There was palpable fear that the Anambra State gubernatorial election could turn out an election without electorate. A day to the election, residents of the state were deserting the state in droves for fear of violence. While a large proportion fled to neighbouring states, some fled as far away as Lagos. The fleeing electorate were afraid of violence from those who have allegedly hijacked the IPOB agenda for a new Biafra, and the military that have overwhelmed the state in the past few days.

As video clips about the operations of the military in neighbouring Agwu/Ngbowo area of Enugu State and parts of Orlu in Imo State making the round shows, some rogue military personnel sent to stop the violence in the southeast may have become reckless predators on the human rights of the people of the region. In the videos, ‘Nigerian soldiers’ were shown shooting indiscriminately at homes and mocking the people with reckless abandon. In one video, a vagrant soldier was celebrating his callous indignity before a camera just as terrorists film their madness and share in the social media.

If the videos are real, then the Nigerian nation is in a deeper mess than we imagine. For if truly those miscreants who openly mocked the people they have been trained to protect, not minding that some of their superiors are from that part of the country, are Nigerian soldiers, then our national unity is threadbare. It is in the interest of our national unity that those soldiers who engaged in conducts unbecoming of the military and callously recorded same are made to publicly account for their foolish indiscretion.

And if the reports are untrue, Nigerians also deserve to know, otherwise the military activities in the southeast may provide more fuel to the separatist agenda. But no doubt, it was the level of violence in Anambra State and the potentials for more violence that led to the massive desertion of the state on the eve of the election. Of course, as this piece is read, a new governor of Anambra state would have been elected.

But can we truly say that the new governor of Anamabra State has been elected by a popular vote, when substantial electorate ran away from the state for fear of violence by state and non-state actors?  Perhaps, the statistics will tell the full story of participation. While we should commend the federal government for providing the security for the election to hold, this column joins in asking that a political solution be found to the crisis bedevilling the southeast region.

Even though President Muhammadu Buhari’s apologists would snigger at such suggestion, they must not fail to remember that the president added so much fire to the separatist movement with his discriminatory policies, and that more than any other thing gave the impetus for the resurgence of the separatist movement in the southeast. Perhaps, it should be noted that the demand for separation from Nigeria is not intrinsically a criminal offence. What will constitute an offence is a resort to violence in pursuit of such quest.

Indeed, a political party can legitimately campaign across the country on the promise to ensure a peaceful dismemberment of the country. So, without violence or breaking the law, the demand for an independent state of Biafra is not a criminal offence, and if a political solution can be found to end that resurgent quest, the violence associated with it will likely end also. Therefore, the call for political solution is not misplaced.

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The fact that IPOB members and their apologists were persuaded to withdraw their threat to enforce a no-movement in the state, for the election to hold, shows that the members are not headless-hardliners who are not amenable to reasoning. With what happened in Anambra State, it should be clear to the political leaders at the federal and state levels that the 2023 general elections cannot be conducted with the same level of militarisation of the political space, as we witnessed last week.

Even if the federal government wishes to do so, it will not have enough personnel to deploy. Again, if there is possibility of violence across the states at the same time, and there is nowhere for the electorate who are apprehensive to run to, they would stay put and escalate the challenges, which could overwhelm the security agencies of the country. Significantly, even without the fear of violence in the gubernatorial election, there are many who are disenchanted with the way the country is run, and they protested by ignoring the elections.

Again, there are those who have not forgotten that President Buhari derided the people of the southeast as a dot in a circle, and even though he has walked back the reckless statement, they can’t trust the process while he is the president. But as this column has always maintained, the famed hatred of the Igbos by President Buhari may be exaggerated. What no doubt the president is guilty of, is his unconstitutional preference for persons from his part of the country in making key appointments. Unfortunately, many have interpreted that as a precursor to a devious agenda.

So, even with the court case against the IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, President Buhari can initiate a political solution to the crisis that may define his presidency. Of course, such effort must be complemented by the IPOB leader renouncing violence in all its ramifications. As this column has always argued, the Igbos were made the scapegoat, following the failure of political leadership at the centre after independence, which resulted in a coup d’état, and the failed attempt by hot-blooded young Nigerian soldiers to force progress on the country.

The IPOB leadership should therefore not fall into the same temptation of sacrificing the people of the region again, to force progress on the country. If majority of Nigerians prefer prebendalism and the snail speed socio-economic progress; the lives, limbs and economy of the southeast should not be offered as a burnt sacrifice again. As Ndigbo would say, the ukwa fruit does not fall far from the ukwa tree. The Boko Haram insurgency and the ungovernable swaths of the northwest is direct fallout of that preference.

The incoming governor of Anambra State must therefore use his mandate, even if scarred by the fear that ruled the election, to join forces to save the southeast. He must work hard to gain the confidence of the electorate, who did not participate in the election out of trepidation. As Alex Hiam, the author of Making Horses Drink, wrote: “vision, mission, purpose, direction, plan of action … call it what you will, it’s still an important part of leadership.”

Ndi-Anambra awaits the vision of their new governor.

The jejune determination of some state governors to frustrate the financial autonomy of the judiciary and the legislature in their states in flagrant disobedience of the 1999 constitution (as amended), amounts to executive lawlessness, and should be decried by every well-meaning Nigeria.

Without equivocation, by the fourth alteration act, section 121(3) of the constitution provides: “Any amount standing to the credit of the House of Assembly, and Judiciary in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the state shall be paid directly to the said bodies respectively; in the case of judiciary, such amount shall be paid directly to the heads of the courts concerned.”

Despite this clear provision, as at the end of September, only 12 states have enacted the necessary legislation to give effect to the above provision of the constitution. The states are: Plateau, Sokoto, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Enugu, Lagos, Imo, Jigawa, Kwara, Taraba, Nassarawa, and Kaduna. Perhaps, it will be fair to conclude that the rest of the 24 states are governed by outlaws? And that the state legislators are too timid to exercise their lawmaking powers, to provide a guide for the implementation of the autonomy granted them and the judiciary by the said alteration act.

Since the governors want to be reminded; the fundamental principle of the presidential system of government is the doctrine of separation of powers, succinctly elucidated by Baron de Montesquieu, a French philosopher. He postulated: “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.”

He pontificated further: “Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.”

He concluded: “There would be an end of everything, were the same man or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.” The state governors must bear in mind that the independence of the legislature and the judiciary will remain lame provisions, if the executive controls their funding. After all, he who pays the piper dictates the tune.

So, except the governors are lawless, there can be no other driving force for the refusal of the remaining 24 state governors to ask their state attorneys-generals to initiate executive bills to guide the implement of the clear provision of the constitution. More so, since the governors agreed to do so, in a memorandum of action to end the recent strike action by the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASSAN) and the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) that crippled the state Houses of Assembly and the judiciary.

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Or are the state governors waiting for another round of strike by the unions before they will do the needful? Or is that they don’t give a damn about industrial peace in the state they govern by virtue of the powers granted them by the grundnorm they treat with cynical levity? As it is, they enjoy the executive powers granted them by the constitution, but wear the garb of lawlessness when the occasion suits them.

It is important to remind the lawless governors that the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is supreme and must be obeyed by all and sundry. Section 1(1) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) provides so. And in Ahmed vs RTAKRCC, (2019) All FWLR, pt. 1014, Bage, JSC, thundered: “The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. The constitution confers jurisdiction on the court.” And in a number of cases the courts have confirmed the financial autonomy of the federal and state judiciaries.

That position of the law was confirmed in the following cases: Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria & National Judiciary Council vs Governors of the 36 States in suit no: FHC/ABJ/CS/667/13; and Olisa Agbakoba vs FG, NJC & National Assembly, Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/63/2013. To guide the governors on the path of rule of law, I will quote extensively the excoriation of the Justices of the Supreme Court, in the case of Military Governor of Lagos state vs Ojukwu (2001) F.W.L.R 1639-1848, pt. 50.

As held by Obaseki JSC, “In the area where rule of law operates, the rule of self-help by force is abandoned. Nigeria, being one of the countries in the world, even in the third world which profess loudly to follow the rule of law, gives no room for the rule of self-help by force to operate.” The learned Justice elucidated: “The rule of law presupposes that:- the state is subject to law; the judiciary is a necessary agency of the rule of law; government should respect the rights of individual citizens under the rule of law.”

On his part, Oputa, JSC, succinctly posited: “I can safely say that here in Nigeria, even under a military government the law is no respecter of persons, principalities, governments or powers and government, alert to see that the state or government is bound by the law and respects the law.” On his part, Uwais, JSC, admonished: “If governments treat court orders with levity and contempt, the confidence of the citizen in the courts will be seriously eroded and the effect of that will be the beginning of anarchy in replacement of the rule of law.”

This column believes that the confidence of the citizens may have been eroded by the actions of the 24 state governors who have continued to treat the constitution with levity and contempt. The citizens may begin to see the entire democratic process as a sham, and may resort to self-help whenever they are challenged. This writer urges the governors who have been entrusted to govern by the constitution to operate under the rubric of the law. To seek to do otherwise is to let anarchy loose upon our country.

As we say in law, no one can approbate and reprobate at the same time. If the governors are unwilling to obey the constitution, the president is under oath to enforce the provisions of the constitution. Thankfully, the president has already issued Executive Order 10, in furtherance of his executive powers to enforce obedience to the constitution. Instead of waiting for another round of industrial strike by the judicial and state legislative staff, this column urges the immediate implementation of the Executive Order 10, in states where the governors are lawless.

This column believes that President Muhammadu Buhari is in a dilemma over how to deal with the spate of dissents, underpinning the security crisis facing the country as he winds down his eight years’ reign. As a leader, what is likely to be uppermost in his mind now is how history will remember him few years from now, when he will no longer be in power and all the sycophants and the aides desperate to keep their jobs have disappeared from the national radar.

That feeling was reinforced after listening to the president addressing the Ogoni traditional leaders who paid him a visit last week. In his address, the president said that the federal government would consider a pardon for Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other eight Ogoni activists who were extra-judicially killed by the government of Sani Abacha. We recall that in the 1990s, Ogoniland became the hot-bed of activism against the environmental degradation of the Niger Delta with Ken Saro-Wiwa leading the charge, under the rubric of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).

While the people of the region laid a charge of environmental degradation and criminal appropriation of the resources of the Niger Delta against the Nigerian state and the International Oil Companies led by Shell Petroleum Development Company, the government of Nigeria accused the activists of undermining the economic well-being of the nation by threatening her national economic assets. Of course, for the Ogoni people, the so-called national economic assets were sign-posts of repression and subjugation by a behemoth structured to supress their rights.

Feeling alienated and primed for annihilation, the crisis within Ogoni turned an internal struggle between the moderates who preferred rapprochement with the federal government and the activists who pushed that the Ogoni should take their destiny into their own hands and fight their cause. In the ensuing melee, four prominent Ogoni leaders who were considered as saboteurs of the Ogoni struggle, where murdered by suspected activists of the struggle.

With the Ogoni Bill of Rights (1990) in place, under the guidance of the intellectually savvy Ken Saro-Wiwa and his compatriots, and with the possibility that other parts of Niger-Delta may follow suit and potentially demand for their independence from the oppressive federal-unitary system of government in Nigeria, the government of Sani Abacha decided to peremptorily end the struggle by snuffing life out of the leaders, relying on a bizarre criminal jurisprudence. With Saro-Wiwa and company hanged on November 10, 1995, and internal schism implanted amongst the Ogonis, the struggle petered out.

Expectedly, the peace of the graveyard returned to the Niger Delta, but resurrected ferociously during the regime of President Umaru Yar’Adua. Perhaps with the hindsight of history, President Yar’Adua choose rapprochement with the Niger Delta militants, who have acquired some level of deterrent against the federal government, by acquiring lethal weapons able to threaten the much beloved critical national oil assets. Again, with the benefits of democracy at play, it would have been extremely difficult for Yar’Adua to apply similar strong-arm tactics like Abacha, without the international human rights community screaming.

So, even though the Yar’Adua regime did not tinker with the repressive federal-unitary system of government he inherited, he somehow ended up a hero for some Niger Delta people for instituting the Presidential Amnesty Programme. And with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) also in place, the two programmes provided some opportunities for the jobless militant youths of the region and created a pool of resources to develop the much neglected region, and bribe their troublesome elites, when necessary.

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But now with few days to the 26th anniversary of the hanging of Saro-Wiwa and his compatriots at the Port-Harcourt prison, the Ogoni traditional rulers have returned to the oppressive federal government, whose actions and inactions prompted the crisis to ask for clemency for their sons.

For the Ijaw National Congress (INC), the request for clemency is unnecessary, instead the federal government should apologise to the Ogonis for killing their sons “as a result of their peaceful campaigns against economic exploration, environmental despoliation and gross abuse of the people’s fundamental human and resource rights.” Prof Benjamin Okaba, the INC president argued further: “we wonder what crime Ken Saro-Wiwa and others committed that warrants state pardon. Secondly, even if he was allowed the defence, was he given the right of appeal?”

Of note, the killing of Saro-Wiwa elicited sanctions against Nigeria by the United Nations and leading democracies.

This writer agrees that since the federal government did not allow the Saro-Wiwa and company their right of appeal, after their conviction by the special military tribunal created by Abacha, their killing was unlawful in the eyes of the law. In Bello & Ors vs Attorney-General of Oyo State (1986) 5 NWLR (Pt. 45) 828, the Supreme Court found in favour of the appellants and awarded damages against the government of Oyo State for executing a convict, while his appeal was pending.

In that case, Aniagolu JSC held: “I… hold, that the most reasonable construction that can possibly be placed on those section (section 220(1), section 213(1) of the 1979 constitution must be that it must be implied, and that implication read into the constitution, that an appellant who has validly appealed against a death sentence imposed on him, must have the sentence stayed while he is proceeding with the appeal. The substance of a valid appeal in such a case is, by itself, a stay of execution.”

No doubt, before the execution of a judgment, the period provided by law for a right of appeal is allowed to extinguish, so to do otherwise amounts to executive lawlessness as held in the case of Bello & Ors vs Attorney-General of Oyo State supra. But also very importantly, President Muhammadu Buhari, if he is interested in securing enduring peace in Ogoni land, must ask himself if the Nigerian state has been fair to the people of the Ogoni and indeed the Niger Delta in the appropriation of their resources and the environmental despoliation of their land.

Of course, the resounding answer is a capital NO. For this column, at the root of the many agitations that has continued to beset the nation is the lack of will to deal fairly with most parts of the country, especially the oil bearing sections of the country. In the determination to fasten its grip on the oil resources, the Nigerian state has tendentiously abandoned the federal system of government which our forbearers negotiated for, at independence.

If President Buhari has the political will, this column recommends a return to a federal system of government, against the present suffocating federal-unitary practice, as the best rapprochement to birth a peaceful Nigeria.

Few weeks ago, the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), threatened a nation-wide strike yet again, over the deplorable state of roads in our country and extortion of their members on the highway. The union leaders argued that their members where intermittently making the supreme sacrifice because of bad roads, while trying to ensure uninterrupted supply of fuel and gas across the country, and yet are extorted by the security men dotting the check-point on the highways.

While this column is sympathetic to their cause, as this writer’s legal firm had stoutly fought the cause of a relation (a NUPENG member) who almost became an invalid following an accident on the deplorable Port-Harcourt-Enugu expressway, it wondered how the trade dispute can be resolved in the short run. Well, whether by government magic (apologies to Fela) or by a mutual agreement as to when the roads would be fixed, the strike was called off, to the relief of Nigerians.

But a personal experience on two significant roads in different parts of the country in the past few weeks showed that the roads were determined to strike at the users, if NUPENG won’t strike to get them repaired. The first horrible experience I had was driving on the roughly one kilometre road, from Alakija on the Lagos-Badagry expressway to the sprawling Navy Hospital in Ojo, Satellite town, for the COVID-19 vaccine. Driving to the hospital to take the free vaccine has turned an economic nightmare for this writer.

If not for my latter experience last week, I would have considered the road to the Navy Hospital Ojo, the worst in the country. I had the misfortune of going to the Navy Hospital on a rainy day, and after spending more than three hours on the bad road, I have spent over N200,000 and still counting to repair my vehicle which was in good condition before I made the ill-fated trip. A combination of plying that very bad road and staying in water for hours, had decapitated the legs of my vehicle.

The second experience was travelling on the Awka to Umumba axis of what used to be Awka-Enugu expressway. Without gainsaying, that should be the worst road in the country. Riding in what used to be regarded as a pleasure car around 7pm, before the driver meandered back to the old road, en-route to Enugu, I had the most traumatic experience in recent times.

Of course, what we passed through cannot be regarded as a road, but an open bush part in a jungle. The closest sign of civilisation were the two army check-points we met on the abandoned road, manned by no-nonsense heavily armed military personnel in a macabre resemblance of a war-zone. As I wondered aloud the state of the roads, the driver murmured that it shows how the Igbos are badly treated in Nigeria, and yet asked to call the country their own.

Because the entire Southeast is in a war mood, and you don’t know who you are riding with, I had to be careful what I say and how I said it. I merely agreed with him that the state of the road is an embarrassment to the federal government. While the Navy Hospital Road in the city of excellence, Lagos, is a crying shame, for all Nigerians who throng the sprawling Naval Base, and the surrounding Satellite Town, the Awka-Umunba part of the Awka to Enugu expressway, is regarded by many as emblematic of the famed marginalisation of the southeast by the federal government.

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It is such level of abandonment of physical infrastructure in southeast that those primed to fight the separatist cause point at, to justify their demand for dismemberment of the country. Moving around Enugu and surrounding towns, as I visited more than six surrounding local governments the past weekend, I could feel the palpable tension everywhere I went. The scariest signature is the presence of heavily armed soldiers, with the tell-tale sign of long stretching tail lights announcing their pendency ahead as one moves around.

While personally I never had any unruly encounter with the security personnel at the several roadblocks, it was obvious that some others are not that lucky. On a number of occasions I saw frantic searching of persons and vehicles whose occupants were standing distraught. An unpainted taxi-driver who took me to one of the several places I visited, spoke so disconsolately about how the soldiers were brought to disgrace and exploit the people of the region.

He claimed that the soldiers have become soldiers of fortune in the southeast, and by his estimate millions of naira are being harvested by them daily. He however expressed happiness that the banned separatist group IPOB had struck at the heart of the economy of their oppressors by the planned ban of what is considered ‘Fulani cows’ in the region. Of course, my interjections were weighed carefully as I have been warned that it may be dangerous to criticize the activities of IPOB in the region.

Indeed, when I told one of my senior friends from the southeast that I was in Enugu to attend to a number of engagements, he was surprised that I could still visit home, considering the state of insecurity in the region. No doubt the southeast has become a place of serious security concern, especially after the gruesome killing of Dr Akunyili, and the condemnable targeted arson of the country home of an APC chieftain Joe Igbokwe. Admittedly, despite the challenges, the irrepressible people of the region are going about their daily chores.

But surely the economy of the region is paying a huge price. With restrictions on movement after 9pm in the cities many businesses have to close by 7pm to enable the owners get home safely before the curfew kicks-off. The ghost Mondays remain what they are called as even providers of essential services are afraid to venture outside. A look around offices like banks also showed that the Nigerian flags which were removed on October 1, following the directive of IPOB, have not been returned to the masts. One other regrettable fallout is the closure of many rural police posts, for fear of sudden attacks.

While this write is licking his wounds from the strike at his economy and his health by the two terrible roads he plied in the past few weeks, there are many who ply those roads regularly, and one can better imagine the cost to their health, and their private economy. This columnist appeals to the Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, to go to the rescue of the users of those two roads, amongst other roads striking at fellow Nigerians.

By Gabriel Amalu

It is good that President Muhammadu Buhari has realised that time is running out on his tenure as president. It is even more reassuring that he has also realised that Nigeria under his watch is in dire straits, especially with regards to the security challenges that has made a joke of his forte as a retired military general, not to talk about the wobbling national economy, that has eroded all his promise to lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty.

Considering that President Buhari was principally elected to end the insecurity plaguing the country, especially in northern Nigeria, and to stop the haemorrhaging of the nation’s resources by what many perceived as the Peoples Democratic Party’s buccaneers, the truth is that should Buhari leave power now, he would be regarded as a failed president. The reason being that the twin national malaise, appear worse than when he took over power.

So, it is interesting that President Buhari has taken personal charge to communicate his concerns to Nigerians, over the worsening insecurity in the country, and the grave economic disarticulation that Nigerians face presently. Lamenting the sorry state of affairs recently, the president promised to make sure that his presidency does not end in failure. Of note, his style is unlike that of his communication minders, who have been claiming that it is in the years ahead that we will feel the impact of Buhari’s presidency.

Without doubt, most of his positive legacies would not survive, if the challenges of insecurity and economic despoliation is allowed to continue. Not even the rail line from Kano to Maradi, in Niger Republic, as the enlarging army of the economically dispossessed north-western Nigerian youths, can easily cannibalise the metals as their own economic inheritance. Not even the new Niger Bridge, which could become a victim, if the angry youths in the old eastern Nigeria, seeking to change the strangulating status quo at all cost, torpedo the country.

So, the president is right when he declared during his visit to Imo State, against all odds that “security is the No 1 priority and then the economy. When people feel secure, they will mind their own business.” Thankfully, the president has realised that Lai Mohammed, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, can wage all the propaganda war they want, they can project hope for an eternal Buhari legacy as much as their skills can push, the president himself knows that there will be no positive legacy, if his government continues to dither on the twin challenges that is suffocating the nation.

But having realised that the game would soon be up, and that there is little time left to stem the drift, the president should seek help from outside his normal circle. Those who egged the president on, to only work with those from his limited political and cultural circle, should admit that such insularity has failed the president. The classical examples are the recently sacked minister of agriculture Sabo Nanono, and that of power, Saleh Mamman.

Of course, while the two would make beautiful companions for the president in an evening sit-out, romanticising the past, they have proved themselves ill-fitted for the very important roles they were assigned. In the first place, they may have been given the high-profile jobs, just because they are political associates of the president for very long time. And yet agriculture is key to the promise of the president, to lift rural Nigerians out of poverty.

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If media reports are correct, Nanono has rolled back all the achievements made since the time of former President Goodluck Jonathan, when the present African Development Bank’s president, Akinwumi Adesina, was the minister of agriculture. On his part, the minister of power, failed to add one kilowatt of energy since he took over from Fashola. And yet, the two sectors which the failed ministers manned, are critical national security and economic growth drivers.

To significantly improve the gross domestic product of our country, to lift significant number of Nigerians out of poverty, to economically engage the youths and keep them away from crime, especially in the north, to improve production capacity and employment opportunities in our industries, indeed for Buhari to achieve any of his key objectives as president, both ministries are the engine room. Especially for the rural folks, agriculture is key, while for the urban unemployed, power is the driver.

Regrettably, both ministries were handed over to cronies, who have lived up to their celebrated cronyism. But the important question is, are those sent to replace them any better? If they are, good luck to the president and Nigerians. If they are not better, the legacy of failure, will follow the president out of power in 2023. Even though time is running out, I urge the president to emulate his predecessors, who sought for help in key sectors of the economy from among Nigerians in diaspora, instead of relying on kinsmen and friends.

Of course, the kinsmen have their great value, but not in making presidential legacies. It is also good that the president has read the riot act to the security chiefs – ‘End the security challenges turning the country to a failed state, or I will end your careers prematurely’. Many commentators believe that what is fuelling the invincibility of the ragtag Boko Haram army and their affiliates is corruption.

It appears some in the military have made the war against insurgency their own private business, and no one likes his business to end, especially if lucrative. And since the president’s business is to leave a legacy of relatively safe Nigeria, he must stop the business of those who want a war without end, in other for his business to succeed. What he would do to succeed, is his own business.

If it means sacking the recently appointed service chiefs, if it means recruiting mercenaries to fight the war, if it even means going to the war-front to fight the battle, like the late Idriss Deby of Chad, whatever it will take, what Nigerians want is success. There is also the urgent need to tackle the nation’s economic challenges headlong. Again, if that also requires changing the chief economic drivers, so be it.

Unless the nation’s economy improves significantly, any talk about lifting any number of Nigerians from poverty is hogwash. How can the government claim to be lifting people out of poverty, when more Nigerians who were not within the poverty trap, have fallen into it, because of the strangulating economic challenges in the country? Unless they want to count the palliatives given to the internally displaced persons, as lifting the beneficiaries out of poverty. Between securing Nigeria and improving the economy, the president has the canvas to craft his legacy.

The Latin maxim Nemo debet esse judex in propria causa (No one should be judge in his own cause) is a principle of natural justice that no one should be a judge in a matter he/she has an interest. It resonates with the rule against bias, and as posited by Lord Hewart in R vs Sussex Justice, Ex parte McCarthy: “Justice should not only be done but should be manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.”

In the dispute between the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) and the federal government, many thought that the Minister of Health Dr Osagie Ehinare and that of Labour Dr Chris Ngige, being medical doctors, would be biased in favour of their junior colleagues, who are on strike for the failure of the federal government to implement the agreement reached with the association.

But instead, as far as NARD is concerned, the two ministers are biased in favour of the federal government. They have joined the government to deal ruthlessly with their junior colleagues, as they propose no work, no pay policy. With that threat appearing not to move the doctors, the minister of labour has decided to approach the National Industrial Court (NIC) for adjudication on the propriety of the strike.

Perhaps, the two older medical doctors turned politicians, have a higher interest in self-preservation, as sympathy with doctors may cause them their prime positions in government. For Ngige, the doctors are playing god, and he warns that from his vantage position, he can confirm that medical practice is in danger. He also argued that it appears that doctors go on strike more often when their colleagues are in office.

While no doubt medical practice is in danger in Nigeria, this column posits that the strike by NARD, is merely a manifestation of the malignancy in the industry. Not long ago, Dr Ngige reportedly contended that the high migration of doctors to other countries is of no consequence. This column disagrees as the increased migration is another demonstration of the malignancy.

And evidently, doctors who migrate abroad are better remunerated financially, professionally and psychologically. Again, statistics show that the ratio of doctors to patients in Nigeria is abysmally low. Even more worrying is the double jeopardy for Nigerians, whose resources were used to subsidize the training of students in public universities, which doctors benefit more from, because they spend longer years in training.

So, even if the National Industrial Court rules in favour of the federal government, the fundamental challenges facing the industry would still not be addressed. Except the labour minister is manifestly biased in favour of his employers, he should admit that the condition of service for the doctors in Nigeria is not favourable, compared to their training and the work they do.

As expected, the court would rule on the fidelity of the procedure followed by NARD before going on strike, but even the federal government will not allow it to adjudicate on the substantive issue of whether the federal government has breached the agreement it reached with NARD. So, it is the two ministers who should persuade the federal government to implement the agreements reached with NARD.

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But of course, the federal government is in serial breach of other agreements with other labour unions under the principle of collective bargaining. Whether it is the Academic Staff Union of Nigeria (ASUU), the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), and unions in the oil industry, it is the same tale of reneging on agreements.

Clearly, the problem facing the labour industry in our country is fundamental, and not just about doctors who have been accused of playing politics with the lives of Nigerians. So, without a fundamental restructuring of our public sector, with regards to work and wages, the Buhari administration, like its predecessors, will just manage the crisis until they finish their term in 2023.

When Dr Ngige lamented that doctors appear to go on strike more often when their colleagues are in power, he missed the point. He failed or choose not to connect the work they do, to the depreciation in their earnings. As the value of the wages continue to depreciate, those who have collective bargaining power would demand better wages and when they don’t get it, they will go on strike to press their demand.

So, the real threat to the medical industry and every other sectors of the national economy, is actually poor governance and corruption, which continues to depreciate the actual earning by workers, even when the minimum wage has been increased marginally. After all, the essence of a wage is to give the earner purchasing power, and if that power is completely eroded by runaway inflation, insecurity and corrupt practices, then the wage earner would continue to make increased demands for a better wage.

But of course, as I have argued earlier, the ministers of health and labour are too biased to see clearly. As adjudicators in the dispute between the federal government and NARD they are tainted by bias. As Niki Tobi JCA, as he then was, posited in Eriobuna vs Obiorah (1999) 8 NWLR pt. 616, p.622: “In a charge of bias… the judge is said to have a particular interest, a propriety interest which cannot be justified on the scale of justice, as he parades that interest recklessly and parochially in the adjudication process to the detriment of the party he hates and to obvious advantage of the party he likes.”

Instead of raising the cudgels against their junior colleagues in NARD, Drs Ehinare and Ngige should approach the problem scientifically, after all, they are scientists. They need to ask: why is it that doctors are so overwhelmingly better remunerated abroad than in Nigeria? To make matters worse, because of poor governance, the nation’s economy continues to plummet, which in turn further pauperises everyone, including the doctors. Agreeably, the challenges are beyond the control of both ministers, who are mere agents of the federal government.

Of note, while corruption is the biggest threat to the nation’s economic wellbeing, the reliance on oil resources as the determinant of the nation’s economic wellness, leaves Nigerians is such a precarious situation, as the value of our currency is always on a topsy-turvy. So, if a young doctor goes abroad and earns a thousand British pounds, she/he has earned more than half a million naira, which perhaps equates to the salary of a top consultant in a Nigerian public hospital.

To compound the crisis, the distorted remuneration in favour of political office holders plus corrupt enrichment in public service, makes doctors who are in politics more prosperous than their colleagues, who spend quality man-hours developing core competence in medical practice.