The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • A judicial trash

    A judicial trash

      In several respects, Nigeria is the perfect example of how elite discontent and disaffection undermine and ultimately threaten the very foundation of democratic rule.  Far more than the executive and the legislature, a strong, sound and ethically upright judiciary is the bedrock of modern democracies. This is why this column often strains itself to avoid casting aspersions on the integrity and moral rectitude of their lordships.

       This however is not a blanket endorsement. There is something obviously rotten in the kingdom of Denmark. With a former military ruler and twice democratically elected civilian president trying his best to de-market democracy and de-legitimize the current dispensation with his empty prattle about Afro-democracy and youth empowerment through positive disruption, a novel kind of state destabilization has berthed in Nigeria.

     Unfortunately, the atmosphere of deepening and unrelenting siege is compounded by the Chief Justice of the federation who frequently and publicly lashes out at enemies of the judiciary. When massive hunger in the land is factored into the equation, it may well be time to wonder once again about the fate of liberal democracy among democratically challenged elite groups.                                                                                              

         From now on and whatever may be the provocation, the chief justice of the federation must refrain from descending from the supreme and exalted altar of judicial nobility and rectitude to slug it out with intellectual thugs and psychological hooligans who abound in the system. As far as this lot are concerned, both democracy and the nation itself can go to blazes if they do not have their way. The danger in joining them in unseemly affray is that they have nothing to lose.

       What the reader is about to read was written four and half years ago when we thought we had reached the limits of the judicial maelstrom that had engulfed the nation. But it reads so fresh and apposite to our current circumstances that it could have been written yesterday. As a notable philosopher famously rued, what we think is the limit is not always the limit.

       The lesson from all this is that if we do not want to succumb to an apocalyptic tragedy which will consume everything we have built in the last quarter of a century and all the heroic sacrifices many have put up for democratic rule, we must begin to re-examine the consequences of elite discord and the lack of a critical unanimity among the ruling elite in this country. 

    The Rise of the Judiciarate

    • How elite discontent threatens democracy

        As Nigeria roils in its most combustible presidential electoral dispute since the advent of the Fourth Republic, it is time to understand the role of elite discord in the travails of democratic rule, particularly in postcolonial Africa. The loss or lack of elite amity impacts on certain institutions of the state in a very fundamental way, often opening the door directly to chaos. Unless we focus our attention on this root problem, we will be beating about the bush for a long time to come.

      The judiciarate is a very strange coinage indeed. But it rises to the peculiar circumstances of the Nigerian judiciary. Before now, Nigeria’s electoral destiny was determined by two principalities: the electorate and the selectorate.

       The electorate elects to select while the selectorate selects to elect. No question about which is more powerful. As it was famously observed, it is not those who vote that matter but those who count. But what happens in the case of a tie or a dubious deadlock between the selectorate and the electorate?

       This is where and when the third principality, or what we propose as the judiciarate, kicks in as a tie breaker between the electorate and the selectorate. For the past forty years beginning with the Second Republic, the judiciary has been a looming presence in Nigeria’s bitter and often acrimonious electoral disputes. Despite increasing voters’ awareness and a sharp rise in political consciousness, the judiciarate is increasingly called upon to determine the actual winners of disputed elections.

      In the final analysis, it is the judiciary that counts. And as the National Question bites harder, the state can no longer count on it. Surely what counts so decisively, so finally and infallibly can also become an instrument of political terror, driving the fear of the Lord into the state, particularly if they are not in political alignment.

       This is where the insurmountable contradictions begin. If the judiciary is so powerful and implacable why was its principal helmsman so messily and mercilessly defenestrated by the executive arm? Why are so many of its principal luminaries in tactical retreat?

       On the one hand, the onerous burden and added responsibility of being the nation principal electoral adjudicator has added immensely to the prestige and grandeur of the judiciary. Yet on the other hand,  it is precisely at the point of grandeur and glory that the judiciary’s vulnerabilities and infirmities appear in bold relief for all to see. It is a damning paradox and this is what is responsible for the tragedy of Walter Onnoghen and his fall from grace.

      Onnoghen, an otherwise brilliant and soberly-comported jurist, showed that he was a callow amateur on the political chessboard. There were rumours of a creeping partisanship and of being sighted where he ought never to have been sighted. He was beginning to prematurely flex his muscles in a mistaken belief in the power and omnipotence of the judiciarate.

       There were rumours of compromising phone calls and allegations of unhealthy chumminess with a powerful governor. It was the scary prospects of his adjudicating wrongly in what promises to be the greatest judicial showdown of electoral adjudication that led to Onnoghen being summarily unhorsed from his high horse.

       Power neophytes may scoff at the sheer bloody-mindedness of it all. But these things matter to those who take power seriously. And it did not begin yesterday. At the turn of the nineties shortly after the publication of former president Obasanjo’s Not My Will , snooper sat down to lunch with a very distinguished Nigerian who had played a very prominent role in the electoral abracadabra that led to the emergence of Alhaji Shehu Shagari as the president of the Federal Republic in his majestic north London pile.

        Obviously irritated by some of the revelations in the book, the great man suddenly blurted out: “ Now that Obasanjo is running his mouth all over the place, what if I were to bring out my own confidential files which show that……. “(Details withheld ). It shows that contrary to public disinformation, the military junta knew well beforehand that the electoral showdown of 1979 was going to end at the Supreme Court.

       The 1983 elections showed the judiciary wielding its utmost powers in what is in retrospect a dress rehearsal of the current powers of the judiciarate. A major gubernatorial electoral verdict was reversed to avoid further conflagration. The electoral umpire arrived in his Benin ancestral homestead in a military tank. The putative governor himself fled to Lagos in disguise as the electorate rose to welcome him.

       In the old East, the drama was equally riveting. On the day of judgement, the redoubtable C.C Onoh was seen prowling and pacing up and down the court’s corridor even as he munched banana and groundnut waiting to see which judge would have the folly and temerity to reverse his mandate. In Imo state, Samuel Mbakwe, a former Colonel in the Biafran Reservist Force, dispensed with mere formalities and simply went to the radio station to declare himself elected for a second term. A gun slide, as General TY Danjuma famously put it, followed the NPN landslide. But that was that.

    The aborted Third Republic was full of significant surprises. For the first time in the history of the nation, the electorate as Nigerian masses had a full measure of the selectorate as military and civilian oligarchy.  In a flagrant breach of the rule of engagement, the selectorate began stonewalling. It was obvious that they were not interested in democratic election but the perpetuation of oligarchic rule. The Nigerian people told them to go to hell.

       The military state went into full panic mode. In desperation, the junta turned to the emerging judiciarate for a life line. It obtained a black market injunction from an Abuja High Court which forbade the election to hold. In a controversial broadcast to justify the annulment, General Babangida cited the various law suits which he said were capable bringing the judiciary to ridicule and public infamy.

       He had completely forgotten that his own ouster decrees had expressly forbidden judicial interference in the conduct of the election. It was the military state itself that was bringing the judiciary to public ridicule and infamy. In retrospect, it was a remarkable benchmark in the pilgrim’s progress towards demystification, dishonour and disgrace.

    Read Also: Ex-militants: Tinubu’s Supreme Court victory judicial stamp of legitimacy

      But you cannot cure leprosy with skin ointment. As the Fourth Republic unfolded, it became obvious that the grave symptoms had developed into a full blown ailment. The judiciarate was in full bloom, like a monstrous flower. It was also at this point that the judicial vulnerabilities began to manifest in sharp relief. Curiously enough, it coincided with the collapse of the Obasanjo Settlement of 1998/1999 which made it possible for the Abubakar military regime to transit to a civilian regime with some honour and a semblance of equity.

      It will be recalled that in 1999, strong remonstrations and pressures from all sides of the political divide persuaded Chief Olu Falae to drop his judicial challenge to Obasanjo’s victory at the polls. Many felt that this early challenge to civil rule might open the backdoor for ambitious military officers who were yet to be persuaded that the party was over. It showed the substantial degree of elite buy in to the new democratic dispensation.

      By the end of 2003, particularly after General Olusegun Obasanjo decided to annex the South West in an electoral blitzkrieg the like of which had never been seen in the history of the country, the old western component of the détente disintegrated. It was also about this time that a vicious battle for political supremacy commenced between Obasanjo and his deputy.

       But despite this and the spate of assassination of leading figures, Obasanjo managed to keep the lid on the roiling cauldron through a combination of intimidation, cajolery and sheer force of personality. It was a battle of political and psychological stamina, not talk of mental alertness. Four years after the departure of the military, Nigeria was back in the full default mode of political belligerence.

       By 2007, after Obasanjo, as a parting gift, managed to impose Umaru Yar’Adua on the nation in an electoral heist which has since entered the history books as the worst election in the history of democracy, the lid was blown open. Politically sensitive and acutely aware of the crisis of legitimacy which heralded his tenure, Yar’Adua wisely refrained from the fray.

       It was then left to the judiciary to clear the electoral mess. Their Lordships were compelled to add Mathematics to their core competence and professional proficiency. Beginning with the brilliant judgement of the Edo Tribunal led by Justice Umeadi which restored the mandate of Adams Oshiomhole, judicial reversals of purported electoral victory followed in Ondo, Osun, Anambra and Ekiti in no particular order.

         At the federal level, presidential elections were fiercely disputed from 2003 through 2007, 2011 and now in 2019. There were two dissenting minority judgements in 2003 and 2007 by messrs Nsofor and Oguntade. Both, courtesy of General Buhari, have since become Nigeria’s ambassador to the US and High Commissioner to UK respectively.

       As it wades deeper to clear the electoral mess, the judiciary is sucked into the vortex of corruption and sleaze revealing the moral and ethical infirmities of many of their lordships. . The deep entanglement of the Nigerian judiciary in politics has been its greatest undoing to date. The debasement of politics has spread its tentacles to other state institutions.

       The debasement of politics occurs when there is no substantial elite consensus or fundamental amity among political elite about the core values that drive national goals. In such circumstances, anything goes and everything is game. Successful democracies are driven by elite unanimity about where the country is headed. 

       Where elite consensus is lacking as a result of multi-ethnic politics or where a hegemonic group decides to appropriate the political patrimony of the entire political class in pursuit of sectional interests, the road is open to centrifugal forces from below to lay siege on the state. There are written and unwritten rules of engagement. Anything short of that leads to a political jungle of Hobbesian dimensions such as we are currently hosting in Nigeria.

       Since we like putting the cart before the horse, it is useful to point out that the sanitization of the judiciary cannot proceed without a deep cleansing of our errant political culture. Until we come to our senses, there will be many more political and judicial casualties.

    First published in February, 2019  

    The time of Henry the K

    The human community is like a huge broomstick. The sticks keep falling off no matter what you do. And no matter how long you hang around, it will be your turn to fall off one day. This week, it was the turn of Henry Kissinger, the foremost American diplomat/statesman who bade us farewell this week at the ripe old age of one hundred years.

     It is a mark of his brilliance, prodigious intellect and sheer staying power that Kissinger was churning out books well past his nineties, long after the academic demise of those of his petty and jealous former colleagues who prevented him from resuming his academic career after his distinguished service to his nation ended in 1976 with the defeat of Henry Ford by Jimmy Carter. Thereafter, the Bavarian-born former refugee fleeing Hitler’s imminent holocaust with his parents re-established himself as a writer, consultant and freelance international trouble shooter.

      Detested and deified in equal measure, Kissinger was a figure of international controversy and contention. Many hailed him as the most consequential American diplomat and statesman of the epoch, while many more dismiss him as a divisive and polarizing figure; a Zionist war-monger who never lived down the formative trauma of Nazi Germany.

      The truth must lie between the two. Kissinger himself once famously said that international diplomacy is often a choice between two contending evils. The third evil are those making the choice.  But for a man to rise from the seedy slums of Bavaria to the pinnacle of American statehood all in one generation is an  epic slog through adversity which is nothing short of heroic. Adieu, Henry.

  • 2024 Budget: His aim is seeing the Cash Transfer beneficiary graduate to self-sustenance

    2024 Budget: His aim is seeing the Cash Transfer beneficiary graduate to self-sustenance

    The just week concluded was one that could have naturally passed for the phrase “it went out in a blaze of glory” because of the very significant event that marked it. Among other things, the Bola Tinubu administration presented its first full year Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly. As it is standard globally, governments plan their fiscal year to suit a new year’s take off and this last Wednesday, Jagaban did his own, the first ever.

    It was not the only thing, but it was undoubtedly the most significant activity, which saw Asiwaju’s government giving a glimpse of how it hopes to set things running for Nigerians in the year 2024. Of course, there was a Supplementary Budget recently passed to meet some unforeseen exigencies that arose along the line, especially as a result of the removal of the petrol subsidy, which has given rise to a spike in cost of living and which has occasioned a couple of brushes between government and the organised Labour.

    The journey started from Monday when, at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, presented a N27.5 trillion expenditure proposal for the 2024 Budget. The Council approved the proposal and on Wednesday, President Tinubu, for the first time, as President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Force of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, called at the National Assembly as guest of the combined assembly of the two houses, to present the budget proposal for consideration and eventual passage into law.

    According to the document presented to the National Assembly by the President, some of the major highlights of the 2024 Budget are as follow: Proposed funding has N18.32 trillion total revenue and N9.18 trillion total deficit. Core spending includes N9.92 trillion non-debt recurrent expenditure, N8.73 capital expenditure and N8.25 trillion for debt servicing. The major sectoral allocations in the budget include Defence and Security, which takes the lion share with N3.25 trillion; Education takes N2.18 trillion; Health takes N1.33 trillion; followed by Infrastructure, which takes N1.32 trillion; Students Loan takes N700 billion; and Social Investment and Poverty Alleviation, which takes N534 billion.

    It is interesting to note and at the same time, rather expectedly too, that the budget is christened after the administration’s primary image. Right from his campaigns, into his swearing in and running of the government, the Renewed Hope coinage has become symbolic with Tinubuism and Tinubunomics, so when he announced to the combined House that his first annual appropriation bill has been named the ‘Budget of Renewed Hope’, it appeared both interesting and rather familiar.

    Note that the idea of the renewed hope the administration builds its image around is designed to resonate with every segment of society and all persuasions, however those to whom it seems to be more tangible are the people regarded as the bulk of the population, the most vulnerable of the people. Hence, while explaining the target of the budget, the President noted, among other things, that he is focused on human capital development and particularly the children.

    To understand his targets, take the allocations for Education and Students Loan together, then you will have almost N3 trillion of the budget devoted to a sector prevalently for the younger generation. Similarly, take Health and Social Investment together, you will have almost N2 trillion of the budget targeting social welfare. Then talk of Security and Defence, which every citizen, rich or poor, old or young, is interested in, added to infrastructure, you are looking at more than N5.6 trillion of the budget, all of these targeting renewing the hope of all.

    “The proposed Budget seeks to achieve job-rich economic growth, macro-economic stability, a better investment environment, enhanced human capital development, as well as poverty reduction and greater access to social security. Defense and internal security are accorded top priority. The internal security architecture will be overhauled to enhance law enforcement capabilities and safeguard lives, property and investments across the country. Human capital is the most critical resource for national development. Accordingly, the budget prioritizes human development with particular attention to children, the foundation of our nation”, he said.

    Then he revealed the most critical of his plans for the most vulnerable of the population, part of the schemes to pull more than fifty millions out of poverty. There is the Conditional Cash Transfer, which gift cash on a monthly basis to the category identified as the most vulnerable; more than 61 million, belonging to 15 million households, from the more than 200 million total population. This category, according to him, will not perpetually remain in that class because the Renewed Hope Agenda intends to graduate them into a whole new category, delivered from dependence on government’s handouts to moderate productive activities and employment. 

    “Our government remains committed to broad-based and shared economic prosperity. We are reviewing social investment programmes to enhance their implementation and effectiveness. In particular, the National Social Safety Net project will be expanded to provide targeted cash transfers to poor and vulnerable households. In addition, efforts will be made to graduate existing beneficiaries toward productive activities and employment”, he said.   

    Read Also: House deputy spokesman knocks Jigawa Rep over comments on 2024 budget

    Of course, Nigerians have continued to follow the progress and activities of Jagaban’s administration. They have also continued to hold their opinions and views of his style and in the current circumstance, there have been an out-pouring of these opinions and views, mostly positive and placing the projections in the budget very reliable.

    Mr Emmanuel Addeh, an Abuja-based media practitioner, who has followed and reported the Nigerian oil industry over the years, took a particular interest in the planned funding of the budget, especially oil revenue, noting that the plan is quite accurate and reliable.

    “The oil and gas industry remains critical to the growth of the Nigerian economy, given that about 90 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings come from the sector. In 2024, the Tinubu-led administration has pegged Nigeria’s expected daily crude production at 1.78 million barrels. At first glance, this would appear outrageous and unrealistic, given Nigeria’s underwhelming output trajectory in the last three years. But then, the administration’s renewed battle against oil thieves and attendant vandalism of oil assets in the Niger Delta, appear to be bearing fruits.

    “From a low of about 900,000 barrels per day in the second quarter of 2022, the country’s total volume of output rose to 1.35 million barrels per day in October this year. That is, excluding condensates, which when added gave the country over 1.5 million barrels per day.

    “So, the optimistic projected production figure of 1.78 million barrels per day for 2024 may not be unfounded or baseless after all. There’s also the issue of crude oil pricing. While the commodity has mostly sold for over $85 per barrel on the average in the last one year, the 2024 budget has been benchmarked against $77.96. This appears realistic and even conservative, against the backdrop that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continues to cut supply to ensure price stability. So, overall Tinubu appears to be on track, relating to the forecasts for the sector”, Addeh said.

    Also reviewing the budget, Mallam Bolaji Lawal, a businessman, with a background in Banking and Agribusiness, noted that the 2024 Budget is designed to take Nigeria to economic growth and development, having managed the initial topsy turvy that trailed fuel subsidy removal, deploying the Supplementary Budget.

    Describing President Tinubu as a meticulous planner and an articulate organizer, going by the details of the 2024 Budget, Lawal said “the 2024 Budget preparation did not start with the preparation for its passage, rather it started from the very first day President Tinubu was sworn in, further proving his preparedness for the job.

    “The President started with the end in mind as demonstrated by the objective of his supplementary budget, which sought to fund the items needed to restore macro-economic stability and mitigate the harsh impact of subsidy removal. That budget sought to sustain national security need, invest in urgent infrastructural needs and support to the most vulnerable in our society.

    “Having stabilized the polity, the President is poised to use the revised 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Papers (FSP) to achieve his goals, post 2024. Some of these goals include: Reduction of Budget deficit from 6.11% of GDP in 2023 to 3.88% of GDP in 2024, increasing capital spending, completing critical infrastructural projects, provide job-rich economic growth, enhance human capital development, greater access to social security, overhauling internal security architecture.

    “The above goals seek to improve the overall economy and standard of living of Nigerians in the following ways: contain rising domestic prices, lowering cost of doing business and living, sustainable model of funding tertiary education etc. It is clear that Tinubu is on a quest to reset Nigeria for job induced growth with his Budget of Renewed Hope with an aggregate expenditure of 27.5 trillion Naira”, he said.

    Besides the 2024 Budget, the week still witnessed a couple of other things. For instance, there were a number of appointments, including the appointment, on Monday, of the Board and Management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), where he appointed Chief Pius Akinyelure as non-Executive Chairman, returned Mele Kyari as the Group Chief Executive Officer and Ogoni leader, Ledum Mitee, as a non-Executive Director.

    Then on Wednesday, he headed to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as Conference of the Parties (COP28), where he, on Thursday, met with King Charles III, and on Friday witnessed Nigerian signing an accelerated performance agreement with Germany’s Siemens, aimed at expediting the implementation of the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI) to improve electricity supply in Nigeria.

    The week ended and a new one is starting today to see the Jagaban, who is expected back home today or tomorrow, Monday, resume back at his desk, continuing with the work of saving the country from failure.

  • Obasanjo’s state ofdemocracy address

    Obasanjo’s state ofdemocracy address

    On 20 November, 2023, at a high-level consultation on “Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy in Africa”, held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Ogun State, former President Olusegun Obasanjo delivered what may be referred to as his ‘State of Democracy Address’. In the widely reported speech, he made the following claims: (1) that Western liberal democracy is a “government of a few people over all the people or population … in which the majority of the people are wittingly or unwittingly kept out”; and, rather contradictorily, that “for those who define it as the rule of the majority, should the minority be ignored, neglected, and excluded?”; (2) that Western liberal democracy “is not working for us”; and (3) that “we should have ‘Afro-democracy’” in its place.

    Understandably, in reaction to the speech, many Nigerians have expressed righteous indignation, believing that the former President was insulting the citizens’ intelligence. As captured in Yoruba wit, in relation to the challenges of democracy in Africa, a crying person, Ajala, was asked, “Àjàlá, tàn nà ó?” Ó ní, “Èyin náà kóun.” (‘Ajala, “Who beat you?” He replied, “Who else but you?”’) This raises the following questions: (1) Do Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s political experience and skills qualify him to make the democratic postulations in question? (2) Does he have the democratic temperament to justify his democratic preachments? (3) Is his pessimism about Western liberal democracy consistent with contemporary political realities?

    Regarding the first question, one of the unassailable credentials of iconic politicians is that they have demonstrated skills and verifiable experience in creating and nurturing political parties. Examples of such epochal politicians in Nigeria include Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Aminu Kano, Waziri Ibrahim, Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, Alex Ekwueme, Bola Ige, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari and Odumegwu Ojukwu. In the case of Obafemi Awolowo, he has set his experience, ideas and vision out in a series of books which continue to be reference points on politics, democracy and governance. It would be difficult to number Olusegun Obasanjo among that distinguished list.

    As it concerns the ongoing Fourth Republic, Obasanjo was in prison in 1998 when the political parties were being formed. He was released from prison on 15 June, 1998 and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was formed on 28 July, 1998. One of the resolutions reached at the founding of the party was “To work together under the umbrella of the party for the speedy restoration of democracy, the achievement of national reconciliation, economic and social reconstruction and respect for human rights and the rule of law.”

    Given his incarceration, General Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd.) could not have been a major player in the hard, emotionally-tasking and highly risky preliminary work that went into the formation of the party under the General Sanni Abacha autocracy. That Chief Obasanjo was chosen as the presidential candidate of the party at the first PDP presidential primary in Jos on 15 February, 1999 was therefore something like what, in his 1985 studio album, Fela Anikulapo Kuti called “Army Arrangement”.

    That was probably why Obasanjo seemed not to have made much emotional investment into the party and why he had not been able to sustainably nurture the PDP that gifted him the presidential seat. This may have been the reason why he seemed to have had no qualms about ordering his PDP membership card to be torn to pieces cavalierly on 16 February, 2015. As our people say, Eni tí ò fé k’óyún ó sé kò lè fé kómo ó kú. (‘One who did not wish a pregnancy aborted would not want the baby to die.’) However, the person who did not know what it took to conceive, may not be capable of exercising the emotional restraint required to keep the baby alive.

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    Even in the Second Republic, when he was the incumbent Head of State midwifing the return to civil rule in 1979, he was essentially an onlooker with respect to party formation, organisation and sustenance. Moreover, in 1992, the country had what could be called ‘bureaucratic parties’ – the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC) – which were set up and largely financed by the Ibrahim Babangida military administration. That political milieu could therefore not have provided Obasanjo with the opportunity to acquire or hone significant political or democratic skills.

    Obasanjo’s lack of requisite skills or experience in forming or nurturing political parties may have doomed even his attempts to prop up new-breed or Third Force political parties as options to the major parties like the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the PDP. One of such parties associated with him and which failed to mount an effective challenge to the major parties is the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Considering this fact and the related points made above, Obasanjo could not by any stretch of the imagination be classified as a path-charting politician who could make unassailable claims about Western liberal democracy, as he did in his Abeokuta speech.

    Let us now look at the second question pertaining to Obasanjo’s Abeokuta delivery. Does he have the democratic temperament and antecedents that could confer respectability and credibility on his public declarations on democracy? Key features of the democratic temperament include, among others, non-abrogation of the freedom to choose, staying within clearly defined limits within political relations, and respecting the rule of law.

    Obasanjo does not have a shining record with respect to these manifestations of the democratic temperament. As an incumbent President in 2007, he declared that that year’s elections were going to be a “do-or-die” affair for him and his party; and many people were reported to have died from the violence unleashed in those elections. He ordered President Muhammadu Buhari not to seek a second term in office in 2019. In his open letter of 27 February, 2023, Obasanjo went beyond his remit as a voter to ordering the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to terminate the collation of the results of the presidential election of 25 February, 2023, and unilaterally fixed 4 March, 2023 for a rerun of “all the elections that do not pass the credibility and transparency test”. He further ordered that officials in charge of the BVAS and Server should be changed. In addition, in aluta fashion, he declared, “no BVAS, no result to be acceptable; and no uploading through Server, no result to be acceptable.” He made these declarations in disregard of what the relevant laws said about the acceptability of results.

    It appeared as if, on 27 February, 2023, Obasanjo was exasperated by the impending victory of his political nightmare, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man with the political Midas torch; and on 20 November, 2023, he was dazed by the fact that, against heavy odds, the President Tinubu administration was steadily finding its foot locally and internationally and was on the way to establishing itself as a truly transformational government.

    Now, let us look at the third question raised above in relation to Obasanjo’s democratic prognostications. Is Western liberal democracy working in Africa? Yes, it is. That was why he was rejected, at the polls, by his Yoruba kin in 1999 when he contested the presidential election, in exercise of their freedom to choose. That was why the Southwestern states fraudulently declared as won by his PDP in 2003 were returned to the Alliance for Democracy (AD) which the electorate in those states really voted in. That was why the purported impeachment of then-Governor Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo State was reversed by the court. That was why the third term agenda, Obasanjo’s attempt to elongate his tenure beyond the constitutionally prescribed two-term limit, was voted down by the Senate in 2006. That was why President Muhammadu Buhari ignored him, contested for a second term in 2019, and won. That was why open presidential primaries were conducted by APC from 6 to 7 June, 2022 in preference to the handpicking of the party’s candidate.

    Ironically, Obasanjo’s 20 November, 2023 claim that Western liberal democracy was not working came a few days after incumbent President George Weah conceded victory to opposition candidate Joseph Boakai in Liberia on 17 November, 2023. The Liberian democratic success came after incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan conceded victory to opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria on 31 March, 2015. It also came after John Mahama, the incumbent President of Ghana, conceded victory to opposition candidate Nana Akufo-Addo on 9 December, 2016, even before the electoral commission announced the result. These, along with shining examples as in Botswana, show that Western liberal democracy is working in Africa.

    Yet, in its place, Obasanjo proposed ‘Afro-democracy’. But he did not define it. This leaves room for conjecture. Within ‘Afro-democracy’, given the huge emotional investment that Obasanjo had made into the aspiration of Peter Obi and given Obasanjo’s penchant for battering democracy, the Labour Party (LP) candidate would probably not have needed to win at the ballot to be declared President-Elect. And Prof. Mahmood Yakubu would probably have been successfully arm-twisted to terminate the result collation and rerun the election. Within ‘Afro-democracy’, Tinubu, who has consistently been Obasanjo’s nemesis, would then probably have been schemed out of his almost certain victory. Would ‘Afro-democracy’ not therefore cast the nation and the continent anew into the throes of democratic intemperance and electoral malfeasance?

    All said, Yoruba wisdom counsels that, Eni t’ó bá ma d’áso fún ni, t’orùn rè làá kó wò. (‘If a person promises you clothes, first look at the one they’re wearing to see whether they can truly fulfill the promise, and to see what you would look like in their kind of clothes.’) Obasanjo is not capable of giving Nigerians democratic apparel, because he is not wearing one. But if we must stretch charity enough to grant that he has some democratic clothes on, they are not the kind you would want to wear.

    Some have enjoined Obasanjo’s critics to focus on the message and not the messenger. But, could the seemingly good message not be weaponised by a bad messenger? Could the message not be a mere booby trap? The Collins Dictionary defines a booby trap as “something such as a bomb which is hidden or disguised and which causes death or injury when it is touched.” This implies that the harmless-looking message could, in fact, be worse than the messenger. Meanwhile, remember that booby traps are military devices, and Obasanjo is a retired General. Remember also the saying, “Once a soldier always a soldier.”

    In an earlier intervention in the Obasanjo democracy controversy, I asked that he be advised to speak less. I then remembered the observation that talking is therapeutic for the elderly. And former President Olusegun Obasanjo has a lot to tell the nation. But he should steer clear of pontifications on democracy.  

  • Obasanjo, Atiku and Bode George: Anundying lust after political relevance

    Obasanjo, Atiku and Bode George: Anundying lust after political relevance

    The unholy alliances between some politicians and judges are dangerous to our democracy. Millions of people will come out on the day of the election, queue, collect ballot papers, and cast their votes for their preferred candidates, results will be announced, and everybody will jubilate only for three, five, or seven judges to upturn the popular will of the people.

    “The best the judiciary must do in political cases is to adjudicate, and where there are discrepancies, order a rerun without giving victory to party A or B”.

    “It is wrong to remove the electorate’s power to elect political leaders and for the judiciary to tell us who the winners are. This is not good for Nigeria. This is not good for our electoral system. A compromised judiciary is dangerous” – That was Commodore Olabode George – turned his Lordship, Mr Justice Bode George, this past week, parodying his one- time Commander – in – Chief, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who had earlier lampooned the Nigerian judiciary in like manner, teaching the judiciary how to perform its constitutionally prescribed function of interpreting Nigerian Laws.

    Who will tell these people that Nigeria has long thrown away the military yoke under which they ruled Nigeria roughshod for decades?

    It will also be apposite to ask them whether they were both in Siberia when only  five days to the swearing in of  victorious candidates in Zamfara state after the 2019 general election, the supreme court sacked all the  APC candidates who had swept the polls,  resulting in the party losing seven house of rep seats, three senatorial seats,  24  Assembly seats as well as the governorship? Where can we find Obasanjo’s comments or those of Bode George on that occasion, condemning the judiciary?

     It will not be too much either, enquiring as to whether they were on military duty in the Congo when the Supreme court, in February, 2019 overturned a ruling of the Court of Appeal, and barred, all APC candidates from contesting elections  in Rivers State? Where, in the name of fairness did Bode George or Obasanjo address their Press conferences when, hours to his being sworn in as Bayelsa state governor in February 2020,  the Supreme court nullified the election of gentleman, David Lyon, for no fault of his, but in accordance with the law of the land?

    This is always the problem with haughty  politicians who believe themselves wiser than everybody else.

    Left to these men of yester years, it was not “3, 5 or 7 persons calling themselves judges” who ruled  on those occasions but a BATTALION of judges. Indeed, how many judges sat on the Supreme court panel that quashed Bode George’s jail term, one hundred?The earlier these people realise they are in the past the better, or is it now, after 24 years  of Tinubu’s successive, progressive government in Lagos state that Bode George will lead PDP to power? On what basis?

    Attentive Nigerians must have noticed how, of recent, these once powerful men have, one way or the other, been clogging our eardrums with their jeremiads over all manner of things.

    These men, who had said they would be in power for 60 years had been swept into political Siberia shortly after their party Chairman, the late  Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, made that public announcement to Nigerians and,ll being men of unaccountable power who saw elections as ‘do or die’, not many Nigerians doubted them.

    Their party, the PDP, which the U.S Council on Foreign Relations saw as not a political party, “judging by conventional Western tenets, but rather as merely an oil – loot sharing cartel since it has no distinctive political colouration or ideology”,  merely out  to rip Nigeria to shreds.

    And how did they do that?

    Below is how Sahara Reporters captured the expose by Mike Achimugu, an aide to former Vice President Atiku who brandished a video of the VP, saying the following

    :“What happened was when  Obasanjo and I  came into office, I advised the president against open corruption. “I told him to give me three people he trusts and I will prepare three companies in which they will be subscribers or rather, the directors, so that  any contract we award they will act like consultants, and they will be given a fee. That fee is what we shall use to fund the party.”

    “I now incorporated companies and put them as subscribers. One of the companies was Marine Float”.

    There is copious evidence, home and abroad, that these Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) companies were used in stealing tonnes of Nigerian money and ended up landing Nigeria where it is today, broken and broke.

    Apart from a U.S Congressional hearing finding Atiku “guilty of laundering over $40 million in suspicious funds into the United States between 2000 and 2008”, a Nigerian Senate investigating panel also agreed with the findings that Atiku “diverted $145m from Nigerian government accounts”.

    These people are now still lusting after power, and relevance, simply because none of them was punished for their malfeasance,  nor did the crooked Nigerian system saw to it that they were barred from, any longer, holding public office, or eligible to contest any future elections,⁰ as would have happened in any sane country. 

    Also, as reported by Tony Orilade in Sahara Reporters of  28 February, 2007 both President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, were indicted by the Senate Ad-Hoc committee which investigated the controversial Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) which saw both men hauling fraud charges against each other.  

    The committee, specifically accused them of abuse of office and diversion of PTDF funds to purposes other than for which the funds were meant. But in spite of the indictment, the committee failed to recommend any punitive measures, preferring instead, that the Senate should decide on that.

    That was how Nigeria missed it to our eternal chagrin.

    On the contrary, however, Bode George’s excesses in power saw him get punished with a jail term; a sentence that was later quashed by the Supreme court in December, 2013, two days after former President Olusegun Obasanjo accused President Goodluck Jonathan of the same PDP, of condoning corruption.

    Had Nigeria taken appropriate measures then, these men would not be back now tormenting Nigeria with all of them calling judges, even Supreme court judges, names.

    Last Sunday on these pages, I sketched how thoroughly inconsolable Obasanjo had become that he completely wrote off liberal democracy, not only in Nigeria, but in the whole of Africa. He barely stopped short of imploring extra – democratic entities to take its place.

    Or what is his ‘African democracy’, if not the rule of the mob, and how exactly would that have satisfied his utmost desire for a Peter Obi presidency?

    Why, if he truly meant well for Nigeria, did he not use all his might to canvass a unicameral legislature for the country, seing that the present system, which he brought about, is not only wasteful but destructive in the long run.

    Had he done that, he would have felt sure he would leave behind a legacy worth the name, and no longer need any fight with the Nigerian judiciary or indulge in his enervating, one – sided war with President Tinubu, all in his long running desire to supplant Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Yoruba land – an outright impossibility.

    Atiku Abubakar cemented his love for power through becoming a perennial presidential candidate. Now after the 6th attempt, it has become a matter of the more you look, the less you see; even though he is currently proposing a fusion of all opposition parties which will, hopefully, adopt him for his 7th attempt. This lust, no doubt, has,  obviously turned to paranoia.

    When he is not doubling down on the government, he is petulantly dismissing the judiciary; the same judiciary he ran to when Tinubu lent him a place in the ACN as Obasanjo was trying to crush him.

    As for Bode George, not a few would wonder why he is still in town after all those promises of fleeing Nigeria if Tinubu became president. Or are we wrong in taking him for a gentleman officer?

    If  he is serious, at all  and not unduly haughty,  shouldn’t he ask himself why the likes of Musiliu Obanikoro, my good friend, Seye Ogunlewe and, last but not the least, Moshood Salvador, erstwhile PDP chairman, Lagos state, who defected to  APC with over 10,000 members, left him and his drowning PDP to team up with the same President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the APC?

    Nothing lasts for ever except the grace of God. These gentlemen should now take their knees off the neck of Nigeria.

  • Eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month

    Eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month

    There seems to be something strange about dates which have a symmetry to them. Many people attach some significance to them even though nothing of historical interest has been associated with for example, 2/2/22 or 5/5/55 unless an event has been engineered to fall on any of those days. One of such events was the Armistice which commanded hostilities to be halted thus bringing the First World War to its weary end. That hostilities were resumed only thirty-one years later with roughly the same antagonists shows that the end of what the Europeans call the Great War was simply a cooling off period. The story of that Armistice of 1918 is that the guns which had been blasting away for four torrid years fell silent all across the battle fields mainly in Northern France and Belgium on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918. So insistent were the silly generals who signed the papers bringing the war to an end on rounding things off neatly that they continued to fire their infernal guns for six hours after they agreed that the war was over. This made it possible for that neat end to be engineered but it led to 13,000 needless deaths which occurred between the time the Armistice was signed and the time fighting stopped all across the war front.

    That 13,000 men were sacrificed on the altar of ego in the six hours leading to the officially sanctioned end of that war epitomises the mind set of the murderous men who led the armies which were engaged in that war. As far as those men were concerned, millions of young men had been wasted up to the point of signing the Armistice and so, what could be the significance of only a few thousands more?

    The Great war as it was known to all the Europeans of that period was the first large scale war to be fought in Europe since the  new age which was brought about by the Industrial Revolution was established. The time before then when wars raged through Europe was some hundred years earlier when Napoleon was trying to establish what he called the European System designed to control the combined economy of Europe under French leadership. War at that time consisted of a few thousand men ranged against each other across a conveniently flat field and exchanging desultory fire from a few artillery pieces whilst waiting for the opportunity to unleash their respective gentlemen soldiers mounted on large horses in thunderous Calvary charges in which rather more horses than riders were killed. In effect they were indulged in extensive war games, the most skilful of the generals being Napoleon who for almost fifteen years brought the ancient European regimes to their collective knees until he went one battle too far and the combined armies of Europe halted his progress in the small Belgian village of Waterloo in 1815. From that time until 1914, there was no major battle not to talk of a war in Europe except for the Franco-Prussian War which led to the establishment of the German Empire in the heart of Europe. This brought a new power to the concert of European powers and the disruption which this caused led to the First World War and the immense slaughter of the innocents on the Western front.

    The starting pistol for this conflict was fired in June 1914, at the height of what has gone down in history as a glorious summer all over Europe. The shots which were fired by a Bosnian nationalist killed Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on the streets of Sarajevo and set in motion a series of what at the time were an inevitable series of events which culminated in the frenzied mobilisation of armies all over Europe and the commencement of the Great war which was ostensibly fought to end all wars in Europe.

    Archduke Ferdinand was heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the time of his murder. At that time, Serbia had just been annexed against the wishes of the Serbs by the Austro-Hungarian empire at a time when powerful winds of nationalism were sweeping through Europe especially in the Balkans. All throughout that region, the various sub-nationalities which inhabited the region wanted to be free of control by any of the big nations including the Ottoman Empire and sharply resented the control which the Austro-Hungarians had on them. At the same time, the various Slavic peoples placed themselves under the protection of Russia, the largest and most powerful Slavic country and so when the Archduke was assassinated and the mighty Austro- Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia, that declaration applied to Russia as well and straightaway, Russia was also at war with Austro-Hungary which in turn had an alliance with Germany which in turn declared war on Russia as a member of the Triple Alliance. To thicken the stew further, both France and  Britain were in the Entente cordiale with Russia and were bound by that treaty to declare war on Germany and her allies. However Britain did not invoke the titles of their alliance until the Germans, in order to attack Paris and knock the French out of the war violated the neutrality of Belgium in order to get to grips with the French defenders. In no time at all, virtually all European countries had mobilised their armies and were at war on one side or the other.

    What should have frightened all the belligerents at the beginning of the war was how easy it was to mobilise all their armies and get them to the war fronts which were separated by thousands of miles. The point was that unlike when Napoleon was rampaging through Europe on horseback a hundred years before, they had the benefit of railways which made army movements very easy. That was the first sign that technology was going to play a major part in that war and that was very bad news for the poor soldiers who had been called up to die and how they died; blown up by very high explosives, blasted to hell by machine gun fire, poisoned with highly toxic gasses, afflicted with a plethora of awful diseases and exposed to the brutal stupidity of their befuddled generals. The recruits who sang lustily as they went off to war were soon acquainted with the horrors of a war they were sure would be over by Christmas. Those who survived had the rest of their lives to regret their ill-advised youthful enthusiasm.

    Read Also: Eleventh-hour liberators

    Very early in the war, it was soon appreciated that human beings were simply not designed to stand up to high velocity bullets and a constant barrage of artillery shells fired by guns manufactured with unyielding steel. Their response was to dig mazes of trenches in which they took shelter from the deadly projectiles slung at their positions from their enemies from whom they were separated by what they called no man’s land. Many of those poor young men did not live to feel the freedom of getting out of those trenches as they were mown down by machine gun fire whenever they were ordered to go over the top to get to grips with the enemy. There certainly was very little hiding place from extreme danger in those awful trenches.

    Members of my generation would be familiar with the poppy days of our childhood when we bought and displayed on our persons red paper poppies with a black centre. This was in remembrance of those that had died in British wars fought in the twentieth century at a time when we were part of the now defunct British Empire. Monies collected from the sale of the poppies were supposedly used for the welfare of the veterans of those wars who needed financial support. For further information, the poppy was chosen as an emblem of that endeavour because that blood red flower bloomed with uncommon vigour on the battle fields as it did on other disturbed pastures and with all the disturbances caused by the millions of shells detonated all over the battlefields, there was no wonder that those fields were fairly overlaid with a carpet of poppies which suggested that all the blood spilt on that area which has come down to us as the Western front germinated and grew into blood-red flowers in memory of those that perished fighting a war they did not really understand.

    To be continued.

  • 32 new varsities

    32 new varsities

    Our lawmakers in the 10th National Assembly want 32 more federal tertiary institutions! If you find me using universities instead of tertiary institutions in this piece, never mind. There is no difference. As they say, ‘arun to nse Aboyade, gbogbo oloya lo nse’ (Whatever afflicts the universities afflict also other tertiary institutions).

    Whatever is true of federal universities is true of other tertiary schools  — be they polytechnics, colleges of education, or what have you.

    But the present lawmakers deserve a round of applause for being more considerate than the immediate past NASS  members who wanted a whopping 200 more tertiary institutions!

    Senate President Godswill Akpabio led the pack with his desire for the creation of Federal University of Technology, Kaduna, which received its first reading on July 6, 2023. Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, followed suit with his  advocacy for the development of the Federal University of Medical and Health Sciences, Bende, in Abia State.

    There are also bills proposing the

    establishment of Federal University of Information and Communications Technology, Lagos Island; Federal University of Agriculture, Ute Okpa in Delta State; Federal University of Biomedical Sciences in Benue State; Federal College of Health Sciences, Gaya; Federal College of Dental Technology, Faggae; Federal College of Agriculture, Agila in Benue State; Federal College of Education, Dangi-Kanam, Plateau State; Federal College of Education, Bende, Abia State.

    We also have requests for Benjamin Kalu Federal Polytechnic, Rano, Kano State; Federal Polytechnic, Shendam, Plateau State, among others.

    There are at present 45 federal government-owned universities in the country, 53 state-owned universities as well as 99 private universities, according to the National Universities Commission (NUC). In like manner, there are 40 federal polytechnics, 49 state-owned polytechnics, and 76 private polytechnics, according to the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE).

    In addition, the National Commission for Colleges of Education estimates that Nigeria has 219 colleges of education. There are also 70 federal and state-owned colleges of health; while the number of private colleges of health is 17. Of course there are other tertiary institutions like the monotechnics, etc.

    All of these institutions have capacity for about 510,957 students, as against about 1,157,977 applicants seeking admission into the tertiary institutions yearly. Although this is not to say that all the 1,157,977 admission seekers have the requisite qualifications going by the prescriptions of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and other criteria, the fact remains that the spaces in the existing tertiary institutions are inadequate for our population.

    This is the issue. This inadequacy of spaces is what our NASS law makers are supposed to address. Unfortunately, they have chosen the wrong way out of the problem. As we sometimes say, the law makers are only trying to further problematise the problematic by asking that more federal universities be established.

    It is an open secret that funding is one of the major problems in our tertiary institutions. That is why the two academic unions in the university promptly reacted to the law makers’ desire for 32 more tertiary institutions.

    Both the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Congress of University Academics (CONUA)

    and other experts have cautioned the government against establishing new institutions, especially as existing ones are ‘malnourished’. The underfunding has been manifesting in the dearth of lecturers and other personnel to adequately cater to the needs of existing universities.

    CONUA’s National President, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, believes there is a problem of space for our youths yearning for university education. But while establishment of more universities is one way out of the problem, it is not going to take us anywhere because they are also going to have issues with funding. So, the way out is to expand the facilities in existing ones.

    Hear Sunmonu: “There are two ways to approach the issue, we can set up new ones or expand the capacities of existing ones. But it will be a great disaster if we set up new ones and continue with the trend of poor funding of our universities. It will simply compound our woes.”

    He is not done yet. “Even if we are going to expand the capacities of existing universities, we still need to fund the universities properly. If we are to expand the capacities of existing ones, what we need to do is conduct NEEDS assessment and go round the universities to know what they need and and how to expand their capacities.”

    “Once the needs of the universities are met, they can expand and admit more students. Even the new ones they are proposing, who is going to man them?”

     ASUU’s National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, is more scathing in his criticism. Indeed, he struck a right chord when he said that  universities should not be turned to constituency projects by the lawmakers, which is what our law makers have turned the issue into. The average Nigerian politician wants to be seen to be working; even when what they are doing is working in the wrong direction. They politicise everything. The NASS law makers do not seem to be contented with making laws for good governance; they want to be known by the number of physical structures they bring home to their constituencies. That is the only reason that can explain, not just their dabbling into university education, but asking for more federal universities when the existing ones are gasping for breath.

    “It is like they don’t know how universities are set up, run and what the universities are for. If we are grappling with universities that are poorly funded, with outdated facilities and where lecturers and other staff leave in droves, how are we going to cope with new additions,” Osodeke asked.

    He added: “Now, every set of lawmakers in the National Assembly wants to have new universities established in their constituencies.” Then, the big question, as asked by Osomeke: “Nigerians should ask them if they have hope and faith in these universities, and whether they can send their children there?”

    This, really, is the million dollar question.

    After establishing glorified modern schools called universities for the children of the poor, the political elite (I am less concerned about the corporate elite, especially as they fund their own desires) now take their own children abroad to receive sound university education in well-funded universities.

    These are the issues. Indeed, from the way some of our lawmakers talk, one wonders, like both Osomeke and Sunmonu, whether they know anything about university or university education.

    This reminds me of the argument by the former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Idris Wase, when a similar issue of establishing more federal universities came up in their time in the immediate past NASS. Hear him: “Everyone knows the importance of school with the high rate of out-of-school children. We need to establish a number of high institutions, if the government can fund it, so be it.” The question that should readily come to mind was his proviso “IF THE GOVERNMENT CAN FUND IT”. Pray, was the deputy speaker just arriving from Jupiter or Mass to be talking of ‘if the government can fund it’. As a member of the NASS, he didn’t know that the Nigerian government that he was a top member of could not fund the universities and that that is indeed one of their main problems? So, who is fooling who?

    As if to compound the ignorance, he went on to say in the course of the debate on the matter, still in support of more universities in Nigeria that, “We were together with you in Harvard, that district alone, they have over 200 universities, for God’s sake.” So, if a district in Harvard has more than 200 universities (let’s even assume he was right), is that district the same as Nigeria? Is this not analogous to comparing apple with oranges; or sleep with death?

    How can anyone do that? Is there no longer a difference between wants and needs? Has Wase forgotten that there is a gulf between demand and effective demand? Nigeria is in trouble if this is the kind of mentality that drives debates in the National Assembly.

    This kind of mentality is just like people going ahead to have children simply because they are sexually active and have functional reproductive organs. So, what happens after giving birth to the many children?  How do they feed? Can the parents afford to send them to school? How are the children’s other needs to be met?

    These are the issues. We are complaining about existing tertiary institutions suffering funding problem and some people, including those who should know are saying we should establish more. More universities would mean more vice-chancellors, more bursars, more registrars, etc, complete with all the paraphernalia of the offices, including, of course, exotic vehicles.

    How can a top law maker in the NASS be comparing an American university with Nigeria’s?

     None of our present universities makes the list of first 1,000 universities in the world. Our academic calendar has been disrupted for so long because of incessant strike by both academic and non-academic members of the staff in our universities. Many of our graduates are not employable because they are not well baked due to prolong strike in the universities. No one can tell when a four-year programme would end in our universities for the same reason of strike. So, how can establishing more universities be the answer to these chronic challenges? To churn out more half-baked graduates?

     Our NASS members should please leave us to continue to rue our problems rather than make idiots of us through ridiculous and ill-digested solutions to our hydra-headed problems. Let them content themselves with doing ‘in and out’ and enjoy on our behalf rather than keep insulting us.

    ‘Awon lo kan’!

  • Ondo: fumbling into a resolution

    Ondo: fumbling into a resolution

    Just as Nigerians were trying to make sense of the leadership conundrums agitating Rivers and Ondo States, with Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Deputy Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa at their vortices, the Ondo farce took on added poignancy. Mr Fubara, like a dormant volcano, repressed his ambition only for about four months before erupting. The Rivers terrain is still smouldering. Ex-governor Nyesom Wike simply cannot fathom how he got it so wrong, why he mistook his genial successor, whose most noticeable feature was his glacial and deceptive look, for a gelding. Despite entreaties and mediations, Mr Fubara has remained implacable, unwilling and uninterested in mollifying the fierce anger of his predecessor.

    Mr Aiyedatiwa is no less determined to upset the applecart than Mr Fubara. As deputy governor, he is still subordinated to an ailing but absent Governor Rotimi Akeredolu reportedly convalescing in Ibadan, Oyo State. But whereas Rivers is governed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), thereby limiting the scope of President Bola Tinubu’s intervention, Ondo, which is run by the All Progressives Congress (APC), does not offer its deputy governor the latitude to give wings to his ambition, let alone seethe or smoulder even out of public glare. Everything is open before the ruling party, and the structure and dynamic of the state in relation to the supervening culture of the Southwest leave Mr Aiyedatiwa hamstrung, if not debilitated. He has writhed in pain, and has threatened in one breath and fumed in another; but he has found the straitjacket by which he is constrained unremitting.

    Neither Mr Fubara nor Mr Aiyedatiwa has behaved honourably in projecting their otherwise legitimate ambitions. Mr Fubara wants to be his own man quickly, indeed obscenely quickly. He is helped by the Nigerian constitution which is blind to whatever extraconstitutional and extralegal arrangements and understanding he reached with Mr Wike, now Minister of the Federal Capital City (FCT). In the eyes of Nigeria’s censorious public, especially those still chafing at the manner the former governor delivered the state to the APC in the presidential election, the FCT minister has got his comeuppance. They anchor their stand on the inalienable provisions of the constitution and the principles of democracy, and they savage anyone, including the boisterous and often unforgiving Mr Wike, for insinuating anything undemocratic into both the constitution and the politics of Rivers. Mr Fubara has exploited those sentiments, dug his heels in, lathered his politics with a generous dose of ethnic politics, and dared the opposition as well as his mentor. He appears poised to do much worse.

    In Ondo, the far more luckless Mr Aiyedatiwa also stands theoretically unimpeachable as far as the constitution is concerned. Initially encouraged by democracy do-gooders outside Ondo, he embarked on subterranean machinations to grab power from his ailing and greatly enfeebled boss. In the estimation of a section of the public, the governor should have been declared incapacitated. The deputy governor merely winked at the suggestion, and took no practical steps to defend his boss. Instead he actually wished to be declared acting governor, a position he expected would strengthen his bid to succeed his boss. The party, the legislature as well as the empathetic Ondo people thought it was dishonourable and unfeeling for the deputy governor to act with such insouciance. They were not unmindful of the constitutional provisions guiding succession in such difficult circumstances, and they felt uneasy that their state had appeared to stagnate since the governor took ill; but they give the impression that neither democracy nor the constitution should be operated in a cultural vacuum. A stubborn but resolute people, they nevertheless possess the milk of human kindness, which explains their masochistic glee in enduring the punishment of poor governance while Mr Akeredolu’s health ordeal lasted.

    Mr Wike will probably get the better of Mr Fubara in the long run if he can find the wisdom to be restrained and circumspect in taking umbrage. The Rivers governor’s precipitate action, including his effusive and unnatural but needless projection of realpolitik, has made him more vulnerable than he imagines. He will not be trusted anywhere, not at home, not nationally, and worse, not even among his fellow governors who will cast wary glances in his direction. Mr Wike may be imposing and rambunctious, but Mr Fubara would have been sensible to let his predecessor’s excesses become visible to all before striking. Notwithstanding his sometimes indiscreet statements, the sympathy is for now with the FCT minister, and it will remain with him as long as he plays his card more deftly than he is accustomed.

    In Ondo, Mr Aiyedatiwa is probably finally shackled. The party looks at him warily for declining, in the Akeredolu matter, to behave with the decorum the Southwest is famous for. On November 24, he and his opponents in the struggle for supremacy in the state finally conferred with President Tinubu and resolved the impasse that had paralysed the state for months. The Ondo delegation agreed to sheathe their swords while the deputy governor would moderate his ambition by respecting the status quo. But days after the meeting, however, the hawks around the deputy governor made one last attempt to get him declared as acting governor, a status he believed would catapult him several steps ahead of his rivals for the 2024 governorship poll. It is not certain how united the party and the legislature were behind Mr Akeredolu before he took ill; but hobbled by his health challenge and needing to rush back while still frail in order to checkmate the deputy governor’s alleged vaulting ambition, the cabinet, party and legislature have stood behind him like a bulwark. Mr Aiyedatiwa has found this bulwark impenetrable.

    Read Also: Resignation, protests over appointment of Ondo council caretaker committees

    Beyond the question of what the constitution says in such matters in Ondo State, not to say the sensible thing expected from democrats involved in the saga, the deputy governor messed up the whole affair and ruined both his reputation and his chances next year. He will need the party in the state to get the ticket. There are indications that some individuals at the national level might be well disposed to him; but at the state level he does not have a cat in hell’s chance of winning the ticket. He had been brought into the Akeredolu ticket by the governor who was propping him up as his successor. Series of false moves, however, and lack of empathy for the governor’s health misfortune quickly ruled him out of the picture. The party is not backing him, the governor is not backing him, the lawmakers are not backing him, and the cabinet distrusts him. All that remains for him to smell the ticket is the death of the governor, which many had whispered into Mr Akeredolu’s supersensitive ears is actually the wish of the deputy governor. The whisperers probably slander Mr Aiyedatiwa, but he has done precious little to refute the allegations and has shown no wisdom in sustaining the primacy his appointment into the Akeredolu ticket meant for his ambition. In short, he bungled everything. Had he assumed office either in acting capacity or as elected governor, he would be more ruthless than the tremulous Mr Fubara.

    Last week, the Ondo deputy governor finally began conducting the business of state by holding executive council meeting, the first in many months. The combatants will probably sustain a truce that the deputy governor will find discomfiting, nugatory and enervating, a terrible reminder of how inept his putsch was and how impotent he has become in the scheme of things. His opponents in next year’s governorship race will probably heave a sigh of relief that real power is not in the hands of so uncalculating and immoderate a man. Those opponents will also hope that the status quo will remain till next year, including God sparing the life of the governor. The state may have fumbled into a tentative truce, but the turmoil of the last few months presents a signal lesson on the indispensability of intuition, wisdom and character in the leadership calculus. Clearly, leadership is much more complex and nuanced than both Mr Fubara and Mr Aiyedatiwa have shown the capacity to grasp, not to talk of exude.

  • Pressures on judiciary continue relentlessly

    Pressures on judiciary continue relentlessly

    After Labour Party (LP) supporters, popularly called Obidients because of their fanatical support for their party’s candidate in the last presidential election, fouled the political atmosphere with aggressive social media campaigns against institutions and individuals, Nigeria has found it increasingly difficult to regain its composure. Something has gone terribly wrong. The Obidients’ worst attacks were reserved for the judiciary which they hoped to intimidate into surrender by propaganda and street protests. Street protests, now weaponised by anyone fearful of losing legal cases, have continued in many states, including Plateau, Kano and Nasarawa States, though the Supreme Court is yet to determine the disputed governorship polls. Pressured and belaboured, the judiciary has struggled to stay above the fray, sometimes very awkwardly. It is assailed by critics, former heads of state, leading politicians, lawyers, and angry youths. Apart from lawyers who lost cases for which they blame the judges, and Obidients who are eternally angry and disaffected, the latest attacks have come from the triumvirate of Chief Obasanjo, Ayo Adebanjo, and Peter Obi himself. The attacks will continue for the foreseeable future until the Supreme Court decides. If it gives judgement against them, they allege it is bought; if it overturns the judgement against them, who can be sure that the court had not finally wilted before the relentless assault?

    Chief Adebanjo, lawyer and factional leader of the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, accuses the judiciary of acting as if it is influenced by government, insisting that Nigerians have lost confidence in the institution. He does not substantiate his wild generalisations. Perhaps taking a cue from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s portentous ploy to subordinate the Supreme Court to the parliament, Chief Obasanjo has sheepishly argued that three or five judges speaking ex cathedra should not be the final authority on political cases. Said he in reference to the appellate courts: “I believe whatever form of democracy we have or whatever system of government we have, three or four men in the judiciary should not be able to overturn the decisions of millions that have voted. Now, we have to find a way to handle that. I don’t know what the way will be, but for me, I think it’s unacceptable that millions (of votes), maybe 10 million on one side, maybe nine million on the other side, then, you have five people sitting down, three of them agree, two disagree. And you come up and make ex cathedra pronouncements that cannot be changed; I believe that should not be accepted. How do we do it? I don’t know…”

    Though less rigorous in making his case against the judiciary, Peter Obi is no less trenchant and melodramatic. Speaking in his Abuja office last month while marking the centenary of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Mr Obi insisted: “We now have a situation, where known party card-carrying members of political parties, who were even involved in thuggery, are being appointed to be referee in our coming elections…IPAC should question why 90 per cent of our elections end up in courts, with huge resources that should be channelled to the people’s welfare being used for litigations. They should voice out why our courts have become courts of favour, courts of procurement, rather than courts of justice and the law…Look at what is happening in Zamfara, Kano and Plateau and others states, my party is not in any of them, but we are all affected by injustice. My concern is to do what is right…”

    Read Also: Give financial autonomy to judiciary, AGF tells governors

    While Chief Adebanjo can be excused for his generalisations, it is much harder to explain why a former president and a presidential candidate can speak so glibly about salient national issues, to the extent of denigrating and undermining the judiciary. In their speeches and statements, neither Chief Obasanjo nor Mr Obi delved into the substance of the legal cases in question. Nor did they attempt to situate their conclusions in the context of relevant past judgements. Both men have very little understanding of the law, but harbour enormous amount of anger against the direction of the judgements. Clearly, what they are unable to achieve by law, they hope to secure by wholesale and detrimental subversion of the rule of law and the judiciary. Did they attempt to contextualise the Plateau case against the 2019 Zamfara APC debacle? They simply ignore contexts, deride legal arguments, fume at legal technicalities as if those provisions are not part of the law, gloss over incompetent defence counsels, and proceed sentimentally and prejudicially to castigate the courts and dishonour the entire judiciary. All this in just one election cycle. Yet, if they had superior arguments to dethrone the court judgements in the referenced political cases, they neither made them nor took them into cognisance before rushing into public campaigns. As the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) said last week at the beginning of the 2023/2024 legal year: “In all we do, as interpreters of the law, we should endeavour to severe emotion from logic, and assumption from fact. We should never be overwhelmed by the actions or loud voices of the mob…” Considering that these are not the best of times for the judiciary, it remains to be seen how far they can hold out against a mob of fanatical elites with no consideration for the future implications of their statements and actions?

    Clearly, and without prejudice to the substance and integrity of the governorship suits before the Supreme Court, the protests in Kano, Plateau and Nasarawa States are setting dangerous precedents for the law. Both Chief Obasanjo and Mr Obi, among many other vilifiers of the courts, attempt unprecedentedly to foster the notion that protests could be deployed to determine legal outcomes. Yet, because of their status in society, there are some people by whom such notions should never be voiced. Unfortunately, in an atmosphere fouled by sometimes mistaken or controversial judgements, little attention is paid to the dangers of promoting insidious, partisan goals or downplaying the jurisprudential consequences of instilling fear in judges handling high-profile political cases. It is a slippery, tragic slope Chief Obasanjo, Mr Obi and Chief Adebanjo are determined to drag the whole country.

  • Nigeria must prepare for Trump

    Nigeria must prepare for Trump

    Hopefully, ex-president Donald Trump of the United States will not return to office next year as he desperately wishes. His eccentricities, bigotry, lack of profundity, and racist inclination did a lot to undermine the image of his country and the world order in his first four tumultuous years in office. Recognised by many even in the US as a narcissist of the first rank, Mr Trump will not be expected to change his worldview, nor his unpredictability. His failings gave nightmares to America’s European allies in NATO, and incensed his neighbours to the north and south of North America. By the time of his exit, he had rendered international relations so fraught and tentative that the world waited with baited breath for his next apocalyptic action or statement.

    Read Also: Donald Trump gag order reinstated in New York civil fraud trial

    In all this, his contempt for Africa was loaded and exemplary. As Nigeria tries to reset its economy after years of ineptitude and depredation, a hostile, indifferent and unpredictable US president could be very beffudling. Should he win, there will be consequences for Africa and Nigeria. There is sometimes wisdom in getting to the bridge before crossing it; but given Nigeria’s economic crisis and the social ferment brewing below the surface, it is not out of place to plan for the uncertainties ahead. Nigeria should find out in what ways it can profit from Mr Trump’s unpredictability, or how to lessen the impact of his wild assumptions and indiscriminate verbal and policy attacks. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. The rest of the world, including Russia and China, must already be planning for Mr Trump’s second coming in case US voters are unable to stop him. Nigeria should not be caught napping.   

  • Hypocritical Obasanjo assaults our sensibilities again

    Hypocritical Obasanjo assaults our sensibilities again

    Democracy is not our problem, rather we have issues with those assigned to manage it. Any system that guarantees voting rights, regular and transparent elections, checks and balances in governance, independent judiciary and free press would ultimately deliver a better quality of life for the people, notwithstanding whether it originated from the North or South Pole”.

    “Any system can be used to deliver improved economic conditions for the people where there is vision. The monarchs of the UAE conjured today’s Dubai out of what used to be a desert in fifty years. Although they were despots, South Korea’s Park Chung Hee and Indonesia’s Suharto transformed their countries. What was Obasanjo’s enduring vision for Nigeria or Africa?” –

    An appropriate riposte to Obasanjo’s latest chimeric postulation, delivered by Festus Eriye – a man who was probably not yet in primary school when the military first thrust the megalomaniac on Black man’s greatest agglomeration; an opportunity the gods twice gifted him, but which he messed up grandly when he sought to transmute to a Life President – in his column: ‘There goes Obasanjo again!, The Nation,  Wednesday, 22 November, 2023.

    Obasanjo is now probably too far gone in duplicity, and chicanery, to profit from    Eriye’s seminal words.

    When former President Olusegun Obasanjo was busy writing his letter to Nigerian youths, selling the candidature of Peter Obi of the Labour party,  ahead the 2023 presidential election, nary did he remember to say a word of his new talismanic ‘Afro crazy’, because all he wanted was whose presidential ears he would be pulling behind the veil. That exactly is the problem with those who believe they are wiser than King Solomon.

    Iyabo, Obasanjo’s daughter, has warned us ahead when she wrote in a public letter to her father, which she promised would be her last communication with him, that whatever he cannot control, he attempts to destroy.

    Now that Bola Ahmed Tinubu – a man he loathes to his innards – is President, Western Liberal democracy has suddenly become anathema that Nigeria, nay Africa, must immediately jettison. What is left of  President Obasanjo if he cannot lecture us all on a daily basis is nothing.

    That was why, this past week, having temporarily abandoned his love of letter writing after Nigerians had, on 25 February, 2023 shown him what they think of his self – promoting letters, he bellowed the following at a two-day event organised by the Africa Progress Group, which was held at his  presidential library in Abeokuta, Ogun state:”The weakness and failure of liberal democracy as it is practised, its deliverability and its relevance today without reform as it is practised stem from its history, content, context and its practice”.”Once you move from all the people to representatives of the people, you start to encounter troubles and problems”.

    “For those who define it as the rule of the majority, should the minority be ignored, neglected and excluded?

    When exactly did Obasanjo know this; after Pitobi lost election?

    He went on:

    “In short, we have a system of government in which we have no hands to define and design and we continue with it, even when we know that it is not working for us.

    “Those who brought it to us are now questioning the rightness of their invention, its deliverability and its relevance today without reform.”

    Read Also: Obasanjo’s shameless sophistry

    Has Obasanjo ever doubted he was the greatest leader Nigeria ever had even though his second coming was supposedly under Liberal democracy even though he was at heart a dyed in the wool soldier, far worse than a liberal democrat; for as Professor Jide Osuntokun aptly put it in his column in our daily edition this past week:”the appearance of democracy from 1999 to the end of Buhari’s so – called democratic regime was a military mirage, not a democratic reality”. “Presidents like Obasanjo and Buhari remained essentially military men in democratic toga of agbada and babanriga, wielding almost total control of power and responsibility …”

    Under what circumstances can such a militician then claim to be a populist as Obasanjo is faking here?

    He is simply out to distract the Tinubu government because a man who tried all he could to ridicule Chief Obafemi Awolowo,  claiming that he (Obasanjo) got on a platter, what Awo couldn’t all his life, never one day thought that another Yoruba man could be President of Nigeria in his life time. That simply is the reason he will like to fight Tinubu to the death. But he will more than meet his match in Ashiwaju. That much I can promise him.

    I digress.

    Is he asking Nigerians, and Africans in general – since nothing  exites

     him more than parading as an African leader – to revert  to Athenian democracy of the fifth century B.C,  or to simply change their mode of governance as some men change their women?

    Yes, there  is, indeed, an internal challenge to liberal democracy—a challenge from populists who seek to drive a wedge between democracy and liberalism, but in vain will Obasanjo present to any thinking people as a lover of the masses as nothing in his history, or antecedents in public office, point to him as such.

    Nigerians already know how much value to attach to  this hair brained nonsense like his other past theories that add nothing to knowledge besides self promotion which were intended to portray him as different from President Muhammadu  Buhari, whose  “provincialism,  Fulanisation and Islamisation of Nigeria” – in Obasanjo’s garrulous words – he once sang panegyrics to.

    In his garrulity, speaking to Nigerians, nay Africans, in that selfsame speach, about adopting a new model of government, as if addressing a harem, he said without blinking an eyelid:“we are here to stop being FOOLISH and STUPID”.

    Is such crudity inevitable at a public event?

    But Obasanjo must just show that he is Africa’s ‘numero uno’ statesman, at liberty to mess us up, if he so chooses.

    Whatever good inheres in his latest proposal is completely vitiated by the fact that nothing he says, or  does, is driven by altruism. There are far too many examples of that to delay us listing them.

    So, rather than that sterile exercise, let me do a detour to his widely publicised letter to Nigerian youths by which he tried to, coyly, draw them into Peter Obi’s Labour party wasteland, ahead of the 25 February, 2023 Presidential election which I dealt with on these pages in the article:’2023 -President Obasanjo’s Decoys and Nigerian Youths’, of 15 January, 2023.

    Therein I wrote inter alia:

    “Obasanjo, who I suspect usually momentarily forgets about himself when writing about the presumed failings of others, became something of a teacher of morals in the letter, which he described as an appeal to Nigerians, especially the youth. Therein he painted a picture of Nigeria the country wasn’t under his presidency.

    He also attempted to give the impression that he left power of his own volition, forgetting that the National Assembly had to rescue Nigeria from his Life Presidency gambit through an ingenious Third Term project, for which reason he dubiously convoked a National Political Reform Conference, (NPRC) in 2005 but which was angrily voted down by a diligent National Assembly.

    It is apposite to state at the very beginning that Obasanjo has all the rights, human as well as legal, to endorse any presidential candidate of his choosing, but it is equally important that the Nigerian youths, to whom he specifically directed his appeal, should be adequately

     informed that this is a man of incomparable hubris; a very brilliant man, who can easily sell a poke for a pig, and who, having cancelled the teaching of History in Nigerian schools has , a priori, denied the same youths, the knowledge of the past which they sorely needed in determining the truth, or falsity, of his preachment.

    A past master in decoy, he had cleverly harangued the youths as follows:”My dear young men and women, you must come together and bring about a truly meaningful change in your lives. If you fail, you have no one else to blame. Your present and future are in your hands to make or to mar. The future of Nigeria is in the same manner in your hands and literally so. If for any reason you fail to redeem yourself and your country, you will have lost the opportunity for good, and you will have no one to blame but yourselves, and posterity will not forgive you. Get up, get together, get going and get us to where we should be. And you, the youth, it is your time and your turn. Eyin Lokan” (Your turn”).

    Happily, the Nigerian youth know hypocrisy, and lies, when they see them, conjoined.

    It is not surprising then that he has also recently taken on the judiciary, wondering as to how 3 persons, “calling themselves judges”, could overturn the votes of millions?

    Nothing  reveals a duplicitous Obasanjo more than that unfortunate statement, coming from a supposed statesman,  except that for him, it is absolutely in character.

    This is exactly what I mean about his sometimes suffering from momentary amnesia while criticising others. Otherwise, he would not have forgotten how many state governors he singularly used strong arm tactics to remove from office by deploying a minority of House members to accomplish, where the constitution prescribes two thirds majority.

    Is that a man Nigerians are now expected to take seriously, seeing that the campaign season is already over, and the Labour party man he wanted, so seriously, to FEHIN GBE PON – (that is, carry on his back to victory as he once did in Ekiti state) has already accepted the Supreme court verdict?

    What Nigerians should all join hands in doing is overlook his old age misdemeanours- they used to be far worse, even in morals – and pray that the good Lord grants him long enough life to make him experience a Pauline conversion before he breathes his last.