The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Atiku, Obi and the future of PDP, LP

NO matter how hard they try, both the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party will be unable to reverse the All Progressives Congress (APC) victory at the February 25 presidential poll. History and the incontestable statistics of the poll weigh heavily against them. They may have resorted to massive display of emotions and street activism, and are inundating the social media with bitter, tendentious and deceptive campaigns to undermine the integrity of the poll, but these too will miscarry. Little by little, as the weeks roll by, they will discover how truly herculean it is to undo a presidential poll result in these parts. In their separate press conferences, the PDP and LP presidential candidates spoke determinedly of their victories at the poll. But surely both can’t be right.

The winner, APC’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu, an ideologue himself, will find it far easier to manage his victory and his party. He is fortunate that most of the governors who worked with him to deliver their states to the ruling party in the presidential poll are fairly ideological and centre-left politicians. The problem the party has had since assuming office in 2015 has been precisely coping with the extreme and countervailing conservatism of President Muhammadu Buhari. With the president’s exit in May, the APC will attempt to reposition itself and produce a tight and ideological party, regardless of the attenuating power of its diluted national spread and pan-Nigerian mandate. On the contrary, both the PDP and LP will probably enter a period of instability occasioned by the lack of ideological purity of their presidential candidates.

Despite his long years in politics, the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has no proven record of managing or leading a party. He is neither ideological nor patient when his goals are truncated. He prides himself a committed democrat, but he is averse to losing any contest within or outside his party. He has a history of defecting to other parties to further his goals. Since 1999, he has contested the presidency five times, thrice on PDP platform, once on Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) platform, and once on APC platform. He can’t bear defeat. At 76, he probably senses that he has run his last presidential race. Whenever he failed to clinch the presidential ticket, he easily lost interest in staying put in the party or contributing to its management and funding.

He will not win his suit to overturn the outcome of the 2023 presidential race. So he will not find remaining in the party attractive at all, especially not at his age. Running a party, as he knows very well, requires a lot of money and time, and even the most ingenious fundraising methods will still end up leaving shortfalls. He will be loth to fill those inevitable shortfalls. The question he will ask himself, given his character and penchant for opportunism and political migrations, is why he should help fund a party that is both fratricidal and regicidal, especially one he can no longer deploy for any future presidential ambition. It will take enormous patience and altruism, not to say funds, to manage and stabilise the PDP in the near future. Even if he possesses any of those priceless virtues, Alhaji Atiku will be uninterested in summoning them for any great cause. Nothing outweighs his interest in the presidency; and since that goal has now also become unachievable, his lack of altruism will not constrain him to invest his brittle talents in coaxing a fractious and difficult party.

The best the PDP can get from him in the weeks and months ahead is his half-hearted determination to ‘reclaim his stolen mandate’. He won’t help purge and reposition the party. After insinuating that his electoral tragedy was due in part to the defection of Mr Obi from the PDP shortly before the primary, Alhaji Atiku seems to be preparing the minds of his supporters for the inevitable judicial loss. He will leave the legal drudgery to his lawyers, of course, though he has proved to be very litigious himself. But overall, after winning only one geopolitical zone and coming embarrassingly short in the other zones, escaping being nearly trumped and disgraced by the upstart LP candidate, the already languid Alhaji Atiku may become despondent as he prepares his mind for political oblivion.

The LP’s Mr Obi is, on the other hand, touted as the revelation of the presidential election. Perhaps he is, especially after winning 11 states and the Federal Capital City (FCT), Abuja. After all, he nearly caused a tectonic shift in Nigerian politics by taking Lagos and the two North Central States of Plateau and Nasarawa. But it is not clear how or why he thinks he won the presidency or that he was rigged out. He had no appeal to the votes-laden Northwest, and barely made a dent in the Northeast. Even his showing in the Southwest was limited to Lagos. Had he won the presidency, he would have been unable to govern, despite the obtrusion, stridency and fanaticism of his clannish and episcopal supporters. He lacks the stoicism of Alhaji Atiku, and despite his pretences and homilies, he is neither ideological nor administratively adroit. He has also spoken fervently, if a little lachrymosely, about ‘reclaiming his stolen mandate’, though there was no conceivable way he could have achieved the two-thirds of 36 states threshold. His fanatical supporters defy gravity and reason in their flight of fancy, and the unscrupulous and increasingly demagogic Mr Obi has inflamed them to frenzy. No matter how much and long they inspect the BVAS and IReV, he will lose in the courts and must ultimately thereafter confront the fate he has tried so hard to evade.

The question he will face after he loses the court battle will be how to manage a Labour Party now inflated obscenely beyond its ideological foundations and electoral strength by circumstances quite unrelated to its structure and ideology. Apart from the Southeast which rallied unquestioningly to his banner, his other supporters, whether they are chafing Christians or cantankerous youths, also filed out behind him in reaction to the APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket. Parties are not built on such fickle, impermanent foundations. In the months ahead, as the APC settles into the presidency and begins churning out engrossing and probably populist policies and programmes, the country will forget the ruling party’s same-faith ticket, and the LP, like ex-governor Olusegun Mimiko discovered years before when he rode on the back of LP to Ondo governorship, will have to prove itself in internal party administration and funding. The party will make heavy weather of both. Mr Obi shares no ideological affinity with the LP, and it remains to be seen whether the original founders of the party would let him foist his wafer-thin brand of ad hocism and ecclesiastical jingoism on the party. The race for Aso Villa helped the LP paper over its cracks; the cracks will be exposed soon, and the party’s ethnic undertones and sectarian undertow will emerge in dangerous and conflicting colours. Despite governing Anambra State for eight undistinguished years, Mr Obi has not managed a large party before; it is unlikely he has acquired the wherewithal to do so now, regardless of his affinity for platitudes and theories.

More than the PDP, which will likely be rescued and reconstituted by gritty and gifted men and politicians like Governor Nyesom Wike, the LP will be predisposed to centrifugal forces, its Christian arm withered, and its ethnic anchor calcified. The LP was a special purpose vehicle for the often eclectic Mr Obi; he must now face the unpleasant task of imbuing the party with a differentiating ideology and platform. Having scorned the relevance of manifestos in party politics and made little reference to it even after one was hurriedly cobbled for him, it is hard to see him turn the LP into anything that looks like something. If his presidential votes do not transform into substantial state votes to enable the party produce governors of enough financial heft and girth, and being himself offensively parsimonious without any redeeming impulse of generosity, the party’s leaders will have to create ingenious ways of funding the organisation. Eight years out of office had seen the PDP atrophy, despite producing many state governments; it remains to be seen how the more demagogic Mr Obi will navigate the rapids. The LP candidate has had a great run so far, with his time in APGA nothing but a psychogenic fugue, and he will possibly keep the tempo up as his court case grinds on. Soon, however, the effect of that political amphetamine will wear out. He will hope not to suffer withdrawal symptoms big enough on the Richter scale to cause him to implode, though this fate seems ineluctable.

What Tinubu presidency signposts (2)

THE All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, won the February 25 election. He will preside over the affairs of Nigeria for the next four years in the first instance. Some analysts continue to question the statistical basis of his victory, insinuating that of the little over 25 million people who voted in that poll, only some 8.79 million endorsed him, while the remaining 16.5 million rejected him. That is not only poor statistical analysis; it is also sheer sophistry. What on earth does anyone expect of a four-horse race? Had any of the other ‘favourite’ candidates won, would the statistical validation of the election also be questioned? What is more significant, however, is not whether he won by a huge margin or not, since he won in line with the country’s electoral law, but what the Tinubu administration would mean for Nigeria. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) candidates have sworn to litigate the APC victory; they should go ahead to placate the humiliation they felt. But their suits will not change anything.

What matters more now is what a Tinubu administration will exemplify for Nigeria between now and 2027. To get a glimpse of that, a portrait of the man must be painted. That portrait was attempted on this page last week, but it was done in comparison with the other candidates. It was suggested in this place that while the PDP candidate had name recognition all over the country, seeing he had run for office five times since 1999, he had done little to convince the country sufficiently that he was the man for the job, that he possessed the staying power, the character, the politics, and the transformational skill and competence to turn Nigeria into a mini utopia. With every election cycle, he had become more and more jaded. It was also suggested here that the LP candidate could not have seriously hoped to win, but if he and his fanatical supporters nursed that hope, they were wallowing in dangerous illusions. Not only did he not plan to run for president while he was still in the PDP, and consequently had no working paper or manifesto to back his ambition, he also alarmingly tried to cash in on the frustrations of a section of Nigerian youths, on disaffected and distrusting Christians angered by APC’s same-faith ticket, and on the characteristically insular south-eastern support. It was impossible for him to win, for his methods and strategies invariably left out a huge chunk of voters from the Northwest, Northeast and Southwest, three geopolitical zones populous enough to change and determine the direction of any election.

When the three leading parties forswore alliance and headed into the election with all their hopes and illusions separate and intact, it was clear there could only be one outcome: APC’s victory. Many analysts may resent that victory, and some religious leaders may nurse the sacrilegious hope that God would take sides and turn that victory into ignoble defeat, if not death, but that victory will stand till May 29, and inauguration will take place. Neither the courts nor the world press fed on the toxic quinine of Nigerian social media can attenuate the quality of the victory or diminish the quality and capacity of the incoming administration. Of the three leading candidates in that election, Asiwaju Tinubu stood out in administrative competence, secular orientation, boldness, and consensus building. He is not divisive and clannish like Mr Obi, and is not unprincipled and opportunistic like Alhaji Atiku. Together with his equally modernising vice president-elect, Kashim Shettima, the president-elect will enthrone a truly secular administration in tune with the finest provisions of the constitution.

A few months before the election, the APC candidate met some editors in Lagos. He had earlier been badly excoriated in the press, with many essayists writing him off as infirm, halting, uncoordinated, and incapable of stringing a few sentences together without going off on a different tangent. But he walked briskly into the hall, shook everyone’s hands with boundless joie de vivre, greeted many of the editors by name, and once the discussions got underway, surprised sceptics by staying on point, exchanging banter, cracking jokes and speaking briefly but inspiringly to his manifesto. A few editors asked him questions, and he answered with panache. It was a revelatory evening. What came out that evening admittedly was not the image of an orator; it was the image of someone down-to-earth, someone accessible, a good-natured man without airs, without any complex, someone self-assured, willing to take and give opinions on issues and facts, no matter how disagreeable. In his presence, you could cross your legs without him feeling offended, and you could stand your ground if you felt strongly about your opinion. He will obviously not go into the presidency carrying airs, stifling differences, belittling the less fortunate, or suffocating dissenters.

In more than 35 years in politics, Asiwaju Tinubu never stopped making friends or building bridges, and he has been successful at both. He always rallied to the cause of the underdog, as his many electoral battles in defence of those whose electoral mandates were stolen illustrated. Neither Mr Obi nor Alhaji Atiku had such a record. It is a tribute to the damage caused by Nigeria’s overweening religious leaders and the excesses of social media activists and pillagers that the president-elect did not win by a much huger margin. What matters, however, is that his victory is a testament to his worldview as a fair-minded, tolerant and humanistic politician. To withstand all the arrows shot at him and the invectives hurled at his family and still emerge triumphant is a reflection of his staying power. He will need that resilience in the years ahead, for some diehards will never reconcile themselves to his victory.

By withstanding the darts shot by friends and foes in government and in high places, he also demonstrated his unmatched ability to keep his eyes on the ball. In the presidential election, critics abandoned the ineffective and uninspiring Alhaji Atiku, cuddled the impressionable and dreamy Mr Obi, but reserved their worst arrows for Asiwaju Tinubu. He had become the main issue. How to ensure he survived the fusillade became the main preoccupation of his aides, nearly all of whom were bright and engaging professionals sadly finding it hard to match the relentlessness and malevolence of the Obi group.

Lagos governorship poll

IS it not political insanity for Labour Party campaigners to invest Africa’s fifth largest economy on the untested and superficial Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour? The goal in the Lagos governorship poll is this time not religious, as the presidential election exhibited three weeks ago, nor any desire to elect a better, more gifted administrator than the incumbent Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The goal is simply and foolishly ethnic. The LP hounds whose campaigns are vivified by Peter Obi’s performance in the presidential poll in Lagos see in the half-Igbo Mr Rhodes-Vivour an ethnic champion and anchor for their anti-establishment revolt, and they are willing to gamble away the most prolific and modernising economy in Nigeria on a neophyte. This is not just insanity, it is a suicidal push certain to complicate and poison ethnic relations in Lagos State far beyond the elections as well as retard the state.

March 12, 2023
SNAPSONG 183
- Ode to the Ex-King
Too many times he has forgotten

     He is no longer the King

He still struts around with a phantom crown

     And bloats his “I” into the royal ”We”

He still parades a scepter

     Of tinsel gold and fancies

A throng of fawning subjects

     Bowing to his inordinate commands

No leaf must move now in

     The nation’s forest without his knowledge

No star dare blink in the sky

     Without his express permit

Lacking modest memory,

     But numb with nostalgia

He gallops on vanished horses

     And barks out orders from absent thrones

Self-righteous scion of Narcissus

     He plagues the national platform

With compulsive epistles of an ex-King

      Who craves the bow of reigning monarchs

Doom’s prophet, conceited emperor

     Wish some kind, discerning soul

Would tell His Ex-cellency

     “Alas, your time is long past and gone”
March 12, 2023
BAO’s branding: birthing bread baking?

“I have always believed that the road to prosperity is productivity. If the people are productive, the economy will change. One day money will stop coming from Abuja. This is the truth and every discerning state must start to prepare for it. As a government, we will create enabling environment for Agribusiness investments. We will put our weight behind it because it is in our interest as a state and as a people to get this done.” – Mr. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, Governor, Ekiti State, 5th December 2022.

“Agriculture has no rival for the development of Ekiti State and its economic posterity to assure the well being of the people.” – Steve Akadiri, a committed and passionate Ekiti man.

Apples and oranges differ in content and colour. Services and products, in business, are distinguished based on brands. Organizations are in sync with their brands as recognized by customers, shareholders and competitors. In essence, Coca-Cola cannot be mistaken for Pepsi cola: though both are blackish in colour. The process of production, processing and packaging is unique with each of the products. Putting it simply and squarely, branding “is the process of creating a distinct identity for a business in the mind of your target audience and consumers.” In business strategy, dissecting it further, your brand is synonymous with your reputation and promise to your customers and stakeholders as in what products or services they are to expect from you differentiating your offerings from that of your competitors. On a personal level, branding offers useful depictions and descriptions into who a personality is, who that individual wants to be, and who people really perceive that individual to be. Hence, it is often said “you cannot compare apples and oranges.” Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (aka BAO), the affable Governor of Ekiti State is at home with Ekitikete and seemingly riding in the gracious goodwill of the people, virtually wherever he goes in Ekiti. He is proving to be a homeboy indeed – born and bred in Ekiti. Indeed, as it happens in business, it is also palpable in government, a leadership approach could be branded with unique features. It is apparent that BAO’s Brand is palpably penetrating and pervasive within the nooks and crannies of Ekiti.

BRANDISHING BAO’S BRAND

The Yoruba culture pays glowing tributes to the Omoluabi’s ethos signifying all-round good mannerism. It is equally said that “ti a ba bi eniyan, o ma tun ara re bi ni” (meaning: when you have an illustrious birth, you still get yourself born again by showing good manners). This epitomizes BAO’s branding synonymous with his party’s, All Progressives Congress (APC) logo, the broom, sweeping all through the nooks and crannies of Ekiti to the extent that his seeming opponents are aligning with his dispositions and demeanour. Any wonder, his party, APC, swept the presidential poll and all the National Assembly (NASS) seats in Ekiti in the 25th February 2023 poll! The coast seems clear to repeat the same feat at the House of Assembly (HOA) poll coming up on 18th March 2023. Putting it succinctly and saliently, the political pedigree and trajectory of Oyebanji having been mentored by the duo of Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo and Dr. John Kayode Fayemi, erstwhile governors, cannot but reflect in the right reflexes his government is resplendently displaying. Much more, as in the leadership research and discourse, mentoring does not connote copying or aping your mentor as a mentee or protégé. It is actually learning, unlearning and relearning from the mines of your mentor. Exemplifying it further looking at another context, the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu leadership style was not similar to that of Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, his successor: yet the latter was green in the public service as at the time his mentor, Tinubu, headhunted him to serve as his Chief of Staff. Simply and squarely stated: mentoring has stages of learning, unlearning and relearning. BAO’s branding is displayed and depicted in the distinguishing tunes coming out from Ekitikete. In real terms, what are the people’s perceptions? Yours sincerely was on ground in Ekiti, as usual, before, during and after the 25th February poll. BAO’s brand was palpable and perceptible “everywhere you go” (apology to MTN’s marketing moniker) in Ekiti. As a researcher, I reach out to ethnographically inquire what makes BAO’s brand brighter? It was generally agreed that his humane or humanistic approach to people and issues, mostly done covertly and not widely publicized. Paramount to decipher was the welfarist and caring mannerism in paying promptly salaries of public servants. He went further to commence paying of arrears of salaries owed during the past government of erstwhile Governor Ayo Fayose. Presently, he had paid two months out of the backlog of arrears with less than 6 months of his mounting the saddle of governance. This is commendable! In addition, the pensioners have felt his humanistic and altruistic disposition, within the meagre resources available, he has been up and doing with them as well. One of the ethnographic respondents to this columnist’s inquiries stated it saliently, in a meeting he was involved with Governor Oyebanji. He stated thus: “Once at a meeting, he said ‘you know my father is a pensioner, too?’ He has set up a committee chaired by the Honourable Commissioner of Finance to look into the clearing of all arrears.” This is a uniqueness of the content of the heart of an exemplary leader that BAO is amplifying and exemplifying.

How about his infrastructural renewal approach especially in upgrading and repairing roads within Ado Ekiti and other towns. Lighting up of towns is also commendable as this checkmate nefarious activities as well as boost economic activities. Aftermath of his inauguration, it is worth mentioning his involvement in the energy sapping campaigns to the federal agencies in Abuja that have started yielding results. It was in the news at the time of his inauguration that many federal highways to Ekiti were virtually derelict and impassable. He was on top of it and presently all are seemingly in good motoring condition, even as plans are underway for big infrastructural delivery to Ekitikete. Worth mentioning is the peaceful atmosphere that pervades Ekiti; the matured manner of handling the HOA imbroglio is an achievement when one reflects on such past impasse in Ogun State, Oyo State, and presently in Edo State. Hospitality is on the agenda with the resuscitation of Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort. If the Ekiti Cargo Airport is fully harnessed vis a vis with the proactive development of Ekiti Knowledge Zone (a strategic multiprong project conceived by the John Kayode Fayemi (JFK) administration), a lot of impact will be felt and seen overtime.

BAKING BREAD BUSINESS

“We need government and business to work together for the benefit of everyone …” Richard Branson

Beyond brandishing BAO’s brand, it is high time, the government at Oke Ayoba pinpointed the business of baking bread for Ekitikete as the Abuja handout overtime will not meet their yearnings and longings when the chips are down, possibly two years and half years down the line. At that time, putting it pointedly, there will be much angling and agitation for a change or retention of the incumbent. In essence, BAO’s brand should incorporate harnessing the potentials of the crown, town and gown. It is gladdening that as at the time of hitting the press, the state executive council has approved the establishment of the Ekiti Sovereign Wealth Fund with the aim of sending a bill to the House of Assembly (HOA) to incorporate it into law. This is a right step in the right direction if the stated objectives are objectively pursued with pure passion for Ekiti development as the state cannot do much without funding. The Ekiti in Diaspora will be glad to partake in this provided there is transparency and accountability in running the Fund devoid of puerile, pecuniary or pedestrian perception.

Moreover, there should be a proactive, yet not sapping hapless Ekitkete, means of geometrically increasing the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state. It is commendable that the Ekiti State Internal Revenue Service has upped the ante in this regard necessitating the state’s helmsman to pay the agency a visit. However, to this columnist, there is the need for the government to be more audacious and innovative in revenue generation and boosting production so as to engender the boosting of the state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This can only come through unrelenting and unceasing production of goods and services. This is where Agribusiness comes in. It is instructive to refer to Governor Oyebanji’s statement in December 2022. He pontificated inter alia: “I have always believed that the road to prosperity is productivity. If the people are productive, the economy will change. One day money will stop coming from Abuja. This is the truth and every discerning state must start to prepare for it. As a government, we will create enabling environment for Agribusiness investments. We will put our weight behind it because it is in our interest as a state and as a people to get this done.” One of the critical stakeholders in the Ekiti project, Mr. Steve Akadiri, aligned vehemently with this notion. He submitted inter alia: “Agriculture has no rival for the development of Ekiti State and its economic posterity to assure the well being of the people.”

In retrospect, the avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, amplified in raw and rugged manner, agricultural transformation through the setting up of commodity boards and farm settlements in the then Western Region to engender legendary development. In this vein, Ekiti can leverage on Cocoa, Oil Palm and Cashew as major cash crops to uplift Ekiti out of economic doldrums! On the other hand, food crops like Rice, Maize, Cassava, Pepper and Tomato can be produced, processed and packaged for both domestic consumption and national distribution. Equally, depending on the level of processing and packaging, these crops can be exported for foreign exchange earnings for Ekiti. It is a matter of tinkering and strategizing; it takes time as it passes through a process, but it is achievable with dint of diligence, discipline and dedication.

Inculcating the town, gown and crown in not only Agribusiness but in Youth Development in digital and vocational skills acquisition; Knowledge Zone development around the Ekiti International Cargo Airport; and optimally organizing the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) to boost the economic base thereby decreasing the unemployment rate within Ekiti in the nick of time. In addition, the government should communicate openly for proper tracking (monitoring) and evaluating by the public her 6 Strategic Actionable Pillars (SAP). These 6 SAP are: Youth Development and Job Creation; Human Capital Development; Agriculture and Rural Development; Infrastructure and Industrialization; Tourism, Arts and Culture; and Governance. There should be a clear roadmap such that the populace will decipher where the government has reached in the execution and the concomitant challenges or constraints confronting actualization.

In concluding this piece, this columnist would want to align with the critique of a critical stakeholder in the Ekiti project who opined the need to constitute a crack and cerebral economic team who will come up with creative and innovative ideas needed for proactive, progressive and prosperous development of the agrarian state as time ticks. It is amazing that the cost of living within Ado Ekiti is curiously high when compared with neighbouring state capitals such as Akure and Osogbo. This will be a nut to be cracked by the proposed economic team through research inquiry to decipher the causes and means of checkmating or crippling them. Pursuit of agribusiness incorporating the town, gown and crown approach, rather than paying lip-service as most states’ governments do, result in massive industrialization overtime, Malaysia is a golden example – a nation where this columnist resided for 3 years. It is equally interesting that another cerebral mind was of the opinion that the Ekiti Knowledge Zone emplaced within the precincts of Ekiti International Cargo Airport and not far from the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, can be creatively turned into an Aerotropolis – subregion whose infrastructure, land use, and economy are centered on an airport. It fuses the terms “aero-” (aviation) and “metropolis”. The ICT Hub housing the Digital Academy, Exhibition Centre and Park should be emplaced within this vicinity for harmonious and healthy economic development. Going this route and harnessing ideas in the aftermath of thorough debates, dissections, discourses and dialogues will ensure more than enough bread is baked in case of any strategic uncertainty in the future. Feedback is welcome.

John Ekundayo, Ph.D. – Harvard-Certified Leadership Strategist, and also a Development Consultant, can be reached via +2348030598267 (WhatsApp only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

March 12, 2023
A trail from the past

WELL, as it happens, other folks, even outside Nigeria, were taking their own notes on Nigeria’s democracy question — the ECOWAS for example. In deciding to canonize Buhari as the sub-region’s hero of democracy, they struck a hard blow for honours well earned against honours self-conferred.

In the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) Abeokuta, Obasanjo set up a laundromat to burnish his democracy lies, aside from show-casing candies he gamed from the system — the OOPL itself being a product of brazen political corruption, the way a sitting president suborned who-was-who to “donate”.

Yet, here we are: the ECOWAS body recognising PMB’s yeoman’s effort in democracy and choosing to honour him — not in PMB’s corruptly erected laundromat but in their own West African community house, though based in Abuja, Nigeria.

In Obasanjo and PMB, you see a stark difference between self-gifted and well-earned honour.” -HARDBALL, The Nation, Thursday, 9 February, 2023.

How time flies?

I asked that question three weeks ago on these pages while congratulating my friend, Muyiwa Runsewe, on his 75th birthday. While that was in reference to five years earlier when he turned 70, I ask the question now in reference to events that happened back in the 80’s, a clear six decades ago, even though in circumstances that were not dissimilar to what we are experiencing in Nigeria today, sans the Emefelian financial disaster that has literally shut down the country’s economy.

I digress.

I had just opened my Facebook page this past Wednesday, only to see, quite surprisingly, a comment from my friend of over half a century, the seminal University Librarian, Yakubu Izevbekhai, Yaks, to us his friends. Although we speak occasionally on phone, I cannot remember when last I read from him.

He was reacting to my last week article titled ‘Lofty Ambititions Kill The Stormbird – Marabouts Nail Atiku And Effectively Killed Off The PDP’, wherein I tried to explain the debacle that befell the party in the 25 February Presidential election, attributing it mostly to Atiku Abubakar’s inscrutable insistence on contesting the election, given the fact that a Fulani, like him, was leaving the office after 8 years, in a country of more than 250 ethnic groups.

I call that the grandfather of selfishness.

In that, however, I consider him far less guilty than the unthinking party members, especially the party leadership, which probably fell victim of financial inducement.

I say that because the likes of Rivers state Governor, Nyesom Wike, his G-5 partners, as well as other rational members of the party leadership, did not hold back in pointing out the folly, and futility, of a Northern candidate attempting to succeed President Buhari.

My friend took the opportunity of his comment to say some things I believe he must have felt for a long time in the course of our checkered relationship which began, and blossomed at Akure, the Ondo state capital.

He commented as follows:

“Congratulations, Femi on your steadfast commitment to a cause you so much believed in. And today that cause has yielded so much dividend that I am proud to have known you over the years as a man of candour and of principle. I do not want to conclude that all your articles in the last few years in support of BAT have won him the presidency. I can say, without any contradiction, however, that your writings and the entire The Nation newspaper’s disposition have in no small way swayed the majority of Nigerians towards the BAT bandwagon. Your tenacity of purpose has been wonderful; your commitment enchanting! I am proud of you. Keep it up, my good friend”.

The above triggered a million thoughts in me and if you know my friend’s genial tarciturnity, you are bound to be completely bowled over by words like “I have known you over the years as a man of candour and of principle, your tenacity of purpose has been wonderful; (and) your commitment enchanting!”.

My mind went straight back to the very source of our paths crossing each other’s, and more surprising was the fact that a portion of our time together in the Ondo state capital, uncannily mirrors the political turmoil presently convulsing Nigeria, our sole prayer being that things do not go that much south to warrant being labelled what the inimitable journalist, Dare Babarinsa, called ‘The House of War’ – his fascinating book on the brutal experience that left life long scars on many, yours truly inclusive.

A review of the book describes it as follows:

“House of War is a chronicle of the bitter and bloody struggle for political power in Nigeria’s Second Republic, especially among the followers of the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo. This is the story about the schism in the Awo camp and how Awoists turned against one another in the great scramble for political office. The book exposes the politicians’ grand auction of principles and the political intrigues, double dealings, back stabbings, stealing of votes, arson and killings, that characterised the Second Republic, especially during the 1983 elections. It is a relevant book, especially for those who have been following Nigeria’s new attempt to establish a worthwhile democracy since the end of military rule in 1999”.

So the question arises: when will this so- called giant of Africa get its political bearing? If the eminent statesmen of the

Abdulsalami Peace Committee are doing everything to stabilise Nigeria, why would former President Olusegun Obasanjo always be working in the opposite direction?

It cannot be put beyond him that in an election in which the President was defeated in his home state, ditto the President – Elect, and several state governors getting beat, and losing their senate bids, but yet saw Labour party national election winners joyfully receiving their certificates of return to the grinning and admiration of their presidential candidate as we saw in him hugging ireti Kingibe, he is, most probably, the one inspiring the meaningless court cases we see flying all over the place, just so he can get his interim government, should Peter Obi, his annoited, who came a distant third, with an abysmal number of National Assembly members, not be declared winner.

And i wonder: is age no longer relevant to wisdom?

I replied my friend’s comment as follows:

My dear Yaks.

What can I say?

Where do I begin?

We were absolutely 6/7 and I can never ever forget you coming to wake me up, shouting my name from my gate, on that day of Infamy and Conflagration in Ondo state in August 1983.

I had slept late the previous night, watching the final collation proceedings on TV until my indefatigable teacher, Prof Banji Akintoye, and my late friend, Aleco – Hon Alex Adedipe of blessed memory – as Papa, Governor Ajasin’s agents, rushed out of FEDECO office when it became clear that NPN was going to rig the governorship election of that year, making nonsense of the humongous work we had done towards the election.

You had rushed to my house in Ijapo Estate- your house was very near – to inform me that LACO HOUSE was on fire.

It was the first I knew that Akure, no Ondo state, was already on fire, being literally completely incinerated and putting all of us, UPN members and activists in jeopardy.

We can only thank God that we are still on this side of the divide.

You knew, for a certainty, that I once had a column in The Tribune, when my friend Banji Ogundele was the editor, and that I also wrote a Sunday column for the Sketch when brother Jide Adeleye – God rest him – was editor, just as you cannot forget my column in my friend, the absolutely intrepid, no nonsense Niyi Oniororo’s paper, which was the beginning of wisdom for all Ondo state public servants then.

I was also occasionally writing articles for news papers like Punch, and the Guardian.

I write all these now because, God be praised, you are a living witness to my unwavering consistency to the progressive ideas I hold dear, and from which, as you very kindly attested, I have never deviated nor would, come rain, come shine.

For 2 whole years, I was writing a column for COMET before the President- Elect bought it over, re-engineered it, and re-named it The Nation.

This means that, to the glory of God, I have kept my Sunday column in The Nation newspaper since 2006 (17 years) without missing a day.

GOD BE PRAISED.

Whoever read me in Niyi Oniororo’s Peoples News in the 80’s, in the Tribune or in Sketch in the ’70’s, (while I was a staff of the University of Ibadan), and reads my column in The Nation now, will not subtract a word from your very kind words.

I thank you very much Yaks, my inimitable friend, and highly regarded Librarian of several higher institutions, including The Federal Polytechnic, Ado – Ekiti, University of Benin and the Igbinedion University, Okada.

Please give my regards to your beautiful family.

March 12, 2023
Youths: No need for scaremongering

I’m glad that Nigerian youths woke up to their civic responsibilities more than ever before in our political history. They not only turned up in large numbers for voter registration, though they took their time until it was almost late, they also showed up massively for the election.

It doesn’t matter if what triggered the interest of some was the nature of the electoral contest in this year’s election, what’s important is that finally, they realized they cannot have the kind of leaders they want without registering and voting.

For once, they were faced with the reality of continuing to pontificate online and paying dearly for their lack of interest in the political process of electing good leaders and ensuring the good governance they are craving and didn’t allow this opportunity to pass.

With the first round of the election over, they should feel free to raise their voices over anything that did not go well that they or their colleagues experienced. It’s their fundamental right to challenge the results of the election if they have enough evidence to show that it didn’t reflect their true wishes through the legal channels.

It’s wrong for any of them to resort in threats, insults or online bullying just because their preferred candidates did not win. No one can decide to take the law into his or her hands in trying to seek redress.

They should rather congratulate themselves on the feat some of them achieved by contributing to the altering the political landscape of the country which the results reflected despite the hitches that marred the election.

Politicians, especially those who lost and some other interest groups will typically want to use the youths to achieve their own goals and they are already doing so.

When some politicians and leaders start claiming that the youths in the country are angry and would not be taken for granted, they are engaging in unnecessary scaremongering.

No group has a monopoly on youth followership or sympathy. Just as there are many youths who did not vote for the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, there are those who voted for him. All the parties had Youth leaders, even if some of them are no longer youths as they claim.

No youth should allow anyone or group to influence them to cause any after-election crisis only to abandon them to their plight when protests go wrong.

They should not accept being given the false impression that they can insist on getting what they want at all costs when they should subscribe to democratic principles at every level of the democratic process.

The way to take over the leadership of the country by any youth groups as some brag about is to learn to fully understand the politics of the country and join political parties to infuse their ideas into the running of the parties instead of staying on the fringe and waiting for election day.

Hopefully, the momentum gained in the recent election and the coming Governorship and State Assembly election will not be lost by being discouraged. Change may not come as quickly as they want, but it will surely happen if they remain committed for the long haul.

March 12, 2023
Haba, Baba!
- Behold our ‘brand refurbished’ democratic icon, Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo!
We did not need any seer to tell us that the result of the presidential election held on February 25 would be contested, however it went. Ordinarily, there is nothing wrong with this because the aggrieved have the right to seek legal redress. The snag in our situation is that we have terribly bad losers who would always contest anything and everything, even when it is obvious that their cases are standing on wobbly pedestals. A benign contestant like former President Goodluck Jonathan who conceded defeat even when the results were yet to be officially announced are few and far between in our kind of country.

So, we can understand the case of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Mr Peter Obi, his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, who came second and third, respectively, in the presidential race that was won by the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. If the electoral umpire failed to deliver on a promise for one reason or the other, those who are aggrieved have the right to challenge the result in court. But what many people cannot understand was the call by former President Olusegun Obasanjo for the cancellation of the election in areas where they did not “pass the credibility and transparency test” in order to avert looming danger. How could a former leader be peddling, unsubstantiated, such pepper-soup joint rumour? Those who know Obasanjo well know he is merely talking about where his favoured candidate has not done well.

Obasanjo had written several other letters at various times, expressing his opinion on certain national issues. As a Nigerian, he is entitled to this. And as a former head of state, he is eminently so. But, to ask that the president stop an electoral process at the point of announcing the result has no place in our constitution. President Muhammadu Buhari or any Nigerian president under our extant constitution has no such powers. Obasanjo ought to know this.

But, for Obasanjo, it is one thing to know something, it is another to be guided by it. Obasanjo has never been a democrat and he has not succeeded in pretending to be one. By asking that the process be aborted at the point he did, Obasanjo merely told the world what he would have done if he was in President Buhari’s shoes. He would have cancelled the elections irrespective of the fact that he had no such power under the constitution. That would not be the first time he would be trampling on the grundnorm.

In Obasanjo’s eight years as president, at least four governors were removed unceremoniously and unconstitutionally in 2006 alone, mostly with the connivance of the Obasanjo government. In January 2006, 18 of the 32 members of Oyo State House of Assembly ‘impeached’ Governor Rashidi Ladoja. Even then Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State that Obasanjo is now championing his cause was similarly ‘impeached’ on November 2, 2006, without the requisite number of the state legislature. Barely 11 days later, on November 13, Governor Joshua Dariye of Plateau State was also ‘impeached’ at 6.00 a.m. by five of the 24-member legislature. Mind you, by Nigeria’s constitution, governors can only be impeached by two-thirds majority of the state assembly.

In Ekiti State, the Obasanjo presidency imposed a state of emergency and appointed Brig-Gen. Adetunji Olurin as administrator on October 19, 2006, just because the state house of assembly refused the presidency’s bidding to impeach the then governor, Ayodele Fayose. Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State who would have been the fifth victim of Obasanjo’s lack of respect for the constitution or rule of law was only saved by the National Assembly. Mercifully, the courts eventually quashed most of the kangaroo impeachments.

But it was not only governors that tasted the undemocratic part of Obasanjo. His party’s chairmen were also victims. Because the former president wanted everything in his own image, he changed his party’s chairmen as women change their wrapper. Not long after becoming president in 1999, Obasanjo shoved aside Chief Solomon Lar who was chairman at the time the party won the presidential election in 1999. Lar barely spent a year in office. Then came Barnabas Gemade who was similarly frustrated out of office by Obasanjo. Then Audu Ogbeh who became chairman as the party was preparing for the 2003 general elections; he suffered the same fate. Meaning that Obasanjo dispensed with the services of three party chairmen that he installed in less than four years; plus Lar that he inherited.

Of the lot, Ogbeh’s ouster was particularly dramatic. Obasanjo went to his house with fully armed security agents and requested for pounded yam. After eating, he brought out a letter that he gave his host to sign. It turned out to be Ogbeh’s resignation letter. After signing the letter, apparently under duress, Ogbeh handed it back to the president who left along with the security agents, only to return about 30 minutes later for him (Ogbeh) to date the letter of resignation written by the president himself!

But, for Obasanjo, this uncharitable and undemocratic attitude did not start from ‘abroad’. It started from home during the selection of the 14th Olowu of Owu in 2004, where the former president, sensing that his preferred candidate, Prince Adegboyega Olusanya Dosunmu, was losing to another candidate. Obasanjo tore the result sheet. The former president cannot stand seeing anyone he is supporting lose any contest. He eventually muzzled his way through.

Perhaps the height of Obasanjo’s perfidy was his attempt at third term. It was the vigilance of Nigerians and the resoluteness of the National Assembly that frustrated that inordinate ambition. Even though Obasanjo denied this, it was clear he said and did everything towards that even though he did not directly utter it. Some people paid for that failed bid because Obasanjo is like an elephant, he neither forgives nor forgets.

So, Nigerians who know Obasanjo’s antecedents must have smelt trouble when he allegedly said before the election that anyone who attempted to rig Obi out would have him to contend with. “The only thing that can stop Peter Obi from winning the 2023 election is only when they rigged him out; but I am here to show the world and Nigerians that once a soldier is always a soldier…it’s no longer Obi but me”, the former president was quoted as saying.

This is one of the reasons why we cannot blame Obi for weeping on national television claiming that he won the presidential election. Obi probably sees Obasanjo as an oracle and with such oracle supporting him, he must have felt he has arrived politically. But Obasanjo does not have the kind of political value that matches his threat. He has always lost his polling booth.

True, the former president, one must concede, has always gone overboard when it comes to elections and is almost always fanatically involved when he supports a candidate. The fact is, as an elder statesman that he should be, he ought to know the limits of such fanaticism. I always recall how he tore his membership card of the PDP in the open before the 2015 elections, to tell the world that he did not believe in the party anymore. Only people in the PDP would have problem with that. But, to go to the extent of predicting that your candidate, in whom you are well pleased and which is an open secret, could only lose an election if rigged out even when the election was yet to hold is taking both fanaticism and mischief too far.

If our youths do not know these facts, it is not their fault. Perhaps this was the kind of pervasive ignorance the former president wanted to spread in the country which made him to cancel History as a subject in our secondary schools. If the youths had the benefit of studying History, they would have known Obasanjo’s role in our democratic struggles. Now that he is posing as a democrat, it is the youths themselves who would know he is fake and tell the teacher not to teach them nonsense.

There is no doubt that Obi has done well, being a first timer in the race. But to now be claiming he won the election is, as far as I am concerned, far from it, despite the support base that he has, especially among the youths who are disenchanted with the situation of things in the country. And rightly so. But Obi would do well to be wary of such godfathers because they probably have their own motives other than free and fair elections. Indeed, Obi has President Buhari to thank for his ascendancy. Just the same way corruption and ineptitude made the Goodluck Jonathan administration to beget the Buhari presidency, the incompetence of the Buhari administration enabled the LP candidate to gain the kind of attention he had at the polls.

With due respect to the former President, he is one of the least qualified persons to be sanctimonious on democracy. He can continue to pretend to our youths that he is one of them, or that he is at least young at heart, or a democratic champion, those of us who have been around for some time know that Obasanjo has little or no regard for democracy.

I almost forgot Obasanjo’s elections of 2003 and 2007, both of which were marred with irregularities that even international observers could not but notice. The 2007 experience was particularly awful that the beneficiary, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, himself was honest enough to openly admit that there were issues with the election, necessitating his setting up of the Justice Mohammed Uwais panel to review the country’s electoral process. No former head of state carried placards calling for cancellation of that election to avert Armageddon then. They all knew the procedure. Now, see the kettle calling the pot black.

The truth of the matter is that, since 1999 when our present civil rule took off, I have not seen any incumbent president who made things difficult for his party’s presidential aspirant as President Buhari did to his party’s flagbearer, Tinubu. Is it the fuel crisis that we want to talk about? Or the self-inflicted Naira crunch? Yet, Tinubu waded through the landmines to clinch the gold medal. Interestingly, it is the same people who were applauding Buhari for starving Tinubu of money to bribe voters in Lagos (which they claimed made Tinubu lose the state) that are now crying that they have been rigged out of the election when the final presidential poll tally did not favour them.

Interestingly too, it is both the PDP and Labour Party that are now claiming victory in the presidential election. Yet, the contest could only have produced one winner! That the political parties which came second and third, respectively, are both claiming that they won is enough evidence that there are many adulterated results of the polls flying all over the place.

Well, I leave you with an online comment by a Nigerian, that we should not be surprised about Baba’s outbursts on the February 25 presidential election. That Baba is only helping his kith and kin by putting the Obi presidency on his head. The anonymous commentator said blood is thicker than water. I don’t get this. Someone help me!
March 12, 2023
Averting elite suicide in Nigeria

As we noted in this column about a fortnight ago, whoever happened to be elected as our next leader has his work cut out for him. Nigeria is in dire straits. The economy is on a tailspin with stagflation and de-industrialization driving the pauperization of the people to a point where Umaru Dikko’s cynical projection that Nigerians would have to start eating from the dustbin before he could believe there was hunger in the land has now become a moot academic point.

From all available evidence, it is now important to avert elite suicide in Nigeria. Our people are hurting from a misguided and misbegotten currency redesign fiasco. The horror of it all! Yet nobody of substance is offering a word on the fiscal gridlock of having the people denied access to their legitimate earning. This bizarre tomfoolery has lasted for too long.

In all likelihood, elite suicide will lead to the swift disintegration of the nation and leave all of us at the mercy of local hyenas and international vultures already on the prowl. Elite suicide occurs when the regnant elite formation of a nation can no longer handle the contradictions arising from their own acts of omission or commission.

The field is then left open to the rule of the mob which is anarchy formally enthroned. Politics in contemporary post-military Nigeria has failed to nurture and foster a wise and politic society. Instead the impolitic and impertinent rule the roost.

Professors, philosophers and wise men of the society are routinely slapped down in sharp and acerbic exchanges. One recalls that during the chaotic Chinese Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao finally had his way with a famous professor who had humiliated him as a private student by getting him to dig roots in a remote village without any opportunity of early restitution. It was called a Programme of Re-Education.

We will be lucky if this programme of re-education has not already arrived in Nigeria. Autochtonous species from the last redoubts of humanoid existence in Nigeria pop up everywhere. A city once celebrated for its leisurely cultivation and good manners has now become a point of convergence for arboreal creatures and other evolutionary fiascoes.

Whatever else you might say of the ancient Romans, it cannot be said that they didn’t lay down the rules of engagement in their famous capital. When you are in Rome, you do as Romans do. The English frown very much at disgraceful behavior not in accord with the people of excellent manners. The Chinese disdain bovine rudeness.

For some cultures, it is a matter of ancestral honour to comply with the code of conduct and habits of the hosting habitats. Nobody in their right senses will go to the core north and tell them that it is their desire to live among the women in purdah. It is a sacrilege that will be met with the appropriate response.

The tension is so palpable these days, the national discord so tangible that sometimes you feel as if you are in pre-war Lebanon or in the strife-torn Palestinian enclave of Israel. The discord and tension are driven by elite rancor and disharmony. Never in Nigeria’s post-independence history have the political elite been this badly polarized and bitterly divided.

It is just as well, then, that the BVAS imbroglio has forced Mahmood Yakubu and INEC to postpone the remaining elections by one week. That may well turn out to be a fortuitous collusion between technological imperfection and human incompetence. At least the tension will go down a little bit. As we noted last week, in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country, if one section of the country decides to circle the electoral wagon for whatever reasons, it may provoke similar neuroses in other nationalities.

We have now arrived at a point where elections have become an ethnic census; a gathering of the tribal faithful. This speaks to a sharp retreat and regression of national consciousness which does not augur well for the Nigerian project. How did we get to this point when there are electoral markers in our recent journey to full nationhood which indicate a collective striving to overcome ethnic divisions and contra-national identities forged on religion and ethnicity?

The resurgence of ethnic revanchism and tribal triumphalism in the nation’s political space is evident everywhere: in the media, on the internet, market place discussions and the so called social media where the gladiators come garlanded and festooned in primordial plumes. The cumulative damage to national consciousness is better imagined. This column has argued several times that elections without substantial elite consensus merely serve to exacerbate national fault lines.

Pretending to be saints in the matter, the federal authorities have also weighed in insisting that unlike what happened in 1993, they are not available to be used to truncate the electoral will and wish of the Nigerian people. In 1993, General Babangida and his military cohorts summarily annulled the freest and fairest election in the history of the nation sending the entire country into a nose dive from which it has not recovered.

On the face of it, the federal call out seems a patriotic and well-judged intervention. But it shows everything that is wrong with the post-colonial state. Unlike the classical incarnation where the state is supposed to be above the elite fray as it acts as a neutral arbitrator and impersonal adjudicator, the postcolonial state in Africa often wades into intra-elite disputes in a partisan manner, losing its authority and legitimacy to the fracas.

This was precisely how June 12 happened. Because it was a partisan rather than a honest and patriotic power broker, the military state allowed itself to be lured to take sides in the elite jousting for position and power. By the time the smoke cleared up from the coliseum, the army had lost all its claims as a national institution. It had become an ethnic quango brimming with state assassins.

As a parting gift to the nation, the Buhari administration must resist the lure of partisan proclamation from the lofty altar of the state as the nation faces its most tasking post-election management crisis. There is an ominous quietude about. Understandably, not everyone is happy. The outcome of the presidential election is a devastating blow to the solar plexus of many of the nation’s traditional power-brokers.

When General Ibrahim Babangida, Buhari’s military nemesis and bête noire, famously proclaimed from the military throne that although he did not know who would succeed him, he knew who would not, he was of course referring to his legendary capacity to ban, unban and then re-ban members of the political class.

In at least one significant respect, the Minna-born grandmaster of military chess was right. He was able to determine who did not succeed him. In the other respect, he was also partially right if his decision to leave General Abacha behind is seen as a masterstroke of genius and absolute self-interest. It is to be noted however that both feats have been achieved at the expense of the ruination of personal honour, the integrity of the profession and the reputation of his nation.

Power not directly deployed or crudely used for personal obligation is power most potent. The incoming administration must immediately put in place a mechanism for elite integration while a commission for horizontal and vertical mobilization of Nigerians across ethnic, religious and class divides must be immediately empowered to deal with exigencies arising from state omissions and commissions of the last eight years.

To do this, we must study closely the global phenomena that impact on the nation-state project in a dialectical combination of both the negative and the positive. Perhaps the most impacting of these global developments is the phenomenon of globalization. Twenty years ago, this writer had posited that if one cannot argue with an earthquake, one can at least study it closely in order to master its hidden dynamics and secret dialectics.

Globalization is rich and immense in its contradictory and countervailing resources. On the one hand, it can be seen as a major enemy of the nation-state paradigm since it forcibly co-opts nations into the ambits and parameters of its globalizing procedures and propensity.

On the other hand, since the nation-state project— as the site of the most potent resistance to globalization— needs to pull its inner resources and national resilience together to stand a chance against globalization, then the phenomenon itself can be seen as a paradoxical reinforcement of and collusion with the nation-state.

On the strength of evidence, we are still far away from the end of the nation-state paradigm. This is why despite its faults and iniquities, the nation is still worth putting up a strong pitch for. It is even more so in the case of a Nigeria which is widely regarded as the last Black hope.

March 12, 2023
Globalism and its goose pimples
- The Strange case of Omoyele Sowore
Globalization the process by which a more developed part of the world incorporates and subsumes the less developed parts in its developmental orbit, has been with us for a long time, depending on the level of technology and the state of human consciousness. Slavery, for example, has always been part of the human condition as a consequence of wars, sieges, famines and other cataclysmic occurrences.

But the internationalization of slavery and the rise of globalized capitalism have engendered such dislocations and shifts in human consciousness the likes of which nobody has witnessed before in the recorded history of humanity. In the end, perhaps nothing can beat the description of globalization as the universalization of the particular and the particularization of the universal.

What do they mean by this? A particular brand of capitalism, that is western capitalism, projects itself as the global exemplar of this mode of production against the claims of all its competitors. From then on this brand began to lay claim to universal verity by suppressing the claims of other rivals and pretenders to the throne. By the time it has finished, it was natural to assume that there is, and has been, only one mode of capitalism that the world has known.

Western modernity, the intellectual ancillary and ideological power-house of western capitalism, deployed very much the same ruthlessness in its confrontation with other versions of modernity. It should be noted that before it gained global ascendancy over its rivals, western modernity, and in particular its Anglo-American variant, was only one of several competing and countervailing variants. But by the time it worked through its rivals, it was as if they never existed.

Despite the pains, the trauma and the shock therapy of its disruptive possibilities, globalization has been game-changing. It has brought accelerated development to parts of the world which would have taken much longer had they been left to intuit or feel their way forward. It has contributed immensely to the rise of a global knowledge society by making developments in the more developed centres readily available. Finally, it has accentuated global mutual awareness and collaboration.

But the obverse of the coin is equally compelling. Globalization encourages a cult of abstract idealism and unrealistic expectations among many former denizens of the Third World who have found their way to the west which tend to complicate efforts at home.

By constant carping and resort to an unfavourable comparison of the situation at home they often lose sight of the bigger picture, particularly where it comes to the democratic project. Yet it can also be argued that without nudging the home government to a higher ideal, nothing reasonable or realistic can ever be achieved.

Nowhere in the world has the democratic emancipation of a people ever been a tea party. You cannot latch on to the emancipatory projects of other people to compute and configure the historic trajectory of your own society.

You can surely borrow tropes and tropicalization but not the story line itself. The Magna Carta was not an African event, neither is the French Revolution or the Chinese Revolution for that matter. Out of its inner reserves of resilience and visionary stirring every society must fashion its own ethos of liberation. Without lifting yourself up by the bootstraps, you cannot appropriate the gains accruing from other people’s costly struggles as your legitimate inheritance.

None of these foreign events can be used as plea bargain or as part of an application for remission of sentence. Africans and in particular Nigerians must learn to build on their own history of resistance to evil governance. There is no short cut to manumission.

Those who use the latest disruptive technologies to disrupt the electoral process of their country are merely fronting for anarchy and chaos. The people who actually do the voting know how they voted and if the outcome does not tally with their expectations, they will also resort to self-help. So, in the spiral of chaos and destruction, self-help normally cancels out self-help.

Nigeria is at a delicate and fragile conjuncture in its post-military democratic evolution. Seventeen years ago in a paper delivered at the official launching of Sahara Reporters at Empire State Building at New York titled The Blogger As Nemesis, one had hailed the arrival of the citizen journalist at the site of unspeakable political crime. But one had also cautioned against the abstract idealism and the unrealistic expectations which often fuel and propel the blogger and whistle-blower in the diaspora.

As we argued further, this relentless bombardment and unremitting revelations of shenanigans in high places can actually play into the hands of counter-revolutionary forces that may be looking to impose their own rightwing solution on the organic crisis of the state in the face of the helplessness and utter paralysis of the will of the extant progressive forces.

Having made his own heroic and sterling contribution both as an observer and participant in the struggle for the expansion of democratic space in Nigeria in the last three decades, Omoyele Sowore should now understand the full import of that cryptic statement about abstract idealism and the hopeless habits of great expectations.

As another parting gift to the nation, the federal authorities should discontinue with any matter pending for this gutsy and patriotic young man and release his travel documents. Should the federal authorities fail to honour this plea, the incoming president-elect must consider the matter as an urgent obligation to elite-reconciliation in a divided and polarized polity.
March 12, 2023
Naira swap: defiance, intransigence at CBN

FOR all their grandstanding, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) never meant their naira swap (or currency redesign) policy to be deployed as a tool for achieving monetary policy goals. Without a shred of doubt, and especially following their resistance to and defiance of three separate Supreme Court orders and ruling on the subject, the naira swap policy remains a political tool to achieve political outcomes. No country swaps currency in 45 days, none; and certainly not a country of over 200 million people. More, no country withdraws the equivalence of three trillion naira from circulation in about three months and replaces it with the equivalence of N400 billion, assuming in the case of Nigeria what was printed and circulated was actually up to the amount publicly stated.

The deadline for the swap was initially January 31. But as though the administration was doing the country a favour, that deadline was grudgingly extended by 10 days. Since then, the story of the swap has been one of defying the Supreme Court and inflicting cruel punishment on the people and their businesses. Analysts had believed that after the presidential election, more money would be pumped into circulation or at least the administration would relent and acknowledge and perhaps obey the apex court ruling extending the naira’s legal tender till December 31. Since the presumptive political aim of the naira swap policy was two-pronged, to wit, to alienate voters from the All Progressives Congress (APC), and to make it impossible for the party’s presidential candidate to win the February 25 poll, it was hoped that the country would return to normality after that election.

Few, if any, now think the naira swap was an economic tool to stabilise the naira and rein in inflation and other monetary problems. By its own admission, even the CBN included among its reasons for initiating the policy such tangential goals as frustrating kidnappers and ransom takers as well as forestalling vote buying. It was, therefore, not unexpected that the apex bank and the administration would deliberately starve the country of cash and insouciantly disregarde the pains borne by the people as they struggled with network interruptions in online, so-called cashless transactions. For a few dizzying moments, the CBN even instigated the people against the commercial banks, insinuating that they were hoarding cash or funneling it to politicians desperate to get cash for elections. Angry citizens bought the boondoggle, until cash-strapped banks began to shut their doors against customers.

Finally, everyone thought that once the Supreme Court gave a definitive judgement on March 3 on the suit brought before it by the three states of Zamfara, Kogi and Kaduna, the country would be relieved. That judgement came two Fridays ago on the heels of two interim but explicit orders, and it was equally explicit and cathartic. The Buhari presidency, which had directly waded into the crisis twice by granting a reluctant extension in January to last till February 10 and then redacting the second Supreme Court order to allow for the N200 note to remain legal tender, has kept spectrally silent. The conspiratorial and highly politicised CBN, whose goals became coterminous with the political aims of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), has also kept defiantly aloof. Perhaps it is waiting for a certified true copy of the judgement. It had earlier issued a flurry of notices and memos to the commercial banks when the apex court was yet to rule on the naira swap suit, but since March 3, it has become frustratingly reticent and defiant.

Even the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, who was at first glib in defending the administration and mischievously interpreting the CBN Act, has suddenly begun to stammer about the strict autonomy of the apex bank to propound monetary policy. Speaking about or deliberating on monetary policy was not in the remit of the AGF’s office, he exulted. He conveniently forgot that as the nation’s chief law officer, not to talk of being the number one legal adviser to the administration as well as its lead legal defender, he had no option but to make the administration to obey the highest court in the land. By last Friday, one full week after the apex court had spoken, no one in the administration had said a word, and the pains continued. It is not clear exactly what has angered the administration. Could it be the tongue-lashing by the apex court describing the president’s action on the naira swap, particularly his refusal to consult with the relevant agencies and bodies, as dictatorial? Or could it be that the administration hoped that its policy against vote-buying needed to be extended to the governorship and state elections, regardless of the policy’s failure in the presidential and national assembly polls?

Whatever the reasons for the administration’s and CBN’s intransigence, the naira swap policy has been an unmitigated failure. Worse, the government now appears set to go down in history as the most lawless since the founding of the country. No administration, and certainly no agency, has tried so flagrantly to disobey the laws of the land. For one full week, they refused to give effect to the court judgement. Worse, they have pigheadedly refused to countenance the sufferings of the people whose money remains impounded by the CBN to the detriment of their small businesses. Their naira swap policy is coming to a chaotic end, and the image of the administration itself is at its repugnant worst. They have, therefore, continued to dither, unable to retreat or advance. The president may escape censure after he leaves office, for he will find convenient ways to avoid retribution. Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor, will not be so lucky in ending his abysmal career on the high note his exaggerated talents make him dream about.

PDP, Atiku protests overruling the law

NO one knows why the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and his fellow party leaders think standing sentry at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Abuja would put pressure on the electoral body to annul the presidential election won by the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. There have of course been elaborate attempts and efforts to delegitimise the election, in massive newspaper reports and essays, and on the social media. It is possible that PDP leaders hope that a little more effort, perhaps in line with the wish and incitement of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, could help galvanise massive public outrage. This wish has not been granted, nor is it likely ever to be granted. The laws of the land already made provisions for any aggrieved candidate to explore redress. The PDP has already embraced that option. So, why the protests?

The only answer possible is that Alhaji Atiku and the PDP leaders had hoped that once the protest got underway, the public would rally behind their banner. But Nigerians note that the PDP candidate is torn between two options. One, he insists he won the poll, and would adduce evidence in court. Until he does that, no one will believe him. Two, in the same breath he calls for the cancellation of the poll. Well, how could he call for the cancellation of a poll he said he won? Does he not trust the case his lawyers would present? The engaging fact is that Alhaji Atiku has gone to court as an afterthought. He knows at bottom that he lost the election, but to lessen the pain and the humiliation of winning only one geopolitical zone, not to say witnessing the unraveling of his party before his very eyes, the candidate badmouths the poll and wants it annulled. He knows he is fighting a lost cause, and will in the near future suffer the additional pain and indignity of throwing good money at a bad venture. Whether he can stand the long and grueling legal haul remains to be seen.

However, at the end, he knows that as is customary with Nigerian litigants, he can declare victory by condemning the courts for not giving him victory. In the press conference he gave where he served notice of the suit he was about to file, he blamed the LP for taking the PDP’s traditional votes in the Southeast and South-South. Yet he says he did not lose, and would soon prove it. Since he is used to chasing chimeras, let him continue to indulge his fantasy by trying to overrule the law and annul commonsense.

March 12, 2023
Tinubu: An unusual victory (1)

After navigating and finally crossing a ‘thousand’ rivers and rapids, some of them infested with political sharks and crocodiles, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu took the presidency by a healthy and unbridgeable margin in excess of 1.8 million votes compared with his nearest competitor’s votes. The third runner-up, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), who is incidentally the most competent among the dissenting presidential candidates, will not be heading to court. He has proved his point, and he knew from the beginning that he stood no chance of winning. But first and second runners-up, former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Anambra governor Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) respectively, having emerged from the same political stock but parted ways shortly before the votes, have opted to challenge the winner. Both the winner and first runner-up won 12 states, while Mr Obi won 11 and the Federal Capital City (FCT), Abuja.

Despite the impending legal fireworks over whether the scale of irregularities observed in the poll was strong enough to vitiate the poll outcome, Asiwaju Tinubu won as projected, a fact his opponents scorn, a fact the LP’s social media warriors have railed and campaigned against with the same fervid and terroristic style as before. Indeed, out of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, the APC candidate took the most difficult and problematic Southwest, Northwest and North-Central, and was first runner-up in the remaining zones of Northeast, South-South and Southeast. It is a mystery why the PDP and LP as well as many bitter and angry former leaders and senior politicians are disputing the victory. They insist the election was flawed obviously in the states where the first and second runners-up lost, but apparently untainted or statistically repressed in the states they won. They are not discomfited by the fact that the PDP and LP divided the votes that should have accrued to the PDP. In defending his readiness to litigate the APC victory, Alhaji Atiku admitted that the LP took states that traditionally voted the PDP. And yet he insists he won the February 25 poll. Mr Obi himself became a candidate as an afterthought, after seizing the candidacy of the LP a mere nine months before the election.

It is obvious that the main litigant will be the LP. Alhaji Atiku is in the legal jousting only because he would not want his first runner-up position invalidated should Mr Obi win his case. Should the APC be dethroned, the PDP and LP would naturally turn on each other. But matters are unlikely to get that far, regardless of the incendiary provocations by Mr Obi’s frenzied social media warriors and supporters, and notwithstanding ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s proud and unguarded fulminations, nor some religious leaders’ exaggerated and bad-tempered utterances. Two weeks before the presidential poll, this column indicated clearly and without hesitation that the APC candidate would win without the run-off some analysts speculated. Alhaji Atiku, the column also argued, was at the head of a bitterly divided and weakened party, and the moralising Mr Obi was not only pedantic and destitute of administrative and ideological depth, but it was also inconceivable that he would find the time, ideology and commonsense to penetrate the Northwest, Southwest and Northeast. The column concluded that though Mr Obi would harness the bible belts of the six zones to a very limited extent and even harvest some youth votes, it was still mathematically and rationally impossible for him to win.

Much more, this column suggested that should Mr Obi theoretically make it to the presidency, a possibility that was next to nothing, the country would fray at the edges in no distant time. The reasons were not far-fetched. One, Mr Obi, despite working his sorcery on many Nigerians, especially the church, youths and idealists, was unprepared for leadership. He made a hash of ruling Anambra, was and remains a dictator at heart, and his perspectives have been so pedestrian and ad hoc that it is impossible to explain why his supporters, including the conceited Chief Obasanjo, are enamoured of him. Two, his supporters and activists on social media were so frenzied and irrational that they had become indistinguishable from real, armed terrorists. They would bully anyone and abuse anyone who dared to oppose their Teflon candidate or question his bona fides. Should he win, the bullying would not stop, and the candidate himself, just like he had failed to condemn the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and deplore their bloodletting, would secretly relish and exploit their fanaticism. Three, unable to take the Northwest and Southwest, not to say the Northeast, he would be unable to pacify the three zones, let alone mollify what was certain to be their bitter recriminations. And having unscrupulously drained the church of its principles, values, and doctrines, and thus divided Nigeria along sectarian lines, it would be a matter of time before the dynamics of religious antagonisms consume his administration.

Both Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi have signified their readiness to litigate their defeats. They reserve the right to go to court. But they will lose again. It is simple mathematics: no formula exists by which half of something becomes whole of something. In the interim, Mr Obi’s elderly and youthful supporters will keep up a vicious and bitter campaign to delegitimise the February 25 poll. They have enlisted the support of senior citizens and youths whose loud denunciations on social media give the wrong impression of reality, but are nevertheless capable of rousing the disaffected into a potentially catastrophic ‘occupy Nigeria’ campaign. The administration is probably aware that these campaigns reflect an amalgam of curious and conflicting interests and are an indirect effort to stalemate and annul the poll victory, up to the point of diminishing it into an interim government, or impasse, or fresh elections. It is the route taken by Mali to that country’s regret and retrogression. In Nigeria, it could lead to far more cataclysmic reactions eventually crystallising into ethnic and religious crises, if not anarchy. The administration has enough information to preempt the madness afoot.

Since early 2022, the administration has not demonstrated the even-handedness needed to keep the ruling APC on an even keel. It mismanaged the party’s primary, half-heartedly skewed it in favour of an unpopular aspirant, and when it failed to arrest the rotational arrangement that eventually produced today’s president-elect, it punitively embarked on a welter of economic and political measures that combined to whittle the strength of its candidate. The Supreme Court has finally pronounced on one of those key economic measures that alienated the people from both the administration and the APC candidate. Short of going to court to litigate its own primary, the APC finally relented, backed its candidate, albeit grudgingly, but didn’t seem concerned about any untoward outcome. Weeks to the poll, after every effort to eviscerate the ruling party’s candidate had wilted before determined supporters led by the party’s governors, the president himself clambered on to the bandwagon and led the charge.

Even then, victory was not immediately assured. The EndSARS generation, full of loathing and rebellion, and egged on by shortsighted elders and leaders, began a horrendous campaign of calumny and unprintable scurrilities directed against the APC candidate. The PDP candidate was left severely alone. The youth displayed a sense of entitlement never seen in these parts, as they terrorised dissenters and rallied to the side of Mr Obi. Uncharacteristically, and reflecting the aggressive diminution of the principles and doctrines that have stood the church in good stead as they brought empires to heel, many church leaders seized upon the APC’s same-faith ticket to spew the most hateful, curse-laden rhetoric and sermons unprecedented in their history, enough to make John Knox wince and Girolamo Savonarola grimace. Instead of the impartiality and love and compassion their faith is known for, religious leaders cursed their members if they as much as looked in the direction of the APC. And even after failing to prevent the election of Asiwaju Tinubu, some religious leaders have doubled down to wish doom and catastrophe upon the president-elect. March would be the time of judgement, they said. And there would be no swearing in, they chorused in undiluted spite. Religion became the standard for public office, not competence.

More circumspect faith leaders, former presidents, and political leaders would perforce pause to ask why one man could not be stopped by his party, stopped by faith leaders, stopped by an administration which alienated him for eight years and would stop at nothing to demolish him, and why despite policies that turned the electorate against the ruling party, even the votes on February 25 could not stop him. Surely, there must be something about him. If, as his supporters rhapsodise, he is incomparable in his leadership ability, unrestrained in his mentoring propensity, is the most competent among the leading contenders for the presidency, is naturally gifted in managing complex systems, is unquestionably secular, has the most convincing understanding of public and global finance, and is best placed to manage a modern economy, could he then not be a gift to Nigeria? No extraterrestrial obstacle was placed in the paths of Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi, and even when the CBN rushed out its ill-conceived and poorly implemented naira swap policy, the APC candidate seemed to be the main target, especially with the other candidates acquiescing to CBN’s unlawful overreach. But instead of pausing to ask questions, the conspiracy to delegitimise the presidential election has gathered steam, with all the conspirators encouraging and instigating treason and taking oath to forestall the May 29 inauguration.

The administration must take steps to end its dithering. The election must not be allowed to become another June 12, 1993 debacle. Mr Obi largely harnessed a significant percentage of the church and youth votes to take two zones and get more than six million ballots; he could not win or rule resting on those divisive and inimical pedestals. Alhaji Atiku was humiliatingly sequestered into the Northeast, a sad declension for the once mighty PDP which for more than eight years had proved incapable of managing its crises and failings. The PDP could not have won. The winner, had Nigerians been capable of reflecting on the events since the past few years, and as every great statesman or war general knows, is actually God who sowed distrust in PDP and hardened the hearts of party leaders against reconciliation, blunted the Buhari administration’s self-destructive propensity, mysteriously placated the electorate over the CBN’s unconstitutional excursions, and even introduced the fourth man in the fire lit by the church thereby ensuring that the APC candidate’s tunic was not singed. What happened on February 25 was not normal; it was extraordinary and unusual. The fear now is that before the whole affair is ended on May 29 – and there will be an inauguration – many more notable people will be demystified and their reputations torn to shreds. The president may leave with a part of his reputation unscathed. Others will not be so lucky.

Consider the statistics. In the Northeast, the only zone where Alhaji Atiku took first, the PDP led with 51.7 percent of the votes using the four leading parties as basis for comparison. APC came second with a healthy 35.2 percent. In the North-Central, APC led with 42.3 percent to LP’s 28.7 percent and PDP’s 27.6 percent. The spread between the parties is realistic in view of the factors that influenced voting in that zone. In the Southwest, APC took 55.8 percent to PDP’s 23.1 percent and LP’s 20.7 percent. The contest was also open and democratic. In the Southeast, LP took 89.6 percent while the nearest opponents, the APC and PDP, took 5.8 percent and 4.2 percent respectively. The country cannot fail to notice how that zone closed ranks. And in the Northwest, the APC led with 40.2 percent to PDP’s 35.3 percent and NNPP’s 19.2 percent. Overall, the votes seem to give a clear hint of how to win a presidential election. Neither Alhaji Atiku nor Mr Obi paid heed, and they paid the price for their inattentiveness. The balloting and collation processes undoubtedly suffered hitches and attacks, but given how APC heavyweights and iconic states suffered election losses and drubbings, those litigating the election will be hard put to prove their cases. But they can try, especially the LP which got 25 percent in about 16 states instead of 24.

The PDP has been markedly restrained from calling for Armageddon. Not so the LP whose supporters, including and chiefly Chief Obasanjo, have been calling for doomsday. What they did not get through the votes, nor by arresting the counting and collation process, nor feared they might not get through the courts, they hope to procure through defamatory and incitive social media campaigns and street action. But those are perilous routes whose ends no one can predict. If the unconstitutional campaigns are not stifled by firm constitutional response from the administration, they could become strident until they spiral out of control. Even though they are not as bilious as the LP, nor as bad-tempered and irreverent, it is expected that the APC will defend their victory. They probably understand that since 1999, this is the first time the country will be electing a real bridge-builder, a man who will not be pushed around, and someone who knows how to forge consensus and manage an economy on the scale of the Asian tigers. It would be tragic if the self-centred, anti-democratic and conspiratorial Chief Obasanjo, and entitled youths advocating visa bans against their leaders with perfect neo-colonial equanimity, and the contumacious pro-Obi social media fanatics who eulogise violence and hate speech are allowed to have a field day spewing extremist statements. The constitution envisages electoral infractions and disputes, and the laws of the land have provisions to mediate them. To willfully and arrogantly instigate conflagration because a particular outcome is not forthcoming is to incite rebellion against the constitution.

Asiwaju Tinubu will undoubtedly be sworn in on May 29. Apart from offering olive branches to his opponents, he has also tried to reassure youths about their future. On the surface, it is a great gesture; but he needs to be cautious. While it is good to design policies targeted at youths, it must be done concomitantly with policies and programmes that purge the youths of indiscipline and the sense of entitlement they have arrogantly and indifferently nurtured over the years. After all, youth does not start and end with the imperious Southwest or Southeast. The country, of which the youth is a subset, must be holistically reengineered and policies conceived and implemented to forge unity, sense of values, and a great and ambitious future with youths coaxed to tap in.

Asiwaju Tinubu is the first person to prepare himself for leadership, despite his humble and controversial beginnings. It is a miracle he is still standing after decades of fierce, unrelenting and defamatory attacks; that miracle should propel him into the State House in May. It will not be because he is perfect or that the election which midwifed his victory was flawless; it will be because he was destined to rule and, what is more, he has met that destiny with the fortitude, uncommon grace, generosity and faith few among Nigerian leaders, past or present, have managed to summon. The former Lagos governor is the first knowledgeable and self-confident leader Nigeria will be having since independence; that is why all hell has been let loose to prevent him from acceding the throne. It is one of the stupendous ironies of Nigerian politics and life that religious leaders who should be more perceptive and capable of reading the signs of the times are numbered among those obstacles and sceptics.

March 5, 2023