The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Our longest 16 hours

    Our longest 16 hours

    WHEN some community leaders connive to sell a piece of land belonging to the local deity, they set off a chain of morbid reactions. One after the other, all the conspirators die, but the ring leader, a chief and the King’s second-in-command,  Otun, fights a desperate battle to stave off death. He tells the community’s monarch that no dead should be buried in the town, otherwise a prominent indigene will die. “Who is prominent in this town if not  you, kabiyesi?” he tells the king, who,  apparently not prepared to die, decrees that nobody should bury his dead.

    A man dies – from the curse of the deity. His children take the body to a neighbouring town for burial. The chief, who doesn’t want to die – he is the next in line to go after the body is interred – stormed the funeral, grabs the coffin and sits on it, screaming that it will not be buried.

    Strange. So strange. Scared out of his wits, Otun confesses to being one of those who sold the land. The community is alarmed. The king’s right hand man  becomes a subject of shame and scorn, roundly derided for his ignoble role in the despicable act  that shocks the community.

    That is the story of Tunde Kelani’s 1993 classic, T’Oluwa Ni’le (God owns the land), featuring the talented Alhaji Kareem Adepoju, alias Baba Wande, as the lead actor.

    A little exercise, dear reader. Substitute the land deal for the just-concluded presidential election. In place of the character Otun (Baba Wande) who led the conspirators, throw in Elder Godsday Orubebe, the former Niger Delta Affairs minister. Orubebe, apparently in a fit of seizure, battled on Tuesday to halt the announcement of the presidential election results.

    He raised a point of observation. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Attahiru Jega obliged. Orubebe – a dandy in a multi-striped ash blazer, a white shirt, a pair of black trousers, black shoes and a black hat – hurled expletives at Jega. He was screaming, swearing, shouting, yelling, huffing and puffing in a desperate bid to halt the process. He was foaming from the mouth as he threw up his hands. His eyes were red like a piece of coal from the blacksmith’s fire.

    “Nigeria will not accept this!”, he yelled and railed endlessly, charging like a  Rottweiler and warning: “Don’t come near me.” Orubebe claimed that Jega rejected PDP’s petition, but set up a panel to examine what the All Progressives Congress (APC) claimed went wrong in Rivers State.

    Watching it all on television, many were asking: When did Orubebe become Nigerians’ spokesman? Haven’t Nigerians spoken so loudly that even the deaf heard? What kind of elder is this Elder? Won’t his family be watching this on television?

    Why did Orubebe choose to do the job? Why not Femi “Amebo” Fani-Kayode, who hours before then was saying on television, with the braggadocio of a Lagos pickpocket, that the PDP had won 22 states and would not be robbed of its gains? Or Ayo Fayose, the rambunctious governor of Ekiti, who is more experienced in such matters? Or Dr Doyin  Okupe, who had earlier threatened that Buhari would not be president?

    But, if Orubebe had not seized upon the moment, nobody would have known that PDP harboured another talent with the ability to pull off a star performance that will draw great applause  any time.

    Jega was calm and confident. After Orubebe had exhausted himself, he sank into his seat. The theatrics over, the INEC chief explained all he knew about the matter that got Orubebe spinning out of control into a rage.

    The session continued. Before it ended, President Goodluck Jonathan shocked us all. He called Gen. Buhari at 5.15 p.m.  to concede defeat.  The Nation broke the story on its website. The tension that had gripped the land crashed and gave way to revelries. Many were screaming Sai Baba in jubilation.

    Some women were singing: Ojut’owo, oju ti’resi, oju t’owo (shame to money, shame to rice).

    Others were shouting: “PDP…dollar!” –a clever corruption of  the party’s slogan and a punchy allusion to the way it painted the town red before the election.

    Now, the joke in town is that no woman would like to marry Jega because “if you shout at him, he won’t just talk”.

    Besides, a new word has been added to the political lexicon, “Orubebe”. The meaning: To attempt to disrupt a peaceful process. “Orubebed” (past tense). “Orubebebing”  (present continuous tense). Example : An elder is trying to orubebe the parliament’s plan to pass the Electoral Act, which will criminalise threats to a Returning Officer.

    But, talking seriously, shouldn’t Orubebe face the law for holding the nation to ransom? Where is police chief Suleiman Abba who threatened to deal with anybody who attempts to disrupt the process?

    Even before INEC began to roll out the results, there had been tension in major cities. Schools closed. Banks rolled back their closing time and left many customers stranded. Other businesses also called it a day. Everybody went home to wait for the announcement of a winner, but that was not to be until some 16 hours after. Our longest 16 hours ever, perhaps.

    Apparently excited that the apocalypse that we all dreaded didn’t come, after all, Nigerians have reduced it all to jokes. It is amazing the fecundity of the  Nigerian’s mind.

    Consider this which a friend sent me. It is an invitation card, titled “Otuoke Reunion”. “Doors open at 4.30pm. May 29, 2015. Location: 1, Otuoke Main Road, Otuoke, Bayelsa State, near Mujahid Dokubo’s house. You are invited. MC: Femi Fani-Kayode.DJ: Koro in the house. Sound Track: Money can’t buy love. Bouncer: Doyin Okupe. Gals: Diezani, Ngozi, Patience and Stella. RSVP: www. ENDS.ng. Card admits one.”

    Another said: “While APC was busy campaigning, PDP was looking for Buhari’s certificate.”

    The long night ended at 3.46am when Jega declared Buhari winner of the election. He scored 15,424,921 votes as against Jonathan’s 12,853,162 votes. The President then made a broadcast in which he promised to co-operate with Buhari for a smooth transfer of power.

    In his view, the PDP should be celebrating and not mourning. “We created a pan-Nigerian political party and brought home to our people the realities of economic development and social transformation.” Really?

     

    Buhari collected his certificate of return yesterday. He said he bore no grudge against anyone and would not discriminate against any Nigerian. Good. But, as somebody said last night, it is okay to forgive all but history will surely reconstruct the road to Change – the crippling of the economy that has weakened the naira so badly –ah!  if only a currency could cry – , unemployment, abuse of the security forces,who often got deployed to rig elections for the ruining – sorry, a slip there – the ruling party, even when there are challenges, such as the need to bring back home the over 200 abducted Chibok girls,  harassment of judges and those hate campaigns.

    –Can we ever forget?

  • FOR AMBODE

    FOR AMBODE

    LAGOSIANS will go to the polls on April 11 to elect a governor. There are many in the race, but the top contestants are Akinwunmi Ambode of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Jimi Agbaje of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    I have never met Agbaje, a pharmacist and politician who many have described as a good guy in a doubtful company, the PDP. Ambode, son of a teacher and former accountant-general of the state, I have met. Of today’s army of politicians, about only a few can you say: “Yes, he surely knows the terrain.”

    Lagos is like a cruising aircraft; It needs an experienced pilot to assure us all that the economic turbulence Nigeria is facing will not make us lose altitude. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu revved the engine and took off successfully. Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), the governor, is in the cockpit, ensuring the smooth flight we are having. Ambode, I have no doubt, will take us to our dream state – a home for all, an economic giant and an Eldorado of peace where talents will continue to blossom. Let’s vote him in.

  • Man of the people

    It was a hard fought battle. President Goodluck Jonathan and Gen Muhammadu Buhari threw everything they had into the contest. Being the incumbent president, Dr Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had an almost inexhaustible war chest to prosecute his campaign. Name it; money, men and materials, he had them all.

    But, Gen Buhari, an ascetic man by nature, did not have the president’s kind of resources. What he had going into the March 28 presidential contest was enormous goodwill. Many believe in Buhari because of his clean public record. They see him as the kind of leader that our country needs at this point in time. Nigeria is at a crossroads and many Nigerians feel that we need a man of Buhari’s character to take us out of the doldrums.

    A vote for Gen Buhari was therefore a vote for the transformation of Nigeria. The election was Gen Buhari’s to lose. Even though nothing is 100% sure in elections, it was clear as daylight that Gen Buhari would carry the day in the March 28 poll. It was not an easy ride to the presidency for Buhari though. Thrice he contested between 2003 and 2011 and thrice he lost not because he did not have what it takes for the job, but because his time had not come.

    Gen Buhari was fourth time lucky yesterday and his luck may yet rub off on Nigeria. Expectations are high from his fellow countrymen, who have been at the receiving end of bad leadership in the last few years. Nigerians will be impatient with him because of what they are going through under the outgoing President Jonathan. But we need not blame the president too much.

    The president’s men failed him and the country. They were given an opportunity to serve their fatherland, but they failed to discharge this enormous responsibility to the best of their ability. They were interested in power, but were not ready to  give commensurate service. They were more interested in the perks of office and not the job itself. By the time of the election, Nigerians were fed up with the Jonathan administration. There was nothing they wanted more than for the president to go, with or without election.

    When the election was shifted from its initial February 14 date to last Saturday, the electorate felt bad. They wanted nothing to stop them from exercising their rights to pick a leader of their choice.The six-week postponement on supposed  security ground did not save the president from defeat. Rather than stop the Buhari momentum, the shift fuelled the people’s anger against their president.

    With the outcome of the election they have forgotten all about the postponement, which delayed their election of the man they believe would bring back smiles on their faces. Truly, these are not the best of times for our dear country, which is in dire need of  purposeful leadership, and the electorate chose Buhari over Jonathan because they see that quality in him.

    Nigerians rejected President Jonathan at the polls because he lacks what it takes to reinvent Nigeria. For six years, he could not lay hands on the Nigerian problem, yet he wanted to remain in office. Gen Buhari’s emergence as president-elect, some will say, calls for celebration because it is the dawn of a new era, but painfully there is nothing to cheer about his election because things have gone bad, damn too bad in our country for too long. It is a time for us to ponder over the Nigerian project because the incoming president and his team have a lot of work to do.

    The mood of our country to
    day does not call for celebra
    tion as such, rather we should be full of prayers for the incoming government. Gen Buhari needs our prayers to succeed. After giving him our mandate, it will cost us nothing to support him with prayers in the enormous task of taking our country to greater height. We cannot end this without commending President Jonathan for his show of sportsmanship in conceding defeat even before Gen Buhari was formally declared winner. With his action, Dr Jonathan has shown that he truly loves Nigeria.

    As he prepares to leave office, we wish him all the best and pray that in the next few weeks to his exit, he will work closely with Gen Buhari to ensure a smooth transition. It was Gen Buhari’s lot, as military ruler,  to save us from a drifting democratic government in 1983 and he delivered. Thirty-two years after, fate has, again, thrust on him the arduous job of repairing the country. May God guide him right. Congratulations, Mr President-elect.

     

    With elders like Orubebe…

    The show of shame was watched globally last Tuesday. As Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Prof Attahiru Jega was about starting the business of the day at the National Collation Centre (NCC) where results of the March 28 presidential election from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were being collated,  former Niger Delta Minister and failed governorship aspirant Godsday Orubebe, who calls himself an elder, took the floor after being recognised. He and his accomplice, Col Bello Fadile, having seen the handwriting on the wall that their candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, would lose decided to go for broke.

    As if possessed, Orubebe started by pouring invectives on Jega. Jega, he claimed was partial. According to him, the INEC chief refused to receive their petitions challenging the elections in Kano, Katsina, Kaduna and Jigawa states, whereas Jega immediately raised a panel to probe the All Progressives Congress (APC) complaints about Rivers State election. Fadile stoked the fire, saying that he brought the petition, which Jega refused to accept. He also accused Jega of giving the election  results to APC before releasing them.

    In the face of it all, Jega, who apparently knew their game plan, was cool and calm. When he spoke, he cut both men to the size. To Fadile, who is known to work with National Security Adviser (NSA) whose office engineered the curious six-week extension of the elections, Jega said : “I have not seen any results, I have not given anybody any results. For you to engage me on that issue, I think frankly it is not fair to me… how can I speak on something I have not seen”.  The one who calls himself an elder looked so ordinary after Jega finished with him. “Let us be careful about what we say or do and let us not disrupt a process that has ended peacefully and in a matter of hours, we will be able to finish it. Mr Orubebe, you are a former minister… you are a statesman in your own right, you should be careful about what you say or what allegations you make and certainly you should be careful about your public conduct”. With elders like Orubebe, how can the church and society grow? As for Fadile, we leave him to his conscience, that is if he has one.

  • President Jonathan’s finest hour

    At exactly 1:15 pm United Sates eastern time (6:15 pm Nigerian time) on Tuesday, my daughter called me from Lagos with the news that President Goodluck Jonathan had just called Gen. Buhari and congratulated him on his victory in the presidential election. I have seen Nigerian elections since 1952, have taken frontline parts in many, been a candidate in some, and won some. I can’t remember another election campaign that was so contentious, and so bitter and violent in tone, as the one that ended this past Tuesday. And I can’t remember any other federal ruler of Nigeria who so willingly conceded victory to an opponent as President Jonathan has done.

    In the history of Nigeria, the one or two minutes of greetings between President Jonathan and Gen. Buhari this past Tuesday is very likely to go down as President Jonathan’s finest hour as a Nigerian public official. And those one or two minutes may very well go down as the turning point in the hitherto tumultuous path of Nigeria as an independent country since 1960. If Nigeria goes on from this point to evolve into a country with a disciplined leadership, orderly management, openly democratic politics, and a dynamic modern economy, President Goodluck Jonathan could become the initiator of needed change for Nigeria. Some day in the future, our grateful descendants may erect statues to his memory.

    Sure, most of us Nigerians have spent the past four years lamenting President Jonathan’s inadequacies. Because he comes from the Niger Delta, where many brave youths have arisen since 1960 to war against excessive centralization of power and resource control, and against an insensitive federal establishment, very many Nigerians naturally looked up to him to start a process of constitutional changes – changes that would give the Nigerian federation a more rational structure, and restore to our federating units much of the responsibility for development and resource management that the Federal Government has been messing around with. But, not only did he not start the needed change, he even seemed for some time to be opposed to it. And when he was finally prevailed upon to take some step and call a National Conference, he did absolutely nothing to give it any direction.

    Quite rightly, therefore, when some eminent citizens in Nigeria’s most progressive region rose up during, the now concluded election campaign and urged their people to support him on the grounds that he would carry out the recommendations of the National Conference; their people were skeptical.

    During the same years under President Jonathan, our country has increasingly suffered distress on account of terrorism. At least, in the course of the first years of this century, we Nigerians grew used to believing confidently, and with considerable pride, that ours was the strongest military in Africa. In various trouble spots on the African continent, and even in places beyond Africa, we earned the reputation of being a key factor in international peacekeeping ventures. When Boko Haram began to raise a challenge against our country, therefore, most Nigerians felt sure that our military were more than capable of quickly getting rid of them. But the challenge mounted and mounted, while President Jonathan seemed more and more at a loss on what to do. The crisis attracted the attention of the whole world when Boko Haram kidnapped 276 students in a girls’ boarding school and we seemed to have no meaningful response. Various foreign governments and international agencies came in to offer help, and soon, through them, we got the shocking message that our military were hopelessly inept – as a result of rampant corruption.

    This national shame reached a peak when the armies of our supposedly weaker neighbours (Chad, Cameroon and Niger) intervened and began to achieve significant success against Boko Haram – success that seemed beyond the capability of our own military.  From this situation concerning our military, the image of our presidency as commanding chief over corruption assumed huge proportions. In fairness to President Jonathan, it is not right to charge him with being the originator of corruption in our federal government. Corruption was already a mighty power in our public life, and our Federal Government was already a monstrously corrupt entity, and the purveyor of corruption in our land, when President Jonathan was only a boy at school. The very constitutional structure given our country in 1978- 9 was designed to facilitate corruption – and it has done so more and more blatantly since then.

    But the recent stories of our military’s ineptitude due to corruption did a lot of harm to President Jonathan’s image at home and abroad – even though, on the basis of what we know about our former presidents (military and civilian), President Jonathan does not, obviously, have the audacity to do what some of our earlier presidents did in the realm of corruption.

    All these tend now to pale into only little significance side by side with what President Jonathan did last Tuesday evening. From all that we Nigerians know, when President Jonathan put that call through to Gen. Buhari, exchanged a few words with him and put down the telephone, he almost certainly saved our country from a major conflagration. For many months, many of our politically influential citizens have been exchanging threats of violence and war if the outcome they desired from the presidential election did not materialize. For years, some influential citizens have been, reportedly, importing and accumulating dangerous weapons for implementing their threats. Among us ordinary Nigerians, fearsome speculations have reigned. Then with one small gesture, President Jonathan commanded the rising tide of lawlessness and anarchy to be still. Soon, we will have another man in the position of president, and it is upon him we will then have to pin our hopes for our country. If he indeed is able to start off peacefully and smoothly, we will find it impossible to forget that it was President Jonathan who did that which made such a start-off possible.

    From our present situation, I have a message for our politicians. Because of my principal job as a scholar and teacher, with a significant amount of participation in the politics of my country, and with considerable contacts with politics, governance and development in many countries of the wide world, I am often horrified by the manner in which we Black African peoples conduct the politics of our countries.  I mean our tendency to infuse excessively violent passions into our relationships with one another, especially in the course of election rivalries. Some of the threats of war and violence, which we have heard in Nigeria in recent months, are simply unthinkable in most countries outside Black Africa. Besides, among persons intensely working for this or that presidential candidate, I have watched people say, write, or enshrine, unbelievably vicious and hurtful things about other persons – even persons to whom they are quite close by blood and other kinds of bonds.

    Where does this primitive urge to hurt and destroy our fellow men come from? How really does such savagery help our candidate? And, now that the candidates have ended this more or less amicably, how do we live with the hurt and barbarism that we so thoughtlessly generated in past weeks? Is it true that, as some say, we blacks are less human, and less capable of thought, than other races? We need to think about these things.

  • Jega’s finest hour as Nigerian victory

    Nigerians have little faith in their institutions. Except perhaps for the church, today headed by prosperity prophets, who have taken over the socio- economic role the state should perform in society; all other institutions are facing crisis of credibility. The bureaucracy is so powerful that it controls the water we drink, the air we breathe, the education of our children; where to live and where to be buried.

    Recently, a theft of N5billion pension fund was perpetrated inside the office of the Head of service just as another director in charge of the police, the most important organ of state, stole over N32b. The legislature has become a parasite living on the sweat and blood of those they are elected to protect through humane enacted laws. The judiciary is for the highest bidder. Those who allegedly stole N1.6 trillion are not in chains but in government because the outgoing President Jonathan government says ‘the wheel of justice grinds slowly in Nigeria’. Until now the picture of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), that Nigerians had was that of an umpire that often takes side with one of the competing teams if the price was right.

    But with commitment and strength of character, Jega changed that picture leading to the miracle of 28th March 2015. On that day, Nigerians came out in their millions, waited for hours in the sun, others in the rain, determined to cast their vote because unlike the inglorious moment in the First Republic when Chief Remi Fani Kayode said his party would win whether the people voted for it or not, Nigerians trusted Jega and believed their vote would count. He has not let those who put their trust in him down.  For Nigerian, it is the dawn on a new day. For the first time in the history of our nation, an incumbent president was defeated ‘round and square,’ through a process that was so transparent that the President could not have been anything but magnanimous in defeat to promptly congratulate the victor.

    The battle against forces of darkness that swore to rule for sixty years or pull the nation down on their head had been fierce.  Jega’s most potent weapons were the millions of Nigerians he was able to convince that sacrificing quality time to secure their PCVs, wait patiently for hours on a queue on the election day refusing to be disfranchised by enemies of our nation, spend their resources to rent generators, canopies, chairs or buy refreshments for their compatriots were worthy endeavours for sustenance of the soul of our nation. Thousands of our young corpers who spent Friday and Saturday nights sleeping in mosquito infested open field and unable to take their bath for two days made the sacrifice because of their faith that Jega’s efforts would bring a better tomorrow.

    It is gratifying to know that the current INEC is Nigerian made. It is made up of patriotic individual Nigerians. I was filled with admiration as I watched Kayode Idowu, the chief spokesman for the INEC chairman, who appeared not to have slept for days, educating Nigerians on the need for patience and understanding on Channels Television last Sunday. There were many voting locations with neither INEC officials nor INEC voting materials. But Nigerians remained resolute having realized that INEC was engaged in a battle of wits with those who worked assiduously to ensure its failure. At the end, their resilience and patience paid off. Those who had thought Nigerians especially the middle class would give up after a few hours were disappointed. Many in their sixties and seventies patiently waited on Saturday and those who had roles to perform in their churches on the palm Sunday returned briefly to vote when voting started before returning back to their churches.

    The African Union Election Observation Mission (AUEOM) said in preliminary findings that the vote was “conducted in a peaceful atmosphere within the framework that satisfactorily meets the continental and regional principles of democratic elections”. This is a credit to Jega and Nigerians who have faith in him. Except in the south south where militants, both young and old, often resort to self-help and Lagos where enemies of Nigeria were bent on truncating the transition, the election went smoothly everywhere. INEC’s success came after a hard fought battle with formidable foes beginning with the president, his errand boys and errant elders, his attack dogs, PDP Boko Haram insurgents and the Niger Delta militants whose leader Godsday Orubaba, a former minister of Niger Delta put up a show of shame on Tuesday in the full glare of national and international audience in a futile attempt to derail the transition.

    Of course Jega survived all his foes including President Jonathan, his greatest detractor who without proof claimed non indigenes in Lagos were being discriminated against by INEC in the distribution of PCVs; PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Muazu told a delegation of Africa Union election observers led by AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Dr. Aisha Abdullahi that his party objected to the use of card readers because  “the machine may not make for credible elections as it is said to easily malfunction especially when the battery is weak”; a former Governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, who spoke on behalf of Southern Leaders Forum insisted  there would be no election except Jega quits  and in fact, calls for his sack and arrest. There was also the National co-coordinator of the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) Otunba Gani Adams, who wanted Atthiru Jega removed ‘on the basis of PVC distribution and introduction of card reader’

    There were also 15 political parties that opposed the use of the card readers because “if the card reader should develop some technical problems, there is a possibility that the consequences of such development would affect about forty) or fifty percent of the polling booths nationwide. The national chairman of MEGA Progressive Peoples Party, Dare Falade; the presidential candidate of the Peoples Party of Nigeria, Kelvin Alagoa; and the presidential candidate of the Alliance represented them. Rafiu Salau amongst others represented them.

    The churches were not left out. There was Bishop Abraham Chris Udeh, the General Overseer of Mount Zion Global Faith Liberation Ministries, Nnewi, Amambra state, who had a vision that Jega must be removed. Buffeted and bedeviled by the typical Nigerian problems, INEC has emerged a new Nigerian successful brand and one institution that have made Nigerians proud. Jega’s joy for ending our long nightmare, I am sure will have no bounds. It is his victory as much as it is Nigerian victory.

  • Nine new Private Universities: One too many

    On the recommendation of the National Universities Commission, the Federal government has approved the take off of nine new private universities mostly in the Southwest, South-South and North-Central areas where there are enough private universities already. The obvious questions to ask is where will these universities find good students, bearing in mind, the number of students who pass in five subjects at credit level, including English and Mathematics is usually not many. The existing universities sometimes have to struggle to find enough students to meet approved quota. Secondly, where will the staff to teach in these universities come from bearing in mind that foreigners would not accept current salaries paid to academics in Nigeria where a full professor earns two thousand five hundred dollars ($2500) a month at current rate of exchange. The result of this is that these new universities would poach staff from existing universities leading to a situation where people who cannot be senior lecturers in existing universities become professors in new ones.

    Thirdly, running a university is an expensive venture. If those who are establishing mushroom universities think they would make money, they are definitely in for a great shock. If proprietors are determined to make money, then they will have to cut corners in students’ accommodation, provision of laboratories and libraries and staffing as a whole. The result of this will be frustration of students and staff to the detriment of the institutions and vicariously to the detriment of our country.

    I have not said anything about employment for those coming out of these universities because I do not think this is a strong argument against training of young people. University education is for the purpose of training the mind and developing the total man or woman. Getting jobs should be regarded as secondary. If people are well trained no matter what discipline, they would either get jobs or start something on their own. Certainly, they would be in a position to shape the future of their country through critical participation in what goes on in the society as responsible citizens. An educated citizenry is a fundamental condition for development.

    I have said it in my column once that by the law of natural competition, a few of our private universities will die but that the ones established by corporate or sectarian bodies are more likely to survive. At least, I know a university that was approved some ten years ago that flew for sometime before crashing out of existence. More of this is likely to happen in the future. Finally, government needs to give itself a breathing space for consolidation of the existing private and public universities before approving new universities. Many of the present new universities both public and private are too small judging by students’ enrolment. Half of the over one hundred and forty universities we have in this country have less than five thousand students each and the entire number of students in the over 140 universities we have in this country is not up to one million. So it is not the number of universities that really matters, what matter is quality universities that can take more students in existing universities while saving cost on administration.

    I was at the centennial celebration of the association of commonwealth universities in London last year and one of the trends noticeable is that a few top universities in Europe and America are beginning to establish branch universities in developing countries and offering courses through electronic education and graduating students some of who have never been to America or England with degrees of Harvard, Yale, MIT, Oxford and Cambridge as the case may be. So instead of establishing many universities all over the place, would it not have been better if a few of our universities were made to develop university campuses in other parts of our country? After all, we have the historical experience of London University having colleges in Ibadan, Legon, Accra; Mona, Jamaica; Makerere, Uganda; Nairobi, Kenya; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Singapore, Singapore. The trend now is that some British and American universities are having large campuses off shore in China, Malaysia and the Middle East. Maybe if such branches were established in Nigeria, the cost of going there will be so prohibitive and few of our people would be able to go there and perhaps this accounts for approval of new universities in Nigeria. Whatever the case may be, the increasing number of mushroom universities in Nigeria, both public and private, calls for caution before we end up producing certificated illiterates who may be a scourge on the society that cannot meet their expectations for jobs and employment.

    I hope I will not be misunderstood that I am advocating, shutting the door of education against the teaming millions of Nigerian youths who want to go through the portals of universities. Universities in India and America are of varying degrees in educational quality. We of course, already have these varying degrees in the quality of our universities. This is in spite of the fact that the NUC foolishly imposes on all Nigerian universities homogenised programmes without allowing each university to develop its own character and uniqueness. I do not know how the NUC came to do this because the NUC in its formative years was patterned after the British higher education grants commission. It was meant to receive grants from the government and distribute to universities but overtime, the NUC in Nigeria has become not only a grants commission but an academic standards organisation. The result is that all the universities offer the same programmes whether private or public and there is no room for uniqueness or academic identity. This makes the point I made about a few universities in Nigeria being made to establish campuses all over the country and the present campuses of existing universities being turned into mere tutorial and examination centres. There is a need for debate about the need of higher education in Nigeria; and this debate was started in the commonwealth universities association centennial celebration; and there is a need for stakeholders in higher education in Nigeria to be actively involved because this is about our future; and our future cannot be left in the hands of a few bureaucrats no matter how highly educated they may be. Higher education is too important to be left in the hands of the to be left in the hands of NUC.

  • In March…

    • (Youth and the ballot box)

    We say because we belong to the divide that everybody calls “have-nots,” there is nothing we could do to have our say and actualise it. We do not belong to the “have-nots.” Do we?

    If we do, then let me make good to say that promising as we are touted to be, our promise has been tainted by perversion and shame. Our songs of hope are tainted by defeat and our most promising image is yet ravaged and austere.

    For we have become unfaithful to a land that gave us life and sustains it, still. The hope we know still prospers as eternal defeatism – for we remain unfaithful to a land devoid of catastrophe and hopelessness save that which we have learnt to visit upon it, from our fathers.

    Our best years hardly lie ahead. Perhaps they do. Who knows…the hopelessness we swore to diminish may finally disappear. Our best years may truly lie ahead, if we could squeeze the juice of youth to nourish atrophy.

    Today, a wonderful thing is happening to you and me. The chance we seek has landed within our reach. It had always been within reach, we have only been too cowardly to seize it.

    Juvenile as we are, in character and mind; we get to enjoy such wonderful chances to play adult, again. How responsible shall we be, as adults? Such rare opportunity which we get to rekindle starlight in our darksome skies hardly presents itself in several nations of the freeborn.

    This March, shall we dispense our mandate as the freeborn who do not know how to be free? Shall we resort to genocide and war as our neighbours for whom the bullet resounds more than a thousand votes? Shall we turn our neighbourhoods and public parks to theatres of devastation and the grotesque?

    Or shall we dispense our affairs as ones who have learnt, finally, the wisdom in diligence and unselfishness? Shall this be the moment we get to put a lie to every manner of delinquency and hideousness that have been ascribed to us? Is this the epoch of the Nigerian youth?

    It is. This is the moment in which we scorn the platitudes and benevolence of insufferable godfathers. This is the moment in which we court the bounteousness of hope astride the prick of faith. This is the moment in which we get to lead by our votes.

    By our votes, we could get to choose the leader with a will to truly serve. By our votes, we could begin to unlearn every perfidy that we have learnt…we could unschool our hearts of the hypocrisy that drives us to beatify shams and delusions as the soundest of truths while we canonise reality as the genesis of farce.

    By our votes, we could end our sojourn on the roads where our heartfelt hopes lay famished. It’s time we acknowledged that we had never known better. It’s time we cast our votes like ones who truly know better.

    By our votes, we could choose our preferred candidate in the light of our most pressing goals, the possibilities of projecting them in time and achieving them via conscious and concerted efforts. One man to a vote, we could subject every platitude and cheap-talk to the scrutiny of exhaustive retrospection and candour.

    We could show predators we ennobled with power that we shan’t be taken by their promises of free meals, free amenities and infrastructure anymore. We could help them to understand that we understand that in the normal conditions of existence, there is hardly any free meal.

    We could tell them that it is the duty of every elected representative to provide among other things; good roads and electricity, security and a stable economy; for we do pay for them – quite painfully too. That is why they deplete our income by tax.

    By our votes, we could substantiate the arguments we espouse. We could breathe life into the most brilliant chapters of Karl Marx and like the late philosopher and economist, illumine the agonies of the working class.

    Every man to his vote, we could command the workings of politics and materialism beyond feckless excitation and sham-talk. By our votes, we could propound that timeless political philosophy we never had.

    This is the moment in which we actualise the success of a mass revolution, the triumph of the bread lines and the re-emerging middle class. This is the moment in which we put lie to the claim that the bread lines are incapable of determining society by themselves.

    This is the moment in which we defy the enticement of deep-pockets and their bromated loaves, cudgels, clubs and hard currencies.

    It would simply not do to explode in rant and idle cynicism anymore. It would no longer do to detonate in gripe and over-celebrated soapboxes. We owe it to ourselves to survive self-destruct by ideals much better than those our modern statesmen extract from impotent arsenals of misinterpreted politics and dogma.

    This is the time to cast our votes in revolution predicated on the satisfaction of basic necessities: bread for the hungry, land for the peasants and peace to end the barbarism of the privileged few breaking our virgin foals roughshod.

    Revolutions are born because spirited patriots decide to react. Then it spreads like wildfire in harmattan to incite the guts of latent spirits. This time around, let it excite the conscience of even the most treacherous citizen.

    Today, our talk is of Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari. There is nothing to be said, at this point in time. The hour of decision has stolen on us. Let us now elect the one whose appreciation of our relative realities in the light of that which seems unknowable and irresolvable seems incontestable.

    Let us now give our mandate to the candidate whose philosophy of governance repudiates and sufficiently resolves the predicament of those whose plight the State is incapable of improving – beyond time-worn rhetoric that it is socio-politically incorrect for such unquenchable terror to exist.

    Shall we now appoint the one whose evaluation and projection of our given concretes unlike the other contestants’ exacts the most probable if not practicable outcomes in the throes of ruthlessly objective and rational processes of thought and actions.

    Let us now elect the one capable of standing unbending before the interminable storm of our brutishness and impatience even while we pick him apart. Let us elect the one capable of repair in wisdom and action even as he braves the savagery of impatient citizenry and self-styled activists.

    Let him be the one whose blueprint for the provision and sustenance of good roads, electricity, standard health care and security, stable economy and quality education among others revalidates our hope in the supremacy of democratic ethos we are yet to enshrine.

    This is the moment in which we cast our votes with faith…faith in the ballot process, democracy and State. Let him be the one whose soul we have endeavoured to explore that we may be capable of trust.

    Bet you will claim you have found the candidate of such principle, depth and character. Who? We shall get the type of government that we deserve.

  • Yoruba Ronu: These times demand wisdom

    Hubert Ogunde sang his great song, ‘Yoruba Ronu’, at a time of great trial and stress for the Yoruba nation in Nigeria. For us Yoruba, it has been our lot in Nigeria to suffer trials, stress and distress from time to time to time. That is because, having been made part of Nigeria by the British in 1914, we have been forced to live for a whole century in a Nigeria whose standards are weird and unacceptable to us as Yoruba people. To us today, as the Nigerian presidential election of 2015 approaches, the Nigerian situation is not merely weird and unacceptable to us; it absolutely threatens our peace and security.

    Sure, we understand when our political leaders and political activists urge us to focus our attention only on the election that is coming. That is as it should be. As long as we Yoruba as a nation are part of Nigeria, we must be involved in her political processes, and our politically active men and women must do what politicians do in elective politics. They must seek to win our votes and, in the process, they will talk to us as if voting in the coming election is the most important thing in the world.

    But, as one of our proverbs says, even as one’s eyes sheds tears in the act of weeping, one still see through one’s eyes. Today’s situation demands that our politicians must give a big part of their attention to the needs of peace and security in our homeland. They must not ignore the very manifest fact that many prominent citizens in other parts of Nigeria have been talking volubly about violence and war, and that some of such prominent citizens have been importing and amassing weapons of war. Our politicians also must not ignore the stories circulating in recent months that some hostile elements, well armed for destructive purposes, have already entered into our homeland.

    This vigilance and readiness to defend our towns and cities and villages is a duty for all of us, members of the Yoruba nation in Nigeria. It is a duty for all our politicians from all political parties. It is a duty for our traditional rulers and chiefs. It is a duty for all our state governors and state governments. And it is a duty for all of us common citizens.

    As an example of what we should all be doing, a powerful Yoruba intellectual organization, Oodua Foundation (O.F,), headquartered in the United States but with members in various countries of the world, has been very busy mobilising the Yoruba nation towards a peaceful outcome for the Nigerian presidential election.  Oodua Foundation (O.F.) has, since its inception in 2006, adopted a strictly nonpartisan posture. Its objective is to work for the progress and prosperity of the Yoruba nation – as they usually put it in their writings, “within Nigeria if possible, without Nigeria if necessary”.  Their approach to the service of their Yoruba nation is based on a strong foundation of knowledge and facts; and it is tough and hardheaded. They see every prominent Yoruba person as a God-given instrument for the advancement of the Yoruba nation, and they have no interest whatsoever in any kind of partisan divisions among Yoruba people.

    In the past few weeks, they have been intensely busy trying to ensure that, if the presidential election leads to violence, their own Yoruba people must not get involved in the violence. They are calling and holding long-distance conferences with prominent Yoruba leaders and urging everyone to commit himself to the promotion and preservation of peace in Yoruba land. They are in contact with many foreign governments and international agencies.

    They have issued a jingle for airing on radios. And they are now beginning to circulate a Clarion Call, urging their Yoruba nation to exercise full Yoruba wisdom and commonsense in the developing Nigerian situation. Part of the Clarion Call reads:

    From all indications, this coming election seems likely to produce conflicts, violence and bloodshed on a larger scale than ever before in Nigeria’s elections. Many important Nigerian leaders (happily excluding Yoruba leaders) have been threatening violence and war; and many have been importing and amassing dangerous weapons. And, from experience, the Nigerian government is unlikely to have the readiness or ability to contain and stem such violence should it occur: Oodua Foundation calls on all Yoruba in Nigeria to remember that we Yoruba are a freedom-loving people, with ancient and sophisticated political traditions, and that we honour the right of every citizen to support any political party or candidate: Oodua Foundation calls on all Yoruba registered voters to go out dutifully and peacefully to vote on Election Day, and to strictly avoid any kind of violence.

    After we Yoruba have voted for candidates of our choice, we must strictly avoid any kind of violence, and strictly avoid being drawn into any violent act, in any part of the Yoruba homeland in the Southwest, Kwara, Kogi and the Itsekiri part of Delta State: Oodua Foundation calls on the Yoruba nation to resolve now in advance, and to pass it from mouth to mouth in our land, that any Yoruba person who starts or supports violence in any part of Yoruba land shall be regarded as an enemy of the Yoruba nation and be treated as such: Yoruba people are aware that, among the many non-Yoruba Nigerians who reside in Yoruba land, there may be some who may have their own reasons for choosing to instigate, start or support violence. If such should happen anywhere in Yoruba land, we Yoruba owners of our cities, towns and villages must promptly unite together and use our traditional community strength to stop and suppress the violence and to uphold peace.

    We Yoruba should remember the pains we have suffered in the political history of Nigeria, especially in our resistance to Nigeria’s culture of election fraud. We are owners of an ancient, orderly and highly respectable system of selecting our rulers, and consequently, we seriously respect the modern system of elections, and we find it difficult to tolerate election fraud of any kind. But we must remember the losses we have suffered in our resistance to election fraud in various Nigerian elections in the past – the lives and properties that we lost, and the hostile divisions that all were thereby generated in the life of our nation. We must now have the wisdom, as a nation, to recognize that we have always contended against envy, enmity and marginalization in the affairs of Nigeria, and that we have nothing to gain from inflicting pain on ourselves.

    If the violence in other parts of Nigeria continues uncontrollably or if it threatens to spill onto any part of our homeland, thereby threatening the well-being of the nearly 50 million Yoruba people, the leading citizens of our Yoruba nation must immediately set aside any Nigerian political and partisan roles, unite in the interest of our nation, and set in motion serious considerations and measures for safeguarding the peace and well-being of our homeland and people as well as the destiny of our nation. We call, in particular on all Yoruba leaders and functionaries of all political parties and groups, to speak out courageously in support of this clarion call.

  • The nation decides

    The nation decides

    On Saturday, March 28, two days from now, the electorate will again have the opportunity finally to go to the polls to elect a new president. This is after a contrived delay of six weeks by the Jonathan PDP federal government in holding the elections. The choice is between President Jonathan of the PDP, and retired General Buhari of the APC, the main opposition party. While President Jonathan has called for  continuity, his opponent, General Buhari and his party, the APC, have called for change in the country. For nearly three months now, both candidates have conducted a long, difficult, and tiring campaign, criss-crossing the country to lobby the electorate for support. The election will go down in history as one of the most contentious in our nation. It could mark a turning point in Nigeria’s political future.

    Now, it is time for the electorate to decide which of the two candidates should lead the nation as president for the next four years. Which way will the voting go? Which of the two candidates will win the presidential election? Some extant local and foreign polls have predicted an easy electoral victory for General Buhari, the APC candidate. There is no doubt he deserves to win. His campaign has been impressive, convincing, credible, and based on the relevant issues. It is far better than that of his PDP opponent, President Jonathan, whose campaign has been openly divisive and hateful. His chief propagandists have hurt him politically more than his opponents. In contrast, in his own campaign, Buhari has sought to define and focus more on the critical issues of the election, namely, the general state of insecurity in our nation, the pervasive public corruption in the country, and the colossal mismanagement of the national economy under President Jonathan’s watch. In normal circumstances, Buhari should win the election easily. Most of the polls show him as the favourite. But given the peculiarities of Nigeria’s politics, in which most of the voters are not swayed by merit but by primordial sentiments and bribes, no one can be absolutely certain that General Buhari will win the election, as he should, if it is free and fair. There are no reliable public opinion polls in Nigeria. Even where they exist in the mature western democracies the polls are sometimes wrong in their predictions. Such was the case in the recent Israeli elections in which the Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, won totally against the forecast of the public opinion polls in Israel. In Nigeria, where there are no reliable public opinion polls, one can only speculate about the probable outcome of the presidential election on Saturday.

    From what one can see of trends in the campaign, the presidential election will be decided by the voting in the South West, which has become a major electoral battle ground between Jonathan and Buhari. This is where most of the marginal votes are. Whoever secures the South West is likely to win the election. In the 2011 election, President Jonathan beat Buhari handsomely because he was able to carry the South West along. The South West was also in support of Jonathan in 2009 when a northern cabal tried unfairly to stop him from succeeding the late President Yar’Adua when he died tragically in office prematurely. Traditionally, the South West has generally supported the political aspirations of the so-called minorities. This was why the region voted massively for Jonathan in 2011. But since then Jonathan has, by his poor performance in office, lost the goodwill of the South West. It is not simply a case of marginalization. The South West wants the best possible central government for our country. Both candidates realize this fact and, in the final weeks of the campaign, have focused more on the South West than on any other region of the country, in which ‘captured votes’ predominate. In this election, the votes in the South West will be more fractured. But the probability is that General Buhari will carry the day in the South West. He is quite strong in the North. If the margin of his victory in the South West is sufficiently large, then he is likely to win the presidential election. President Jonathan will win in the South East and most of the South South. But victory in those two regions and possibly some parts of the North Central will not be enough for him to win the presidential election outright.

    In his campaign, fuelled and driven by hate, President Jonathan has not made any new promises to the electorate. He is offering continuity instead of change; more of the same inept and floundering government. He is like the captain of a sinking ship assuring his passengers that they are safe, until the ship hits the rocks and sinks. He has nothing new to offer our country. He is exhausted and totally overwhelmed by the existing grave challenges of economic development. And what does this continuity he is offering consist of? It is abysmal failure in all respects. Unemployment, particularly of fresh university graduates, has reached record heights, never seen before in our country. It is estimated that the rate of unemployment now is over 60 per cent nationally. Youth unemployment is a good breeding ground for crime which has increased significantly all over the country, particularly in the urban areas. Boko Haram is not the only threat to national security and public safety. The large horde of the unemployed and idle youths is also responsible for such social crimes as kidnappings, murder, and arson. It is outrageous that despite the recent impressive growth rate of the economy, averaging 7 per cent in the last decade, the unemployment situation has continued to worsen, as has the level of mass poverty in Nigeria. Social and economic inequalities in our country have widened. The economic strategy of the Jonathan PDP federal government has failed to create the jobs needed for social and political stability in our country. The recent devaluation of the Naira by over 30 per cent will lead to price increases and the loss of foreign and local investment and more jobs. Our economic fundamentals have been gravely weakened. How about the woeful and crumbling infrastructure? What progress has his inept government made in this respect? Very little. In fact the infrastructure deficit has worsened considerably under his watch. None of the cross country roads he promised have been built. Electricity generation and supply have been at their lowest since he came to power. Nigeria needs to grow at 10 per cent annually. It has the natural and human resources to reach this target. But its poor infrastructure is a major constraint on this growth target of 10 per cent being attained.

    Again, President Jonathan is not really committed to seriously tackling the widespread public corruption in the country which has widened considerably under his watch. In fact, corruption has become an instrument of state policy to keep Jonathan in power through the spread of political patronage. He has tried clumsily to make a distinction between corruption and stealing, both sides of the same coin. A clear example of this is the recent award of contracts to some ethnic militias in the country ostensibly to protect the oil pipelines. This is the most cynical abuse of power by any government in our recent political history. It is like paying a burglar to protect the property he has burgled. It is astonishing that President Jonathan does not really understand that these contracts he has awarded to the ethnic militias will eventually lead to the proliferation of weapons and the emergence of warlords in our country. Why doesn’t he give the funds to our security agencies, particularly the police and the military to undertake this task? The simple reason is that he intends to use the ethnic militias to prosecute his political agenda. Already in Lagos, the so-called Odua Peoples’ Congress (OPC), fully armed, is being used to terrorize those perceived to be opposed to the PDP and President Jonathan. This method of intimidation is counter productive and is bound to fail as it will turn the electorate in Lagos and the South West totally against his government. To borrow the words of Edward Gladstone, a former Whig British Prime Minister in the 19th century, in his attack on the Tory government over Ireland, this Jonathan government is looking increasingly like ‘a negation of God erected into a system of government’.

    It is definitely time for change. Nothing can be worse than the economic and political quagmire into which the Jonathan government has driven the country. If Jonathan is re-elected, it will be more of the same. After nearly sixteen years of PDP government at the centre, Nigeria will have become a one-party state and Jonathan more authoritarian. Our lives will be ‘shorter, nastier, and more brutish’. After nearly 16 years of ineptitude and massive failure under the PDP federal government, it is definitely time for change. We cannot afford the drift in our country any longer. A vote for Buhari and the APC offers us the change the country needs so badly. Like many others, I was once wronged by General Buhari when he was in power as military ruler. But national interests, not personal interests, are now paramount and needed to move our country forward.

  • 2015 elections, Nigeria is winning

    There is a lot of anxiety about the presidential elections coming up in two days time. Many have worked themselves up to the point of hypertension as if elections are not a normal process of democratic renewal. I can of course understand why people are anxious. In fact, I have heard people predict that there will be civil war after the elections. There will be no such thing. I have said it in this column before that when we get to the edge of the precipice, we will temporise and somehow avoid falling over. I was in England last year when the Scots were voting whether to remain in the United Kingdom or not. Everybody was worked up and afraid of the consequences of that referendum but at the end, good sense prevailed and the Scots decided in favour of the union. I have a feeling that when the presidential elections are over, no matter who wins, Nigeria will settle down, and possibly begin again, the process of renewal.

    The fact that this election is being hotly contested is a good augury for the future of democracy in Nigeria. We can ignore the excesses of some politicians who have been making incendiary statements full of hate against one presidential candidate or the other. These people in most cases are fighting for their own survival and they do not represent decent opinions of our people. Some are foaming in the mouth about Buhari’s age and medical condition as if they have not seen people older than General Buhari hold executive positions in other countries. Perhaps they need to be reminded that just two months ago, the people of Tunisia elected an 88-year-old man, Béji Caïd Essebsi as their president. Also, I want to re-echo what Cardinal Onaiyekan said about the nonsense of making an issue of the age of General Buhari and his need if necessary to seek medical attention as a non-issue. Anybody of his age and even those who are much younger who have the means should seek medical attention anywhere. It does not make sense to say that a 72 year old man has medical conditions, this is normal, it is of no intellectual consequence. This writer is 72 plus and I will be ready to debate any issue on governance with anybody in Nigeria and outside Nigeria. The point I am making is that people should face more fundamental issues about Nigeria than the age of a presidential candidate.

    President Goodluck Jonathan has the constitutional right to want to serve a second term of four years and I am delighted that he is doing everything that is humanly possible to win the election. I am also excited about the fact that he himself and his supporters know that he is facing a formidable opponent and that the election can go either way. This is the first time in living memory in Nigeria that a head of government is being forced to fight for his survival. This is good for democracy. Suddenly, the president has realised his political mistake of totally marginalising the southwest in his appointments and budgetary allocations for infrastructural renewal in the southwest. His advisers, and intelligence chiefs have not been fair to the president. If they were, they would have told him about the physical neglect and the seething anger against him in the southwest. In the six years of being Head of State, bad roads have been the lot of our people, Ibadan-Ilorin, Ibadan-Lagos, Ibadan-Akure have remained death traps; electricity supply in the southwest has been fitful, inadequate and episodic. In Ibadan which remains the most important city in Yoruba land, the daily occurrence of blackout has been the experience of the people and this has retarded the growth of the city because all industrial and manufacturing plants have either been ruined by inadequate power or shut down completely.

    The experience in other parts of the country has not been marginally better. Out of the ten largest cities in the whole country, six or more of them are in the South West and urbanisation here brings its own problems and this makes the neglect of the area politically sensitive and explosive because information travel rapidly and widely. On the eve of the election, the president is now forced to touch remote places and plead with traditional rulers in the southwest such as the Oni of Ife, Alake of Egbaland, the Alaafin of Oyo, and even minor traditional rulers like the Alara in Lagos State. This is good for democracy. As commander in chief of the armed forces, the president is now visiting troops fighting against Boko Haram. I commend him for this and this is the way it should have been but it is never too late.

    General Muhammadu Buhari has also gone round wearing traditional accoutrement of various ethnic groups in order to ingratiate himself to them and their hearts. He himself knows that if he becomes president, he would while leading have to carry the people along. He would have to forget the WA1 Brigade of yesteryears and decrees with immediate effect. He has campaigned in all parts of Nigeria including the Delta, the home area of the present president. Both he and the president have also campaigned in the troubled and disturbed North East and in spite of the fear of untoward incidents, the campaigns there of the two of them have been largely free of incidents. This is the way it should be and Nigeria is winning. It is clear that our people can no longer be taken for granted and whoever wants to lead them would have to convince them that he is ready to offer exemplary leadership and be a moral avatar. In this respect, we must thank Professor Attahiru Jega, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission for attempting to conduct a rigging-free elections in 2015 through the use of the permanent voting card. This should presage electronic voting in years to come.

    May I recall the 1959 pre-independence federal elections and especially Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s revolutionary campaign in the Northern Nigeria using aeroplanes and helicopters to cover all the nooks and crannies of Northern Nigeria? On seeing this, Sir Ahmadu Bello Sardauna of Sokoto and leader of NPC was forced out of his aristocratic cocoon to campaign in dusty villages in Northern Nigeria with his flowing babariga sometimes covered with dust. We were told he never forgave Awolowo for this indignity. Whether this is a true story or not, our president by running helter-skelter all over the country is repeating history. Local and foreign pundits are suggesting that this election is going to be close but it seems the western powers and the media have written off the present president but whatever the outcome of this election, it is Nigeria that would win because from now on, no head of government; president, governors and local government chairmen would sit at home and write the outcome of elections without allowing the people to express their minds in a free, fair and transparent way.

    We are hopefully turning the corner in our electoral politics and we can only hope that INEC will not be sabotaged and that the elections will result in the renewal of stability and democratic governance in our country.