By Lawal Ogienagbon

WITH four senior advocates in its fold,  the Federal Exceutive Council (FEC) can boast of people that can give it wise counsel whenever the need arises. As the highest ruling organ of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government, the FEC needs that counsel now in order to help its party out of its present dilemma.

The APC is troubled. The source of its headache is the July 28 Supreme Court’s 4 – 3 split judgment on the Ondo State governorship election dispute.

The lead verdict delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim favoured APC and Governor Rotimi Akeredolu. He held that the non-inclusion of Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni, the interim caretaker committee chairman of the party, in the case rendered the appeal filed by Eyitayo Jegede of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) incompetent. But the minority opinion given by Justice Mary Odili, who presided over the appeal, raised a pertinent issue, which has generated heat within the party and the Buhari administration. Justice Odili held that Buni cannot chair the party in whatever capacity, citing Section 183 of the 1999 Constitution and Article 17 (iv) of the APC constitution. That being so, she held that Buni’s endorsement of Akeredolu’s nomination form was null and void.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who is currently in London, sought a resolution of the matter by referring it to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). To do justice to the matter, he brought in his fellow Silk, Abubakar Malami, the attorney-general, Babatunde Fashola, works minister and Festus Keyamo, minister of labour (state). Information Minister Lai Mohammed, also a lawyer, joined them to analyse the verdict. The group, it seems, did not make a headway in its assignment. The tension in the party manifested at its nationwide congresses on Saturday. Some members did not want the congresses to hold based on the judgment, others were for it, citing the same verdict.

Some of the questions begging for answers are:

Who can sponsor a candidate in an election?

A political party, according to Section 177 (c) of the Constitution.

Who can sign the nomination papers of a candidate?

The chairman of a party.

Can a sitting governor chair a party in a substantive or acting (interim) capacity?

No, he cannot. Section 183 of the Constitution puts it succinctly: The governor shall not, during the period when he holds office, hold any other executive office or paid employment in any form or other capacity whatsoever.

Is the post of party chairman an executive office as envisaged by Section 183?

Yes, it is as the chairman heads the national executive committee of his party.

Is the post a paid employment as also envisaged by the section?

Yes, as the chairman is seen as an employee of the party.

What if the chairman decides not to collect salary?

That is a personal decision which does not remove from the fact that he is holding a paid job.

Did the lead verdict pronounce on the legality or otherwise of Buni’s position as interim APC chairman?

No, it only held that his non-inclusion in the appeal rendered it nugatory.

Did the dissenting decision pronounce on Buni’s position?

Yes, it held that he could not be governor and party chairman at the same time.

Should the APC congresses have been suspended in view of this verdict?

The wise thing to do would have been to suspend the exercise because of the inherent consequences.

What are these consequences?

The risk of the exercise being nullified in court if aggrieved members sue.

Is Buni’s resignation, as some are demanding, the remedy?

No, he can still be sued for his past actions.

Can the party’s sacked NEC be brought back?

This is far-fetched.

Can a body already adjudged illegal reconstitute the NEC under whatever guise?

Anything done by an illegal body is deemed illegal. In law, you cannot build something on nothing.

Can the APC governorship election primary held in Anambra State recently stand in view of this verdict?

It may not stand if Buni is joined in any suit challenging the primary.

Who is a principal?

One who authorises another to act on his or her behalf as an agent, according to Black’s Law Dictionary.

Who is an agent?

One who is authorised to act for or in place of another.

Was Buni an agent of APC when he signed Akeredolu’s papers?

Yes. He did so as its interim caretaker chairman.

Is the party vicariously liable for his action?

In law, it is as Buni acted for a disclosed principal.

By Lawal Ogienagbon

The state has been coming down hard on agitators, treating them as common criminals. It successfully brought back home Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu from abroad on June 27. After it failed to get Yoruba nation activist Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho during the invasion of his Ibadan, Oyo State home on July 1, it set a trap for him in nearby neighbouring countries.

Its trap caught the big cat on Monday night in Cotonou, Benin Republic. Igboho was arrested while trying to board a plane to Germany. A diplomatic and legal battle has begun for his extradition.

Will Benin hand him over to Nigeria? Getting Igboho back home may not be as easy as that of Kanu. It is going to be an uphill task for the state. Igboho’s backers have begun a huge campaign to free him. Can the state devote the same time and energy being wasted on these harmless agitators to the hunting of the insurgents and bandits terrorising the country? Who is the most dangerous between them: the Igbohos and Kanus of this world or the insurgents and bandits? What gives Nigerians sleepless nights are those terrorising the land, and not those fighting for self determination.

By Lawal Ogienagbon

He was in a world of his own. All alone. Without company, comrades and friends, his survival depended on himself and himself alone and of course, the grace of God. That is the life of a soldier. Such a moment comes when he has to solely devise ways of survival in the face of enemy attack. When he is surrounded and all alone, without any other person in the world, he works and walks, where possible, his way out of trouble.

Where it is impossible to walk out of trouble, he comes home in a body bag or worse of all, his body may never be found for full military honours and burial. That is the hardest part of it all – the non-recovery of the body of a fallen soldier. A soldier who died fighting on his feet; doing all he could to protect the territorial integrity of his country and its people. How do you explain to his widow, where he was married; his children, if he had any and his parents, if they are still alive that the body could not be found?

The nation was saved that agony last weekend. Inside the thick forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna states, a fighter pilot lurked in fear as the enemy closed in on him. It was a close shave with death for Flight Lieutenant Abayomi Dairo, the lone pilot of the illfated Alpha Jet which crashed in Zamfara State on Sunday. The gallant soldier was on an interdiction mission in a zone now notorious for banditry, killings and kidnapping. He had successfully straffed the bandits’ hideouts and it was time to return to base.

In the course of the trip, the enemy took down his jet. He did not lose his nerves. He parachuted to safety as the plane hurtled into the deep recesses of the thick foliage never to be seen again. The bandits somehow knew that the pilot had ejected from the jet and a manhunt began for him. They could not lose the plane and lose the man, they thought. They must get something for their efforts. They gave the pilot a hot chase. Remember, this is their territory, which they know like the back of their hands. They believed that there was no way the soldier would outrun them on their own land.

They forgot that a soldier is trained to adapt to any situation. A soldier is not a soldier for nothing. He is a soldier because of his ability to weather every storm. A soldier is at home whether on land, at sea, in the air or in the mangrove. In the surreal world of soldiery, it takes brain and brawn to survive when a fighter pilot is cornered. On July 18, Dairo was cornered, but his instincts saved him. He survived to fight another day. It must have been a frightening and terrible experience for the young officer. This was not a war movie, many of which he must have watched in training. Nor was it a simulation, many of which again he must have participated in, at the military academy to prepare him for a day like July 18.

That fateful day, he came face to face with the hard reality of being a soldier. His nation is not at war, but it is waging a war to  contain insurgency and banditry in the Northeast and Northwest. Unfortunately, the problem is spreading to the Northcentral, with Niger State, being the most troubled in that axis. As I type this article on Tuesday evening, scores of pupils of an Arabic school, popularly called Ile ‘Kewu in the Southwest, are still in captivity almost one month after being abducted. Dairo might have embarked on his air interdiction mission as part of efforts to rescue these kids and other abductees. He nearly ended up being abducted too.

Dairo escaped to tell his story. It was not an easy escape. He escaped from those vermins with the bare skin of his teeth. His escape is the stuff of which war films are made. A soldier whose plane had been gunned down and surrounded by the enemy baying for his blood. Lonely and armed with only his phone, he bagan his long trek to safety. The darkness and his instincts came handy in this true test of his military training. There could not have been a better war situation test than the one unfolding before him in real time. What he learnt in simulation would no doubt have helped him on how to claw his way out of that dire situation.

As he darted here and there amid enemy fire, his breathing became fast and laborious. But he persevered as he knew the consequences of being caught. Gingerly, he trod through the bush, avoiding to step on dry trees that could give him away. Fate smiled on Dairo as he found his way to an army formation, where he was “fully rescued”. His escape brings joy to the nation, which has yet to get over the death of its army chief, Lt Gen Ibrahim Attahiru, and 10 others in an air force jet crash on May 21. Before then, two other military jets had crashed, killing some officers too. Dairo’s was the fourth jet crash in three years.

His was not a crash as such. It was shot down by bandits. This tells us as a nation that we are underrating these bandits and insurgents at the risk of our soldiers’ lives. These hoodlums are well armed. For them to bring down a fighter jet means that they have a rich arsenal to draw from to meet any exigency. It is important that the government draws a lesson from the July 18 incident. The lesson?  That the insurgency and banditry war is far from over.

A lot still has to be done for the sake of our soldiers. A “technically degraded” group, from my own layman’s view, should not have the capacity to down a fighter jet. These insurgents and bandits are still technically strong. From what happened on July 18, it will be foolhardy to think otherwise. This Dairo was lucky, another may not be that fortunate. May God continue to protect our troops.

 

By Lawal Ogienagbon

 

The man dies in him who keeps silent in the face of tyranny  – Prof Wole Soyinka.

 

The girl died. At 14 or even 25, which her mother has confirmed as her real age, she died in her prime. Her death resonated not only in Lagos where she died, but across the country. The mention of her name, Jumoke Oyeleke, anywhere today will readily elicit the statement: the sales girl that was killed by the police!

Although, the police have since washed their hands of her death, the public finds it hard to believe them. Jumoke was like any other neighbourhood girl struggling to survive. Last Saturday, as usual, she was out hustling when the unexpected happened. She was hit by a stray bullet allegedly fired by a policeman who was chasing some Yoruba nation agitators.

Was there any need for the police to chase the agitators round the streets of Ojota like common criminals? We will come to that presently. Suffice to say that Jumoke was not one of the agitators, though she was Yoruba. She was just starting life and in order not to be a liability to others, she worked as a sales girl in a shop close to her house. She was in her mistress’ shop that fateful Saturday when the worst happened. Jumoke died in earnest.

She went to look for her daily bread when she became fodder for the police. Her family will forever remember July 3 for it was the day that their joy was snatched away. July 3 was meant to be a day of peaceful gathering, an assembly where agitators of Yoruba nation were to openly canvass their case.

The arrowhead of the campaign is Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho. Before the Lagos rally, Igboho had led similar campaigns in the five other Yoruba states of Ekiti, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo. Despite warnings by these states that he should not come there with his trouble (that is the raw Yoruba way of putting it), Igboho still went to those places. The rallies went well because the authorities managed the ‘trouble maker’ well.

Igboho may be seen as a ‘trouble maker’ by the security agencies, but among his people, especially the masses, he is perceived as a saviour. The reason for this is obvious. He has stood up for them where the same security agents who are hounding him about, could not do anything when their lives were in danger. Where the security agencies allowed herdsmen to roam freely in Igangan, Oyo State, killing, looting, raping and destroying farms, Igboho rose to fight for his people and drove the invaders away.

The security agencies, particularly the police and Directorate of Security Services (DSS) seem to have misplaced their priorities. If not, they will not leave the substance to chase shadow. Igboho wanted to hold a rally in Lagos and all hell was let loose by the police and DSS. The tragic fallout of that rally was caused by the police. If such rallies could hold in other parts of Yorubaland without hitch, why should the Lagos case be different?

You know what! It was different because of bad policing. Instead of securing the Gani Fawehinmi Park, Ojota venue of the rally to ensure a peaceful event, they went there with a show of force. By so doing, Hakeem Odumosu, the police chief, thought he could intimidate the rallyists. It was a wrong approach since they were not coming to foment trouble. An intelligent approach would have been to engage the rally planners and get them to give an undertaking to be peaceful.

But no, our security personnel must do everything with force. This was why they rolled out armoured tank and other vehicles to Ojota a day before the rally. They also paraded the streets with their tank and vehicles to send fear into the people. Did it work?

No, it did not. The rally still held to the shame of the police that applied force, wrongfully, to stop it. The same happened 48 hours earlier when DSS operatives stormed Igboho’s Ibadan residence, armed to the teeth, as if they were going after a criminal. They went away with some cats under the belief that Igboho might have turned into one to evade arrest!

Our security agents are a funny bunch. Where they should apply force, they do not. If only they could go after insurgents, bandits, kidnappers and other hoodlums with the same zeal that they usually go after Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu, the country will be a better place. To be seen as working, they prefer to go after those they consider government enemies. Is agitation for self determination an offence? Is the criticism of government an offence?

To seek to be different is not wrong. It is when a person crosses the line that he should be brought to book. Let Igboho and Kanu shout from now till thy kingdom come for Oduduwa and Biafra nations, no rational Yoruba and Igbo man will follow them. So, why waste precious security time on them. Our security agencies are unwittingly lionising them by pursuing them all over the place as if they are criminals. They should tell us what their crime is. If they cannot, they should let them be. By their actions, they have turned Igboho and Kanu into folk heroes.

Now, we are being told that Kanu was successfully brought back home under an extradition pact. That was no extradition as the other jurisdiction is not known, except to Nigeria, which has something to hide. Extradition is never shrouded in secrecy. For Kanu’s return to pass the true test of extradition everything should have been done in the open. The law of extradition is clear on steps to follow. At best, Kanu was repatriated and not extradited. Let it be clear, I am no fan of either Igboho or Kanu, but a stickler for due process.

Jumoke must not die in vain. She would not have been killed if the police had acted tactfully. Rather than admit their fault, they want us to believe that she was killed days before the rally with a blunt object. That was their autopsy report! But her family and sympathisers await the coroner inquest findings on how she died, when she died and what killed her. Until then, the police can keep their report to themselves.

By Lawal Ogienagbon

Slight in frame, you can hardly miss him in a crowd. Moreover, he is the quiet type who minds his own business. Even then, that was some 34 years ago, his looks belied his age. You will take him for a young man still in his early thirties; but he was in his forties – 46 – to be precise, going by what I have just learnt. Those who passed through the Times Newspaper Training Centre (TNTC), which later became Times Journalism Institute (TJI), the school set up by the Daily Times under the leadership of its unforgettable and highly-revered one-time chairman/managing director, the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose, to hone the skills of journalists, will know him very well.  He was the go to man at the school for many years.

He ran the school as registrar and whether you liked it or not, as a student, your path must cross that of Mr Ayo Ajibade. Until the school was thrown open to outsiders in 1987, it was an in-house training ground for journalists working with the Daily Times. It was under the Manpower and Planning Division. At inception, Pa Ajibade was seconded from the conglomerate’s corporate head office at Kakawa, Lagos, to the school in Iganmu as secretary and typist. By the time my set entered the school, he was already the registrar, a job which he combined with lecturing. He took us in typing. But many of us looked down on typing and never really appreciated what he was doing. Looking back now, I know better.

Today, I rise to toast a great man, administrator and teacher, who turned 80 on June 25. 80? Yes, 80. Unassuming, unpretentious and a paragon of diligence, Pa Ajibade’s strong sense of character stood him out. Even at 80, that is what has kept him going. Happy birthday, sir.  I thank most especially, my respected senior and a former TJI Director, Pastor Ndubuisi Ugbede, for bringing Pa Ajibade’s birthday to the notice of former Daily Times workers and for representing us at the ceremony.

By Lawal Ogienagbon

Is it not funny? When Nnamdi Kanu fled the country over two years ago, he did so in style. Not so much by the manner he escaped, which caught the security agencies hands down, but the way he slipped through the eyes of the camel, so to say. The security agents were seeing Kanu and not seeing him at the same time. An abracadabra of sorts.

But, it was no magic at work. Kanu, like many of his ilk, does not do magic, but can be magical when occasion warrants. They can disappear at will. Something close to that happened that fateful day of his escape in 2019 in his Afaraukwu hometown in Abia State. He beat the security agents in their own game.

It was a lucky escape. The security people never forgave themselves for what happened. Known for his immodesty, Kanu played his escape up. He told all kinds of stories surrounding it. They were tantalising tales that sought to portray him as having mystical powers.

The tales were not different from those such people always like to tell when they gain the upper hand in their confrontations with the law. On Sunday, the bubble burst. He disappeared with a blaze and reappeared without comets. He came back shackled and in a ‘cage’. The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was brought down to earth from his Olympian height from which he had been ‘troubling’ the country, as the Federal Government and the security agents put it. Is Kanu he that troubles Nigeria?

He says he is not. Rather, he blames the government for the travails of his people. He perceives his agitation for Biafra as akin to the biblical quest of the Israelites to leave Egypt. His campaign of ‘let my people go’ does not however resonate with all easterners. Yet, he remains unfazed. When he fled Nigeria in 2019, he escaped with the bare skin of his teeth.

When he got to Britain, where he is a citizen, he stepped up the fight for Biafra, calling on his people not to give up come rain come shine. From his Radio Biafra, Kanu fired up the young and old who believe in his cause. His May 30 sit-at-home directive was largely complied with as the Southeast was locked down. There was no movement anywhere. From Enugu to Anambra to Ebonyi, Abia and Imo, everything was at a standstill. Kanu was riding high and he thought he was on the way to midwifing the second coming of the Biafra nation, which he so much desires.

Unknown to him, the clock was ticking for him. The security agents had never let their eyes off him since his escape in 2019. On Sunday, they got him, at last. Reports of how he was nabbed remain hazy. Some say he was arrested in South America. The name of the South American country was not given. Others say Ethiopia. Wherever it is, that is not the issue. The fact remains that he is not returning on his own terms. He is coming back against his will and as ‘diplomatic luggage’. What a way to return!

It is reminiscent of the way the Buhari military regime tried to bring back Umaru Dikko in an unmarked ‘diplomatic crate’ in 1984 which led to a row between Nigeria and Britain. The success of the Kanu mission may be tempting for the government to adopt the ‘crate’ diplomacy as foreign policy. It is not advisable to do so.

Our diplomatic structure should be built around issues which will make Nigeria stand in the comity of nations; a country which voice cannot be shunned in international matters. Nigeria, nay Africa, came of age in the Murtala Mohammed era over 45 years ago. It cannot afford to be a pariah now.

As for Kanu, the chickens have come home to roost.

By Lawal Ogienagbon

Some 30 years ago, the National Assembly of the shortlived Third Republic, which was a diarchical arrangement between the military and civilians, enacted the Nigerian Press Council (NPC) Act 1992. The law was passed with a gun virtually held to the lawmakers’ heads by the Babangida regime.

The people’s representatives, many of whom were beholden to ‘President’ Ibrahim Babangida, as he chose to call himself, had little or no choice but to pass the law. At the time, Babangida was under fire from the media for his elongated transition programme. He had been shifting the goal post of his exit date from office year after year.

It was obvious to the media and Nigerians, generally, that he was not ready to go. The media turned the heat on him. Tomes were written on him and his unending transition plan. That was how the ‘Go, IBB, go’ campaign was born. Irked by the development, he devised a plan to fight back. And the NPC law came into being. From inception, the intention of the law was never hidden – it was to muzzle the media. This is why the law did not work and may never work, no matter the guise under which it is being brought back now.

The NPC Act was born in deceit and ever since, it has been a child of deceit. It was conceived in the cloak of darkness; that is why till today, it has been in the bushel. It was not a candle lit to show the media the way, it came to serve the interest of Babangida and his cohorts. Having served that purpose, it was never referred to it again. Now, it has been exhumed by those who feel that the media is too harsh on President Muhammadu Buhari.

The media is looked upon kindly when it is not critical of government, but gets tarred when it starts asking critical questions. The media is not the problem of government. instead, the nation’s successive governments have always been the people’s problems. The media becomes the problem when it starts pointing out the government’s flaws.

That is when they go for laws like the NPC Act in order to silence the media as the people’s voice. Not too long ago, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was in the opposition. In fact, it led the opposition against the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It fought PDP with all its might.

APC enjoyed the support of the media which backed it to the hilt. The media did not do that because it loved APC more than PDP, it acted that way in its desire for good government. Since APC said then that it was fighting on behalf of the people for good government, it found an ally in the media. APC is in power today. But can it in good conscience say that it is providing good governance? Things it claimed that PDP got wrong, has the APC been able to put them right?

It is lucky because the PDP has not been that critical of it as it was of PDP in that party’s days in power. That PDP is not as vociferous as it should be does not mean that the media should not talk. The media is an agenda setter. It provokes discourse and through that, it helps the government too to gauge the people’s feeliIngs. It would be criminal for  the media to be silent over happenings in the country. As part of society, its role is to hold the government accountable.

The government may not like it; no government does anyway, but the media’s duty is to the people. As long as it serves the people, the media is on track. The media is not there to serve the government. It is there to report the government and its activities. Where the government does right, it says so, where the government falls below par, it equally records that. Any government that expects the media to sing its praise must do something to earn it.

It is easy to earn the media’s and the people’s trust. All that needs to be done is quality governance. The present govermnent had everything going on well for it from the outset. It came to power with the support of the media. The Jonathan administration was virtually hounded out of office by the media. The media did not do to spite PDP, it was only reflecting the wish of the people, who were crying that things were tough. It was this cry of the people that earned APC power in 2015.

Having seen what happened to PDP, the APC should have known what to expect if it does not do well. Its score card in the past six years is not impressive. The people whose cry yesterday helped it to power, are today wailing. They are not ‘wailing wailers’; they are genuinely lamenting the mistake they made in 2015 and 2019. Although, the government scores itself high, the reality on ground does not reflect that

Instead of doing something about this, it is talking about amending the NPC Act to reflect ‘current realities’ in the media! Do not laugh; this is a serious matter. When a sick person does not know that he needs a doctor, those around him are expected to come to his aid before his case gets worse. In order to help this government see itself in the mirror, the media got into trouble. It wants the media to see black and call it white or better still, see no evil, report no evil. The media does not work that way. The media, in the discharge of its job, does not pander to anybody’s whim.

It reports what it observes and what it is told after confirmation. The government’s spokesman, who played the same role for APC in its days in opposition, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, worked closely with the media those days. In fact, he was a darling of the media because of the way he did his job. He was always at the media’s beck and call. No hour was too late to meet with him as long as it concerns the policies of the then ruling party.

If PDP were still in power, it is certain that it would never have known rest from the arsenal of Lai Mohammed. When the shoe was on the other leg, it was game to take PDP to the cleaners, now that the shoe is on the leg of the APC government in which he holds a key position, it is no longer fair to criticise the government. What should the media do in a situation like this? Keep quiet in order not to offend the Lai Mohammeds, Femi Adesinas and Garba Shehus of this administration? If it was good to criticise the PDP government, why is it now an offence to do same to the Buhari administration?

Their biggest mistake is dusting up the NPC Act to stifle the media. A law that was meant for a specific purpose. Laws are not made to serve specific needs. This was the mistake that the IBB regime made. The NPC Act was and is still a vindictive law. Such laws do not work. That is why the NPC Act did not work.

Whether as NPC Act 1992 or NPC Act (as amended) of whatever year, if it ever comes to that, the law will return into oblivion after the life of this administration. Is that a law? Why waste time, energy and money on its amendment? As for Mohammed, he still has a chance to ponder over his role in the law’s resurrection. Is this the legacy he wants to leave behind? The choice is his.