Category: Tunji Adegboyega

• Students Loan Scheme is the desired lifeline to ensure no one is denied higher education on account of poverty

Although I never benefitted from any student loan or bursary throughout my university education, I cannot forget how university campuses came alive whenever my friends got bursary awards from their respective states back then. I doubt if anyone of us from the southern part of the country met the scholarship scheme on ground. Those from the north, may be. Indeed, various northern states devised enticing pecuniary packages for their students to enable the region ‘catch up’ with the south in terms of education. Back then, the north was referred to as educationally disadvantaged. They remain so to date; only that we hear the term ‘educationally disadvantaged’ less often today. And many of their state governments tried through various schemes to encourage their own who could find their way into the university; many with rock bottom admission criteria, specially designed to bridge the educational gap between the north and south. Even in terms of the bursary, the difference between what the northern and southern states’ governments paid was extraordinary.  It was like comparing sleep with death. Most students from the north could then afford to live like oil sheikhs.

I never collected bursary that was then available not necessarily because I was particularly rich but first because I considered the processes for collection too rigorous. But that was easy for me because my father picked all my bills relatively with ease. My mother too played her motherly role, though. Second, my needs were relatively few since I could refer to myself then as a minimalist.

But I cannot forget how elated my friends were whenever they got the bursary awards. They painted the campuses red. The season of bursary collection was season of pride. Commercial business owners on campuses and even beyond, particularly those close to the University of Lagos that I attended knew that in those times, money was not the  students’ problem but how to spend it. I guess we met the remnant of the better life that those who attended universities before us had. Today, when I tell my children that my monthly meal ticket in the university was N45.00, yes, N45.00 translating to N1.50 per day at fifty kobo per meal, which entitled me to a sumptuous breakfast of pap/custard/Quaker oath plus sugar and milk, with yam or bread and fried eggs or stew; a lunch and dinner of rice or any swallow with meat or fish, they find it hard to believe. It was something else on Sundays when we had jollof rice and a sizable portion of chicken (no one dared serve you with chicken head or legs; as a matter of fact we never knew that those parts existed or what happened to them because we never saw them in the cafeterias), all these sound to our children like some fairy tale from wonderland. Yet, whatever we called enjoyment in our days in the university was a far cry from what our predecessors enjoyed.

I had to travel this memory lane in order to properly situate the students loan scheme that the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration plans to resume in September, to lessen the burden of university education on indigent students, in context. It pains my heart that the scholarship boards that used to make life easier for indigent students in those days were allowed to disappear for decades without any government thinking of reviving them. Some of us still recall, albeit nostalgically, how some of our older citizens who had the best of these good times in their university days regale us with the pleasurable moments they had. Many of them who are something today would have ended up being nothing but for the benefit of loans they had to further their studies. Given the several opportunities that existed in their time, with some of them having access to more than one source of funding for their education, there is no reason they should have allowed scholarship to disappear from our educational system. Even in the advanced countries, despite their affluence, scholarships abound, making university education desirable, memorable and pleasurable. As a matter of fact, there are cases of exceptionally talented Nigerians getting scholarship awards outside of the country. But not in their own country.

The unfortunate thing is that it is some of these very people who had the good times that killed the scholarship schemes. They simply removed the ladder after using it to get to the top. After destroying everything good that they enjoyed, they are now telling us there is no money to fund this; no money to fund that. I do not want to go into the debate of whether free education is possible at the tertiary level in Nigeria for obvious reasons. When we consider the way we squander money and the primitive stealing of public funds in the country, as if stealing is going out of fashion, we will know that this is truly debatable. A country where billions of dollars had been looted and stashed in bank vaults abroad over the decades! A country that the government merely wrings its hands in frustration even as it continually tells us that we lose as much as $40 million daily to oil theft! Not even the almighty America can live with that for long without unmasking those behind it and promptly committing them to prison. In a place like China, they would join their ancestors prematurely. Here, we treat them as if they are ghosts or spirits. Yet, the best our military authorities can say to that is to ask the person who told us what is not new, anyway, to name the culprits! How can anyone deny what is this obvious? It is like our  customs department asking for proof that our petroleum products were being smuggled to our neighbouring countries when the fuel subsidy regime was still in place.

President Tinubu struck the right chord when on June 13 he told the leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) who paid him a courtesy call to thank him for signing into law the Students Loan Bill that “Poverty should not prevent anybody, any child, including the daughter or son of a wood seller, ‘Boli’ (plantain) seller or yam seller from attaining their highest standard of education, to eliminate poverty.”

The president signed the bill on June 12, in furtherance of his campaign promises to liberalise funding of education in the country. The bill, titled “A bill for an Act to provide for easy access to higher education for Nigerians through an interest-free loan from the Nigerian Education Bank established in this Act to provide education for Nigerians and other purposes connected thereto” was sponsored by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, who is now chief of staff to the president. Education Bank has however been replaced with Education Loan Bank in the act. Interestingly, Gbajabiamila was right beside the president as he signed the bill into law; a thing he probably could not have imagined when he took the bill to the House. It is sad that such an important bill whose journey started as far back as 2019 took so long to materialise. Yet, some people kept the pressure on the rest of us to accept an irrelevant thing like the Water Resources Bill. We should commend Gbajabiamila for using his position to ensure that the bill got the necessary accelerated push until it landed on the president’s table.

However, more than fulfilling an electoral promise, the students loan is one of the avenues to mop up idle funds in the system. The quantum of such funds is mind-boggling and it is one of the reasons public officials steal as if we have conquered our environment and our problem is now how to steal the rest. Everyday we are assailed with news of so much billions stolen here and there.

Moreover, such projects would enable government officials to put on their thinking caps permanently to sustain a project like this. We spoil them a lot in and out of office; they don’t have to do any rigorous thinking to generate funds to execute very important projects.

The criteria to benefit from the loan and even the modalities may have to be tinkered with even before take-off, or as time goes on; the fact is that it is a good beginning. For instance, the idea of giving the loans to the poorest of the poor; in this case, parents whose income is not more than N500,000. I think this is rather too low because of inflationary pressures and the value of the naira. Without doubt, this is too low and should be reviewed upwards. Five hundred thousand Naira in 2019 when Gbajabiamila initiated the bill is not the same N500,000 of today. The naira’s value has dropped significantly. Even if the government still pegged the amount at N500,000 because it hoped to work on the country’s currency, the result of that may not be immediate.

And the government must indeed work on the economy to ensure a conducive environment for business. Beneficiaries of the loan should be able to get jobs after graduation for them to have the capacity to repay. This is important because such loans are sustained by their revolving nature. When those who got loans cannot repay, not out of any fault of theirs but because the environment is stifling businesses and jobs, it is only a matter of time for the fund to dry up. You can only punish defaulters of such loans if they are chronic debtors who do not love to repay loans.

But governments must be ready to expand facilities in the tertiary institutions to accommodate the deluge of youths who might want to take advantage of the loan scheme.

Perhaps most profound, the old breed politicians must be eternally grateful to Tinubu for resuming a scheme like this. If they care to be reminded, time is not on their side as the younger generation is getting restless over what they see as the uncaring attitude of the ruling class to their miserable plight. I don’t know how many people are seeing what I am seeing. But any politician, old or young breed, who cannot see the looming danger in the absence of a scheme like this has to return to his or her mother’s womb to be born again.

Education is the bedrock of development. A child that is not trained will end up misapplying whatever legacy you bequeath to him. I always remember the words of one of my seniors in the university who, in the acknowledgment section of his final year project thanked his parents for ‘gladly embracing poverty’ in order to send him to the university. I could understand his reason. That was the equivalent of what many parents, especially in the southwest who sent their children to the university, did. I have heard stories of those who were ready to go naked to achieve this lofty objective. Some sold their lifelong property just so their children could attend university. But it shouldn’t be so. Poverty is not pepper soup. So, parents don’t have to gladly embrace poverty in order to send their children to school.

• Senate finally nails a proposed obnoxious law after protracted controversy

 It is with gratitude to God that I announce the last-minute, even if long overdue death of the much-hated National Water Resources Bill. The highly contentious bill died of shock from persistent rejection on the floor of the Senate on June 6, a day to the end of the tenure of the ninth senate. It was a last-minute ditching of the desperate attempts to sneak the bill into our statute book. The bill is survived by cavemen herders and their elite collaborators, as well as millions of Nigerians who ensured it was stillborn. Funeral arrangements would be announced later.

I am particularly happy because I was a perpetual critic of the bill and always shot it down whenever it reared its ugly head. That is why I cannot but celebrate its death in the hands of people who performed for Nigeria the noble service of ensuring the bill was not transferred as a distraction to the new government.

It is indeed good riddance to bad rubbish. Unfortunately, many of us who should have joined in the celebration have forgotten the fight we fought to get it killed just because of the way the new government appears to have taken the country by storm. Without doubt, things have been happening at the Federal Government level since May 29, when President Bola Tinubu assumed office. Unlike his predecessor’s government, Tinubu does not look like someone who wants to leave the most important decisions for the latter part of his administration.  We may not agree with all of his decisions in the past three weeks, we at least can see some preparedness for governance. The government has indeed hit the ground running.

But if everybody else forgot to join in drawing the curtain on this moribund bill, not me.  I was mid-way into this piece for last Sunday but had to postpone it till today to join in marking the then impending 30th anniversary of the June 12 crisis, last Monday. That was by far more important than National Water Resources Bill at that time. As a matter of fact, we might not have been talking of such a bill if June 12 had been allowed to stand. Our eyes would have opened beyond looking for space to continue to accommodate the medieval practice of cattle rearing.

The controversial bill was presented by the then President, Muhammadu Buhari, to both chambers of the National Assembly in 2017. The proposed legislation, titled, “A Bill for An Act to Establish a Regulatory Framework for the Water Resources Sector in Nigeria, Provide for the Equitable and Sustainable Redevelopment, Management, Use and Conservation of Nigeria’s Surface Water and Groundwater Resources and for Related Matters” sought to transfer the control of water resources from the states to the Federal Government.

The act  “repeals the Water Resources Act, Cap W2 LFN 2004; River Basin Development Act Cap R9 LFN 2004; Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (Establishment) Act, Cap N110A, LFN,2004; National Water Resources Institute Act Cap N83 LFN 2004; and establishes the National Council on Water Resources, Nigeria Water Resources Regulatory Commission, River Basin Development Authorities, Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, and the National Water Resources Institute.”

If established, these proposed bodies will “provide for the regulation, equitable and sustainable development, management, use and conservation of Nigeria’s surface water and groundwater resources.”

Expectedly, the bill suffered rejection several times. As a matter of fact, when it was presented for consideration for second reading in the upper legislative chamber on May 24, 2018, it failed to sail through as senators were divided along regional lines.

House of Representatives members were later told by the House Committee on Water Resources chair, Sada Soli, that the then Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), and commissioners for justice and attorneys-general of the 36 states had been consulted and the opinions received would be attached to the bill and distributed to all members.

Read Also: Senate throws out controversial Water Resources Bill

Mark Gbillah, a member of the House from Benue State, had raised the alarm when the bill was to be taken for the first reading. Indeed, he disagreed with the then speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila’s statement that everybody’s position must be heard on the matter because of the country’s diverse nature. Apparently “everybody” here, for Gbillah, meant the governors that Gbajabiamila referred to.  Gbillah’s position was that, “Whatever the governors might have agreed upon may not be acceptable to us. It is we that have those powers as enshrined in the Constitution to enact legislation that will be binding on this country.” Because of the controversy surrounding the bill, it was once withdrawn in the house even after it had earlier been passed.

Controversy continued to trail the misbegotten bill even in the House such that the attempt to get it passed failed again on September 29, 2020, as many legislators from the south vehemently opposed its passage.

At this point one would have expected those pushing that the bill become law would have seen the handwriting on the wall and withdrawn it. Not so the sponsors in the executive arm of government. Characteristic of some elements in the Muhammadu Buhari government who were usually bent on forcing unpopular programmes and policies on Nigerians for base parochial interests, they kept on pushing to see the bill through. Unfortunately for them, the more they sought for ways to foist it on Nigerians, the clearer and easier it became for the bill to gather more enemies. The more Nigerians continued to see through that such desperation to pass an unpopular bill could not have been for the common good. That there must be more to it than meets the eyes.

This explained why it was easy for the 9th senate to throw away the bad rubbish.

Indeed, I cannot describe how elated I was when the senate finally dumped it. It reeked of bad faith ab initio. It was as obnoxious as it was vexatious. The very first thing that came to my mind when the bill was first introduced in 2017 was how putting water resources in the country under the overburdened Federal Government could have been a priority in the midst of the myriad problems that Nigeria was going through then. Or why such a bill should be the central government’s problem at all.

The question I asked myself then was whether anybody in the Buhari government ever heard of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs rooted in psychology, or scale of preference rooted in economics, both of which stress the need for prioritising human needs. Here was a country where power supply remained a chronic challenge; a country where youth unemployment had reached a crescendo; one in which roads were begging for attention; our hospitals could not even boast of the consultants that the then president had said in the early ’80s in a coup speech, were the only things available in our hospitals; a country where education was in a shambles. A country where we needed to have declared emergency in virtually all the basic areas of human existence, whether in the analogue or digital age. And we are now talking about a bill seeking to put water resources in the hands of the central government. Pray, how does that become a priority?

Even the worst mumu (ignoramus) knows that security is the essence of any government properly so called. Throughout the eight years of the Buhari presidency, it could not guarantee that. Yet, the government had enough presence of mind to present a water resources bill to the National Assembly for the lawmakers’ consideration and pursued it as if its life depended on it.

The bill was just a typical example of how bad prioritising or failure to prioritise our needs as a nation has become government policy. It did not start under the Buhari government, though. My prayer is that it should end with it.

But the question of priority was even the least of what was wrong with the water resources bill. What made it more particularly repulsive was the fact that Nigerians saw through it a surreptitious attempt by the Buhari government to provide herdsmen with unfettered access to land in any part of the country. In Nigeria, as in many parts of Africa, land matters are very dear to people’s hearts. People don’t joke with land. So, to now want to give herders opportunities to do their own business at other people’s expense and on other people’s land, destroying farm crops in the process, was bound to be problematic. All over the civilised world, herders are embracing ranching. If Nigerian herders are so fixated with the antediluvian way of doing their business and are repulsive to change, even under a government that came on change mantra, that was their business and that of the government.

Perhaps more galling was how the government had thought the bill was going to go through in a country that the government had itself polarised along ethnic lines. Not a few had insisted that Nigeria had probably not been so divided the way they were under the Buhari government. The government’s support for the itinerant pastoralists was too brazen not to be noticed. The police and other security agencies merely looked the other way as some herders wreaked havoc on farmlands all over the country in the name of cattle rearing. In such a situation where some people’s business is stifling others’, there were bound to be clashes. Unfortunately, all the security agencies needed not to act as appropriate was the president’s body language whenever such reports were brought to their notice.

Against this backdrop, the National Water Resources Bill was dead on arrival, notwithstanding the grandiose name that it was given to conceal what majority of Nigerians perceived to be its motive.

I congratulate those of us who opposed the bill. We  have every reason to celebrate its demise. It is victory for commonsense and national unity. It is also victory for federalism. We did not need such a law at a time many Nigerians were thinking of shedding the load of the Federal Government which, from its legendary incompetence, appears to be biting more than it can chew.

Now that the National Water Resources Bill is dead, we look forward to its promoters to come up with a befitting burial programme for it. We should be interested in its burial irrespective of whether we supported or opposed it. A bill that needlessly caused us so much time, energy, acrimony and resources should not die unsung.

• June 12: the good, the bad and the ugly

It is incredible that it is already 30 years since the June 12, 1993 presidential election that the then self-styled President, General Ibrahim Babangida, annulled. It is incredible. Whenever I remember the June 12 struggle, it is as if I am watching a movie. It is incredible that what transpired in Nigeria that culminated in the crisis could ever have happened in a country that was supposed to be the ‘Giant of Africa’. And only 30 years before. While the script was playing out, I kept asking myself if this was for real because it is the kind of thing that happens when a country has leaders who, like the proverbial greedy fly, would always follow dead bodies to the grave. Africa has a surfeit of such flies that eventually get interred with the bones.

Thirty years since June 12, 1993, we need to tell and retell the story of that unforgettable experience, especially as most of our children did not have the benefit of the study of History between 2007 and 2019. We must keep stressing the importance of History because even the developed nations don’t joke with the subject. You must know where you are coming from so as to be able to chart the appropriate way to where you are going. Although the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari reversed the ban in 2019 and restored History as a stand-alone subject in our schools, enough harm had been done. I felt sufficiently embarrassed when some years ago, a student in Ikenne, Ogun State, the home town of the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was asked whether he knew Chief Awolowo. He said no; that the only Obafemi he knew was Obafemi Martins! This is how potentially damaging the deleting of History from our curriculum could be.

Babangida began the June 12 shenanigans. When he came to power on August 27, 1985, he came with infectious smiles that swept Nigerians off their feet. The Buhari/Idiagbon regime that he overthrew had started to show traces of intolerance and dictatorship. It introduced some draconian measures, including the infamous Decree 4 of 1984 which punished journalists for non-patronising reports, and another decree which took effect retroactively, leading to the execution for drug trafficking, of three Nigerians, Bernard Ogedengbe (29), Bartholomew Azubike Owoh (26) and Lawal Ojuolape (30).

So, when Babangida and Co. came, they were well received by Nigerians who heaved a sigh of relief that an end had finally come to the Buhari/Idiagbon dictatorship which itself sacked the Second Republic administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983.

Babangida legalised the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) in 1989 and asked Nigerians to queue behind either. Parliamentary election went ahead as planned in 1992 with Option A4 voting process. SDP won majorities in both houses of the National Assembly. It was the presidential election that later became problematic, thus fuelling speculation that what IBB, as Babangida is popularly called, wanted if he must leave power was at worst dyarchical system of government that he would head. It was in the process of arriving at ‘wuruwuru’ to this answer that Babangida kept on banning and unbanning politicians until the June 12, 1993 election was held.

The election, won by the Late Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola of the SDP went peacefully contrary to the expectation of Babangida and some of his fellow sit-tight officers. Like the 2023 presidential election, the election was won on a Muslim-Muslim ticket. Abiola and his vice presidential candidate, Babagana Kingibe, defeated Alhaji Bashir Tofa and his vice, Sylvester Ugoh of the NRC with about 2.3million votes even though the results had not been formally declared when Babangida came on national television bouncing like someone possessed and high on something, to confirm that he had annulled the election.

This was an election which both local and foreign observers had declared the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history. It was peaceful too because the politicians and Nigerians generally had started seeing the handwriting on the wall that Babangida was not prepared to go. So they comported themselves so as not to give the dictator an opportunity to stay beyond his self-appointed August 26, 1993 exit date.

That was the beginning of the June 12 crisis that shook the country to its very foundation.

What gladdens my heart however was the fact that Nigerians gave it to the military adventurists. Even when they gave themselves exit dates that they thought would never come, they were not honourable enough to honour their own words when the self-imposed dates came. They wanted to sit tight like their counterparts in other parts of Africa and the rest of the Third World. But, trust Nigerians, they gave them a good fight for their bullets.

When the heat became too much for the gap-toothed General, he hurriedly ‘stepped aside’, as he called it, despite his initial grandstanding that he would not be stampeded out of power. Anyone who saw his confused state on August 26, 1993 would know that he left in a hurry, unprepared. We all saw on television how he was prevented from returning to his seat as president immediately after he had told the world that he was ‘stepping aside’.

And, as if to bring his ‘prophecy’ of ‘stepping aside’ to come to pass, IBB attempted to return to power twice, in 2006 and 2010 when he collected the presidential nomination forms of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) but saw his chances were low on both occasions and withdrew.

But Babangida did not leave without putting in place a contraption that he called Interim National Government (ING) headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan, an Egba man from Abeokuta, Abiola’s home town, to pacify the Yoruba that at least one of their own had been given power. But the Yoruba did not see Shonekan as Abiola; so, it was like; if it was not Abiola, it cannot be the same as Abiola. Shonekan did not enjoy the office one bit as protests resumed, especially in the southwest, with people insisting that the June 12, 1993 election results be validated.

By November 17, 1993, barely three months after the ING was inaugurated, General Sani Abacha who had been waiting in the wings shoved it aside and assumed power  as head of state.  Still, this did not stop the June 12 protests. People, including policemen were killed, major markets, shops, banks and other businesses were shut while looters broke into several shops. June 12 it was that made Nigerians know how powerful the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) was, with its then leader, Frank Kokori, calling the shots and shutting down the country several times in its show of solidarity with the June 12 cause.

This was the situation in the country, particularly in the southwest, for months. Nigeria was literally grounded.

Abacha was eventually taken out of the equation by death, the ultimate leveller, on June 8, 1998, and buried same day according to Muslim tradition. The fact that no autopsy was performed on him as well as the fact that Abiola himself died about a month later, precisely on July 7, 1998, fuelled speculation that they may both have been assassinated as a way out of the June 12 logjam. Other prominent Nigerians, including Kudirat Abiola, Abiola’s wife; Pa Alfred Rewane, a major financier of the struggle, were killed by agents of the Abacha government.

Students in tertiary institutions, workers, despite the betrayal by the then leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and virtually every segment of the society participated in the struggle. Prominent individuals, including military generals who believed in the cause of the June 12 struggle joined forces with civilians to push the military out of power. Some of these, including Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, the incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the late Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Kokori, the Late Pa Rewane, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Ayo Opadokun, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, Dr Kayode Fayemi, among others, came together to form the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which became a thorn in the flesh of the military. Some members of the coalition were arrested; others fled into exile. A guerilla radio station, Radio Kudirat, came handy for the project.

The media also stood behind the people but paid a huge price for their stance. Babangida banned The Punch, National Concord and The Guardian for over one year, over the struggle. Other vocal media outfits suffered a similar fate. When Abacha came, he, in his desperate move to legitimise his government de-proscribed them only to ban them again when he saw they were not ready to renounce their position on June 12.

The military taught the Nigerian press underground journalism as they banned and unbanned the critical private newspapers and chased the vibrant magazines out of town. I remember how we suddenly metamorphosed from being publisher of The Punch to publisher of an emergency magazine, and later producer of ‘Write-On’ exercise books in order to stay afloat.  I had told the story of my little contribution to the struggle last Sunday on this page and I feel privileged to have been part of that struggle. It was indeed an experience.

Sadly, no government listened to Nigerians’ cries for recognition of June 12 as a watershed in the country’s history, at least not until the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari did in 2018. Buhari it was, who in that year said from 2019, Democracy Day should be marked on June 12 every year in honour of Abiola, instead of May 29 that the military finally handed over. He awarded the business mogul the highest national honour, the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) and Kingibe, as well as the late human rights activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, the second highest national honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON). He also declared the day work-free.

Unfortunately, the way things are in the country today, we can only mark, not celebrate the 30th anniversary of June 12 tomorrow. It is an occasion for sober reflections, especially on the part of those of us who witnessed or participated in the watershed one way or the other. Those who read me last Sunday must have understood the reason I expressed regret that majorly, it is those with little or no value to our democratic struggle that hijacked the democratic space as soon as we drove away the soldiers.

They would also understand why I referred to President Tinubu as ‘omo oninkan’ (the child of the owner). He was a dogged NADECO fighter. He knew we had to send the military away from government houses so we can have a better Nigeria. Having paid such a huge price that he and other patriotic Nigerians paid for this democracy, he cannot afford to fail. Ceteris paribus.

• Thou shalt not fail

Despite all odds, despite almost insurmountable hurdles, even despite negative prophecies and predictions, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn in as the 16th President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29. The occasion, since 1999, usually reminds me of May 29, 1999, when Nigeria returned to civil rule after 16 years of military interregnum. I remember the high hopes we had as Nigerians on that day when General Olusegun Obasanjo was handed the baton of leadership by General Abdulsalami Abubakar.

I remember how I celebrated the occasion in one of the canteens somewhere, I think, at Ola Ayinde Street in Ikeja, Lagos, where I had gone for a sumptuous meal that I washed down with a cold bottle of Big Stout, my favourite drink then. Thank God, today, I have left that ‘Egypt’! On my way to Canaan. I had thought the occasion called for celebration.

But that is not where I am going.

If anyone had told me then that where we are today is where we would be 24 years after, I would tell the person that he did not know what he was saying. For years, I had continued to wonder how before our elders’ very eyes the country has been moving from grace to grass since independence. But no more, especially as before my own very eyes too, I have seen how dearth of good leadership has progressively deprived us of the dividend of democracy that we fought hard to get.

It is sad that this is where we are 24 years after returning our soldiers to their barracks. The price we paid for this democracy. Tinubu, the price! The price!!

Is it newspaper houses that were shut down as part of the fallout of the June 12 protests that we want to talk about? In some cases for over one year with the then military authorities not having any feeling for how the affected journalists and other workers in those organisations would eat and take care of their other obligations? Many were imprisoned without trial and some of them never came out as they went in. I guess those of us who served at the top editorial positions of The Punch were lucky, despite the fact that we were unarguably one of the most vociferous critics of military rule and whatever they stood for during the June 12 struggle.

Bola Bolawole that I succeeded as editor of The Punch was locked up in his office for three days while I spent a night at the Shangisha office of the secret police, plus a weekend (three nights actually)somewhere in the Ikeja Police Command where the then commissioner of police (COP Legal) ensured I had the best care pending the time I was granted bail by a court in Ikeja where the COP (Legal) took me to, knowing full well that I would eventually be granted bail because, as he told me, there was no charge that could stand against me. But he had to take me to court to convince his bosses that he had taken some action against me.

If Bolawole and I were so lucky, not so Chris Mammah, deputy editor of The Punch then. Mammah was detained for weeks. Those who knew the role of The Punch then would agree that what Bolawole and I underwent was a mere slap on the wrist considering what the military junta considered as our crime (I mean the paper’s crime) and also what befell some of our other colleagues who had more terrible experiences. Some did not live to tell the story.

The struggle consumed many people, prominent and not so prominent. It consumed many businesses, including Concord Group of Newspapers and other companies owned by the man at the centre of the June 12 protests, Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.

However, it is unfortunate that many of those who fought for democracy in Nigeria beat a retreat after returning to civil rule in 1999, leaving those who do not know the tribal marks of democracy to be enjoying what former governor of Oyo State, the Late Abiola Ajimobi described as the ‘mudun mudun’. What, for instance did a man like David Mark contribute to democracy to make him senator from 1999 to 2019 (20 years) out of which he was senate president for eight years (2007 to 2015)? What were Bukola Saraki’s contributions to the democratic struggle that made him governor for eight years, senator for eight years and senate president four years? It is high time people who know the value of democracy beyond coming to ‘chop’ began to take more interest in politics in this country. Gold ought to be sold only to those who know its value.

Part of the reason we are in deep shit today is because many of those who have found themselves in strategic political positions since 1999 cannot appreciate what those who fought for democracy went through. The fact of the matter is that what came up as a Third Force in the last general elections, the Labour Party that is; was able to make significant incursion despite being a new comer in the country’s political process because of serial bad governance that seems to have led the country to its present sorry pass. This is the exact reason the party has been able to find favour among the youths, home and abroad. Many of our youths who are outside the country found themselves wherever they are not because they like it but because they have lost hope that anything good can come out of the present political class.

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And they have their reason, especially when we compare the economic indices where Nigeria was even in 1999 when we resumed civil rule, to what they are today. Where do we start to talk about the degeneracy? From basic foodstuffs to simple electronics, fuel price, electricity tariff, automobiles, unemployment, insecurity, name it. We have lost a lot of ground. We now wear the crown of poverty capital of the world. In this kind of situation, it is difficult to blame the youths for seeking an alternative to the political parties and politicians that they see as being responsible for their hopelessness.

This is one strong reason Tinubu must be ready to roll up his sleeves. There is a lot to do to fix Nigeria that is in a shambles right now.

The president must realise that he is probably the second president since 1999 (after Chief Olusegun Obasanjo) that participated somewhat in the democratic struggles that saw the military eventually retreating to their barracks. (Not a few would argue though, that Obasanjo’s contribution to the struggle had ‘K-leg’ because while he wanted the military to go, he was not interested in Abiola being given his mandate). The rest, from former President Umaru Yar’Adua, to Goodluck Jonathan to Muhammadu Buhari, only came to ‘chop’ after the table had been set. So, they could not have understood what it meant to be in the trenches in the country during the struggle, or what it meant to be hounded into exile because of one’s role in the democratic struggle. By extension, therefore, they may not understand why democracy must deliver dividend to Nigerians.

But those who participated actively in the struggle knew it was not just about returning the military to the barracks, but to entrench a democratic culture in the country to accelerate growth and development. To give Nigerians value for their votes.

It would be disastrous if Tinubu fails, especially coming immediately after the Buhari disappointment. I remember the high hopes Nigerians had on Buhari in 2014/2015 which popularised slogans like ‘sai Baba’  and ‘Changi’ that eventually brought about the inglorious end of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). By 2019 when Buhari was seeking reelection, the stridency of both slogans had started diminishing. As a matter of fact, none of the political parties talked about or wanted to be identified with the word change in the last general elections because the word had been abused by the Buhari team. Tempting as it is, the word ‘change’ was avoided like the plague during the political campaign because no one wanted to be identified with a jaded word or slogan.

Rather than take heed of the early warning signals, Buhari’s handlers started attacking those calling their attention to the fact that their government rating in the eye of the public had started declining; they continued to bask in the old glory. They charged at genuine critics like hungry lions. By the time they realised their mistake, it was too late. It was no use sending clothes to Omoye because Omoye had already walked to the market naked. The belief in Yoruba land is that once a mad person gets to the market, his madness becomes irreversible.

That the All Progressives Congress (APC) still won the 2023 presidential election was in spite of Buhari because in the 2015 election, it was not just about the then President Jonathan leaving, it was a case of Nigerians throwing away the baby with the bath water. Meaning the PDP must go down with him. But the scenario was different in 2023 election because Nigerians were still able to reason that the APC presidential candidate in the election was a man with pedigree. They were still able to retain their faculty and bring into remembrance the good things that Tinubu did as governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007. They continue to see his imprints on the pace of development that has continued in Lagos unabated, especially since 1999, making Lagos the state to beat in the country.

This and a host of other factors made the APC governors stood with Tinubu, particularly those from the north, through thick and thin, and in spite of the numerous land mines placed on his way to power, until victory was assured.

The truth is; Nigeria is hungry for development. This country is hungry for transformation. Nigerians who stood by Tinubu and handed him victory at the polls want him to come and replicate what he did in Lagos (that is still manifesting) at the national level.

So, you can see what I mean when I said Tinubu has no option than to succeed. He seems to me the last of the old breed politicians that Nigerians, particularly the youths are likely to be prepared to tolerate. If he gets it right, then there is hope that something good can still come out of their Nazareth. Then there is hope that those waiting in the wings to sneak into the seat of power will know without being told, that there is no vacancy in Aso Rock. But if he doesn’t, then the vestiges of the old breed must get ready to retire from the political scene. But he has to be tactical in his reaction to the fallout of the subsidy removal.

With Tinubu now in power, it is like ‘omo oninkan de’ (the son of the owner has arrived) which should translate into public good because, as a true child of the owner, he should understand the intricacies and nuisances of the democracy that he symbolises. He has the experience, the exposure, the academic qualification, the street wisdom and all, to see him through. No rational person would ever have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he now has that would fritter it.

For Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there is an 11th commandment: thou shalt not fail. There is no other option, but this. So help him God.

• Nigerians need good governance, not unending pay rise

Barely four years after Nigerian workers and the Federal Government agreed on a new minimum wage, that wage has become moribund, at least in the face of current economic realities. Now, the workers are looking forward excitedly to another 40 per cent pay rise, this time, ostensibly to cushion the effects of subsidy removal on fuel in June, as well as the effects of rising inflation, rising cost of living, hikes in transportation fare, housing and electricity tariffs. Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, had only last month said that the Federal Government had approved a pay raise for civil servants in the country and that the new package would take effect from January, this year. According to him, the new pay had been included in this year’s budget. Another source had disclosed that payment would commence from this month end and that the arrears from January would be paid later.

As far as I am concerned, what we are having on our hands is a new salary structure, a new minimum wage, so to speak, irrespective of whatever fanciful name the government officials call it.

I have no qualms with whatever is being done to raise workers’ salaries in the country. The truth of the matter is that I doubt whether the workers have been getting their dues in the last four or so decades. It’s been a long time in Nigeria when salaries, particularly in the public service, could take care of the needs (mind you, not wants) of the salary earners. Things have been deteriorating on the economic plain so fast that Nigerian workers’ pay can hardly take them home.  Even when the relatively new N30,000 minimum wage that is about to give way came into effect, it was not still enough to take them home. But the workers and their unions were somewhat happy that at last, they would get N30,000 minimum wage. I am sure the euphoria has since been over.

True, there is an almost unprecedented inflationary level in the country. Indeed, I doubt if things have ever been this bad concerning inflation and standard of living in Nigeria. At 22.04 per cent, the current inflation is about the highest rate since 2005. Figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that inflation rate has been on the rise for the third consecutive time this year alone. This month, it increased by 0.13 per cent points when compared to February headline inflation rate, with the cost of food and beverages contributing significantly to overall inflation. For so many years until recent times when security challenges became an issue in the country, food was relatively cheap.

The situation is no doubt, dire.

Still, I do not believe the country’s most pressing problem, in spite of whatever inadequacies I might have stated, is the minimum wage. What we have on our hands is much more serious than that. And I said that even as recently as when the current minimum wage was fixed. I said unless we change our attitudes collectively as a people, the N30,000 that was being celebrated then would soon expire. It has. Or hasn’t it? If it has not, we would not now be talking about a 40 per cent pay rise. And so soon.

What we have on our hands is a chronic leadership deficit. Successive governments that allowed fuel import to occur at all, not to talk of letting it go on for ages, should be blamed for the abnormality. Although the point has been made several times; it bears restating: that Nigeria as a major producer of crude oil should have no business importing refined petroleum products. But, somehow, shamelessly, this is what the country has been relying on for decades and our leaders found nothing unusual about it. The inevitable result is that the government has had to be subsidising the products. At the last count, about N400bn is spent monthly on fuel subsidy. Apparently because of the opaque nature of the operations of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) now Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, the subsidy regime is riddled with corruption. It has been impossible to get any tangible results from the turn-around maintenance (TAM) of the country’s four refineries. Yet, successive governments have sunk and keep sinking money into the moribund refineries.

The governments failed to bring sanity to the subsidy regime apparently because those involved are not minions but highly placed untouchables. Yet, it is not only through the subsidy that such personalities make their cool millions daily at the expense of the nation’s purse. They also reap bountifully from illegal crude sales. Depending on the government official giving out the statistics, the country loses about $40m daily to such illegal activities. I don’t know how many countries their governments would wait the way Nigeria had waited unconcernedly for so long before moving against such criminals, no matter who they are.

Having failed woefully to rein in the very important thieves, government has now turned around to put the load on the usual beasts of burden, hapless Nigerians. Well, there is God o.

Ostensibly to cushion the effects of the serious dislocations and inconvenience that would be a natural consequence of the subsidy withdrawal, government is ready to pay workers about 40 per cent more. In like manner, some 10 million poorest-of-the poor Nigerians would share an $800m World Bank loan obtained to cushion the effects of subsidy removal. I really have not understood how this would work. Is it a one-off handout or a monthly thing? If it is one-off, I don’t know how far that would go given what we are hearing that fuel may sell for between N600-N700 per litre. How does a one-time lifeline sustain the poorest-of-the-poor for as long as transport fares would shoot up before we start having reprieve from Dangote Refinery and other refineries that we are looking up to, to bail us out of fuel importation? Is there any certainty that prices would come down even when these local fuel producers come on stream, given what we already know about our environment and cost of production? Suppose we suddenly realise that local production does not have any serious effect on fuel price per litre after subsidy has been withdrawn?

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May be public workers can still accommodate the rise in transport fares since they are to begin to enjoy a pay rise before then. Or, may be they would have their own transport buses? But we had such experience in the past which even labour could not run profitably.

There are so many ‘ifs’, concerning the poorest-of-the-poor and their lifeline. Still, it is important to ask what happens to the millions of Nigerians who cannot benefit from the World Bank loan and are not civil servants, and yet would be adversely affected by subsidy removal? There are about 200 million Nigerians and the Federal Government had singled out far less than half to be comforted one way or the other. So, what happens to the remaining millions who are private sector employees or who are self-employed and are only managing their lives with the little income they are realising from their businesses? What happens to the millions out there who don’t even have anything to do? Where will they get soothing balms to sustain them when the policy comes?

We can keep on asking questions and really, we should interrogate the issues very well given, one, that a new government is going to inherit the backlash of the policy. Two, we are in the mess we are in today because we hardly interrogate government. We hardly put government officials on their toes, only for us to be asking later how we found ourselves where we are today, when we are the very architects of our own fortune. Yet, we pay these public officials some of the highest wages in the world!

All of these arguments revolve around government and governance. And, as I was trying to point out earlier, the solution to our problems concerning cost of living and standard of living is not in perennial or regular rise in wages but in insisting on good governance. I have said it before; and it bears restating, that governments in the developing world would always prefer to give pay rise, to their delivering on promised democratic dividend. Bad governance continues unabated as the workers are engrossed in celebration over their new pay that would almost always expire before the ink on the agreement paper dries up.

Even if the circumstances are not exactly the same, still, consider what has been happening in France since January when President Emmanuel Macron made public his decision to raise retirement  age from 62 to 64 years. France has not been the same again. This would have been welcome news in Nigeria because already, many people here under-declare their ages so as to stay longer in service for obvious reasons.

Things will only start to work in this country when workers and other Nigerians begin to insist that politicians govern well.

If the country is better run, there is no reason why we cannot return to our glorious past where agriculture played a significant role in emancipation of Nigerians economically. If the country is better run, we would have cause to depend less on importation of things we can produce locally and our currency would be stronger in no time. When the Naira becomes stronger we would  be better respected in the comity of nations and our voice will matter in global affairs as the most populous black nation.

It saddens my heart that our currency which was stronger than the almighty American Dollar is now exchanging at the prevailing rate of about N700 to one USD. If our leaders feel this kind of concern, this country would become great again. And if they are not ready to do that from above, nothing stops those below who will eventually carry the can (as they are about doing in fuel subsidy which was caused by successive governments’ lackadaisical and cavalier attitude to governance) must compel them to toe that path.

Apart from being a very cheap way of trying to solve the problem of inflation and other standard of living issues, constant wage increase has the potential of continually weakening our currency because it is only a temporary panacea to much more fundamental problems. Mind you, even the Federal Government is yet to pay all its workers the present N30,000. Several states are in arrears. It should worry Nigerians that their governments usually find it convenient to give pay rise when they should give good governance. Even an outgoing government prefers to leave that debit to its successor to tackle.

You will better appreciate my argument by taking your mind back to how much we were buying things in the last 10 or so years and how much we are buying them today. The higher the wages, the more impoverished workers and the people generally become. It shouldn’t be so. Minimum wage does not last forever. But it is not reviewed astronomically the way we do.

Desperate attempts by Nigeria’s sore losers to delegitimise Tinubu’s victory.

 Ordinarily, one would have let sleeping dogs lie concerning the just concluded general elections in the country, especially since the aggrieved have decided to go to court. But then, the way some of the losers, especially the Labour Party (LP) chieftains have been going about their loss at the polls leaves a sour taste in the mouth. While one may dismiss their call to violence as ‘ranting of an ant’, not so the narratives they are trying to rewrite about the 2023 elections.

I am here talking of their frantic attempts to delegitimise the election, having lost at the polls. Like a mortally wounded lion, they have taken to every available space, particularly the social media, to rubbish the election as neither free nor fair, riddled with violence, and what have you.

This is where silence stops being golden. For a generation bereft of the country’s political and democratic history, the tendency is for the youths who form the bulk of the party’s support base to gulp up and continue to regurgitate whatever they find on the Internet as the truth and nothing but the truth. But we should not abdicate the space to people who are attempting to stand truth on its head. Nigerians must have access to alternative viewpoints, the authentic story, as it were, to counter some of the wild claims that these sore losers have been making, home and abroad, about the elections.

Let’s begin from the beginning.

After the presidential election on February 25, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who scored 8,794,726 votes winner of the election. The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar came second with 6,984,520 and Labour Party’s (LP) candidate, Mr Peter Obi, came third with 6,101,533 votes.

The election produced some upsets. Perhaps the most shocking was the loss of Lagos State by Tinubu, to Obi, by about 9,848 votes.

I remember vividly how the Obidients (Obi’s supporters) in my area jubilated that for once, Tinubu, a political juggernaut, has finally met his match in the relatively political Lilliputian, Obi. I hear it was like that nationwide. At that point, they praised President Muhammadu Buhari for bringing up the cashless and Naira redesign policy that effectively checkmated Tinubu’s capacity to mop up votes.

In a sense, they were right: Tinubu has never lost any election in Lagos since the country’s  return to civil rule in 1999. Unfortunately, they jubilated too early. They forgot that the masquerade that danced first eventually ends up as a spectator. By the time the real votes started coming in, particularly from the north, they turned Obi’s few thousand votes lead in a place like Lagos into mincemeat. Then, those who had earlier praised the election as a true reflection of the people’s wish started to sing a new song. As the Yoruba would say, ‘won wo shin bi obe paanu’ (they simmered like the soup in an aluminum pot just put down from the stove).

By the time the dust eventually settled on the presidential election, APC won in 12 states, as against the 19 and 21 it won in 2019 and 2015, respectively, while the PDP also won in 12 states and LP won in 11 states plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). APC and PDP had the 25% threshold in 29 states and 21 states, respectively. LP, on the other hand, met the 25% criterion in only 16 states. The ruling APC which won 19 states in 2017 had lost seven by the time the 2023 presidential election was over. Also, margin of votes of the ruling party fell from 3,928,869 in 2019 to 1,810,206 in 2023, a more than 50% drop. Yet, some people have the guts to say the election was not free and fair.

It would interest our youths that, of the leading four candidates in the presidential election, only Tinubu came from a formidable, united front. The remaining three, Atiku, Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) were at a time all under the PDP’s umbrella. Their inability to go to the polls united led to the splitting of their votes. As a matter of fact, a cursory look at the votes they had in the polls almost approximated the number of votes PDP had in 2019 when they were still together. It is instructive that both the APC and PDP polled a little over half of the votes they had in 2019, while the third force, LP, cleared up what both parties lost at the polls with its 6.1million votes.

If only Atiku had stooped to conquer the G5 governors, and if he had not allowed Kwankwaso to leave the party with his 1.4million votes, his story would have been different. Indeed, he would have been the one the Obidients would be crying after now like a child whose lolly has just been snatched by a stubborn toddler.

Atiku, as a veteran politician, would seem to have understood these and his other miscalculations. Hence, the ‘relative’ calmness in his challenge of the election result.

Not so the Obidients.

They are not ready to take no for an answer. It is either they are declared winner or the roof comes down. Yet,they came third in the election. As a matter of fact, the way they are going about this their so-called mandate would seem to me to suggest that they are looking forward to another route to the presidency beyond the election. Although Obi has distanced his party from those calling for interim government, how about his deputy and other supporters? Worse still, could they be hoping to ride to the seat of power on the wave of another mass uprising?

The earlier the Obidients accept the reality that the only acceptable road to power in a democratic setting is through the ballot box, the better. Apoarently, many of the youths who supported Obi never voted or voted for the first time, that is why they don’t seem to understand how elections play out, especially in this part of the world.

On the issue of political violence, only those who are either ignorant of the degree of violence in previous elections in the country, or the mischievous, would say that the 2023 elections were marred by violence and so should be cancelled. Yes, pockets of violence were recorded in places like Lagos, Kano, Bauchi, Osun, Cross River and Imo, the rate of casualties was relatively low compared with past incidents. Although it is not ideal that a single soul should be lost to electoral violence, seven people were reportedly killed in Lagos in the last election, five in Kano, Imo (six), Osun (five), Bauchi (three) and Cross River (three). In all, between 13 and 28 people were reportedly killed during the presidential polls.

Although it may not yet be our dream election, this year’s election would seem one of the most peaceful if the casualty rate is compared with the past. Most of those trying to make a mountain of a molehill know; they just want the youths who have largely been denied the benefit of studying History to go with the erroneous impression that the election was largely marred by unprecedented violence.

For the record, the 1964/65 elections in the country claimed 200 lives, 1993 (100); 1999 (80); 2003 (100); 2007 conducted by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration (300); 2011 (800); 2015 (100) and 2019 (150). This year’s record is nothing near these. Ironically, the former President Obasanjo who knew how many people died in the election conducted in his time is one of those spearheading the cancellation of this year’s election in certain areas, whatever that meant!

In terms of voter intimidation, harassment and assault, these were recorded in only five per cent of the polling booths nationwide.

Again, this year’s election is the most technologically advanced in the country’s democratic history. Devices such as Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), the electronic device designed to read Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), was used with 88 per cent success rate across the 176,606 polling units nationwide. They were fixed in nine percent of places where they malfunctioned and replaced outright in two per cent of such places.

Perhaps the main bone of contention is INEC’s failure or inability to upload the election result real time as it promised. For me, this is a storm in a teacup. Even if INEC had promised to deploy its Results Viewing Portal (IReV), and circumstances later dictated that was no longer feasible, is the commission a robot that it would not reverse itself? Should INEC not change its mind if it saw cyber attacks ahead? Even the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, confirmed that there was an upsurge of cyber attacks on Nigeria’s cyber space, especially during the elections.

At any rate, the issue is not a constitutional matter.

As I have argued severally, many of our politicians are like the proverbial drowning man who would not mind clinging to a serpent for help. It is when they know they have no case that they start looking for technicalities in court. For me, however, the most important thing in this matter is that the votes cast represent the wish of the people, whether collated manually or electronically.

It is not funny that the party that came third in an election is the one most vociferously calling for cancellation of results in places where it lost. If LP and its supporters had thought that some benevolent spirits would help them crack their palm kernels at the polls and those spirits could not deliver because they met more formidable spirits on their way, that is not enough reason to pull down the house over everybody’s head.

The way the Obidients are going, it is as if the party itself realised that if the presidency slipped from their hands this time, they may never get the kind of momentum that gave them visibility in the just concluded elections again. Hence, all attempts to upturn the result and have the trophy handed over to their party that came third on a platter of social media popularity.

Even in the south east base of Mr Obi, his people have moved on as the governorship election showed. People have largely returned to their tents. Was he also outrigged in his region? If any of the LP candidates had been sleeping on waterbed in Aso Rock Villa before the election in his dream, such LP candidates should go and sleep again and dream reality. They will then realise that the waterbed that they found themselves on was in a dream; fantasy island.

As my people say, eni r’owo he loju ala to ndunnu, e so fun ko tepa mose e nitori ebi (anyone who saw and picked money in a dream should be told that he has a lot of work to do to ward off hunger). Mr Obi, as a first timer in such an election has done exceedingly well. But, oun ko lo kan. The 61-year-old youth should wait for his turn, if his supporters would allow that, with the angry manner they are chasing after something that is not lost.

It is preposterous for any reasonable person to say that an election in which a sitting president lost in his state was rigged. Or the one that saw ‘a whole’ Tinubu floored in Lagos by a political neophyte. Come off it! Those are idle talks and those peddling them should go tell that to the marines!

Finally, LP and its supporters must choose between the courts and street protests, intimidation and threats. They cannot be in court on the one hand and at the same time be threatening fire and brimstone if they lose in court, on the other. They cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time.

• Present danger; permanent stupidity!

It is good that the rumour that some people are plotting to foist another interim national government (ING) on Nigerians has now been confirmed. Both Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president-elect, and the Department of State Services (DSS) have said there is evidence that the plot is real. It has therefore left the realm of rumour or speculation. It is now a clear and present danger requiring urgent attention. Interestingly, this is how plans to truncate democracy in the country usually begin. They start first as rumour, then get elevated to the level of speculation, from where they finally translate to reality.

Peter Afunanya, the DSS spokesman said in a statement that the secret police has identified some key players behind the plots to truncate democracy after the 2023 general election.

The DSS’s confirmation came about six weeks after Tinubu had made the allegation during his presidential campaign in Ekiti, Ekiti State: “They created naira scarcity to provoke you to anger so that there can be violence so that there will be disruption and so that they can postpone the election and impose an interim government. Exercise patience, even if they cause rain to fall on that day, we will vote and will win. The rat that eats poison will kill itself,” Tinubu said.

The DSS confirmation also takes the allegation away from the realm of politics.

Tinubu has mentioned two of the booby traps aimed at truncating democracy this time around: fuel scarcity and Naira redesign. But there are others. Census and subsidy removal. All of these are potentially explosive. Why now that the Buhari government is on its way out?

At this juncture, I beg to disagree with the assertion by former DSS director, Mike Ejiofor, that “if INEC had delivered on its promises to Nigerians, the country would not be in the midst of a crisis right now. They said they would transmit the presidential election results in real time from the polling units to the IReV (INEC Result Viewing Portal), but this did not occur.” Should that be basis for any reasonable Nigerian to call for interim government?

Yes, INEC might have failed in its promise to transmit the election results live. The commission has defended itself that it resorted to manual process because of hackers who were attacking its websites. As a matter of fact, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, confirmed an unusual upsurge in the threats to public websites during the general elections, from the usual 1.5million attacks daily to the 12.9 attacks recorded during the elections.

I saw this coming.

Peter Obi’s supporters are mainly youths who are unhappy with the state of affairs in the country. As if even the adults are happy! But we can perfectly understand their plight. The Buhari presidency has done so little to inspire confidence in Nigerians, young or old. One thing we cannot take away from these youths is their wizardry on computers and information technology, generally. I had no doubt that some of them would be tempted to play some funny games with the websites on those election days. This was why I was taken aback when INEC promised to transmit election results live. I asked myself if the commission had the capacity to safeguard the election results from hackers.

But no one who is genuinely interested in free and fair elections would expect INEC to act like a robot when faced with this reality. That it promised to upload results live is not a constitutional requirement. Even if it is, and it encountered the challenge of hackers, it could still decide to go manual if it feels that would be a better alternative. Postponing the election could not have been an option because of cost and logistics. At any rate, the hackers would always come back and the nation cannot afford to hold off indefinitely.

So, these are the issues. For me, I think the point should be whether the figures released reflected the popular wish of Nigerians rather than whether the commission fulfilled its promise to transmit election results live.

But this is a problem with most of our politicians, generally. It is not about People’s Democratic Party (PDP) or Labour Party (LP). When you see our politicians hanging their case precariously on technicalities, know that they have a bad case.

It is also wrong to assert that we wouldn’t have been having these protests if INEC had conducted free and fair election. Since when have our politicians never contested election results? Apart from former President Goodluck Jonathan, how many of our other politicians ever accepted defeat? The problem, as I always say, is that we have incredibly bad losers entering into the political ring.

For a man like Atiku Abubakar, he lost the election the very day APC gave Tinubu its presidential ticket. That was despite the shenanigans and other plots of the PDP candidate and his backers in the seat of power. Atiku’s inability to stoop to conquer the G5 governors that fought a bitter fight with him over Iyorchia Ayu was his mistake number two. Again, Atiku is not alone in this issue of over-bloated ego. The APC had been a serial victim of this even in its southwest base.

The Ayu that Atiku was not willing to let go has finally been suspended and it is unlikely he would ever return to his position as party chair.

Moreover, where was Atiku when Rabiu Kwankwaso pulled out of their party? Mistake number three. What stopped him from trying to see if they could mend things so as to ensure that the massive votes that the man got in Kano could be counted for him (Atiku)? Or at least a chunk of it. Even Peter Obi broke away from the PDP. If they had not parted ways, Obi might have been able to add some votes to Atiku’s, no matter how few.

Again, would it make sense to an Atiku that a Fulani wants to succeed another Fulani back to back in a plural society like ours?

Summary: It would be the height of political naivety for an experienced politician like Atiku to assume that all the aforementioned would not have repercussion on his chances at the polls. But I don’t think Atiku is that naive. I have the feeling that it is some powerful people who are beating the drums that the man is dancing to its rhythm. Their Plan B would be to work towards interim government now that Atiku has seen he did not have sufficient clout to wade through the fragmented PDP that he took to the battlefront.

Obi, in his own case has done well enough. And I would not stop saying it; that he has become an issue because the Buhari government has not performed. Once Buhari’s successor performs, Obi would be denied supply of that oxygen that was available for him on February 25. He would therefore fizzle out as he had fizzled in. He understands this perfectly well and that is why he is pretending to be an issue in the election.

Without doubt, Obi too overestimated his political weight, that is why he is also saying he won the presidential election. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo added to his over-bloated ego of himself when he said Obi would only lose the election if outrigged. This is an Obasanjo who has never won in his polling booth. If Obi was outrigged in Lagos and elsewhere, was he also outrigged in the governorship election in his native southeast? If he was that popular, he should have swept all the available governorship slots there. Atiku too knows the February 25 election would be the last he can contest. That was the reason he wept.

Now, both the LP and PDP are laying claims to winning the presidential election. Yet, an election can only produce one winner. Even among thieves, they say, there is honour. Not in Nigeria.

This background is necessary for those plotting interim government to know that there is no basis for it. Moreover, it has no place in our constitution. Those who lost the election know in their hearts that they lost. They are only looking for something to hang on to and would, like a drowning man, not mind hanging on to a serpent for help.

Unfortunately for those plotting interim government, democracy is a game of numbers. You don’t have to like somebody’s face. This idea of some tin gods acting from somewhere and imposing their personal interest on the rest of us is unacceptable and must be resisted. The same thing they did to Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola. They said he would not be president even after winning the freest and fairest election in our country’s electoral history because certain disgruntled elements in the military did not want him. What nonsense! Since when did those elements become the electoral college that would handpick a president for Nigeria?

This is another reason I said Mr Ejiofor got it wrong. Those clamouring for interim government don’t care whether the electoral umpire conducted an election well or not. The election that Abiola won in 1993 was one of the best in Nigeria. Did that stop the interim government plotters from implementing their satanic agenda?

We have conducted elections and those who are aggrieved have the courts to approach. Soldiers who took us down the interim government lane know it was not easy. So, let no civilian attempt anything of the sort. The result may not be as they had planned. President Buhari must know that this is not the time for undue taciturnity.

True, and bad enough that blood was unnecessarily shed before and during the elections. But it is not the only election where blood was shed. It is on record that more people died in the 2007 election conducted in the Obasanjo years. That election was not cancelled because of that. Obasanjo did not even see it in bad light. It was Umaru Yar’Adua, the beneficiary of the election and Obasanjo’s successor  who condemned the entire process and took steps to prevent a recurrence.

Plotters of commotion clad decoratively in the toga of interim government are doing all of these not for the country but to advance their personal interests. The truth is; many of them have so  defecated on their seats that they can’t imagine leaving power now. They want to remain in power to continue calling the shots even after May 29. They are afraid of their shadows. We must stop them at all cost to save Nigeria.

President Buhari may be tired and anxious to return to his farm in Daura; but not these political hangers-on.