After his last attempt to import Calabar carnival into Lagos ended in a fiasco with Eyo masquerades from Ilubirin chasing the impudent rascal across the Carter Bridge, it became clear to snooper that very soon, Okon would get his master into trouble with the law.
Each time he was thwarted in a scheme to make some money, Okon comes up with more inventive scams. The last time he ventured near the Marina, he was beaten to an inch of his life for passing off cow dung as the latest aphrodisiac from Bombay. Yet the mad Calabar boy has remained undaunted. Snooper discovered that he has even collected money from some Efik fanatics claiming that he was importing the Donald and Onari road show to Lagos. When we asked him about this, the mad boy retorted, “Oga, if fine boy no find work na fine bara remain”.
As the end of term approached, snooper mounted a discreet surveillance on Okon’s room to make sure he doesn’t import any contraband. What we saw shook us to the marrow. On the two term papers Okon received, he had crossed out the grades of B and B+ and replaced them with E and F. When confronted, Okon exploded:
“Oga, the yeye doctor call me and say, I get B, so I come tell am not to joke with Okon, dat I wan E and F. E be excellent and F be say finish, which means say Okon don finish them patapata. Porogodo”
“And what did the man say?”
“The man come dey laugh like hyena for Bakassi. Na im I come cross out him yeye grade and I come put better grade”
“Okon, don’t be a fool”, I shouted laughing uncontrollably.
“Oga dis one no be matter of fool ooo. The yeye man say make I give am feedback and I say I no dey give feedback. Even feed upfront I no fit give. Oga, abi feedback no be another name for egunje? I no know why corruption don finish Yoruba people like this.”
“So what grade did baba make?” I asked.
“Dat one dem come write im initials for am. Dem give am OO”.
“But Okon, why, why now?”
“Oga, I think say old age don dey hammer baba. Dem ask am about the problem of theodicy and him com say he get problem with Theophilus Danjuma and Daisy”.
On that perilous note, snooper quickly back heeled away from the mad boy’s lunatic enclave.
After expressing much displeasure over the refusal of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, to honour its invitations, the House of Representatives eventually had its way when last Tuesday he sauntered into the lower legislative chamber to meet with the ad hoc committee on naira redesign. He was full of apologies for not turning up earlier, and as expected blamed everyone else but himself and the president for the shambolic implementation of the policy on naira redesign. The banks were to blame for hoarding, and the anti-graft agencies were on their tails, he said. Nigerians should let the cashless policy work, considering its capacity to rein in kidnappers, curb inflation, and check vote buying, he crowed. He acknowledged the pains experienced by depositors who had turned in their old notes and not got new ones, but offered no real palliative.
The ad hoc legislative committee members were puzzled at first, wondering whether the long-awaited showdown between the lawmakers and Mr Emefiele would end in anticlimax, until he finally acknowledged that even after the deadline no depositor would lose his money as the CBN would still be available to give value to their deposits. Why not the commercial banks? The Reps failed to push the matter of why the CBN would deliberately and willfully concentrate so much administrative power in its tremulous hands. They seemed eager to believe him when he suggested that some banks were sabotaging the policy on redesigned naira. They did not pin him on down on the scale of the so-called sabotage vis-à-vis the scores and scores of local governments without banking facilities, necessitating indigenes of the unbanked communities to undergo needless trauma due principally to the short notice given to depositors to exchange their notes.
The Reps ad hoc committee insisted that the 10-day extension (which will expire in five days) was unreasonable, but they seemed satisfied that since the CBN had given assurance that no one would lose his money and could still exchange it after the deadline, then perhaps it was okay. But it is not okay. The notice was not only indecently short, even the banks, including the CBN, did not also begin to substantially dispense new notes on December 15, 2022 as envisaged by the policy. Consequently, depositors were depositing old notes and returning with old notes until the deadline was a week to expiration. The Reps seemed convinced that the policy was inspired by wholly ulterior motives, to wit, as a tool in the brutal in-fighting raging within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to truncate the coming elections as well as the ambitions of certain candidates. But they were reluctant to drive home that argument.
By hesitating to hold Mr Emefiele’s feet to the fire, the CBN governor got away with a slap on the wrist. He had made nebulous concessions about no one losing his money simply because of expired deadline, and had also suggested that patriotic interest demanded that the policy be allowed to work; but he had done nothing nor even said anything to assuage the bitterness on the streets, the pains experienced by frustrated depositors unable to have access to cash in an economy that is still largely dependent on cash transactions. As a politician and card-carrying member of the APC, not to say a tired and scorned aspirant for the presidency, Mr Emefiele remained deceptively vengeful throughout the duration of the ad hoc hearing. It is either he had convinced and placated the Reps or the lawmakers had finally woken up to the somber fact that the policy, its misapplication, and horrifying execution were actually beyond the incoherent and rambling CBN governor.
Whatever the case is, the crisis will not be ameliorated in five days, nor even in weeks. The APC as a party will be held responsible for messing up a policy which other countries had executed seamlessly without as much as a whimper. In an election season, the public anger could be foreboding. But as some critics have said, stoking that anger was indeed the original plan, apart from the incidental but simplistic objectives of catching currency hoarders, frustrating ransom payments, and paralysing vote buyers. Mr Emefiele was in on the nefarious plans, alleged critics, and was probably central to its execution, and was doing his part without restraint, compunction and hesitation. Why the lawmakers who seemed to have cottoned on to the horrifying objectives of the policy failed to press their advantage against the unconvincing and posturing CBN governor is hard to understand. Mr Emefiele has slipped through the net and will smugly go on to erect barricades before depositors to his heart’s content. Except public reaction threatens the conspirators, it will otherwise be difficult to engage the CBN and the administration as well as get them to stop treating Nigerians with such appalling condescension.
The Reps initially insisted on a six-month extension. That made sense. But the Muhammadu Buhari administration and the CBN will have none of that. Unfortunately, the committee hearing ended with so much ambiguity that both sides will interpret the resolutions from their cracked prisms. The Reps believe they have bought Nigerians time and compelled Mr Emefiele and his CBN to respect the CBN Act. But nothing in their obfuscating resolutions has lifted the roadblocks erected by the government, or their contempt for suffering Nigerians. Which depositor knows the road to the CBN? And why did the CBN first forbid the banks to decline paying cash to customers over the counter, only to now relent? And in any case, where is the cash? Mr Emefiele has gracelessly given sop to the devil; he can now turn round to do as much havoc as he pleases. The lawmakers on the other hand will be left flummoxed in the days ahead, except perhaps public anger forces the hand of the government.
Atiku continues to flip-flop
Sensing the disunity in the APC, and keenly aware that some elements in the presidency might not be averse to him winning the presidency and could in fact be subtly paving the way for him, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has begun open flirtation with the presidency. Days ago he defended President Muhammadu Buhari against what he concluded was an attack on the president’s convoy in Kano by elements instigated by the APC. Weeks ago too, he had initially synchronised his point of view with the CBN on the naira redesign policy as well as the short notice for cash swaps.
But as his flip-flop over the lynching last May of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto showed, Alhaji Atiku seldom takes a position based on principle and reflection. After seeing the sour public mood on the new naira notes policy, and days after the APC candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu had publicly denounced the deadline and asked for extension, Alhaji Atiku also went on Twitter to ask for a deadline shift. He had argued that the authorities needed to “ease the burden of the people” while sensitisation continued. He then added: “It is important for the CBN to consider an extension for the public to swap their old notes thereby reducing the financial consequences on these vulnerable citizens.”
However, days later on February 1, he again flip-flopped by suggesting that no more extension should be granted on the swap because only election riggers stood to benefit. Just days later, and without reference to his argument three days earlier. Hear him: “…The CBN should be wary of the elite whose motive for crying out about more postponement of the deadline for the tenure of the old naira notes is sinister and far from being altruistic. I am totally in support of building a cashless economy and reducing the amount of cash in our economy. The anti-democratic elements who are pretending to be democrats are the ones ganging up against the CBN because of the currency redesigning and the cashless regime it seeks to enthrone…I urge the CBN and the government to ignore their antics. The CBN should not succumb to the current pressure.”
If voters oblige him, Alhaji Atiku will scheme and flip-flop his way to the presidency, perhaps seizing advantage of the rancour and bitterness in the APC, but completely unmindful of the pains and aspirations of the people.
In 2014, the former Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh at the end of his second term in office was asked at a media briefing, which was the third in ten years, how he will describe his legacy considering that he failed to act when he should have regarding Indo-US relations.
His response was “I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the opposition parties in Parliament.”
Last Thursday, President Muhammadu Buhari, also due to end his two-term tenure soon, while on a state visit to his home state, Katsina, without being asked a similar question like Singh, said “ I have done my best, and I hope history will be kind to me.”
There must be something about history that leaders like to take solace in as a better judge of their tenure than their citizens and the media. They always think that those who assess their performances while still in office don’t give them enough credit for their supposed achievements.
When leaders hope that History will be kind or kinder to them, they imagine that their accomplishments will be better appreciated long after they have left office and there would be the opportunity to rate them against their successors or more information would be available on why they took or did not take some decisions.
While they can hope that History will be kind to them, they need to be conscious of the need to meet the expectations of the people who are in a position to assess them based on their immediate impact.
If a leader does not live up to the expectations of his or her citizens, he or she should simply admit so and offer necessary explanations instead of making it seem like he or she is been unjustly criticised. History is an accurate account of what happened in the past and not an alibi for what should have been done that was not done.
President Buhari wants Nigerians to accept that he has done his best, but not many Nigerians think so based on what they have had to endure despite the high hopes they had by electing him.
He definitely has a number of accomplishments to his credit across various sectors, but history will record against his tenure some major unpalatable developments which are unprecedented in the history of the country.
Admittedly his administration inherited lots of security and economic crisis, but the situation has not significantly improved contrary to his claim and other government officials that he has made much difference.
Despite the best efforts of the military and security agencies, insecurity has remained a major problem in the country with terrorists, militants, kidnappers and unknown gunmen having a field day with many Nigerians killed and maimed.
After scaring travellers off the road, not even the train service is safe with the attack on the Abuja -Kaduna train during which many persons were kidnapped and their families had to pay a ransom before they were released. Another train attack was recorded in Edo state recently and efforts are still on to rescue some of the kidnapped passengers.
The jailbreak in Kuje, Abuja is one of the most daring in the history of the country considering that many terrorists escaped and the buildings burnt. Nigerians are still awaiting the report of the probe of the incident.
The reality that the current state of insecurity in the country which does not spare Katsina State that Buhari admitted is a major drawback which will count against him when the history of his administration is written.
How can history be kind to President Buhari with the economic challenges Nigerians are experiencing? Prices of goods and services have become unaffordable for many Nigerians. Foreign exchange rates are at an all-time high and fuel scarcity is now being experienced nationwide.
As I read the story of President Buhari saying he hopes history will be kind to him at the fuel station where I bought a litre for N320, I couldn’t help but shake my head in disbelief about how bad the situation in the country has become despite the government’s claim that all is well.
ABEOKUTA, capital of Ogun State, must have metaphysical significance for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The city has become a cathartic that enables him ventilate his preemptions and premonitions, where he takes the wind out of the sail of his opponents and exposes their chicaneries. On June 2, 2022, less than a week to the party’s presidential primary in Abuja, he spoke with uncommon candour about efforts within and outside his party to abort or forestall his presidential bid. The outburst was termed provocative, disrespectful to the president, laced with ethnic sentiments, and a showcase for his politics of entitlement. After the furore died down, a careful analysis of his speech, which was rendered in Yoruba with all its delicate nuances, showed something totally different. “If not for me that led the battlefront, Buhari wouldn’t have won,” he began cautiously. “He contested first, second and third time, but lost. He even said on television that he won’t contest again. But I went to his home in Katsina. I told him ‘you would contest and win, but you won’t joke with the matter of the Yoruba’. Since he has been elected, I have not been appointed minister. I didn’t get a contract. This time, it’s Yoruba turn and in Yorubaland, it’s my turn.”
The controversy and bad-tempered conclusions his outburst attracted were yet to completely die down when last week Asiwaju Tinubu again indulged his customary candour. Last year’s controversial statement, which introduced a few pithy sayings into Nigeria’s political lexicon, was made during the aspirant’s tour of the states to persuade party men, delegates and traditional authorities to give him their support. This year’s preemption is coming about four weeks to the presidential election, and it speaks piercingly to his loathing of conspirators eternally embroiled in schemes to scuttle his ambition and even subvert the elections. The conspirators include shadowy figures manipulating fuel supply to create scarcity, and the naira redesign policy which has starved the public of new notes days to the expiration of the old banknotes. As usual, the APC candidate’s outburst is interpreted as targeting President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration, forcing the candidate’s spokesmen to issue a vigorous rejoinder regarding the intent and purpose of the Abeokuta campaign speech that was also rendered in Yoruba. This time, APC spokesmen have not attempted to hide behind the nuances of Yoruba language.
Here is the controversial excerpt from Asiwaju Tinubu’s address at the rally. “They keep (hoard) fuel, they keep money (hoard new notes), they are the ones who know why they are doing that,” he said contemptuously on January 25 in Abeokuta. “If you like, change the ink of the naira. We are going to win and the PDP will fall down. The city boy is here. I am the son of the soil. We will take the government from them, the bad people. They don’t want the election to take place. They want to stop the elections. Will you allow them?” It requires a liberal interpretation of the statement to suggest that this was a jab at the president, at least on the scale of last June’s statement which mentioned the president but gave no indication the then aspirant knew where the president stood. The president may stand solid behind the CBN’s Godwin Emefiele in defending naira redesign, and may also keep his fingers crossed over the unending fuel queues, but there was nothing in the APC candidate’s statement that suggested the president was involved in inspiring naira or fuel hoarding. In any case, the former Lagos governor’s perspective has been corroborated by Itse Sagay, a professor of law, and the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), who both suggest that the current crises drenching the country are the product of a multiplicity of conspiracies designed to foist undemocratic options upon the country.
Days before the APC presidential primary last June, Asiwaju Tinubu was brave enough to denounce the machinations within the APC designed to preclude him unlawfully and undemocratically from contesting. It was obvious that the president was at best apathetical to the aspiration of the former Lagos governor, though it was not always so clear at the beginning. But weeks before the fateful primary, when the party and its leaders engaged in feverish jostling to narrow the choices of the party, the public began to fear that all the manoeuvres were designed to discourage and exclude Asiwaju Tinubu from the race. To test the waters and prove his theory, he met the president to intimate him of his intention to contest the presidency. The president pretended to some animation, but his lukewarmness was barely concealed. And when party leaders began to speak about Senate President Ahmed Lawan as consensus candidate, the former Lagos governor went for broke, spoke about his contributions to the making of the APC, how he virtually foisted President Muhammadu Buhari on the party as candidate, and how he made implacable enemies among the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and angered ex-president Goodluck Jonathan just so that the APC cold win the presidency. If anything, he groaned, going by his contributions, it was his turn to reap some benefits. His logic was turned on its head, of course, but the statement perhaps pricked the conscience of some party leaders who rallied behind him, some for private reasons, and others for altruistic reasons. Asiwaju Tinubu went on to win the primary by a healthy margin of 1,271 out of a delegate list of 2,203. Had he kept his peace and forbore to anger party leaders, he would be watching from the sidelines, with the additional anguish of being compelled to support aspirants who are not his betters.
Now, barely four weeks to the presidential election, a similar but even more corrosive scenario is at play. Many APC leaders, it seems, are yet to reconcile themselves to the candidacy of the former Lagos governor. Some party officials still doubt the total commitment of party chairman Abdullahi Adamu, but at least the former Nasarawa governor recognises that as chairman, whether it pleases him or not, and despite being sometimes harshly described as a northern irredentist, he has an obligation to deliver victory to the APC in February. Some northern APC governors are also said to be lukewarm to the ambition of Asiwaju Tinubu for other reasons. Worse, and the suspicion is unfortunately gaining currency, some party members and officials are said to doubt the commitment of the president to the cause of APC victory next month. They cite his noncommittal approach to the election, his admonition to the electorate to vote their conscience without correspondingly and vigorously attempting to help voters appreciate how their conscience should lead them ineluctably to vote APC, and what they really stand to gain from a Tinubu presidency vis-à-vis the egregious options represented by the PDP and Labour Party (LP) candidates.
It was probably against this background that Asiwaju Tinubu, again in Abeokuta, expressed the premonition of a conspiracy to undo his ambition and even scuttle the entire elections. Except a few rabid haters of the APC candidate, there is no doubt that the APC administration has promoted ideas and policies completely at variance with their publicly stated ambition to win the presidency. Last June, APC leaders sponsored a welter of policies and persons to preclude the former Lagos governor from the presidential race, including dethroning much earlier former party chairman Adams Oshiomhole, illegally prolonging the mandate of the Mai Mala Buni interim party leadership, and finally claiming that the president had conspiratorially backed Sen Lawan as consensus candidate. They even toyed with the idea of getting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to arrest and detain the former Lagos governor in order to give him the jitters. If they went that length last year, few believe they cannot deliberately mess up the ostensibly good naira redesign policy as well as remain indifferent to the sufferings of the people on fuel queues just to put their candidate’s nose out of joint.
The consequence is that Nigerian voters are blaming the APC for their sufferings and woes. In fact, given his skillfulness in political campaigns and strategies, had Asiwaju Tinubu being the opposition candidate, he would have successfully tarred the ruling party with the brush of incompetence, and made them pay a high political price. But he is the ruling party’s candidate, and he can ill afford to distance himself from the party and its many ineffective policies. In Abeokuta, he cleverly blamed the PDP for conspiring with bankers to hoard new notes, and fingered other faceless conspirators for fuel scarcity. His premonitions are incontrovertible, even if the objects of his scorn are a little far-fetched. If he thought President Buhari was actively plotting against his candidacy, his supporters argued, he would have found a way to say it unambiguously. The president has been unable to completely conceal his lack of enthusiasm for Asiwaju Tinubu’s candidacy, and from all indications would not pine in regret should the APC lose in February. This has alarmed most northern APC governors, but at least the president has still gone on to campaign for his party, though a little perfunctorily. It remains to be seen whether his involvement will constitute a positive or negative factor in the APC race to keep the presidency. Asiwaju Tinubu’s preemptions should on the other hand help to expose the shenanigans of APC insiders and PDP outsiders as the country is needlessly subjected to cruel and conspiratorial policies deliberately, provocatively and inexpertly executed weeks to the elections.
CBN’s needless controversies
GODWIN Emefiele is probably the most controversial Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor ever. It is a credit to how powerfully connected he is that he has not been forced to go. It is not just his style and person that are controversial, even his policies, many of them half-baked, and others badly and mischievously executed, are much more controversial. Probably because of his powerful connections, not to say President Muhammadu Buhari’s perplexing style of leadership, Mr Emefiele has repeatedly affronted the law, including CBN rules on Ways and Means lending to an increasingly desperate and profligate federal government. The governor has in a manner of speaking got away with murder. In 2015, at the assumption of office of the Buhari administration, the federal government had less than N800bn as Ways and Means balance with the CBN. The balance, which should not be more than five percent of previous year’s actual collected revenue, is now in excess of N20trn, with the Finance ministry pushing to convert the loans into traceable securities.
Not only has National Assembly oversight responsibility towards the CBN faded almost completely, with the CBN governor now a law to himself, the federal government has, because of its besottedness to an ingratiating Mr Emefiele, also abandoned its disciplinary responsibility to both the CBN and its governor. And with many cabals roaming and cavorting along the apex bank corridors, the governor has felt invincible and become increasingly reckless. He openly plays politics, up to the point of even contesting the presidency of the country, only abandoning the race after coming to grief rather early in the race. He inspired, almost instinctively, the major and ramifying policy of redesigning the naira and phasing out old banknotes, and was condescending enough to give only a month-and-a-half notice. Other countries give lengthy notices. But because they hoped to catch thieves and thwart political ambitions, tasks that are music to the ears of the administration, Mr Emefiele has been indulged.
The consequence of the simplistic approach to central banking in Nigeria and the equally puerile approach to governance is that the country is today in an uproar. The media are inundated with harrowing stories of public anguish over the new notes, but the CBN and the administration have stood pat, unmoved by public pains, and unimpressed by their floundering public and financial policies. If they will extend their punishing deadline, they will probably do it on the last day; but they will groan at the prospect of letting the ‘thieves and political scallywags’ they have identified slip from their nets. Left to them, they will stick to the deadline. Yet, they were the ones who made the deadline unrealistic by being unable to dispense new notes from their December 15 commencement date, in fact only dispensing new notes in earnest a week or so before the final deadline. This is a criminally negligent way of implementing public policy. But what do they care, as long as the ‘criminals’ they hope to drag into their nets are caught.
The Department of State Service (DSS) allegations against Mr Emefiele, suggesting he had funded terrorism, have been vitiated by powerful interests, and even the secret service is stupefied enough to keep the case in abeyance. The drama surrounding the CBN governor’s last overseas trip has petered out into melodrama, while the attempt to arrest him for questioning has also been staved off by the administration’s meddling with secret service investigations. For the remaining months of the administration, Mr Emefiele can rest assured he will come to no harm. He lives in a gilded cage constructed by those he had done some great service and empowered. They will have his back. But whether the protection and preferential treatment will last for all time will depend on the next administration, legislature, and the judiciary. In Nigeria, things are not always what they seem.
In policy enunciations, both Mr Emefiele and the Buhari administration have been extremely fecund in the past few weeks for reasons overt and covert. Speculations are rife as to the covert reasons, reasons that are not inspiring in so far as public policies are concerned or ennobling of the architects of the policies. They do not feel obliged to offer any explanations as to their late surge of ideas and policies, nor do they seem really bothered by the pains these policies are inflicting on the people. It is enough, in a simplistic but mortifying way, that their one-sided analysis of the benefits of the new notes policy satisfies their insular cravings. But if the policy miscarries at the last moment, perhaps the administration and the CBN governor will have a rethink. Being accustomed to brinkmanship, they will persevere for as long as possible in their dictatorial approach to policy-making.
Forced Covid-19 vaccinations?
NUDGED to say or do something about the recrudescence of Covid-19 in China, Nigerian health authorities insisted that they would not do more than increase their surveillance of the disease and possibly subject arriving travellers to rapid diagnostic test. Positive cases, they warned, would be quarantined. They would not immediately compel the reintroduction of protocols birthed by the disease, but they advised Nigerians to on their own think of masking up again in crowded places and washing their hands. Barely one week later, perhaps alarmed by stories coming out of China and other parts of the world consequent upon the trigger effects of winter, the Ministry of Health was quoted as saying they had mandated Port Health authorities to demand vaccination certificates from travellers, while inability to present one would attract compulsory vaccination.
At the peak of the disease, Nigeria insisted on tests from country of departure and tests on arrival, never a compulsory vaccination. What has changed? Assuming they were quoted correctly, they should abandon the nonsense and, if they like, return to previous protocols. Forced vaccination should not be contemplated.
“I was elated when in a unique church gathering with other people in attendance in the year 2018, before the 2019 elections, the revered man of God, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, made a passionate appeal to all attendees to please go and register as party members at the ward level in any political party of their choices. At that instant, I cast a furtive glance at my wife because before that time I have been bemused with pastors castigating politics and politicians, only after winning elections, this same set of pastors welcome such politicians who are now holders of higher offices in government with high honour qualifying them to sit in exalted seats that even some senior ministers of God cannot sit! However, I would have wished that the statement was made at a larger forum, and possibly repeatedly.” – John Ekundayo, Nation, Sunday 22nd January 2023.
It was during the time of two-party politics in Nigeria. The electoral process adopted in choosing candidates at the polls was the Option A4. It was a system where the registered voters, on the day of election, will queue behind the photograph of the preferred candidate. There was this interesting and intriguing incident that took place in my hometown that is related to the topic of this article. There was one of the candidates already being celebrated as the winner, even before the election. In dramatic twists and turns, in less than 12 hours to the commencement of voting, some people from certain segments of the community, were vehement and vociferous. There was no electricity then in my hometown. Determined as they were, they went from house-to-house in the night to sway and swing voters’ preferences to the other candidate who was seemingly less fancied. This subterranean political persuasion worked as the day of the election witnessed the loss of the seemingly popular candidate! This columnist’s mother took part in that election. Heraccount was emotionally worth learning from. She recounted that in her polling unit she was the only one queuing up behind the photograph of the candidate who eventually lost. Her raison d’etre: the candidate was her close relative and never would she vote against him. She also made sure she did not sit on the fence by not participating in the election. Lessons learnt: one day may be too long in politics to dictate a swing or shift. In addition, interests could be diverse in a clan, community, county and country. In this episode, the incident occurred that way because it took place in a clustered clan-like community. However, one thing to take away: interests of registered voters or electorates. On a larger scale, especially the presidential elections or gubernatorial elections, covering vast communities, districts and/or regions, there will be diversified interests that will dictate the choices that the voters will make on the day of the election.
Regional and Religious Raison d’etre
Truth be told, the Buhari administration at the centre has exacerbated or thickened than any government of the past the regional and religious lines amongst discerning Nigerians. This has been depicted in skewed appointments of key men and women of northern extraction and mostly of his own faith in key government appointments. It is as if the Federal Character Commission (FCC) set up to moderate and ensure equity by adhering to a quota system in such matters does not exist! It was the thinking of certain elders of the church that at his coming in 2019, he would possibly turn over a new leaf, alas, there was no reprieve. Moreover, there was the perceived preference for his own kith and kin to the detriment of other tribes in other regions. This columnist pinpointed this in a series of articles calling on Baba Buhari to act as the real father of the big house called Nigeria. It was too little, and too late. Any wonder, the southern governors vouching overtly for the zoning of the presidency to the south? It was a truism that the Church suffered great casualties resulting from banditry and terrorism under this government possibly more than any other government in history. This is the crux of thematter why certain leaders of the Church are exhibiting so much angst against the ruling party’s choosing a Muslim from the north to be running mate to another Muslim from the south as the party’s presidential flag bearer. This columnist has gone down this lane to justify the Church’s unfavorable disposition to the ruling party and would like to make a categorial stand on 25th February 2023. However, the Church is in an apparent conundrum as her members are strong stakeholders or chieftains in these leading political parties fielding presidential candidates. Which party should the church side with in this seeming scenario? In essence, the church is clamouring for an interest in 2023 but appears to be in a conundrum in voicing her choice of preferred candidate regarding the presidential election.
Lessons Learnt and Way Forward
It is high time the church released her best eleven that have the call into government (politics). This set of people should be harvested from denomination to denomination. Thereafter, there should be proper, proactive and practical training for them that may include serving as interns involved in community service while being monitored and evaluated. Secondly, there should be repeated clarion calls for these set of people to go to the units and wards in their chosen party and be part and parcel of grassroots party politics. It is at the ward levels delegates are chosen and vital decisions are incubated within the party. Poser: how much could the church do for the incumbent Vice President, Pastor Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, when he was aspiring to become the presidential flag bearer of the ruling party? I know the answer many will give: we prayed. We have been doing that all along, how has it changed the narrative? If there have been many committed Christian delegates, there might have been a different outcome at the primary election of his party. This columnist, in the course of being an exemplary follower and ethnographic researcher, was supporting a gubernatorial aspirant in 2014 in a state in the south west and was one of the people in the inner circle. At the end of the day, I shook my head and was sorry for the elites of this country who churn out big grammar especially in the social media when I beheld the quality of men and women that were the delegates. There were some of them who were semi-illiterates while some could hardly differentiate their left from their right indeciding real matters affecting the community and state. This is the scenario virtually all over Nigeria. I was recounting this incident in a friend’s office in Lagos in which one of the leading party stalwarts was present. My friend was the CEO of his organization with many seated in his spacious office when suddenly the facial expression of this party chieftain changed! He shouted: “send this man out of this place!” Why? He knew I was hitting the nail on the head! Thirdly, and this is related to the previous point, the Church, denomination by denomination, should be involved in leadership cum followership research studies. The RCCG Directorate of Politics and Governance, for instance, has its job already cut out! These studies would unravel in empirical manner: the voting patterns of the church in past elections; what percentage of eligible church members register, and eventually vote; what motivates members’ participation, especially the youths, in party politics and politicking; the role of mother and fathers in family participation in the electoral process; the followership typologies extant within the Church and what to do to address this, etc. The last point mentioned is germane. What are followership typologies within the Church, and why is the knowledge imperative? They are classified in followership literatures as alienated, passive, conformist, pragmatist and exemplary – according to the leading scholar in followership studies, Professor Robert E. Kelly. For instance, if they are more alienated followers, it means the Church may be apolitical in content; and if most of the Church members are conformist, they would go with whatever the pastor says on political matters; however, if they are exemplary, they would engage with the political process whilst independent thinking will guide their choices rather than the pastor dictating the way to go. In this vein, dictating the direction to vote from the pulpit for exemplary followers may not hold water.
Concluding this piece, this columnist will want to stress the need to be our brothers’ keepers. Biblical Joseph made provision for his brothers and their families as shepherds in Egypt. It is sordid and sad that many Christians in government hardly remember their brothers and sisters while in office. This columnist could vividly recount the camaraderie amongst Muslims brothers and sisters while working as a civilservant in Alausa Secretariat while the same was not perceived among Christians. There was a time one of my senior directors was appealing to me to be a regular worshipper at the Chapel, Alausa. I initially consented but while I perceived lack of love among the flock, I reconsidered my decision and rather adhered to fellowshipping with my local denomination. What is the use of carrying a big Bible and you are inaccessible or unreachable to your brother and sister in Christ? This columnist reached out to the erstwhile Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, a Muslim, via an email while studying in Malaysia. He was God-sent to offer me a scholarship to complete my PhD research in Malaysia, and subsequently offered yours sincerely a pensionable job in the prestigious Lagos State Civil Service. I was on that beat till I retired meritoriously in January 2021. In conclusion, it is high time the Church began preparation towards 2027 in order to make an impact in our country better than previous election years. We are the salt and light of the world; and thus, positioned to teach the world wisdom. The time to act starts from now; and the Church acting should be unanimous, collaborative whilst seeking harmoniously and peacefully the interests of her members. This could be on denomination basis as well as through the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN). It could even happen that Muslims and Christians may collaborate to ward off the possibility of an atheist emerging in future as the President. In essence, it is of wisdom to avoid confronting any party or flag bearer based on religious instinct or inclination for now. What are the cherished, cogent and crucial interests of the Church? Will these and others things the Church desire be taken into cognizance by the candidates? This should be the Church’s disposition for 2023. One good and gladdening thing: the Church, through CAN, has opened her doors to the leading presidential flag bearers to intimate her with their programmes for the citizens. The onus should be on the individual followers or voters to make up their minds on their choices at the 25th February poll. It is less than a month from now!
John Ekundayo, Ph.D. – Harvard-Certified Leadership Strategist, and also a Development Consultant, can be reached via +2348030598267 (WhatsApp only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com
“Great Nigerian youths; ponder intently on this. The Jonathan presidency, mentally slow, had force exerted on his threads or strings, fast one at that, and more than half of the time, to the swings of the Obasanjo’s until the rug under Jonathan’s feet got hauled out.
The Obasanjo false epistle cannot be for the fun of it. It is out of malice. The letter is the sword of partisan wrangling from the scabbard appropriated to derail Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s steady presidential campaigns; mobilize Nigerians, particularly the young generations against his election as president; and to foist a puppet president in Obi on Nigeria. Obasanjo, whose military and civilian governments failed to coalesce the yearnings of Nigerians for growth and development is grossly bankrupt to dictate who our next president should be. The man who pressured the National Assembly to manipulate the constitution in favour of his third term agenda has lost purity to recommend the presidential candidate Nigerians should vote for. The man whose public conducts slammed a huge question mark on his eligibility for the world leadership laurel, the highly coveted Nobel Prize for World Peace, for which he travelled global, in rowdy manner and never had it, has forfeited aptitude to commend Nigerians to vote in a particular direction”-Isaac Olusesi in ‘Tinubu, Obasanjo and Nigerian Youths’.
Electioneering campaigns towards this year’s election has been so fouled up one needs not be a Nostradamus to know what the election, especially its aftermath, will look like.
As I wrote in the first part to this article, whether he knows it or not, ex- president Olusegun Obasanjo’s whining; particularly his coyly veiled instigation of the Nigerian youth, is bound to be a major contributory factor to whatever post- election conflagration Nigeria may witness, no matter which way the presidential election slated for 25 February, ’23 goes.
This is because, as is his wont, every other political leader apart him, and possibly Peter Obi now, is a devil incarnate who has joined up in eating up the future of the Nigerian youth, even that of the yet unborn generation. But he is exempt, who has spent the longest years as Head of state, but failed spectacularly to unite the country.
It is this his destructive, evil mindset that has ensured that not a single Nigerian president, after him, has been spared his lacerating letters. It got so bad a mild mannered President Goodluck Jonathan couldn’t help telling him to shove it.
In his last corrosive showing, he wrote as follows: “My dear young men and women, you must come together and bring about a truly meaningful change in your lives. If you fail, you have no one else to blame. Your present and future are in your hands to make or to mar. The future of Nigeria is in the same manner in your hands and literally so. If for any reason you fail to redeem yourself and your country, you will have lost the opportunity for good and you will have no one to blame but yourselves and posterity will not forgive you. Get up, get together, get going and get us to where we should be (forgetting he had all the opportunities but never did). And you, the youth, it is your time and your turn. ‘Eyin Lokan’ (Your turn”).
Whenever Obasanjo uses the word ‘dear’ for you, I urge that you mentally recall the experience of PDP Chairman, Audu Ogbe in his hands, after having lunch in Ogbe’s house or what he later visited on Governor Ayo Fayose, after he had severally visited with him in Ekiti eating pounded yam.
I would like to draw attention to the following portion of that letter: “And you, the youth, it is your time and your turn. ‘Eyin Lokan’.
Like a practised demagogue, all Obasanjo is doing here is presenting Obi – a two term governor, who left office almost 10 years ago – as a youth who must, like it or not, be voted for, failing which they would have forfeited their future. Is it possible, by any means, that Obasanjo is seeing the Nigerian youth – East, West, North and South, as homogenous, that is, one and the same, and with identical interests? Did they all react the same way to the #OccupyNigeria protest against petrol subsidy removal of 2012, or to the #EndSars riots of October, 2020?
Monofiki!
So if we know President Obasanjo well enough, we’d know he actually addressed his letter to the restive Igbo youths whose kinsman, Peter Obi he endorsed, and who he knows very well have been burning, killing, decapitating and, literally levying a war of sorts on all security agents at sight. Only this past week, a local Government Area Chairman was beheaded in the region after the family had paid N6M ransom.
He was asking them to get ready for anything, should Peter Obi fail to win, to quote him: “under my watch”.
It should be remembered that this letter was a follow up to his, and Chief Ayo Adebanjo’s visit, to the Southeast to shed crocordile tears at a momentous gathering of Igbo elders, even if the pretext was to congratulate their sons’ mate, John Nwodo, on his birthday.
These are two Yoruba elders who see themselves as lodestars in the Yoruba political firmament and, who in their life time, cannot imagine any other Yoruba, no matter how much more impactful, relevant and consequential, aspire to be what position they assume they hold in Yoruba political history. One glaring difference between them, however, which the Peter Obi issue presently masks, is the fact that while Obasanjo considers himself as being in perpetual competition with the immortal Awo in Yoruba land, Adebanjo acknowledges the Avatar’s indisputable place, but sees himself as the only true representative of Awo.
A mere wish.
So Nigeria, yes Nigeria, must be very careful of these old men and all the security agencies must know that they already have their jobs cut out for them- no thanks to President Obasanjo, in particular.
It was these thoughts that led me into inviting the views of a very good, younger friend of mine, of Igbo extraction, and a brilliant professor, whose opinion I have cherished over the years, especially as we are mostly ‘ad idem’ on issues, to let me know his thoughts on the forthcoming election, holding nothing back.
I shall include my reactions to his views. I wrote to him as follows:
My dear Prof,
Kindly let me have the benefit of your views on where the election stands today.
Which candidate looks like coasting home to victory?
What are your thoughts about post election reaction?
Whoever wins, how do you think the South East, especially, will react?
I shall be using some of your views on my column either anonymously, or ascribed, whichever you prefer”.
I ended up not asking for his preference because I know that he will remain un – named in the article.
It is a long discourse, and still ongoing.
His answer should occupy us next week, God helping us, but in the meantime, a teaser:
Prof: “Ordinarily, Asiwaju should be coasting home to victory, but I have some fears which are manifold. Let me identify some of them:
(a) the opposition/enemies are working very hard to foist the narrative that Asiwaju is physically and mentally infirm. Through doctored videos, cut out narratives and series of innuendo, they are getting across to people. The health issue is the greatest weapon of campaign against the APC candidate even among fellow party members”.
My reaction:
Waoh!
1.The health issue is sure big.
But then can a sick person traverse Nigeria the way Tinubu is doing, severally, and for this long, without breaking down?
I don’t think not collapsing can be faked, but opponents are doing their utmost to make him look like he’ll die tomorrow if not today”.
President Muhammadu Buhari obviously had his hands full during his two-day official visit to Lagos State on January 23 and 24, during which he commissioned four major projects. It was, indeed, a ‘festival of commissioning’ as the Lagos State Government tagged it. How else do you describe the inauguration of gigantic projects that cover the transportation, agricultural, maritime and cultural sectors, in two days? Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu must have been at his ecstatic best to showcase to the president some of his landmark achievements in his about four years in the saddle.
The President arrived the state on January 23 and commissioned the $1.5 billion Lekki Deep Sea Port and the Lagos Rice Mill at Imota. The next day, it was time to commission the first phase of the much-talked-about Blue Line Rail of the Lagos Rail Mass Transit (LRMT) and the JK Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History.
The size of the vessels that would be coming to the seaport , according to Sanwo-Olu, could be up to four times the size of vessels that currently berth at both the Tin Can and Apapa ports. It is said to be one of the largest seaports in the country and one of the biggest in West Africa.
Imota Rice Mill is said to be the largest rice mill in the entire sub-Saharan Africa and one of the largest in the world. Sanwo-Olu said the mill is part of Lagos State’s contribution to the Buhari government’s food revolution. With 2.8 million pounds of 50kg rice per annum, this is also a massive project. The mill is particularly strategic because it addresses the problem of a national staple food whose price has shot beyond the roof. Like the saying goes, when food is out of the poverty problem, then there is no more poverty (bi onje ba kuro ninu ise, ise buse). It is thoughtful of the governor to have prioritised this project. It could not have been otherwise for a staple that used to sell for between N8,000 and N10,000 a bag about eight years ago and now goes for between N35,000- N37,000 a bag. An incredible leap.
The JK Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History is part of an urban regeneration programme of the state government. Governor Sanwo-Olu puts it better: “The John Randle Centre is the first of many initiatives aimed at the preservation of the heritage of Yoruba through the celebration and preservation of history and culture, the regeneration of decades old public green space, public recreation facilities and the restoration of civic pride.”
And the Blue Line Rail. My favourite of all.
Each of these projects in its own right is both a job and money spinner. The seaport, for instance, is projected to provide about 190,000 direct jobs and inject not less than $360 billion. Imota Rice Mill will create at least 250,000 jobs directly and thousands of indirect jobs.
Please pardon me if I appear biased in my focus on the Blue Line Rail project. As a matter of fact, I had thought I was going to devote an entire piece to it, not knowing that the project would be commissioned alongside others.
Transportation has remained a knotty issue in Lagos, particularly since the 70s. I remember how I used to trek from Iddo to, first the United Nigeria Insurance Company (UNIC) and later, Kingsway Stores, both on the Marina, where I worked after my school certificate, as a result of traffic gridlock. That was at least better than sweating (suffering and smiling, apologies to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti) inside Bolekaja and Molue buses that would be held up in traffic, sometimes for hours. Then, there was no Third Mainland Bridge. As a matter of fact, the then military regime in the state came up with the idea of ‘odd and even’ number policy under which vehicles could only ply the roads in the state on alternate days, depending on whether their numbers started with odd or even figures. Soon, people found an answer to the policy by buying two vehicles and ensuring that one was odd and the other, even number. That tells us that that was not the panacea to the traffic gridlock.
Many other things came up for trial to ease the traffic snarl, all to no avail. Even now with the Third Mainland Bridge built by the Babangida regime in 1990, traffic situation to and from the Lagos Island is sometimes a nightmare.
That has been the situation until 1999 when the present ruling party took over the affairs of Lagos. We have seen Oshodi transformed, we have seen the modernisation of the Agege/Pen Cinema axis; not forgetting the Abule Egba overhead bridge, among several other projects aimed at making commuting in the state memorable. Right now, attention is on the perennially problematic Ikeja axis as well as Apapa Road and Oyingbo areas, again, among others, where other road and bridge projects are ongoing. The Fourth Mainland Bridge is also in the offing.
Of course, one could see, over the years, relentless efforts by successive administrations in the state to be abreast of the traffic situation. But, the more they try, the more people come from other parts of the country, thus perpetually over-stretching the infrastructure. So, the matter has become like that of an Abiku whose parents have learnt the secrets of burying since the child too has learnt to die over and again.
The Lagos State government is now attacking the traffic situation from all possible fronts with its transmodal transportation strategy. It is developing ferry services, thus taking advantage of the abundance of waterways in the state; the government, as already mentioned, keeps on working on roads. Now, it is adding train services.
This is novel not because Lagosians have not been moving in trains but because the new experience is the contemporary one as it would be powered end to end by high voltage electricity, supplied by delegated independent power with a back-up system.
As Sanwo-Olu noted at the inauguration, “The completion of the Blue Line here, the first rail system by a sub-national in Africa, is a sea crossing. It’s a testament that indeed, the dark days of oppression are behind us as a government and what we will be commissioning here today (Tuesday) is the first phase.” This phase covers some 13 kilometers from Marina – Mile Two and would carry about 25,000 passengers per hour. Apart from reducing pressure on the over-stretched roads and putting the state on the pedestal of other cities around the world, it would also reduce travel time from the present one to two hours, to about 15 minutes. Some of the people who risk their lives travelling on Okada even on such highways because they think it is faster now have an even faster, saner and safer alternative in the trains.
With this train service, the Lagos State government has set another record for others to emulate in the transportation sector. Lest we forget, the dream of a metro line for Lagos was conceived by the Lateef Jakande administration in 1983 but aborted by the then General Muhammadu Buhari regime, ostensibly because of cost. It is instructive that it is the same Buhari, now as civilian president, that has commissioned a similar project about 40 years after. Not only did he commission it, he also flagged off the second phase of the project, from Okokomaiko to Mile 2. The Blue Rail is about 27 kilometer stretch when this second phase is completed and the passenger traffic would increase to 500,000 daily. The president also gave the state government waivers for the trains to be imported.
What we have seen at play in Lagos that has led to the phenomenal developments in the state since 1999 is the beauty of continuity in government. Without doubt, continuity in government can both be functional and dysfunctional. Fortunately, Lagos is a good example of continuity that works. I congratulate Lagosians for remaining steadfast with the political party that has been delivering the dividend of democracy to the state, particularly since the country’s return to civil rule on May 29, 1999. Despite the metamorphosis in the names of the political party that is responsible for this transformation of the state since 1999, from its initial Alliance for Democracy (AD) to its present All Progressives Congress (APC), the state has continued to witness monumental development in all spheres of life, from education to health, housing to roads, traffic management to waste management, security, etc. Indeed, the state has remained work in progress ever since and the consequence is the continual inflow of people from other parts of the country where development seems an abomination, to Lagos, which is known as ‘the city’ to most of the other Nigerians coming to live in the state.
Since achievements should play a major role in determining the fate of elected political office holders, Sanwo-Olu has creditably discharged his obligations to Lagosians. This year’s governorship election, coming up barely six weeks from now should be payback time for the governor who has in the last four years kept faith with his social contract with Lagosians.
It is not about the state having money. There are some other states in the country that have the money with so little to show for it. And, if Lagos is awash with cash; it is probably more awash with people. Even then, the cash that Lagos State has did not just land on its laps. It is the result of creative thinking on the part of those managing the state, especially since 1999. From a paltry N600 million monthly internally generated revenue (IGR) in 1999, the state now boasts about N45 billion per month.
States in the country may not be equally endowed, but God is so magnanimous not to leave any state helpless (Olorun o pa enikankan lekun). But rather than put on their thinking caps, many governors would rather be complaining perpetually about how barren their states are, content with crying to Abuja for handouts. Lagos would not have been this bouyant if that had been the spirit of those managing it since 1999 when Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over as the democratically elected governor, after about 16 years of military interregnum. It is on the foundation laid by Tinubu, the financial reengineering and all, that successive governors have been building and Lagosians have been the better for it.
A line of caution, though; everything must be done to ensure that these major projects do not suffer the fate of several others in the country. The deep sea port, for example. It must not go the way of the ports before it. They must all be essentially private sector driven. That is the only way they can endure and continue to post substantial beneficial returns in line with the dreams of their founders.
Everywhere you turn, the post-Imperial state seems to be in acute distress. In other words, most nations the world over are embroiled in one conflict or the other. There is a sense in which one can confidently surmise that this crisis is a reflection of the enormity of the problems confronting human civilization itself as the world finally leaves behind the second phase of globalization and physical colonization.
It is useful at this point to be reminded that the state in however rudimentary or elementary form has been with us since humanity first ventured out of their dark cave to enjoy communion and fellowship with fellow humans. Were human beings to be born saints without some dark impulses cohabiting in the remote recesses of their souls, there would have been no need to regulate their affairs.
Alas, it would seem that the more human civilization advances and humanity sheds off the veneer of savagery the more some more terrifying species of savagery appear in even the most advanced human societies. Consequently, as societies evolve and human interaction takes on new complexities, so does the state in urgent response to new developments and emergent contradictions.
It however remains to be seen whether we are approaching new frontiers of human evolution in which the state as we know it will no longer matter or whether new forms of super-states will emerge which will attempt to rein in atrocious conduct in human affairs and the degeneration of humanity, either at the level of the governing or at the level of the governed.
The crisis of the modern state is multi-dimensional and it does not matter whether it is the post-Imperial state as seen in the highly developed nations of the world, the post-colonial state as particularly visible in Africa, its hybrid manifestations in continent-nations such as Australia and New Zealand and its oriental detours evident in most Asiatic countries.
It comes at the level of politics, or the poverty of politics, the level of economy or the poverty of economics and at the level of religion or the poverty of religion. Most of the time, the indices are mutually reinforcing. The result is that very few countries in the world can be said to be free of all manifestations of the crisis or a combination of its dire actualities.
In the last two years, we have witnessed in the USA and Brazil an invasion of what was hitherto thought to be the citadels of the Post-Imperial state and the sanctuaries of its awesome power. Unable to live with electoral defeats, a rightwing fascist mob in the two countries simply besieged the state sanctuary in a daring but foolhardy attempt to put it to sword.
The scale of the destruction of government property and the catastrophic implications for countries laying some claims to exceptionalism are better imagined. Even denizens of the Third World cringed in horror as the new barbarians from the west arrived at the barricades. By the time the smoke cleared, the power-houses had been thoroughly trashed. The physical destruction cannot compare with the psychic wounds.
In Russia, a new hyper-Slavic imperialism is trying desperately to claw back some of the losses of the Imperial Russian state and its Soviet super-state successor by attempting to recolonize Ukraine. Russia wants Ukraine, or a huge chunk of it back, not as a satellite or a neo-vassal state but as an integral part of a greater pan-Slavic imperium. Vladimir Putin is on record as having rued that the collapse of the soviet empire was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe to have befallen Russia in modern history.
While Russia is bent on doing something about it as its frantic and desperate invasion of Ukraine has shown, the western powers are having none of that because they believe it is a threat to western post Cold War hegemony and the new World Order built on the ashes of the old socialist empire.
But dead ashes sometimes come alive once again, or as they say in Yoruba culture pounded yam of a twenty year vintage can sometimes burn with a withering intensity. Whether this will be a brief posthumous glow for Imperial Russia or it will explode into a consuming inferno the like of which the world has not witnessed before will depend on the forces at play and events unfolding in global power dark rooms.
With the conflict set to escalate as America and Germany send sophisticated tanks to the embattled Ukrainians, the shadow-boxing may soon give way to a full blown confrontation between the western powers and Russia and her allies with grave implications for the extant global pecking order. China and North Korea are already waiting in the wings. While China is viewing their Taiwanese cousins across the Taiwan Straits with a heavy murmur, the North Koreans are looking Southward in compulsory family reunion.
Global economies already reeling from the twin impact of Covid-19 and the Ukrainian conflict are likely to experience further contractions. British economy, limping from decades of political incompetence and a typically British version of crony capitalism, may collapse under further stress. France is hobbled by industrial unrest.
The Kremlin spokesperson puts the development in grim perspectives and to paraphrase his apocalyptic rumination: “The tanks will burn on the field as usual. The burden will be passed to the tax payers and America may even make profit”. The post-Imperial state is facing its most severe crisis in the modern epoch.
Since all politics is local, as they say, it is only appropriate to study closely the impact of the global crisis of the state we have been tracking on Africa’s most populous state. Like most African nations, Nigeria has been badly hit by the multi-dimensional effects of Covid-19 and the Ukrainian conflict. Economies already rendered parlous by the twin-combination of corruption and inefficiency have been further devastated by rising energy bills and critical shortages of wheat, rice and cooking oils.
Stagflation—evaporating purchasing capacity and galloping inflation—the like of which has not been seen has become the order of the day. Richly endowed African nations which ought to have stepped forward to reap the bounties and windfalls of the Ukrainian shutdown by filling the gap have become helpless victims of the war.
Nigeria has seen its capacity to earn substantial revenues from petroleum products dramatically reduced by massive theft of the black gold from source and the multiple siege on the state by local and external insurgency which has made even subsistence farming a brave proposition. But for the legendary luck of the nation, apocalyptic famine would have set in.
The Nigerian circumstances are however unique and exceptional in the sense that it is holding its most consequential elections since the military went back to the barracks in the most precarious and desperate of circumstances. Four significant drawbacks can be isolated. First is the rising insecurity in parts of the country which has raised the possibility of cancellation or the postponement of elections in those parts of the country.
Second is the absence of elite consensus on the conduct of the elections or even their desirability. Successful elections are anchored on substantial elite consensus which boosts the legitimacy of the outcome and their general acceptability. The elite consensus on which the Fourth Republic is anchored has been carelessly mismanaged. Never have the Nigerian political elite been more polarized and badly divided.
The third drawback flows from the second. Not even during the First Republic have elections been marked by this degree of rancor and divisive rhetoric. Fake news which threaten the security of the nation to its foundation, character assassination, the peddling of dangerous rumours that could lead to ethnic and religious conflagration and the deployment of fake statistics to score cheap political points have been the order of the day.
Finally, there is the ongoing acute scarcity of petroleum products combined with what can now be described as the debacle of currency change. All this has rendered tempers very brittle, leading to the possibility of a social explosion at a very critical conjuncture for the nation. A leading candidate has already shouted foul.
Consequently and a few weeks to the elections, an eerie chill has descended on the political arena. This is irrespective of the excitability and volatile nature of many of the political combatants. There are many who believe that this time around, we are pushing our luck too far. There is nothing so fundamental and ideologically irreconcilable about the positions of the leading actors which ought to warrant the level and degree of personal hostility and mutual intolerance exhibited so far.
The assassination of politics and the art of give and take, of compromise, consensus and conciliation portend grave danger to the polity and is the greatest threat to the continued survival of the Fourth Republic and the postcolonial state as we know it in Nigeria.
The Nigerian political class does not seem to have the capacity to learn from history. After the federally engineered impeachment of Balarabe Musa, the PRP governor of Kaduna State, Abubakar Rimi, the sole surviving PRP governor in Kano State, having ditched Malam Aminu Kano, his benefactor and ideological patron, felt sufficiently embattled to issue a query to the revered Emir of Kano, the late Alhaji Ado Bayero whom Rimi suspected of flirtations with the federal government.
The query was met with widespread protests in the volatile city which saw Kano descend into a wild orgy of arson and assassination during which Dr Mohammed, Rimi’s ideological master strategist, was burnt to ashes in his bath. The protests signposted the beginning of the end for Abubakar Rimi’s political suzerainty over the Kano metropolis.
But the real query was coming for the much admired emir and from the emergent military rulers of Nigeria that were waiting in the wings to profit from the political chaos. The emir and his bosom friend, the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade, were later restricted to their respective palaces for six months by the federal authorities for unauthorized communion with the state of Israel.
This was not the end of the matter. There is a bitterly ironic twist to unfolding history. After Rimi, now humbled and humiliated by political adversity, was sentenced by a military tribunal to a humongous time in jail, he alluded to a superior judgment hovering in the air. Not long afterwards, the military regime of the then Major General Mohammadu Buhari was swept away by a rival power faction.
Based on a reading of the political barometer of the nation, elections will hold next month however the shambolic arrangement and preparations. Those who are currently huffing and puffing about, threatening that they will prevent elections from holding in their ethnic strongholds ought to know the consequences of such political folly. The Nigerian Leviathan does not care a hoot about self-disenfranchised entities and enclaves. If the balance of power remains as it is, the illusion of order must proceed willy-nilly.
The real problem will arise if the elections fall short of general acceptability or is adjudged as falling short of substantial compliance with the electoral provisions. A lot will depend on an electronically sound and technology-savvy INEC. Mahmood Yakubu and his colleagues ought to have invested in the latest spy ware. The possibility of an electronic violation of the fundamental integrity of the elections by rogue elements remains very rife. If that were to happen, politics itself will be added to the casualty list.
