundamental point the tribunal was called upon to determine. The way the tribunal resolved this crucial issue is, however, shocking. It simply held that:

    “There is no evidence before the tribunal that the said election was concluded… The implication of the election of 21/11/2015 being declared inconclusive by the 1st Respondent is that no declaration nor return was made as to the winner of that election; hence in the absence of a declaration or return the petitioner remained a deputy governorship candidate in the inconclusive election and no right can be said to have enure to him nor can he benefit from the provisions of section 181(1) of the 1999 constitution which provides for stepping into the shoes of an elected candidate as he claims”.

    It is easy to see how the tribunal muddled up issues here. The fact that the judgment was not based upon a sound appreciation of issues and arguments is also manifest. It is also clear that the evidence of the petitioner, particularly, Exhibit P19 (Form EC8Cs) the results of the local government areas never came up for consideration. The tribunal shut its eyes against the undisputable and unassailable evidence of the petitioner. The tribunal avoided section 197 (2) of the constitution like a plague, let alone giving any consideration to its application. It simply jumped to section 181 (1), without any foundation. It is, indeed, most disappointing.

    A judgment of court or tribunal, for that matter, ought to demonstrate that the court or tribunal understood the case before it, and elicit an open and full consideration of the issues properly raised by the parties on their pleadings, as supported by evidence. The conclusions reached ought to reflect and justify such an exercise. Once a court or tribunal has misapprehended the nature of the case in respect of which it is required to give a dispassionate and rational decision, the chances are that the decision, otherwise reached will be perverse, as it is in this case. This is because when an adjudicator fails to discern the real question which he or she is to consider and decide or answer, his or her reasoning will inevitably be addressed to  collateral matters which are irrelevant, or to an aspect beside the point in issue. Such an adjudicator is said to suffer from “ignoratio elenchi”. This is the fairest assessment of what happened at the Justice Halima Mohammed tribunal. I proceed to consider few of the issues.

    LOCUS STANDI.

    The tribunal held that the petitioner had no locus standi to institute the petition. In coming to its warped decision, it declared:

    “Contrary to the conten    tion of the petitioner, the       provisions of section 181    and 187 of the 1999 constitution to our mind do not enure to the petitioner. As the petitioner not having presented the petition as a deputy governor-elect within the provisions of section 181 of the constitution cannot be properly defined as a candidate within the meaning of section 137 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) the election being inconclusive”

    Still on locus standi, but for another reason, the tribunal held as follows:

    “Having analysed as above and the reasoning in the above cases, it is therefore this tribunal’s considered view that the Petitioner who has not been shown to have participated as an aspirant in the primaries of the APC for the choice of a gubernatorial candidate for the 21/11/2015 and 5/12/2015 elections lacks the locus standi to challenge the nomination, sponsorship and substitution of the late gubernatorial candidate of the APC with the 2nd Respondent”.

    From a legal standpoint, the tribunal’s stance on locus standi is ludicrous. The petitioner contested the November 21, 2015 election as deputy governorship candidate. Indeed, it is laughable that a candidate who contested an election would be held to lack locus standi to challenge the person wrongly declared winner of the election. Locus standi is no longer an inscrutable concept to be twisted and convoluted as the tribunal did. Locus standi simply means “an interest in a suit” (Inakoju v. Adeleke (2007); Thomas v. Olufosoye (1989). And, it is well known that the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria does not require a deputy governorship candidate to undergo process of primaries. He is to be nominated by a governorship candidate as a running mate and associate (Section 187(1) of the Constitution refers). For the tribunal to have imposed an additional burden on the petitioner to acquire locus standi smacks of travesty of justice.

    The petitioner’s locus standi is located both in the Constitution and the Electoral Act. First, section 137(1) of the Electoral Act stipulates the persons who may present a petition. They are: (a) a candidate in an election and (b) a political party that participated in the election. Second, the locus standi of a deputy governorship candidate to institute a petition is also clearly established under section 187 of the Constitution, which acknowledges a deputy governor as a candidate in a governorship election,without whom a governorship candidate cannot be duly elected. There was evidence before the tribunal that the petitioner was the associate/deputy governorship candidate in the November 21, 2015 election. Going by the provision of section 187 of the Constitution, two persons must jointly contest a governorship election, one as governorship candidate and the other as deputy governorship candidate. The constitution and all INEC forms recognise and acknowledge both of them as candidates. Indeed, the constitution describes a deputy governorship candidate as “another candidate”. (Section 187 (1) of the constitution refers)

    What is more, there are judicial authorities which have affirmed that a deputy governorship candidate has locus standi to present a petition. One of such authorities is Waziri v. Danboyi (1999), where the Court of Appeal unequivocally held that a deputy governorship candidate had locus standi to present the petition in that case. It is curious to note that all the judicial authorities were cited before the tribunal, but the tribunal did not do as little as mentioning them, let alone allowing itself to be guided or bound by them.

    Furthermore, logically, the reason why the tribunal stripped the petitioner of locus standi is the very basis upon which his locus rests. He contested an election that he believed was conclusive but which INEC declared inconclusive. He felt aggrieved and approached the tribunal. Good enough, the tribunal affirmed that election tribunal was the proper venue for him to complain but illogically held that because INEC declared the election inconclusive the petitioner cannot complain!  INEC is not omnipotent. It is a statutory body which actions and declarations are subject to challenge.

    It is also baffling that the tribunal denied the petitioner locus standi because he did not present the petition as a deputy governor-elect. There is no law which says that a petitioner must be declared deputy governor-elect before he has a right to present a petition. It is sufficient in the eyes of the law that he is a candidate in the election. In Sunday v. INEC (2008) the Court of Appeal explained:

    Locus standi in election petitions is statutorily defined and leaves no room for hide and seek. Election petitions are sui generis, distinctively from other civil proceedings. The right to present petition under the unique procedure is sensu stricto as provided by the relevant statutes. A petitioner’s locus standi is established by averments in the petition showing prima facie evidence that the petitioner falls within the class of persons entitled to present an election petition. A court or tribunal is therefore bound by the averments in the election petition as the sole source and only avenue for determining the petitioner’s locus standi.

    In paragraphs 2, 3, 4, of the petition, the petitioner deposes as follows:

    “2.Your petitioner was qualified to vote, and did vote; had a right to contest and did contest for the governorship election of Kogi state, as the Deputy Governorship candidate of the APC at the Kogi State Governorship Election held on 21st November, 2015 on a joint ticket with Prince Abubakar Audu (now deceased).

    1. Your petitioner was a candidate at the said election pursuant to section 187 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
    2. By virtue of section 187(1) of the Constitution and section 137 (1) (a) of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) your petitioner has a right to present this petition having contested and participated in the said election on November 21, 2015 Kogi State governorship election.

    The pertinent question here is, if in the face of these laws and facts the petitioner is held not to have locus standi, who else has?

     

    ISSUES OF NOMINATION, SPONSORSHIP, SUBSTITUTION, INTRA-PARTY DISPUTE AND PARTY PRIMARIES.

    In its bid to arrive at a pre-meditated destination, the tribunal kept veering off from the track by pronouncing on issues relating to nomination and sponsorship of candidates; substitution of candidates, party primaries and intra-party disputes. On a general note, the point must be made here that these issues never arose from the petition. With due respect, the petitioner did not raise issues of sponsorship, nomination or intra-party disputes in his petition. The tribunal was, therefore, without jurisdiction to formulate issues outside his petition. In Ahmed & Anor  v. Idris & Ors (2014) the Supreme Court unambiguously stated that  it is the case of the plaintiff/petitioner that determines the jurisdiction of the court.

    It is elementary law that a tribunal like a court is bound by the claim of the petitioner. The generosity or charity of a tribunal must be confined to the facts in a petition very strictly. The rationale behind this is that it is the petitioner who knows where the shoe pinches him and, therefore, knows the limits of the complaints he brings. It is not for the respondents or tribunal to expand or enlarge the scope for him. The tribunal is supposed to be an unbiased umpire and cannot claim to know more than the petitioner. It is not for the tribunal to embark on a voyage of discovery. The tribunal is not Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, who discovered the sea route to India. The tribunal is not Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer, who made four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and discovered the New World, the Americas, when he landed on an Island in the Bahamas archipelago. Coming nearer home, the tribunal is not Mungo Park, the Scottish explorer, who led the failed expedition to find the source of River Niger. It is the duty of the tribunal to inquire into facts placed before it. The law forbids the tribunal from going outside the petition, in the absence of a cross-petition, in search of more facts with a view to discovering greener pastures for the 2nd respondent (Alhaji Yahaya Bello).

    Tagging the petition as intra-party or pre-election matter is the height of ignorance or mischief of the tribunal. It demonstrates the length to which the tribunal went in supporting the case of the respondents and supplanting the case of the petitioner. It also shows how deeply the tribunal misconceived or misunderstood the petitioner’s case. The tribunal overlooked the simple fact that the petition was, essentially, directed at the declaration of the returning officer that the election of November 21, 2015 was inconclusive. No dispute arose and no complaint was lodged against the nomination or sponsorship of the candidates to the election. Indeed, the fact that the APC sponsored both the late Prince Abubakar Audu and the petitioner as candidates at the election is not in dispute.

    The complaint of the petitioner against the 2nd respondent was that, apart from the fact that the supplementary election was unconstitutional, the 2nd respondent was not qualified to contest same without a running mate. How the tribunal interpreted that to mean an intra-party dispute is extraordinarily astonishing. And, for the tribunal to have come to the conclusion that the petitioner had no cause of action, in the face of the facts presented before it is remarkably startling and stunning. There is nothing esoteric in the term ‘cause of action’. It simply means a cause of complaint. The Supreme Court, in Afolayan v. Ogunrinde (1990) summarizes what is involved in cause of action: “A dispute in respect of which a court of law is entitled to invoke its judicial powers. It consists of every fact which it would be necessary for the plaintiff to prove if traversed, in order to support his right to judgment” Certainly, there were facts before the tribunal that called for adjudication. So, the petitioner had a cause of action, contrary to the jaundiced view of the tribunal.

     

    PARTY PRIMARIES.

    The hub or gravamen of the decision of the tribunal is based on the fact that, because Alhaji Yahaya Bello participated in the primaries in which he was the runner up, he was the appropriate person to take over from him. In the words of the tribunal:

    “…It is the tribunal’s considered view that the 2nd Respondent participated in the APC primaries and was the 1st runner-up as shown in exhibit R2(8) to the late Prince Audu, the gubernatorial candidate of APC, participated in the 5th December 2015 election, and not having been disqualified by the conditions as stated above to contest the said election, it naturally follows that on the exigency of death of gubernatorial candidate of the party, the party’s 1st runner-up in its primaries in the person of the 2nd Respondent will be an appropriate choice of candidate to substitute its deceased candidate in the circumstances, more so when APC was invited by INEC to substitute its candidate” (underlining mine).

    The first remark to make here is that the decision of the tribunal on this point is not based on law or any section of the constitution but nature.                        Apparently, the tribunal is unmindful of the purpose and scope of political party primary elections. A primary election is not valid for all purposes and at all times. It is circumscribed in scope and purpose. The Supreme Court was categorical on this point when it held in CPC v. Ombugadu (2012) that “the sole purpose of a party’s primary election is the emergence of one of the contestants as the party’s candidate at the election”. It follows that once the primary election has produced a candidate, its purpose is served. There is no law, or any section of the constitution for that matter, that permits any political party to revert back to the result of a primary election to pick “a first runner-up” for a supplementary election. As a writer once put it, “it is jurisprudentially unthinkable that a primary election would be made to produce two candidates at different times”. The truth is that, while political parties are allowed to substitute their candidates, this right is only exercisable before the commencement of an election. Aspirants who flunked at primaries are dropped and remain so.

     

    NON-JOINER Of APC

    The tribunal turned the law upside down when it held that the failure of the petitioner to join APC was fatal to the petition. In coming to the decision, it rationalized that the presence of the party “will assist this tribunal in effectively and effectually determining the dispute between the petitioner and the 2nd respondent.” The tribunal relied on Green v Green (1987). But the decision of the Supreme Court in Green v Green (Supra) is quite distinguishable from the petitioner’s case. One distinguishing feature between the two cases is that Green v. Green (Supra) is not an election petition. It has been said times without number that election petitions are sui generis, bearing their peculiar characteristics, very much unlike ordinary civil or criminal proceedings. (Onnoghen, JSC in Hassan v. Aliyu, 2010). One of the peculiar characteristics of election petition is that the parties that constitute them (petitioners and respondents) are statutorily prescribed. Section 137 (2) of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) prescribes who the respondent in an election tribunal shall be. It stipulates:

    Section 137 (2):

    A person whose election is complained of is, in this Act, referred to as the respondent.

    By this provision, the only statutory respondent that is required to make an election petition properly constituted is the “person whose election is complained of.” A petitioner is neither obliged nor obligated under section 137 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) to make a political party a respondent as the law does not consider it a necessary party. In Bello & Anor v. Mohammed & Ors (2008), the Court of Appeal stated that: [t]here is no authority for the proposition that a victorious political party whose candidate was successful at an election is a statutory or necessary respondent. By operation of law, the Tribunal was right to have struck out the PDP from the petition in its judgment”. The Supreme Court in Buhari v. Yusuf (2003 held that political parties are not necessary parties to an election petition. Also, the Court of Appeal in Ngige v. Obi (2006), held that it is not necessary to join a party when no complaint is made about it.

    The pronouncement of the Supreme Court in Buhari & Anor v. Yusuf & Anor (supra) is instructive. The apex court said:

    “It is manifest that Section 133 of the Act places no obligation on a petitioner (s) to make any candidate who lost an election, or any political party, whether of a candidate elected or returned or a candidate who lost or which may not have fielded any candidate for the particular seat, a respondent other than the statutory respondent envisaged under subsection (2) as identified in this judgment. As a matter of strict adherence to procedure, all such persons or political parties can neither be respondents nor are they necessary parties.” (Uwaifor JSC)

    From the foregoing, it is clear that it is now a matter well established that the petitioner is not bound to join the APC as respondent. In any event, under cross-examination, the petitioner explained that it was not necessary for him to join APC that sponsored him for the November 21, 2015 election as he had no relief against the party.

    One can go on and on highlighting and analyzing the bizarre, farcical and incongruous judgment of Justice Halima Mohammed tribunal without end. Before I am done, let me quickly bring out one of the many outlandish conclusions of the Tribunal. The Tribunal held that there was no satisfactory evidence produced by the petitioner to show that the election was conclusive.  The tribunal came to this conclusion  because:

    “…the petitioner having not scored the alleged highest votes and ¼ votes cast in all the local government (sic) of Kogi state cannot be legally correct since there are available facts to show that  the election was declared inconclusive…..” P. 147

    The farcical reasoning of the exceedingly biased tribunal is that the petitioner could not have won majority of lawful votes and ¼ of all the votes cast in all the local government areas of Kogi State. Apparently, the tribunal was referring to the provision of section 179 (2) of the Constitution. But then what the tribunal stated is not what is contained in that section. The relevant section of the constitution specifies two conditions to be satisfied in order to deem a candidate as duly elected. They are (i) scoring the highest number of votes where there are two or more candidates and (ii) having ¼ of all the votes cast in 2/3 of the local governments of the State and not in all local governments as stated by the tribunal. In any event, Audu/Faleke ticket won ¼ of all the votes cast in all the local government areas in Kogi State.

    The tribunal stated that there was no satisfactory evidence produced to prove this. Nothing can be further from the truth. Exhibit P19 that contained all the results of the local government areas was before the court.  For reasons best known to the tribunal, it refused to look at it. Since it did not look at the said document, it certainly does not lie in the mouth of the tribunal to say that there was no satisfactory evidence produced by the petitioner.  Interestingly, the same tribunal had earlier quoted the pronouncement of the Supreme Court affirming the authenticity of  results declared by a returning officer. The tribunal quoted the Supreme Court thus:

    “It is trite that there is a rebuttable presumption that any election result declared by a returning officer is authentic and correct and the burden of rebutting that presumption is on the person who is challenging it. See the case of NGIGE V. INEC (2015) 1 NWLR (PT. 1440)317 318 paras H-A ABUBAKAR V. YAR’ADUA (2008) 18 NWLR 9pt. 1120)1.

    The pertinent and germane question here is, why did the tribunal not hold the results of the Kogi State Governorship election held in November, 2015 that were presented before it sacrosanct, authentic and correct as required by law, in the absence of any rebuttable evidence?

    Finally, if there was ever a petition devoid of understanding, proper consideration, dispassionate and rational reasoning and conclusions, the case under consideration is one. The facts presented before the tribunal now cry to high heavens for justice!

    • Adewole is a legal practitioner

     

  • Kogi’s unending absurdities

    Kogi’s unending absurdities

    On February 21, and for the second time in about nine years, Palladium donated his column to an ardent reader incensed at the desecration of the fine arts of politics in Kogi State. The youthful Governor Yahaya Bello was busy upending common sense in the state, lawmakers were divided in two, with one part, the majority, fleeing to Abuja with the mace, and another, just five of them, turning electoral arithmetic on its head. The ordinary Kogite watched in great perplexity, unable to comprehend how the simple act of voting peacefully for the late Abubakar Audu/Abiodun ticket had turned into a farce orchestrated by both the ruling APC and INEC. Last week they expected that their distress would end; instead the absurdities, thanks to the inexplicable tribunal judgement, promise to continue for some time. Here is a repeat of Mr Adeola’s intervention, published again to set the context for next week’s dissection of the judgement.

    KOGI State has been in the news for the wrong reasons of late. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) dealt a devastating blow to the state when on 22nd November 2015, it announced the result of the governorship election held on 21st November 2015 as inconclusive. On Sunday, 22nd November 2015, Kogites had stayed glued to their televisions to watch how the elections results from the local government areas were trickling in one after the other. Many Christians amongst them missed Sunday church services as they stayed back home to monitor the results of the election. The Returning Officer of the election, Professor Emmanuel Kucha, Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, finally announced the scores of the candidates in all the 21 local government areas of the state after the collation of the figures. Kogites became agitated when Professor Kucha announced that the collation officers were proceeding on a short break. Little did anyone know then that something miserable was afoot.

    On his return from break, the professor announced that Prince Abubakar Audu (now deceased) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 240,514 votes, while Capt. Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) garnered 199,514 votes. He said that the margin of votes between Messrs Audu and Wada was 41,353. He, therefore, further announced that the election was inconclusive because the total number of registered voters in 91 polling units in 19 local government areas where election was cancelled was 49,953, which according to him was higher than 41,353 votes with which Audu led Wada. The returning officer added that, by INEC guidelines, no return could be made for the election until a supplementary election was held. The supplementary election held on 5th December 2015 at the end of which Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who never participated in the main election, was declared the winner by “supplementary votes” of 6,000. It was not until 24th November 2015 that INEC owned up to the demise of Prince Audu.

    The conduct and announcements of INEC on Kogi polls have since set Kogi State on the path of absurdities, legal and political. The Kogi state Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, now sitting in Abuja, is being called upon to resolve the legal absurdities. These include:  (a) The declaration by INEC that the election of 21st November 2015 was inconclusive after it had announced the results of all the local government areas; (b) The choice of INEC to use its guidelines as against applying the provisions of the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to declare the election inconclusive; (c) The propriety or otherwise of INEC conducting a supplementary election on an election that had been won and lost going by the figures INEC itself announced; (d) The constitutional basis or otherwise of INEC allowing Alhaji Yahaya Bello to contest an election without a running mate; (e) The propriety or otherwise of INEC merging the votes scored by the late Abubakar Audu/Hon. James Abiodun Faleke with the supplementary votes of Alhaji Yahaya Bello and the law that permits such a merger.

    There are many other issues that the Tribunal will be called upon to determine. All Kogites and the whole world are anxiously waiting for the decision of the learned Tribunal.

    Alhaji Bello was inaugurated as the fourth civilian governor of Kogi State on 27th January 2016. He was sworn in without a deputy. This act is unprecedented in Nigeria. Kogi State is fast becoming notorious for earning the first position in every bad political occurrence in Nigeria. In 2007, it became the first state to have the election of its governor upturned by an election tribunal. In 2011, it became the first state to have three governors in one day: the then outgoing governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris; Capt. Idris Wada sworn-in by the President of the State Customary Court of Appeal; and the Speaker of the then State House of Assembly, sworn in by the Chief Judge of the State. The state is also now on record as the first state in which the candidate who won an election died before being sworn in, calling for the application of section 181 of the Constitution.

    Alhaji Bello has spent three weeks as the governor of Kogi State. A period of three weeks may be considered too short to assess the performance of a governor. It is, however, sufficient to come to a decision on what type of governor he would make. A careful study of the actions and utterances of Alhaji Bello, as governor of Kogi State, clearly shows that he is an intemperate and sometimes unpredictable person, imbued with extraordinary energy and youthful exuberance, almost bordering on the bizarre. He has sufficiently demonstrated that he is someone who would take an action first before thinking over it. The consequence of this is that he has had to reverse himself on several issues relating to the policies he announced within the first few days of his tenure. He lacks the experience, maturity, insight, shrewdness and astuteness required to govern a state like Kogi or any state for that matter. He is naturally self-conceited and not reflective.

    Upon his inauguration, the first thing he did was to abandon Kogites and proceed to attend the meeting of the Northern Governor’s Forum. The meeting was more important to him than the plight of his people, particularly the workers of the state civil service who had been on strike for non-payment of salaries that had accumulated for four months. Alhaji Yahaya Bello returned from the meeting and announced that the hungry workers would have to undertake an elaborate screening exercise before they were paid October 2015 salaries. The exercise would have taken another one month or more to conclude. Kogi State chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress rose up to the occasion and alleged that he acted mala fide and betrayed the trust reposed in him. The Congress reminded him that it was to honour him that they agreed to call off the strike. It threatened to resume the strike within seven days if the governor failed to reverse his decision on the screening exercise. The Congress had wondered how the workers would cope with hunger for another one month. The governor immediately reversed his decision.

    Alhaji Bello promised to pay one month salary arrears to the workers. As at the time he announced this decision, he did not know the amount of money in the coffers of the government to determine whether or not the money would be sufficient to cover the wage bill. He was not even sure what the wage bill was when he made the announcement. It was a whimsical decision to score political points.  He was later faced with the stark reality as he met only N2.5 billion in the government’s account, whereas the wage bill was N3.5 billion. But he went ahead to deplete the N2.5 billion he met by first taking care of his security vote and awarding a contract of N100million for the renovation of his office, amongst other huge sums of money he had withdrawn for some other so-called state reasons. The resultant effect of all this was that almost half of the number of the workers have yet to receive their October 2015 salaries as at the time of writing this piece. And, there is no hope of them receiving their pay as no arrangements are being made in that regard. Meanwhile, he is said to have incurred some huge hotel bills at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, and another whopping sum at Reverton Hotel, Lokoja.

    Alhaji Bello knew that he needed the cooperation of the members of the State House of Assembly. He, however, approached the matter in an arrogant manner. He demonstrated his lack of skill, finesse and diplomacy on the issue. After securing the approval of the lawmakers for his nominee for the office of the Deputy Governor, Hon. Simon Achuba,  in a subterranean manner, he invited them into his private residence and addressed them roughly. He did not leave any of them in doubt that he had become the Governor of Kogi State and would remain so for the next eight years. His coarse language angered the members, majority of whom are of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). His immodesty made him lose control over the Kogi State House of Assembly, notwithstanding the unlawful manner he wooed them.  By the time he attempted to impose his stooge as the Speaker, the exercise ended in fiasco as only five of the twenty members were available to do his bidding. They, nevertheless, went ahead with their unconstitutional acts with the strong backing of the military and police who were deployed that day to give the five members protection. One really wonders the business of soldiers from the Army Records in Lokoja over a legislative matter that is purely civil. Perhaps the commander of the unit or the Chief of Army Staff would be in a better position to explain this. Meanwhile the governor is yet to explain to Kogites why he had to conduct the swearing-in ceremony of the Deputy Governor under a secret cover in his sitting room rather than the Confluence Stadium or any other open place. The arrogance of Alhaji Bello has also been visibly demonstrated by his decision to block the road that passes by his personal residence beside the Government House, Lokoja, thereby causing  pains and inconveniences and logjam for road users.

    The governor has exhibited ignorance of the clear provisions of the constitution. This has led him to commit unconstitutional acts and impeachable offences. He does not appear to have knowledge of the limits of his powers as a governor. He imagines that he has absolute and unfettered powers to do anything he wants. He has dissolved the Local Government commission without regard to the fact that it is unconstitutional to do so except at the expiration of its stated term. He abrogated the joint account of Local Government Councils and the State without repealing the law establishing it. He has issued directives to Universal Basic Education and Pension Bureau contrary to the extant laws and rules guiding them.

    Alhaji Bello also announced that he had granted autonomy to the local government councils, apparently, without any understanding of the implications of such a fundamental policy decision. He places no structure on the ground either by legislation or guidelines upon which such autonomy can operate. It is a blanket power conferred on the local government council chairmen to conduct the affairs of their councils as they desire. Finances and the staff salaries and welfare of the local government councils are now at the whims of the council chairmen. Indeed, the crucial question agitating the minds of right-thinking Kogites is whether or not local government autonomy can be granted by mere irrational verbal pronouncement of a governor without any legislative or constitutional backing. Given the penchant of the governor at reversing himself, it will not be surprising to hear, in the next few days, that he has reversed the decision again. One interesting aspect of the autonomy granted the council chairman is the fact that few days after the announcement of the granting of the so-called autonomy, the Governor himself proceeded to suspend all the Directors of Local Governments (DLGS) and cashiers for one month without consulting the chairmen. Right now, all permanent secretaries in the state civil service, directors of finance, deputy accountant-general and staff of accounts sections of all ministries and parastatals are being placed on one-month compulsory leave.

    His hatred for the Okuns is brewing and manifesting. He ensured that his cronies who impeached the Speaker did not give the slot to an Okun man even when it was zoned to the western Senatorial District. He also ensured that a Lokoja man got it. Furthermore, he ensured that an Okun man who was the deputy accountant general did not act for the accountant-general when the latter was sacked. He is said to be planning to bring an Ebira from Lagos to be the accountant-general of the state, a civil service position.

    Right now, Kogi State is in the hands of two amateurs and inexperienced administrators. Yahaya Bello, the Governor, and Edward Onoja, the Chief of Staff, who have demonstrated lack of capacity in governance and administration. Both of them have no political or administrative pedigree and acumen. Alhaji Bello served as civil servant at the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission for only twelve years. He never became a director to direct any affair. He is today a multi-billionaire. Edward Onoja worked in the banking system for few years before he was eased out. Both of them, regrettably, are calling the shots in Kogi courtesy of INEC’s manipulations against the will of the people of Kogi State, freely expressed at a peacefully conducted election of 21st November 2015 where nobody complained of any malpractice. Until the Tribunal rules, the absurdities in Kogi are bound to continue. Hopefully, this won’t be long.

    • Adeola writes from Lokoja

     

     

    • First published February 21, 2016
  • Atiku on Buhari and restructuring

    Atiku on Buhari and restructuring

    GIVEN the candour and trenchancy of former vice president Atiku Abubakar’s views on the state of the nation last week in Abuja, federal officials may spend more time analysing his motives than understanding the import and relevance of his constructive ideas. Alhaji Atiku had at a public presentation of Chido Onumah’s book, We Are All Biafrans, made scathing and particular remarks on President Muhammadu Buhari’s management of the economy and politics. The president, he said, must find ways of leading the effort to restructure the federation, decentralise it, and make it less suffocating. He was also uncomfortable with the president’s economic management style, especially his approach to the herdsmen crisis.
    The former vice president caused many to wince when he suggested that Nigeria was saddled with “a leadership that is not prepared to learn from the past and a leadership that is also not prepared to lead.” A few days earlier, the president had told media interviewers he had no interest in revisiting past efforts, particularly those of his predecessor, ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, at restructuring the federation through a national conference. Whether Alhaji Atiku was responding to the president’s unwise view is not clear; but it is enough that the views are strong, relevant and weighty. The president himself had been roundly condemned for denouncing efforts to restructure the federation in the face of mounting national challenges to peace, stability and growth. So, when the former vice president weighed in on the same subject, and couched his view so trenchantly, he was likely to be accused of directly referring to and denouncing the president’s stance.
    In some respects, the former VP had earlier made some of the remarks attributed to him, though with perhaps less severity than last week’s. His views are probably gaining traction because of the president’s disregard for the true change the electorate thought they had voted for. Of course, the electorate knew the president must grapple with a broken economy made anaemic by the Jonathan government. It was also clear by the time of the last polls that many other aspects of the nation were either broken or about to be broken. Once sworn in, the president had to prioritise the nation’s existential challenges and deal with them firmly and urgently. But almost immediately, it also became clear to the public that the president needed to expand his vista and multitask very quickly, for too many other ancillary challenges were beginning to crop up and complicate the problems, making them intractable.
    But instead of responding to the widening gyre of crises gnawing at the country’s innards, the president stuck to his default mode, scorned the campaign to extend his areas of concern, isolated himself from both his party and other support bases elsewhere, and postured grandly as a lawgiver whose person, views and perspectives were sacrosanct and incorruptible. That standoffishness, combined with the deepening and metastasizing national crises, and a general unwillingness to explore new ideas and seek help from a wider political and ideological base, have unnerved the country and appeared to stultify the president’s efforts. This may explain why Alhaji Atiku’s seemingly harsh advice resonated so widely last week.
    The Buhari presidency will be tempted to focus on Alhaji Atiku’s person. They should resist that temptation. Even if the former vice president was motivated by malicious reasons, his views are not. He was right on Niger Delta; he was right on the need to repair the country’s political structure; he was right to ask for new economic paradigms; and though it may grate on the president’s nerves, the former vice president appeared to be giving the problems of the country more thought and was even sounding presidential, not to talk of courageous, a commodity he had never lacked. It must be humbling to the presidency that Alhaji Atiku addressed these salient issues, and did it very well. Should the presidency join issues with him on his observations, they would embarrass themselves, for they would be forced to debunk arguments admired by the rest of the country, and put the lie unsuccessfully to frustrations sometimes unspoken but nonetheless felt. No matter what motives propelled Alhaji Atiku to give vent to his views on the nation’s crises, he has done the Buhari presidency a world of good to draw their attention to these problems in their first year in office.
    It is also not unlikely that Alhaji Atiku, an unrepentantly ambitious politician, had other motives for publicising his succinct views. He has never hidden his ambition to be president, and inspired by the trajectory by which President Buhari assumed the presidency, the former VP would hold out hope for a glorious electoral future. In terms of courage, which he exemplified by his opposition to former president Olusegun Obasanjo between 2003 and 2007, he has shown himself to be a forthright and sensible politician and individual, one not afraid to gamble his future on a single throw of the dice. He has proved adept at synthesising public yearnings far better than President Buhari, and is more accessible, more gregarious, more gifted at discovering talents and mentoring them, and more nationally inclined, with friends everywhere. There is no doubt he would make a good president, probably a better president.
    But he could not have defeated Dr Jonathan in 2015, for the epithets hurled at him by Chief Obasanjo in the years before 2007 stuck to him painfully and remorselessly. He was of course healthier and more endowed than the then Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, but Chief Obasanjo had told the country and the world that Alhaji Atiku could not be trusted with the country’s money. The former vice president did everything in his power to shrug off what he described as criminal defamation, but nobody was buying. He ran a good race on the ticket of the then Action Congress (AC) party, but it was a short and hopeless fight. His sojourn in the political wilderness has however not attenuated his vigour, his friendliness, or his presence of mind.
    For a man so gifted, so thoughtful and so indomitable, it is a mystery that his virtues are not accompanied or reinforced by the principles and character that define and ennoble greatness and statesmanship. He generally does not flip-flop on ideas and philosophies, but he is unpredictable in party loyalties, jumping from one party to the other casually and almost insouciantly. Had he acquired the staying power and fortitude necessary to undergird his fidelity to ideas, and had he eschewed the lust for power which constantly triggers and dogs his nomadism and political peregrinations, it is not inconceivable he would today be leading the PDP and, in view of a faltering All Progressives Congress (APC) bent on self-destruction, be positioning himself for a powerful bid for the presidency in 2019. But notwithstanding his weaknesses, the nation is blessed to have him in politics, especially the courage and ideas he propagates so admirably.

  • Overwhelmed Nigeria needs to snap out of paralysis

    Overwhelmed Nigeria needs to snap out of paralysis

    PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari marked one year in office without ceremony. He was right not to. Nigeria’s multifarious problems helped make the anniversary memorable and momentous. The Niger Delta is a cauldron of permanent unrest that has halved crude oil production and national revenue, thus worsening crippling low oil prices and vaulting inflation. The Southeast is in an uproar, threatening to explode in everybody’s face. The anti-corruption war is not yielding fruits as readily and rapidly as the Buhari presidency banked upon. Herdsmen have laid siege to many communities, exacting vengeance for perceived slights and offences, and hurting crop production. Dire socio-economic problems have made insecurity worse, splintered families and the society, predisposed the youths to cultism and other vices, and made hunger and frustrations more likely. In short, the country is in a lather, convulsed by a general sense of failure which the presidency can’t seem to get a handle on.
    For months, the Buhari presidency had stridently blamed his predecessor for the incalculable damage done to the economy and polity. As the problems worsened, the blame game has suddenly become vapid and repetitive. Last year it was obvious to the people time would be needed to sweep the Augean stables clean. Now, the people have become restless and despondent. They do not mind waiting; but they are no longer sure the Buhari presidency even knows what to do, or how to do it. They were prepared to endure stagnation for a while; but instead they are being asked to endure much worse, perhaps retrogression. Food prices have skyrocketed, energy costs have become astronomical, and palpable fear of recession is voiced in key sectors of the economy as thousands lose their jobs. The hostile conditions are so inimical to stability that there is pressing fear that both the Niger Delta and the Southeast could simultaneously explode.
    It is in the midst of all this that former vice president Atiku Abubakar delivered his bombshell suggesting that the lack of adequate and sensible response to these problems could be blamed on poor leadership. (See the piece above). President Buhari’s uninspiring May 29 speech appears to lend credence to Alhaji Atiku’s conclusions. Even more critical was the president’s general interview given to media establishments as part of his first year anniversary. The interview is doubtless well composed, even eloquent, and honest. It serves as a window into the president’s heart and thinking. But it is also frightening for its lack of profundity, generally misconceived for its facile surrender to political and economic anachronisms, and bewildering in its temper for the manner he excoriated aggressive dissent and unorthodoxies. It is good the interview was published in many newspapers; for then it should afford the president the opportunity to reflect on the questions a second time, and ponder his responses and the public’s reactions to them, again and again to see what he could do differently in the next three years. He can improve if he chooses. For, it seems, the main lesson from the anomalous answers he gave to the serious questions posed to him is that his determination to run his presidency in the unilineal and insular manner he has chosen is simply ruining his presidency.
    The president has apparently set too much store by his belonging to everybody and to nobody. But in politics, rather than the diktat he seems enamoured of, he needs to bring people together, meet minds with the best in the land, cast his net far wider than his background has propelled him, make conscious effort to cultivate the trust and friendship of various ethnic groups and religions, prepare a blueprint for the reform and rejuvenation of the various sectors of the society including the judiciary, get a firm grip on the haughty and imperial police and military establishments, and sell a brilliant and pragmatic vision of Nigeria to Nigerians. He has done none of these. He has been stuck with his anti-corruption war and counterinsurgency in the Northeast because he seems to entertain the strange doctrine that nothing else could be done until both issues were dealt with.
    He also responded quite bafflingly to the question on national conference by reminding everyone he never supported it, and would not support even the report of the conference. Unsurprisingly, the nation has risen in unison to remind him he does not own the nation, and must revisit the report because the present structure is simply unworkable. The public opposed Dr Jonathan’s conference because they knew it was opportunistic, half-hearted and desperate. If President Buhari does not champion the restructuring of the country in line with the people’s wishes, the country will go ahead and still do it and give him no credit.
    His answers to the question of herdsmen’s attacks is disingenuous; to that of Boko Haram, apocalyptic; and to that of Biafra, insensitive and misguided. It does not matter how long the government pretends the Biafra issue is unimportant, the president must confront it dispassionately, skillfully and diplomatically. So far, he has confronted it emotionally. In the interview, he shows no enthusiasm in engaging the economists who discuss with him, let alone their panaceas for a troubled economy. All he says is that he will see how to accommodate them and their theories, seeing how they often spoke above his head. Then he finally and incredulously suggests a dose of patriotism to curb elite excesses in undermining the economy.
    What is quite evident from the interview is that the president must come to terms with his past experiences, recognise the ideas that worked in the past but are no longer relevant, and urgently open up in order to receive help and advice from those competent and well-meaning to do so. He needs to forge a new nation from an old and dying nation, and he needs to set it on a modern foundation capable of sustaining its people into the next century.

  • Tragedy in Kogi State

    Tragedy in Kogi State

    TOMORROW, the Kogi governorship election tribunal sitting in Abuja will begin delivering judgement in the disputed November 2015 governorship election case. Hopefully, it should bring to an end the tomfoolery being displayed by Governor Yahaya Bello. The state awaits justice in the case brought by James Abiodun Faleke asking to be declared winner of the poll, which he argued had been concluded. The governor does not rely on law to sustain his rule; he relies on his backers in Abuja and elsewhere whom he believes have done enough magic to keep him in office. It remains to be seen whether magic will trump law.
    Meanwhile, it is estimated that since he assumed office, he had received from the federation account more than nine billion naira and an additional N20 bailout money. But he has declined to pay salaries; and from inheriting about three months salary arrears, he now owes about five months. In addition, his legislative subversion, once supported by the Attorney General of the Federation and the Inspector General of Police, is now given fillip by the Nigerian Army which has sent soldiers to bar the legitimate, court-approved 15 lawmakers from sitting in the House of Assembly, and to guard Mr Bello’s five lawmakers as they purport to make laws for the state and approve his list of commissioners. If Kogi lacks shame, what of the presidency that connives at this monstrosity?

  • Buhari at one, and democracy at 17

    Buhari at one, and democracy at 17

    IT has been one momentous year for the Muhammadu Buhari presidency. In line with the president’s promises to fight corruption before it killed Nigeria and restore normality to the Boko Haram-ravaged Northeast, he has been dogged, fearless and urgent. He has not affected substantially the behaviour of the military to think and act inspiringly, but it has done remarkably well fighting insurgency enthusiastically and restoring ample peace to the blighted and restive region. The real corruption war has not started, and such as can be properly described as a war that has started has not always been fought within the expected judicial rules of engagement, but the president has at least stirred a revolt against the cankerworm, putting it on the defensive, attacking its symptoms, and exposing the depth of the problem and its choking tentacles in virtually all sectors of government and national life.

    Concerning all other campaign promises, the record has been rather abysmal. The school feeding project has not begun, but even after the budget passage kick-starts it, its execution will not erase doubts in the minds of the economically astute as to the wisdom behind it and its undergirding principles. The promise of improved electricity supply has misfired badly; fuel price, which the president gave indication would decline when the magic wand of refinery restoration was waved, has proved a chimera; and the exchange rate parity he inscrutably lent support to during his campaigns has exploded in his face. With the economy receiving inexpert attention, not to say almost fitful response, the optimism of the early months has given way to deep-seated ennui.

    Overall, given the scale of depredation superintended by the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, in addition to the appallingly clumsy and wobbly foundation laid by the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency for both democracy and the Fourth Republic, President Buhari has done substantially well to keep the country afloat. The citizens have egged him on with a lot of goodwill, even accepting fuel price hike with glacial resignation and puzzlingly embracing and applauding many of his unorthodox judicial methods. He should proceed in that euphoria to enunciate a few more realistic and populist measures to ameliorate the dire conditions his people face. After the passage of the budget, he has readied himself and his team to do battle with the declining economy, a decline his initially unsteady measures and nostalgic panaceas complicated.

    Except perhaps a few Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders, most Nigerians agree that the electorate displayed wisdom to vote for President Buhari. His campaign promises were mostly Neanderthal, and he himself appears a throwback to the distant past, but Nigerians would have shuddered to have Dr Jonathan win re-election. Undoubtedly but surprisingly both Chief Obasanjo and Dr Jonathan have been better democrats than President Buhari. However, given the mood of the moment and the scale of destruction of the last five or six years, it is somewhat reassuring to have President Buhari, with his virtues of discipline and integrity, in office.

    President Buhari has a vision for Nigeria, but that vision is amorphous and incapable of generating the momentum he envisages in his subconscious. He wants a society where corruption will be minimal, but he has neither enunciated how he hopes to bring it about nor taken any concrete step, no matter how awkwardly or tentatively, to bring it to reality. More appropriately, given his statements in the past few months, his attitude to the judiciary and legislature, his view on the opposition within and outside his party, his refusal to imbue his various social battles with elevating and magisterial detachment, and the limiting and limited rubrics of his ideas, not to talk of the composition of his kitchen and general cabinets, his hopes and ambitions for the country are bound to be stymied, if not miscarried altogether.

    Indeed, if President Buhari has done quite well so far to arrest the drift to financial and political chaos, it is because his predecessor had done unusually worse in fighting corruption and insecurity. His pessimism and constantly loud proclamations of impending disaster and national weakness, especially at the attitudinal level, either resonate with the public or are accepted with exasperating indifference and equanimity. Meanwhile, for the nation to rise above the crises hobbling it, and the president himself to record the kind of achievements he pines after, he will have to rework his vision and align it with the highest standards human history has exemplified. He will really and urgently need to develop a comprehensive and breathtaking vision for the country, one in which his piecemeal battles and campaigns must fit in.

    President Buhari has spent one year in office, the 17th year of civil rule in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. He cannot wait until he has ended the Boko Haram war and defeated corruption in order to develop an ideological master plan for Nigeria. He has enunciated desultory ideas about what he visualises for Nigeria, but he will not have the success he desires and deserves until he has made those ideas to achieve consistency and coherence with an overarching vision for Nigeria. What is missing precisely so far in the Buhari presidency is a far-reaching vision, the superstructure upon which to build his piecemeal edifices. Building roads, hospitals, schools, houses and power stations, as important as they are, will not substitute for the need for an overarching vision.

    It is that vision that will dictate the kind of political restructuring, social engineering and economic reforms the country needs. The president has not said a word on these crucial needs. Yet, it is these political, economic and social changes that will also dictate success in other areas, such as anti-corruption and counterinsurgency, which the president is focusing on. Any achievement in those two areas will not only be temporary, they will also be severely limited. In addition, the vision will also dictate how far, wide and deep the country’s ambitions, character and identity will be within the global space. The vision will guide and circumscribe the president’s worldview, statements — whether of the critical or self-denigrating variety — and self-worth.

    This column does not know any country that achieved greatness without first going through the defining moments stated above. If President Buhari cannot draw inspiration from Russia, United States, Britain, France, Germany and others, he can draw example from Askia (Muhammad Ture) the Great of the Songhai Empire, Mansa Kankan Musa of the Mali Empire, and closer home, the many empires and vibrant kingdoms that inhabited Nigeria’s geographical space. President Buhari will be making a huge mistake to think he can build a great and modernising society on the flimsy ideational foundations of his nostalgia and imagination. Nigeria is at the point where fundamental changes have to be adroitly introduced if the country is to survive, as the Niger Delta unrest is showing. In his first year, the president has not even giving any indication he knows the indispensability of the changes the country needs, or of how to formulate and implement them. And whether in his kitchen or wider cabinet, there is no one who has inspired confidence that rather than venerate the president they can coax him in the right direction, and away from his sometimes surprisingly constricted and bewildering statements and worldview.

    Within the confines of the limited ambition of many Nigerians disenchanted with the Jonathan government, President Buhari has done remarkably well to arrest the drift begun especially by his predecessor. But for those highly knowledgeable about world history, the president has not even started, let alone done well. For a country that is not yet a nation, riven as it were by ethnic and religious distrust, and its elite so dissolute and ignorant, there is a crying need for real and substantial change outside the dogmatic confines of partisan politics. To midwife this new system calls for a new elite and leadership able to visualise a constitution that will endure for centuries, and a country where religiosity, ethnocentrism and other forms of intrinsic and acquired parochialisms will not be their hallmarks.

  • PDP moves from pragmatism to tenuous stalemate

    PDP moves from pragmatism to tenuous stalemate

    SHORTLY before the May 21 elective convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Port Harcourt, it was obvious the opposition party was in a deep stupor. Court orders and judgements were flying everywhere; Lagos and Abuja courts were neck-deep in the crisis; the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party was groaning under pressure; the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) was fulminating; and the terribly flustered and embattled acting chairman, former governor Ali Modu Sheriff, was pondering whether to flee in panic or display hopeless defiance. In the end, the convention was aborted, barely managing to dissolve the NWC and empowering former Kaduna State governor Ahmed Makarfi to head a national caretaker committee to plan another convention in three months.

    First, Senator Sheriff stood pat, but not before vacillating between threatening the party with a lawsuit and offering them sop. But soon thereafter, a good number of the NWC began to queue behind the new caretaker committee. Then the parallel ‘pretender’ Abuja convention inspired by former minister Jerry Gana and Senator Ibrahim Mantu began speaking peaceably with the caretakers, at first dilatorily, and then more sure-footedly and briskly. And finally, the party’s BoT, which had plotted to take over the party’s affair in response to the stalemate, aligned itself with the caretaker committee. By yesterday, with the exception of some NWC members, there was hardly anyone left behind the pugnacious Senator Sheriff, whose betrayal in Port Harcourt a newspaper had described as a palace coup. Even the cantankerous duo of Governors Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, both of whom had fiercely backed the interim chairman, had begun to sing a different and implacable tune.

    Senator Sheriff shot himself in the foot in a maddening but fateful dash for glory. He had received popular support to become the party’s acting chairman. But almost immediately, he brazenly began to scheme to retain the influential office in substantive capacity. More galling to many party members, they thought he sent faint signals he would not even mind also bagging the party’s presidential nomination, a prize he could deploy his enormous resources and the party’s chairmanship to take peremptorily. At that point, the highly consternated party rushed at him with daggers drawn. In Port Harcourt, he was the sole aspirant for the chairman’s post. But the conspirators pulled the carpet from under him. Now, they have virtually inoculated him against any future ambition. He is no longer regarded as acting chairman; it is inconceivable he can become substantive chairman. And as for the party’s standard-bearer position, pigs can fly before he smells the post.

    The PDP was pragmatic to have made Senator Sheriff the acting chairman. He is bold, rich, fearless and eager for a fight. In fact, in some ways, he seems the perfect counterpoise to the All Progressives Congress (APC) President Muhammadu Buhari, the laconic former army general whose suspect democratic credentials grate on the nerves of the opposition. Had the senator limited himself to the three-month tenure gifted him by the dispirited leadership of his party, his stock would either have continued to rise or at least stayed the same. But he spurned wisdom. Now he is out in the cold, alone, chafing and increasingly demoralised.

    On the other hand, former governor Makarfi, who like Senator Sheriff is also a senator, appears an even sturdier politician than the former Borno State governor, of course without the flight of fancy and shenanigans of the latter. He is technically not the acting PDP chairman, but he will deploy the powers and goodwill of that office to conduct a new convention. He is more level-headed, more urbane, and more calculating. Above all, he is not bitten by the ambition bug that unhorsed Senator Sheriff. At the rate the party is coalescing around the former Kaduna governor, the PDP may be prepared to conduct a rancour-free convention, and possibly produce party officers without the restraining and enervating orders and judgements of the courts. More importantly, Senator Makarfi is unlikely to want to transmute into anything in the immediate future.

    The stalemate being witnessed by the PDP may in fact be a temporary one. Once the party manages to transcend that paralysis, it will have to confront the task of rebuilding itself, first into a vibrant opposition, and then into a winning party. Those tasks will not be easy. Since it lost the presidency and many governorship offices last year, the party has been reluctant to embrace the fearful and radical measures required to reposition it to check the ruling party and offer the wary public a veritable alternative. One of those radical measures is the need to purge the party of its discredited leaders, most of whom are either being investigated by anti-graft agencies or prosecuted for corruption. By shunning that option, the party gives the impression it underestimates the deep public revulsion against the manner it rifled through the nation’s treasury and emptied it. Indeed, had the 16 years of PDP been probed, the stench would have been unbearable, if not truly asphyxiating.

    In 2014, this column presciently suggested that the nation was waiting for the APC to fight and win the presidency debauched by the PDP over 16 years. Now, the country is waiting for the PDP to offer the right and beneficial opposition to the APC, if it can purge its leadership, recruit new leaders, and embark on the structural and intellectual re-engineering so direly needed at this time. It has put paid to Senator Sheriff’s ambition, and brought in new faces to plan another convention. But it has left undone all the greater and deeper changes that would stand the party in good stead not only now but in the near future. Yet the hope of a brighter tomorrow for the party, one which it desperately but awkwardly desires, is contingent upon how quickly and effectively the party actualises the changes.

  • Time APC played politics

    Time APC played politics

    PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari may be forthright, full of integrity and stubborn to causes he believes in, but he is hardly the exemplar of politics the office he occupies suggests or the electoral campaigns he had waged and the presidential election he had won. This is why he has seemed to run his presidency as a technocrat averse to the shenanigans of politics, and with the single-minded resolve of an army general scared of his image of resoluteness being sullied by the dribbles and feints politicians are accustomed to. Perhaps unknown to him, this has created a needless gap between his presidency and the people he is presiding over, whether it pertains to his anti-corruption war or fuel price hike. If the apparent disconnection is not to become a problem now or in the future, he must study the situation and find ways to narrow the widening divide.
    The ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), is even worse. Scalded by its misadventure over the legislative leadership elections in the National Assembly, it has appeared to lose interest completely in the convoluted politics of its fractious and seething members, many of whom have stuck wilfully and pugnaciously to the identities that preceded their party’s merger. Not only have they been unable to substantially influence the presidency, they have also been incompetent to consolidate the vibrancy and depth of politics that saw them catapulted into the presidency almost overnight. Since assuming office in May 2015, the APC has lost major elections, and displayed appalling slothfulness in projecting ennobling party principles, the kind it had theorised with gusto before the polls last year.
    On top of these lacunae is the disturbing impression the party’s leaders have given of their party and the relationship among themselves. If not to even themselves, then at least to the public, the APC seems little more than an abstraction and an enigma perching gingerly on a totem pole. If at all they are talking to themselves, perhaps they have managed to make it unduly and unproductively secretive. The presidency is perching somewhere, party executives are perching elsewhere, and party leaders are eyeing themselves warily, unsure what to say and how to say it. The party is not ennobling the presidency, and the presidency is not ennobling the party; and yet there are grave national issues that require the concentration of the party’s intellectual and emotional energies, and the urgent application of party panache and principles.
    If the party does not learn to play politics again the way it showed it was capable of doing before the 2015 polls, they will hang separately at the next polls, to paraphrase Mark Twain. They must consider themselves lucky indeed that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has proved unable to manage defeat, just as the APC has proved incompetent to manage victory. Had the former been less pigheaded about the calls by well-wishers for restructuring and reform, the APC would today be in more trouble than its delicate shoulders can carry. This column had stridently advised PDP to get its act together and offer Nigeria the quality opposition the country needs to weigh the policies and programmes of the ruling party. It has spurned advice. Today, this column is advising the APC to re-learn politics and play it with the suavity it demonstrated last year and the year before. Hopefully, they will take it in good faith.
    The first step the APC must take is to see the president as nothing more than the primus inter pares the constitution envisages him to be. It seems so far that both the party and the president’s kitchen cabinet venerate the president instead. This is absolutely unhelpful. This column had joined issues early enough with President Buhari on his kitchen cabinet, arguing that it did not seem to have been composed with the carefulness, spread and chutzpah required to surround the president with deep, dialectical, brave and questioning minds. Nor does it seem to this column that debate of any kind, or at least vigorous and stormy debate, is being encouraged at the Federal Executive Council (FEC). Members of the cabinet, this column fears, may be more preoccupied with deciphering the president’s body language or second-guessing him. This may be why the herdsmen problem has been allowed to fester, and why rather than find deep and subtle solutions to the crises in the Southeast and Niger Delta, the president has spoken truculently and impatiently of employing military might.
    This column, and perhaps many Nigerians, get the impression of a one-man presidency, with everything revolving around the president. But the people need to get the impression of a firm leader, a deep and reflective kitchen cabinet, a great, intellectual and questioning ministerial cabinet, and a forward-looking, innovative and adept ruling party. It is within the reach of President Buhari to summon these possibilities. It is only after these things have been done that the party can begin to play politics with the expectation of a great tomorrow and hope for delightful electoral outcomes in the years ahead.
    While it is true that President Buhari placed the corruption war and counterinsurgency operations in the Northeast at the top of his agenda during the presidential campaigns, it is also true that he won mainly because ex-president Goodluck Jonathan first lost the election. If the presidency and the APC are realistic about this order of things concerning their victory, they will recognise that it accounted for the reluctance of the electorate to really and significantly interrogate the APC/Buhari campaign pledges. The implication is that far beyond the two leading pledges of Boko Haram war and anti-corruption battles are a plethora of other issues that have equal existential germaneness to Nigeria’s quest for greatness and the abundant life.
    Curiously, the APC became lost after the elections, unable to galvanise itself or anyone for that matter. However, Nigerians need to begin to see APC in its resplendent flourish. It has fed the people the bread of affliction for the past few months; they need to see the party visualising a land flowing with milk and honey, and affecting policy pomp and circumstance that are uplifting, energising and revitalising. There must be news about the party — good news — and they must begin to create or produce their own stars, whether young, middle age or old. Critically too, it is time the president, his team and the party gave the people and their newspapers resonant headline news, not of corruption and Boko Haram, but of innovations, new programmes and policies, fresh economic vision, political restructuring or even tinkering, and social engineering, among many other things. These new ideas and programmes must trump the stale diet that has constipated the people and given fillip to foreign derogatory remarks.
    It is a scandal that the herdsmen crisis has been emasculated in the president’s ethnic background, as if he is not a product of a progressive political party, as if he has no thinking cabinet, as if the whole country is flummoxed by the mesmerising concept of change. Yet, the people had expected to hear their president and his party (which had swept nearly all of the North) to declaim upon the urgent issue of climate change in the positive sense of finding a solution to deforestation and grazing problems. Unfortunately, the president and his party unwisely allowed the discourse to be shaped and led in the wrong direction of grazing reserves and seized lands — a clearly wrong-headed and provocative panacea — when desertification can be arrested by inspiring and far-sighted environmental restoration schemes.
    If President Buhari and his APC cannot play politics the way it should be played, and they are too timid to ask for help; if they see governance in the narrow, imperial and retrogressive sense that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Department of State Service (DSS) are interpreting it — for they are beginning to equate dissent with treason –; and if they will continue to render politics in the dismal, joyless and depressing image of their recent uninteresting past, they should serve notice of their willingness to relinquish office in the next elections. Since the APC can’t pass muster and the PDP has proved pusillanimous in offering a credible and fighting opposition to the ruling party, perhaps it is time Nigerians began to contemplate their future outside the joyless dualism represented by the stifled and melancholic APC and the self-destructive and profligate PDP.

  • Nigeria, corruption and British hyperbole

    Nigeria, corruption and British hyperbole

    REACTIONS to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s execrable putdown of Nigeria as a ‘fantastically corrupt’ country, ‘probably one of the two most corrupt in the world’, have been split virtually 50-50. It is not known how the Nigerian federal cabinet would vote had the matter been put before them for consideration, but between President Muhammadu Buhari and one of his spokesmen, Garba Shehu, the voting was amusingly also 50-50, with the president lining behind the condescending Mr Cameron, and Mallam Shehu extenuating the British hyperbole and feigning some excuses. Mr Cameron is generally voluble. Before the Queen on the day he broadsided Nigeria, with Afghanistan in tow, he was uninhibited. Indeed, he seemed to exult that since Nigeria had a global reputation for corruption, the Nigerian leader’s presence in the anti-corruption summit he was hosting lent credibility and gravitas to the coalition meeting.

    A mortified Mallam Shehu thought the Cameron viewpoint took no cognisance of recent developments in Nigeria. The British prime minister had an old, abhorrent snapshot of the country, the presidential spokesman whined, one completely oblivious of the gains the Buhari presidency had made in the unsparing fight against corruption. The presidential spokesman took umbrage gingerly, perhaps because he was unsure how the president would react, or because he did not want to offend their host. The president was not incommoded at all by the Cameron insult. Asked by reporters last Wednesday at a Commonwealth event in London whether he objected to what many deemed as an unprovoked and unmitigated insult, the president scoffed at the utility of an apology. What he needed, he said dryly, was for Britain and other countries which had served as receivers of stolen money to quickly return the loot hidden in their vaults.

    Many Nigerians were baffled by their president’s nonchalant view of Mr Cameron’s brazen diplomatic faux pas. But other Nigerians, a significant number it seems, lauded the president’s honesty and pragmatism. Nigeria’s corruption, the latter group said, was not hidden and had still not been extirpated, so why deny the obvious? What, however, miffed the first group was the timing of the Cameron putdown, the fact that Nigeria was their guest, and the apparent but superficial differentiation between the Nigerian president and his country. The president ought to be keenly aware of the implication of the insult, whether it seemed to mirror reality or not, the first group concluded.

    It is perhaps pointless engaging in the polemics of British corruption, either regarding their domestic and international politics, when they imposed colonial rule on hitherto sovereign nations and expropriated their resources, or even of the crass internal financial rigmarole within Britain itself. It will have no effect on the British, not to say the unflappable Mr Cameron, to remind them of the centuries of evil and chicaneries they authored and executed all over the world and in the British Isles, a reputation that moved Bernard Shaw to describe them as perfidious Albion. Given their insufferable airs, there is apparently no Shavian criticism of their insularity that will have any effect on them as a people and on their domestic and international politics.

    President Buhari needed to have an understanding of British history, a fundamental appreciation of Nigeria’s past, and a deep grounding in Nigeria’s national pride and essence to formulate a timeless response to Mr Cameron’s indiscretion. The British themselves knew their prime minister misspoke; the Queen, an exemplar of savoir-faire, also knew he overreached himself, and the world press, not to say the Afghans, had unmistakable impression of the prime minister’s uncivilised sarcasm. What is more, though he was a little restrained in responding to the insult, the president’s spokesman had no illusion that a devastating slur had been put on Nigeria’s image before the global community. But President Buhari not only corroborated Mr Cameron’s uncivil impression of Nigeria as a fantastically corrupt country, he even excused it and then impatiently waved it off.

    Mallam Shehu seemed relieved that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, drew a distinction between President Buhari and his country, Nigeria. The president too appeared to be mollified by that distinction, after all, he has dedicated himself to fighting the evil of corruption, an evil that is real, not ghostly. How the president and any other Nigerian could draw a distinction between the president and the country he presides over is hard to say. President Buhari is described everywhere he goes as President of Nigeria, not a president in vacuum. He cannot be right and his country wrong; he cannot exist outside of his country; and he has no reputation outside his country’s reputation. Mr Cameron’s hyperbole was not only unjust and presumptuous, it was an ignorant generalisation about a country where only a privileged but misguided few have caused all the trouble.

    This inability to draw the line properly also afflicted past Nigerian presidents, especially ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, who seemed to have begun the anomalous deconstruction of Nigeria from a proud and ambitious country to a troubled and groveling entity. President Buhari and his predecessors’ inability to draw a line in the right place, not to say the naivety of ignoring the wider implications of the self-immolation they engineered by their self-righteousness and lack of reflectiveness, have had far-reaching consequences. Rather than tighten domestic laws and reform the justice system, Chief Obasanjo set traps for corrupt Nigerians in foreign countries, especially Britain. Today, for the sins of a few Nigerians, a whole generation of Nigerians is suffering stigmatisation and mistreatment. To Chief Obasanjo and perhaps President Buhari, who has masterminded unending publicity on corruption, the pains Nigerians and Nigeria itself go through are not too stiff a price to pay.

    Image is everything, as producers of great brands know. This column has always insisted that there are far better and scientific step-by-step ways to fight societal ills than the impulsive manner Nigerian leaders embrace. In battles, great commanders are mindful not only of how the war is fought in line with the rules of war, they are also mindful of the structure of the anticipated peace. Chief Obasanjo behaved and fought in a manner that portrayed him as ignorant of the future. By refusing to tackle Mr Cameron’s perhaps facetious comment on Nigeria, President Buhari gave no indication he knew he was presiding over a country whose image and reputation he must guard with his life. There were doubtless some truths in the summation of Nigeria’s corruption, but there were also some brazen lies and silly generalisations. The Americans, the president will recollect, bequeathed to the world the aphorism by Stephen Decatur: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.” It was the product of patient thinking about national ideals and the responsibility every patriot owes his country, from the president to the common man. The quote still rings inspiringly true today.

    While it is true that Nigeria needs its stolen money repatriated urgently, President Buhari brilliantly standing up to the British prime minister would not have undermined that cause. He did not need to demand an apology; he could have coaxed it from the British depending on the way he framed his umbrage. Had the British not treated Nigeria (and other colonies) condescendingly over the years, had Nigerian leaders not portrayed themselves as House Negroes, had Nigerian politicians not genuflected before whites all their boyhood and adult years, had Nigerian presidents not behaved euphorically when admitted to European and American State Houses, and had their minds not been affected by certain complexes for far too long, world leaders would think twice before stigmatising Nigeria. A president not only embodies everything about his country, his primary job is to defend it even when it is weak, and to project its vision and values when it is strong.

    Former Burkinabe leader, Thomas Sankara, had his faults, but being a gifted man full of finely honed ripostes, it is unthinkable he would have let the Cameron slight go unanswered in his brilliant, inimitable way, as Francois Mitterand found out to his extreme exasperation. It is too late for the remorseless Chief Obasanjo to remedy the offensive and almost uneducated manner he portrayed Nigeria abroad; No one could restrain or shush the late Umaru Yar’Adua from his euphoric admission of joy at visiting the United States White House; it was a hopeless effort to counsel Goodluck Jonathan to desist from humiliating Nigeria by his lethargy and his wife’s melodrama; and now the country is assailed by President Buhari’s misconception of how his private image intertwines with the country’s reputation. Perhaps it is time for a few professors of History to design a course to prickle the weariness of Nigerian leaders once they are elected, and excite them with the highest principles of nationalism. They need to be taught how to fight domestic causes without jeopardising their country’s external image. And they need to be imbued with such inner strength and mental vision that will make them sacrifice everything for the glory of motherland, even if it means losing a few foreign friends and forfeiting some of the funds looted by past leaders.

  • Herdsmen, fuel price hike, Biafra and worst angst ever

    Herdsmen, fuel price hike, Biafra and worst angst ever

    AFTER few public officials, especially the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, had suggested that the herdsmen troubling Nigeria were of foreign origin, President Muhammadu Buhari has in far away London finally succinctly addressed the matter. The herdsmen are indeed foreigners, he said, and those responsible for pillaging communities would not go unpunished. No one complains any longer that the president addresses salient national issues during his foreign trips. Perhaps the ambience is responsible. Neither Mr Arase, who has vigorously defended the thesis, nor the president, who has just latched on to the strange idea, has presented incontrovertible proofs showing how foreign attackers could penetrate Nigeria so deeply with foreign cattle unchallenged, knew the terrain so well, and had such lasting disagreements with many local communities that their famed ‘long memory’ prompted them to unimaginable bestiality.

    This sad and inconsistent thesis is compounded by the president’s intriguing response in Katsina to the issue of herdsmen trouble and agitation for Biafra. Speaking at the Emir of Katsina’s palace during his last visit to the state, the president seemed to find a tenuous link between the herdsmen crisis and the Biafra agitation. Said he: “I always say the civil war was fought for the unity of Nigeria because then we hadn’t even discovered oil, let alone enjoy it. But two million people were killed. The way the Sahara is advancing, with Boko Haram, growing number of people, and uncertainty over rainfall, in a land where we fought civil war leading to the death of about two million, for someone to just say he will chase us out? So where do we go?” It is not clear whether the president was misquoted. If he was not, he should like to clarify who the ‘us’ are that Biafra agitators want to chase out. Was it the rest of Nigeria? That would be untenable. Was it herdsmen or people living in the Sahelian belt? It was no doubt a curious and worrisome statement to make.

    So far, the herdsmen problem has assumed terrifying dimension only because government officials have demonstrated incompetence or conflict of interest. They claim the herdsmen are foreigners, and attribute their arms to the crises in Mali and Libya. Yet, leaders of cattle rearers associations in parts of Nigeria have owned up to fomenting reprisal attacks on the grounds that local populations and angry farmers provoked them. This was clearly the case in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State where herdsmen recently sacked many farming communities. What is also clear from the statements of the herdsmen is that the Fulani think like a transnational people operating like musketeers. An attack against one is an attack against all. They may come to one another’s aid; but it does not absolve local herdsmen of blame and responsibility. It is reckless and preposterous for any Nigerian official to make claims that even local herdsmen find ludicrous and specious.

    AS if the trouble from herdsmen is not enough, it is mystifying that the president is inexpertly handling the Biafra problem as well. Regardless of this column’s opinion of Biafra, he has repeatedly counselled that Biafra is an idea that cannot be crushed because of its location in the minds of its adherents. To tackle it would require much more than diatribe, threats and federal might. If Biafra military campaign were to be triggered today, its militants are unlikely to engage in open and direct confrontation. Its proponents would embark on the Iraqi, Afghanistan and guerilla-type of campaigns. It would be a cruel and unwinnable war. Is that the road Nigerian leaders want to impulsively travel? The problem is that there was no closure to the civil war. No amount of blackmail to the Igbo young who were not born before the war will eradicate the idea of Biafra until the country restructures and finds a closure to the recurring nightmare.

    And just as the whole country had transformed into a seething cauldron of troubles, the government caps the crises with a hike in fuel price from N86.50/l to N145/l. They’ll probably get away with it, and the unions, which are angling for negotiations, will have an ineffectual response. The economic imperatives on the ground do not favour the sustenance of former price regimes and paradigms. But what if the naira further plunges in value and crude oil prices begin to rise strongly? Can anyone guarantee there would be no further rise in prices of fuel and other goods? No one trusts the government to embark on a scientific and systematic response to the expected pauperisation of the people, whether the response comes in terms of palliatives or in terms of organised economic measures to shore up wages and employment. There is no history of that kind of salutary response in these parts. And it is not clear whether this government, which is groaning under old and retrogressive political and economic paradigms, can unleash the creative potential within all Nigerians.

    Nigeria is facing its worst moment of angst since the civil war. The problems are multifarious and spreading, but the language of the federal government is disturbingly full of threats and violence, making it hard for them to summon the honesty, ingenuity and realism needed to successfully tackle a problem poised to get worse in the coming months and years.