The Nation Newspaper

Category: Gabriel Amalu

  • Exclusion of majority

    The anger in her voice, as she relayed a 47 years personal experience of male chauvinism, was as foreboding as the cultural exclusion of women, who form 52 per cent of the working-age population, from self-actualisation, in most part of northern Nigeria. Luckily, unlike the aridity of the region, the air conditioner of the SUV she was driving towards the Milliken Hill, in Enugu, was chilling. Dr Cecilia Okafor, a political scientist and retired senior lecturer at the Enugu State University of Technology, was not given to anger easily, but there she was, a stealth volcano.

    It was Milliken Hill that brought back the memory. Many, including our father (1972) had accidentally plunged into the deep gorge, over the years. So, I was scared the ghost of the man, who made her angry at that trying period, may yet get at us, because driving through Milliken Hill required a calm disposition, just like walking on a handless rail, across a river. But soon enough, my apprehension was satiated, as I beheld the new Milliken Hill.

    Thanks to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, the Milliken Hill road has become safer than the dilapidated alternative expressway, from Enugu to 9th Mile Corner. Since late 1970’s, when I became conscious of the Milliken Hill, the road was the most fearful four kilometre drive, one can ever make. Driving towards Ngwo, the roughly five-metres-wide road, is a fortified several-metres-high-wall on the left side – bearing down on motorists. While on the right, is hundreds-of-metres-deep-gorge, too fearful to look into, even while in a car.

    Soon enough, I saw why other passengers were relaxed, even as Dr. Okafor recalled the family tragedy and her pitiable experience. The government of Governor Ugwuanyi had ingeniously built a concrete fortification throughout the gully side of the road, with street lamps to aid night drive. So, as she narrated her story, I was inwardly remonstrating the cultural tragedy that has made majority of women in northern Nigeria uneducated and redundant.

    By United Nation’s estimate, the population of our country as at May 6 is 200,127,092, equivalent of 2.6 per cent of the world population, ranking number seven. By 2050, Nigeria would become the 3rd most populous country, with an estimated population of 410,637,888. Of note, majority of the humongous population will be in northern Nigeria.

    Tragically, that part of the country is lagging behind in education, not to talk of the cultural inhibition restraining women, who form a higher percentage of the working-age bracket, 15-64, from work and industry. According to The Guardian publication in 2017, the states of the northeast, northwest and north-central have majority of those who can neither read nor write. Amongst the laggards, Yobe State, one of the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, had only 7.23 per cent, the lowest literacy level in Nigeria.

    Zamfara had 19.16, Kastina 10.36, Sokoto 15.01, Bauchi 19.26, Kebbi 20.51, Niger 22.88, per cents; while Taraba had 72 per cent as at 2017. Conversely, Imo State had the highest literacy level in Nigeria, at 96.43 per cent, while Lagos had 96.30, Ekiti 95.79, Rivers 95.76, Abia 94.24, Anambra 92.11, Osun 90.53, Enugu 89.46 and Cross River 89 per cents. Tragically, the situation since then had become even more precarious, with more states gradually becoming ungovernable. So, invariably, the illiteracy stats would get worse unless the security situation improves drastically.

    To make the already educationally disadvantaged states worse off, it is mainly in these states that the archaic cultural inhibition that puts majority of women in some form of restriction, estopping them from educational and economic activities, is still allowed by the government. According to The Guardian report, the states have received trillions of naira from the federation account over the years, with little to show for it.

    Indeed, Nigeria professes a universal basic education, which on paper means “free, universal and compulsory basic education for every Nigerian child aged 6-15 years.” That programme was launched in 1999, by the federal government, and it got a legal backing with the passage of Universal Basic Education Act in 2004. Yet, as at 2017, 18 years after the programme was launched, the northern states show such abysmal literacy level.

    Again, section 18(3) of the 1999  constitution as amended, eloquently provides: “Government shall strive to eradicate illiteracy, and to this end government shall as and when practicable provide: free compulsory and universal primary education, free university education, and free adult literacy programme.” As Dr Cecilia Okafor, superbly navigated the sometimes 300 degrees turn and twists of the Milliken Hill, in Enugu, where the vehicle carrying her father plunged into, in 1972, I was lost in thought at lost opportunities for the northern girl-child.

    Sensing the guilty patch on faces of the men in the vehicle, the other lady in the car, Justina Offor, threw in a cold relief. “Ogbueshu, (ie Prof Rich Okafor – Dr Cecilia’s husband), this car’s air conditioner is superb.” Thank you my dear, the Prof replied, I enjoy it most, each time I have the privilege of being chauffeured by Cecilia my wife. “Justina I hope you are listening” threw in Frank Offor, one of the other men.

    Cecilia’s story of exclusion mirrors the misfortune of women who are prevented from work and self-actualisation, even as men have proved inadequate as providers. This was barely two years after the Nigerian civil war, and though her father had a property in Enugu, nobody was living in the straggled building, so she had to go to the village, to wash the bandages, used to tend the broken leg of her father, from the Milliken Hill accident.

    “How could that man be so malicious and insensitive to my family tragedy, to order me to get out of sight, even when he saw the tons of bandage I was spreading”, she queried? Instead, “he accused me of hoping to catch a glimpse of the masquerade” as Imezi Owa celebrated Ogugochi. If she could lay a charge, the man would be charged for being contemptuous of women and for foolishly ordering her to be redundant, despite the burning urgency to save her father’s life.

    The ceremony Cecilia was driving to, was not gender discriminatory. We were journeying to Egede in Udi Local Government, for the continuation of the marriage ceremonies of Obudumma and Chibuko Ukeje. It was an occasion for Mrs Ngozi Tagbo, of Ezema Owa, the wife of late Nick Tagbo, (business mogul and political juggernaut) to give her enchantingly beautiful daughter, to the son of Dr Stan Ukeje of Central Bank of Nigeria and his amiable wife, in a three days grandiose ceremony, full of pomp and pageantry.

  • Inquisitorial vs. adversarial legal system (2)

    To effectively deal with the challenges faced by our criminal justice system, we must determine whether the adversarial legal system we practice meets the end of justice for our country. If it does not, we must take the bull by the horn, and replace the adversarial system with a better system. After all, at independence, we inherited the parliamentary system of government, but presently we practice the presidential system. Again, we moved from the monarchical to republic system, within three years of flag independence in 1960.

    In my view, the peculiar challenges of the adversarial legal system, has aided corrupt practices by ‘the rich’, instead of fighting the menacing scourge, because of our level of development. It has also subjugated the ‘poor man’ who cannot afford the huge cost associated with hiring qualified lawyers to offer robust defence in criminal trials, to suffer untowardly. Unfortunately, most of those who suffer prolonged detention even when granted bail are unable to meet the onerous bail conditions while awaiting trial. In an inquisitorial system, the judge or magistrate after an enquiry is entitled to deal with the case summarily, and bring justice to the parties.

    But under our adversarial system because the law presumes the accused innocent even when the facts evidencing guilt is glaring; the ‘poor man’ joins the ‘rich man’ to take advantage of the omnibus constitutional provision and plead ‘not guilty’ only to find himself in a kind of legal limbo when he is unable to pay a competent lawyer to pursue the case proffered against him to a logical conclusion. Having pleaded not guilty, the magistrate or judge can only convict or discharge the accused person after the prosecution and defendant have fully exhausted their legally allowable opportunities as adversaries.

    Of course, the trial in an adversarial system is usually laden with technical landmines, which the ‘big man’ exploits maximally. As defined by Wikipedia: “the adversarial system or adversary system is a legal system used in the common law countries where two advocates represent their parties’ case or position before an impartial person or group of people, usually a jury or judge, who attempt to determine the truth and pass judgment accordingly.”

    The challenge in the adversarial system would have been manageable if the judge or jury has the legal cover to ask questions, sift the grain from the chaff, and call persons or evidence which could help unearth the truth or engage in such other enquiries that will be beneficial to determine the veracity of the evidence presented. But the judge cannot. He is shackled by legal limitation to remain reasonably aloof even when the prosecutor is goofing.

    The judge must act as blind as a bat to any extraneous information or knowledge of the honesty or guilt of the accused, as he is bound to rely solely on the presentations made at the trial. Hypothetically, even if the judge or magistrate saw the accused committing the offence, or comes to that conclusion based on incontrovertible facts outside what the prosecutor is able to muster during trial, the judge is estopped from applying that knowledge in coming to a decision.

    While the above scenario aids the ‘big man’ who is able to hire a battery of lawyers and legal consultants to bamboozle booth the judge and the prosecutor, it however subdues the ‘poor man’ who cannot afford a lawyer and who also cannot rely on an investigation conducted by the judge or magistrate to gain an acquittal. As argued by learned author Andrew Perkins, the adversarial system: “empowers the parties to the dispute to take control of their own case on the basis that they (as opposed to a judge)  are better placed to present their best case.”

    In advanced countries, where the prosecution has developed the forensic capacity to gather and present evidence, the prosecutor is well equipped to confront the ‘big man’ in the legal tangle. But in developing counties, which unfortunately have higher propensity for corrupt practices, the lack of capacity by the prosecutor becomes a form of albatross, and thereby turns the criminal justice system into a huge joke, in many instances.

    In search of solution to the challenge posed by our inefficient legal system, President Muhammadu Buhari at the recent workshop for judges by PACAC and NJI, urged the judiciary “to come up with an integrated approach that balances process and substance, promote clarity to ensure a coherent and realistic formulation of objectives.” On his own part former president made his famous suggestion that the federal government should hire ‘ogbologbo lawyers’ to counter the highly skilled lawyers employed by the ‘big man’ to give the state a blue eye.

    At the lower rung of the criminal justice ladder, the tragedy is that being unable to hire a lawyer to defend him in court, the ‘poor man’ can easily be forgotten in jail while awaiting trial. In some instances, the case file gets missing, and the alleged offence committed by a prolonged detainee could become a conjecture even for the state prosecutor. According to a media report obtained from the Nigeria Prison Services in 2018: “the total inmate population in Nigeria Prisons stands at 73, 631, and of that number, 50, 159, which represent 68 per cent are awaiting trial.”

    With the number of prolonged awaiting trial men turning a national embarrassment, the judiciary has been called upon to decongest the prisons. In August 2017, the Attorney General and Minister for Justice Abubakar Malami promised that within two years the federal government will decongest the prisons. Save for the touted Virtual Automated Case Management System (V-ACMS) which the ministry has procured to aid collation of data of prison inmates, the prisons are still stuffed with prolonged awaiting trial inmates.

    On the other hand, quite a huge number of politically exposed high profile accused persons who have been in court for donkey years on charges of corruption, are rubbing the inefficiency of the criminal justice system into our national psyche, as they audaciously get elected into important political offices, while awaiting their own trial. Learned author Andrew Perkins capture the unfairness when he wrote: “in the adversarial legal system in situations where the parties do not have ‘equality of arms’; a better resourced party may be more able to gather evidence and present a stronger case to the judge than their opposition.”

    Of course, the inquisitorial system has its own challenges, which includes that the judge having participated in the investigation may be biased during trial. So, to better appreciate the fundamental changes our criminal justice system needs, relevant authorities should understudy the advantages and disadvantages of the two legal systems, to choose the way to follow.

  • Nigeria’s post-coloniality of savagery

    It can be claimed, without much fear of contradiction, that human beings are by nature, corrupt and/or selfish, although they still have to live together as groups understandably because no single person is completely self-sufficient.  This behavioural trait is of critical importance to all human societies even as they chart the pathways of survival and economic progress through time and space. The above scenario also necessarily paves the way for stresses/tensions and occasionally, conflicts arising in most cases from hegemonic control of scarce resources. Consequently, scripted and unscripted rules, regulations and/or laws are developed in order to mitigate these crises/conflicts. These problems and challenges have no cultural, ethnic, racial or religious boundaries. They are often trans-generational and trans-oceanic in scope. However, their severity varies from one society to another.  In this connection, charismatic leadership and active followership are of the essence.

    It is on record that several assassinations happened/happen in the US despite its socio-economic and cultural sophistication. Thus, for example, in 1847, the governor of New Mexico Territory called Charles Bent was murdered in his residence. Similarly, John F. Kennedy- the then president of the US was killed in 1963. Arkansas Democratic Party’s chairman was killed in 2008 inside his party’s secretariat. But the level is much lower than in Nigeria where assassins were/are never arrested, let alone prosecuted and punished in accordance with the rule of law. In fact, demons are let loose leading to the spread of godlessness over the land! In the developed parts of the global village, institutions are allowed to work and nobody is above the law contrary to what exists in Nigeria. This primordial attitude of our political leaders since independence has been encouraging unbridled crimes and criminality.

    The Nigerian post-coloniality (especially in recent times) is defined by savage killings which threaten the corporate existence of the country. The devilry of an average Nigerian politician shows that he does not believe in the concept of service to humanity. This attitude turns the stomach of anybody even with the faintest idea of good conscience. It is most disturbing that Nigeria- the current world’s capital of   poverty – allows its parliamentarians to be the highest paid legislators on our planet. It is the height of economic exploitation and slavery for a senator to be earning over N22 million monthly while a national youth service corps member is paid less than N20,000. This scenario exposes the injustices of the Nigerian jungle system made possible by the docility or timidity of its followership. Politics is the juiciest engagement in Nigeria. The level of shamelessness during the First Republic was too low to be compared with what obtains today. Meanwhile, the followers are mere prayer warriors with the false hopes that Providence would re-locate to Nigeria to help us wrestle bad governance to the ground. This is a deceit! Senseless destruction of Nigerians can be understood against the background of Boko Haram insurgencies; assassinations; herders’/farmers’ conflicts; ritual killings; Shiite Uprising; Zaria massacre and kidnapping for ransom which occasionally leads to killing of innocent people. Up to now, the central government has not succeeded in crafting workable strategies aimed at beating the menace.

    Today’s Nigeria has gained a certain notoriety as a country where human lives and those of chickens are on a par. Thus, for example, over 1000 Nigerians mostly Christians were killed in July 2009 by Boko Haram insurgents in northern Nigeria. The killings have not stopped since then. But when would this orgy of killing and destruction end?  In December 2015, the Nigerian Army had a deadly confrontation with members of the Shiite group during the latter’s religious procession in Zaria. A conservative estimate of 1000 people lost their lives. This is in addition to the destruction of lives of some members of IPOB (otherwise called the Biafran protesters) between 2015 and 2016. About 80 Nigerians were mowed down. Numerous Christians lost their lives in Kaduna in May 2000 as a result of the introduction of Sharia Law. The Odi massacre in Bayelsa in November 1999 by the Nigerian Army led to the death of about 2500 citizens.

    Many politicians like Bola Ige, Tunde Omojola, Kehinde Fasuba, Ayo Daramola, Dipo Dina and Okon Uwah were assassinated between 2001 and 2015. Okon Uwah who decamped from PDP to APC made the supreme sacrifice in 2015. Ritualists are smiling to their banks as selling of human parts as beef is now a lucrative coping strategy/business. Who would get us out of the woods? Unemployment and dire material poverty coupled with spiritual deficiency are reducing many Nigerians to sub-humans. They have become cowardly souls fit only for the hottest part of hell.

    Killings in Zamfara, Benue, Plateau, Taraba , Kogi and Kaduna states reached an unimaginable level between 2015 and 2018. Indeed, the Zamfara case up to now is a near-complete genocide. Even the southern part of Nigeria is not completely spared of this beastliness or savagery of monumental proportions. The government can never succeed with a piecemeal approach. The whole world is heaping scorn on Nigeria because our leaders have clearly shown that they lack the capacity to manage the country’s internal dynamics and challenges. The Nigerian government is an unthinking, happy debtor and beggar. In April 2018, the American President- Mr. Donald Trump said as follows:

    “We are deeply concerned by religious violence in Nigeria including burning of churches and the killing and persecution of Christians.”

    According to some Civil Society Groups ( over 70 in number), the recent elections in Nigeria led to the mowing down or maiming of about 100 people including a few INEC officials. It is most disturbing that the political leaders still pride themselves on barbarities in the 21st century.  This Machiavellian mindset continues to rob Nigeria of its economic opportunities and social stability.  Thus, for example, tourism industry has almost totally collapsed at the domestic and international levels. Tourism is not a suicide mission! Many farmers have been displaced from their villages as a result of incessant herders’/farmers’ conflicts and other forms of banditry.  Consequently, Nigeria has just taken another title- one of the eight hungriest countries in the world.

    It is an insult to our collective intelligence whenever the presidency denies this new status (arising from the United Nations’ research findings), instead of reflecting deeply on the state of the nation. As far as the Nigerian leadership culture is concerned (especially in relatively recent times), only sycophants/cronies are correct. Therefore, Mr. President needs to begin to re-engineer the country through comprehensive strategies in order to take the pulse of the nation. This would enable him to avoid a bumpy flight during his second trip. Our current shameful narrative of savage attacks/ bloodletting, extreme hunger, despondency and religious/ethnic tensions is an irritation to humanity and Providence. This can be reversed in the face of sophisticated leadership embedded in proactive-ness, openness, empathy and unalloyed patriotism.

     

    • Prof Ogundel is of Dept. Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.

  • Zamfara as metaphor

    After last week’s air raid of Zamfara forests by the Nigerian Air Force to decapitate the armed bandits that have held the state hostage, the story is thatthe criminals are back in the villages, strolling around without molestation. While that may not be true, no doubtthe state has been on the boil, such that the so-called illegal mining in the state which has been fingered as a cause of the crisis has been banned. Also the federal authority has accused the traditional authority in the state of complicity in the crisis.

    The situation is so precarious that the state governor,AbdulazizYari, has visited the presidential villa on several occasionsto lament the insecurity in the state. His opponents however accuse him of always junketing; perhaps because his state is insecure, he feels safer to always stay outside the state. The senate and House of Representatives have also been lamenting and have been making resolutions to compel the executive to act.

    But despite all the effort, Zamfara remains unsafe. Similar attacks by bandits have also hit Sokoto, Kebbi and Kastina states, even as Kaduna State appears permanently on the boil. On the other side of the northern divide, Borno, Yobe, Gombe and Adamawa are under the direct attack range of Boko Haram. Further down, Taraba, Benue, Kogi, Niger, Nassarawa and Plateau are not spared from armed attacks. So, the scary scenario is that presently more than half of Nigeria is under attack.

    Of note, the concerned states are amongst the poorest in the country. When Nigeria is regarded as the poverty capital of the world, these states, save for a few of them, represent the hardest hit by all the indices with which poverty is measured. By one of such indices, provided by World Poverty Clock, 86.9 million Nigerians live in extreme poverty as at 2018. Without doubt majority of these extremely poor Nigerians come from these states.

    So, if about half of Nigerians are extremely poor, and the country is waging a warin more than half of its territory, the poverty level will get worse and more people will get poorer.Such a scary scenario as we are in calls for a national emergency beyond mere political grandstanding and the federal government must do more than authorizing jet fighters to bomb the forests of Zamfara.

    While it should wage war against the enemies of our country, the solution to the extreme poverty prevalent in the north requires more than what jet fighters can do. The fundamental challenge facing the region and indeed the entire country is poverty, and the solution lies in rejigging the economy. From the crisis facing Zamfara, Nigerians have become aware that the state is awash with mineral deposits, such that illegal miners have turned the blessing to a curse. So, the solution may actually be the legitimate exploitation of the minerals.

    Instead of wringing their hands in helplessness as the northern elites are doing presently, they should wakeup and demand for economic restructuring of the country. In their recent intervention over the insecurity in the northern part of our country, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) led by Professor AngoAbdullahi, merely recanted the challenges facing the region without offering any solution. They spoke tongue in cheek when they said: “we demand for decisive, comprehensive and fundamental governmental action against poverty, underdevelopment and insecurity.”

    If the NEFand other elite groups in the region want to squarely deal with the challenge of poverty facing the region, they must champion the call for economic restructuring of the country. They should know that as structurally organised, the country cannot make the quantum progress that the region needs more than any other part of the country to begin the process of getting out of poverty and insecurity. Blame game will not do it, unless the idea is merely to grandstand.

    The first decisive step is to give Zamfara State the constitutional authority to mine its minerals, and thereby eliminate the illegal miners. The challenges facing Zamfara has shown that our country can no longer defer the urgent need to put states in the driver’s seat of what ordinarily should be their local economy. Clearly as Zamfara has shown, the lack of state economies have mutated beyond mere economic problem to security challenge, and it will be insanity for our country not to change the paradigm, while hoping for a change.

    Therefore, the northern elites must join those who have rejected the constitutional provision that the federal government should own exclusive rights to the mining of minerals in the country. The absence of a thriving and lawful local economy in the states, especially in the northern part of the country have become an existential problem. The precarious situation in many states across the country, is made worse by the dwindling revenue from the oil resources of the Niger Delta, and any further delay has become extremely dangerous.

    The second step is to constitutionally authorize states to have state police. A state like Zamfara may not bother much about recruiting police to patrol its cities, but will be interested in armed rangers to patrol its vast forests. Under the strange federal constitution we presently operate, it can only operate armed vigilantes at the mercy of federal authority. Without its own local police, the state will have to rely on policemen and women, most of whom may be posted to the state as a form of punishment.

    Unless the security challenges are quickly dealt with, Zamfara State and her sister states will continue to get poorer, and as their condition get worse, the nation itself gets poorer. The federal government in the past few years have relied on borrowed funds to argument its budget deficits. Such economic practice is clearly unsustainable, and one way to solve the problem is to expand the national economy. The federal government can easily do that by shedding the exclusive legislative list in favour of the states.

    Without being an economist, Nigeriacannot sustain the present scenario of borrowing to fighta war against Boko Haram and other armed insurgencies; not to talk of investing in infrastructure to boost the national economy. Without bridging the over one trillion dollar gap in infrastructure deficit, our country can easily slip back into recession anytime. The northern elites must worry about the financial capacity of the country to continue to wage the war against Boko Haram and other armed insurgents, which is exacerbating, because of poverty.

    President Buhari can justify his concern for the economic and security crisis facing the country, by preparing the necessary executive bills to amend the exclusive legislative list and also section 214 of the 1999 constitution which forbids the establishment of state police, for the incoming 9th national assembly. That is what we need, not rhetoric.

  • Death as sex maniacs

    The death of three students of Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), during a sex romp after allegedly downing overdose of tramadol and Indian hemp is heart rending. Thefourth person, the lone girl involved in the orgy attended Federal Polytechnic Nekede. One can only imagine the trauma parents of these students face as they try to reconcile the tragedy that has befallen their families. They have my sympathy.

    Many of them would be wondering how their wards sent to study and prepare their future ended up as objects of public shame. If tramadol and Indian hemp could speak, they would have boasted like some misguided political actors did not long ago that for the delinquency of our society, four of our undergraduates have ended up in bodybags. If the dead could be given a second chance, the foursome may be so ashamed of their behaviour they may turn to hermits and nuns foreswearing celibacy.

    But alas, the dead have no second chance to mend their ways. They are gone forever, leaving shame and regrets for their family and their society. Our dear country, if it has feelings, would bend in shame for breading children who consume themselves in perfidious circumstance. It will look itself in the mirror and see a crooked nation breeding crooked children. It will put on sackcloth and mourn in mortification for siring bunkums. Our country will realise that what you give is what you get.

    Perhaps, if we are living in a highly litigious environment, like in the United States of America, the law could be tested whether the parents of the foursome are not victims of a failing state? As high as the presidency, we were told recently that tramadol has been banned from entering our country. Also we know that the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) every now and then emphasises its relevance by displaying seized kilograms of banned Indian hemp.

    So the two drugs that may have caused the deathof the foursome are banned drugs in our country; yet tons of the banned substance are out there, as a snare to our misguided youths. Well as a defence, the authorities sued could claim the students died of sexual overdose, not drug abuse. Whichever. In raising the scenario of a court case and culpability of our country in the death of the foursome, one is reminding the authorities to do more than they are doing to reduce the availability of these dangerous substance across our country.

    Who knows the contribution of these dangerous drugs to the banditry that has put our nation on the spot recently?President Muhammadu Buhari said he is one of the unhappiest president, because of the kidnapping, killings and other forms of atrocities that have overwhelmed large swaths of our country. It may be necessary to undertake a study of the contribution of illicit drugs to the upsurge of criminality that has left many homes in mourning.

    Like light weapons, which have been described as weapons of mass destruction, illicit drugs have become weapons of mass destruction for our youths. At a talk shop for parents of secondary school students I attended, drug abuse by teenagers turned a hot debate. Parents were shocked to learn how our so-called soft drinks when mixed withgrinded sweet, turn into hard drugs. In fact one of the parents urged for a ban of a particular soft drink in the school premises.

    Another parent who claimed to be a social worker narrated that about 75% of the youths at the psychiatrist hospital where he works are victims of drug abuse. He worrisomely reiterated that the range of dangerous drugs keep mutating by the day. He explained how a cocktail of what ordinarily most parents will not raise an eyebrow about, if they see their children with it, could become a snare unto death as drugs.

    Since the job of government includes how to help citizens to help themselves, those in positions of authority should wake up to save our next generation from themselves. Not long ago, the Nigerian Customs reportedly seized a container load of tramadol; in some states in Nigeria, growing Indian hemp is lucrative, while in some parts of the country, drug abuse is a social habit for many. While reinforcing our law enforcement capacity to combat these challenges, sociological approach is also necessary.

    It is important to study the trends, the remote causes, where the abuse is preponderance and why. There is also the need to encourage schools to incorporate the dangers of drug abuse in their curriculum, to teachstudentsthat they must avoid the concatenation of ordinarily harmless substances, as it could turn totheir devourer. Parents should also be regularly engaged, and educated on what to watch out for, as early signs of potential abuse by their wards.

    While our country is devoting huge resources to teach sciences in schools, resources should also be devoted to the study of social challenges. Obviously social related ailments have become more malignant than biological diseases. The foursome consumed in Imo State, few hours before their death may have been certified healthy. Yet,after a few hours of madness, they have been consumed by what may have started as a social pressure from their peers tobelong to a reckless class.

    While the authorities at FUTO cannot be held accountable for the tragedy that came calling, they must not allow the tragedy to pass unnoticed by every student in the school. They should ensure that the school openly put on sackcloth in mourning, so thatthose who are engaged in similar idiocy are adequately forewarned. The shame should be collectively borne so that those who have ears will never be tempted down such an ignominious road. I hope they would not play the ostrich so the shame can quickly pass by.

    The governments must also put in place stricter laws, and create a better capacity to enforce it. Any person who still engages in the importation of tramadol must be caught and made to face the law. A programme to educate managers of our youths, should be put in place to teach them what to watch out for. Every school, whether public or private must have a curriculum on guidance and counselling, and qualified personnel with knowledge of these modern challenges must be recruited to help our youths.

    Adult delinquency which is rampart especially as corrupt practices in government, are the forbearersof these youth delinquency. So the adults must also mend their ways. When politics is turned into a means for criminal self-aggrandizement, the younger generation learn negative ethos, and these translates into cultism, drug abuse, examination malpractice and other social vices that plague our society. Who will save our future generation from perdition?

  • Tinubu’s historic march

    The national leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is in a celebratory mood. He has been on the march since February, when as a sagacious political general, he led APC to another historic victory at the federal elections. Thanks to his indefatigable leadership, the president won a resounding victory. While Tinubu was deservedly being toasted for the historic victory, he clocked 67 years of age on March 29.

    Before the 2019 general election, there was worry whether President Buhari would be re-elected. That worry was attenuated by the emergence of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party. Atiku who is reputed for his financial muscle also had the support of the politically exposed generals who have providentially decided who ruled Nigeria since after the Nigerian civil war. Buhari perhaps knew that with the array of political opponents primed against him, he was back to the pre-2015 default setting.

    Historically, prior to 2015, Buhari has always amassed about 12 million votes mainly from the northwest and northeast. That huge number was however never able to gift him the presidency in his previous attempts. So, to gain the national spread and additional votes, Buhari needed a strategic inroad in the southern part of Nigeria. Of note, his dalliance with southern vice-presidential candidates in previous efforts, didn’t yield much. With time running out because of age, Buhari needed a strong partner to achieve his dream.

    Tinubu having successfully established his political war machine as a veritable fighting force in the southwest political arena, also needed a thrust into the centre. The PDP which has built a formidable amalgam of economic predators as political activists was a no-go area for the progressively minded Tinubu. So, with a capacity to envision even in a near-hopeless situation, Tinubu set forth to cobble a political alliance that will project the Gen. Buhari as the presidential candidate. He successfully achieved that with his army of lieutenants, as Buhari and his party won the presidential election in 2015.

    But that success was almost mismanaged, as forces around President Buhari decided to hijack power and use it for ends not contemplated from a party that prides itself as progressive. Slow to action, the APC-led federal government was portraying a provincial style that could have truncated the alliance, if not for the foresightedness of Tinubu. Those who joined the alliance from the PDP and could not wait for the fog to clear as the reality of failure set in, plotted from inside, as they strategized towards 2019. The National Assembly became the test ground for supremacy.

    In wisdom, instead of bringing down the house he laboured to build, Tinubu was patient, even as the president was hedged in by the provincial forces. Seeing that unless something was done, the second coming of the president was going to be a monumental tragedy, those who genuinely loved the president, like his wife, began to shout for oxygen if the president is not to be politically strangulated. Even as his followers were mounting pressure for a tactical withdrawal, Tinubu maintained his equanimity. No doubt along the line the president may have realized the futility of going the mile alone with the political stragglers, who can only offer sycophancy in place of hard work to make Nigeria progress.

    As the general election drew near, the intra-party crisis deftly led by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the man who eventually contested against him in 2019 worsened. By the time he had done half term, Buhari would have seen that Tinubu was genuinely offering his sagacious political capacity to stave the impending failure that lurked around his presidency. Also the untainted loyalty exhibited by vice president, Professor Yemi Osibanjo SAN, an ally of Asiwaju Tinubu, especially while the president was hospitalized in a London hospital would have convinced Buhari that Asiwaju is a dependable ally and not a foe.

    So when in 2019 the cloud gathered against the re-election of President Buhari, it was to Asiwaju Tinubu that he turned to, for political leadership. Luckily since the umbilical cord had not been severed, Tinubu accepted the challenge to wage political war against tested military cum political warriors like Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Gen. T. Y. Danjuma, and a host of others. But for that strand of alliance that survived the greed of those who tried to build a wall around Buhari, his presidency would have suffered the pre-2015 trauma.

    Marshalling his political arsenal to action, Asiwaju delivered President Buhari’s second term ambition, despite the heavy odds.  It goes without saying that Buhari saw wisdom in entering into alliance with the sagacious Tinubu, and his dream of becoming the president of Nigeria perhaps would have perished if not for that alliance. Now that Buhari has a second chance, he should make the alliance work for the people of Nigeria. The alliance can work to deliver a pan Nigerian government without the veneer of sectional appointments and decisions that puts Nigeria on the tailspin.

    The best birthday gift for Tinubu would be to establish a government that would give all Nigerians a sense of belonging. The type that will project progressive policies, so that Tinubu can joyously look his followers in the face and say: I told you that the choice we have made is the right choice. Considering the experience the president garnered in his first term, there would be no excuses to buoy if he sets up a sectional government whose only interest would be to enjoy the lucre of office. What the stragglers have eaten in the first term should be enough for their life time.

    As Tinubu celebrates his 67th birthday I believe he knows the work ahead to turn Nigeria around at the centre is definitely more than what has been done in the past four years. The precocious intellect that gave Lagos the master plan that has propelled her to one of the top five economies in Africa must be assembled to gift Nigeria the much needed push. Where it is necessary, he should nudge the federal government openly as he did over the proposal to increase VAT.

    There is no time to waste. If he must, he should be willing to turn to devil’s advocate, if that is what is needed to redirect the government, whenever they go in a wrong direction. Perhaps President Buhari if he has not been doing so, should borrow Tinubu’s style of allowing the fest of intellect before any major policy is shaped. He should not carry into second term those who hedge him in, in the name of protection, while making his government so insular and sectional.

    Here is wishing Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu many more years of service to his fatherland, in good health of mind and body.

     

  • State independence

    Despite the bumps, Nigeria’s democracy appears to be maturing. As the supplementary elections in five states have shown, the political elites who were bickering and manipulating the ordering of elections were wasting precious legislative time. The belief across the board that any political party that wins the presidency will sweep the state elections is perhaps erroneous. That fear explains the tug-of-war between the federal and state officials about which election comes first.

    In 2015, the federal legislators forced a three-legged elections on the country with all the debilitating effect on socio-economic activities in the country. The economic and social losses from staggered elections is made worse each time INEC fumbles as happened in 2015 and now 2019. In the current dispensation, after INEC released the guideline for the just concluded elections, putting the presidential and National Assembly elections first, the opposition parties were so afraid of the bandwagon effect that it clamoured for another amendment to the Electoral Act, to strip INEC of the power to order elections.

    But with the opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winning in Sokoto, Benue and potentially in Bauchi states, despite the triumph of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the presidency, the perception of federal power as a cyclone at elections will begin to wane. Despite this gain, the obtrusive powers of the federal government in our unbalanced federation still leaves the states dependent on the whims and caprices of the federal government. This imbalance, especially in economic and coercive powers of a modern state are made worse by the excessive concentration of power of the state in hand of the state executive at the detriment of state legislature and judiciary.

    The result has been the making of governors as state autocrats. With the resources of state substantially in his control, the governor has overbearing influence on the other arms of government in the state. That explains why aspirants to the federal legislature are mortally afraid of the influence of the governor even as they would do all in their power to ensure the presidential elections don’t checkmate their ambition. So to strengthen our democracy, there is the urgent need to free the states from the vice-grip of governors.

    The fear of governors in the state has been so ingrained that a previous constitutional amendment to grant the state legislators autonomy were rebuffed by the legislators. The state legislators were too afraid to contemplate their freedom such that the amendment was defeated by the state legislators. But the result has been the gross inefficiency that many state governments represent. While the judiciary is relatively insulated from the malicious abuse of power by state executives, most of the state legislatures are mere rubber stamp. With the legislature the engine room of presidential system of government stripped of its powers and influence in the states, what we have is a caricature of democracy at the state level.

    Thankfully President Muhammadu Buhari has set up a committee to implement the autonomy of state judiciary and legislature. As a guide to the committee, the words of Earl Warren CJ of the U.S. Supreme Court in USA v Brown is important. He said: “the separation of powers under the American constitution was obviously not instituted with the idea that it would promote government efficiency. It was on the contrary, looked at as a bulwark against tyranny.” Without doubt many of the states in the federation operate under the tyrannical manipulation of state governors. Because of their misguided influence, the state budgets for instance, become a huge joke instead of a serious matter of statecraft.

    So we need to practice the separation of powers as enunciated by the founding fathers of the presidential system of government. Again in the words of Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis of the U.S. Supreme Court in Myers v USA: “The doctrine of separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787 not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary powers. The purpose was not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy.”

    Without checks and balance, we had a governor dedicating state resources to moulding meaningless statutes. Without checks and balance another state executive drove a bulldozer to pull down the house of his opponents. Because of the absence of checks and balance, a governor built a poultry without chicks, while another prefer to build flyover in unlived part of the state while ignoring the more essential needs of the state like salaries. Because of the absence of checks and balance, a governor went to upturn files and desks in the high court without consequences.

    Indeed, because of the absence of checks and balance, many government houses in the states have become mere cash centres for sharing of monthly allocations, instead of nerve centre for policies and programmes to free citizens from poverty and ignorance. We need to make changes at the state level, if we hope to make progress as a nation-state. That is why I commend the committee raised by President Buhari to take the assignment as an important national assignment. We need to free the states from the vice-grip of governors. That dream will be impossible if the judiciary and the legislature in the state are not granted their financial autonomy.

    The importance of the autonomy of the legislature cannot be overemphasised. Theirs is to lay down the rules of engagement, and without independence in this onerous assignment, governance will become autocratic. In Yakus v USA, the Supreme Court of United States describe legislative powers thus: “The essentials of the legislative function are the determination of the legislative policy and its formulation and promulgation as a defined and binding rule of conduct.” Without independence in making the rule of conduct, what we will have is chaos.

    Also important is the work of the judiciary as the organ imbued with power to interpret the rules made by the legislature. Considering its powers as arbiter between citizens and states, the need for its independence cannot be over emphasised.  Section 6(6)(b) of the 1999 constitution as amended captures it. It provides: “The judicial powers vested in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this section – shall extend to all matters between persons, or between government or authority and to any person in Nigeria, and to all actions and proceedings relating thereto, for the determination of any question as to the civil rights and obligation of that person.”

    In granting the state judiciary and legislature autonomy, the federal government must also consider giving the states greater economic power by amending the exclusive legislative list. To even successfully implement the new minimum wage, there is the urgent need to amend the revenue sharing formula.

  • Time for change

    The contests for various positions in the 2019 general elections were extremely viciousin in many places. Whether for the executive or legislative positions, the contestants acted as if their lives depended on it. Or better said, as elections thrive on sucking blood; in obedience of which, the contests were soaked in blood in many states. For instance, in Rivers State, the military turned a purely civic duty to a war drill, while in Kaduna State, the contest parlayed between sundry killings and vote buying.

    According to accounts, the 2019 elections in many states were a sham. Some contestants even paid the supreme price all in the effort to serve? They were however instances where elections went on smoothly without untoward incident. Notably, in some places were the card-reader were not fully pressed to action during the presidential and federal legislative assembly elections, the violence spiked as INEC conducted the governorship and state assembly elections. So, without any doubt, technology has become the saviour of lives and giver of electoral purity.

    Going forward, President Muhammadu Buhari has a chance to change the electoral fortunes of Nigeria, and make it one of his legacies. If he appreciates history, the time to act is now, and not when the next elections are close and desperation has set in. By then, those positioning themselves to benefit from the next elections would lie to him that handing over to his preferred candidate, instead of conducting a free and fair election should be the prime legacy.

    So, with haste, electoral reforms must become the foremost plan, if the president wants to be remembered positively. His success in that respect will substantially reduce corruption in public service, because those who will emerge through a reformed process will be more service inclined than those elected through a dubious process. Again, if the process is cleaner, more decent people will participate, and if confidence is imbued in the electoral system, violence will decline. The scenario of less than 20% electorates participating in many states is not good enough.

    The president and his team must also work hard to change the infrastructure deficit plaguing the country. Luckily the government is already revamping the railways. The work on the Lagos-Calabar and Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri lines should come on stream immediately. While the projects will provide massive employment opportunities for our teeming unemployed, it will also save our roads from trucks and tankers that are destroying them. With goods from the wharf moving on rails, accidents on our roads will reduce. Also the Apapa nightmare will seize.

    The government must also change plans with regards to electricity production, distribution and retailing across the country. While production programmes appear commendable with the diverse investment plans in multiple sources, the present system of having a centralized national electricity grid should be changed to smaller grids. Perhaps a programme that could attract private investors to build such smaller grids should be explored. On their part, those who bought distribution companies have shown lack of capacity, so either they reinvest or the government seizes the licenses for reselling to competent corporations.

    No doubt, the distribution-end have been the weakest in the delivery chain, and unless the government changes the present dynamics,it will fail like its predecessors. Many Nigerians believe the government has barked enough on the slow pace of investment in the sector, and so it is time to bite. Those who were beneficiaries of the shadowy sales by the last regime must either live up to expectation or give up their equity holding for more endowed investors.

    To show the limited capacity of the distribution companies, the hanging-transformers installed since about 2014,in FESTAC area of Lagos State, have been idling away. I was shocked when an official of the EKDC living in my area, made arrangement to connect one transformer amongst five others in the same vicinity. On enquiry, he explained that any of the transformers certified okay could be connected. Yet, thesetransformers have been there since.

    In essence, what has deprived EKDC customers the opportunity to enjoy an improved electricity supply, should the hanging-transformers be connected to electricity,is nothing more than lethargy on the part of the distributor.The other nightmare experienced by electricity users in the country is the refusal by the distribution companies to install metres for its customers. Again, when I accosted an official on why installing metres for customers is buried in unnecessary acrimony, he explained to me that the slowness in issuing metres is a business decision.

    He explained that in places where metres have been installed, the revenue generation are abysmal, and so the official policy is to delay meter installation as long as is possible.But in fairness to the distribution companies, they have complained that the approved rating system is unsustainable. Even without comparing the statistics in other countries, one can say that electricity from the companies are unrealistically cheaper than the privately generated electricity. Of course, while not calling for the heads of consumers, there is need for balance in order to encourage the needed investment in the sector.

    Another area needing change, is the level of investment in education. While revamping the national infrastructure will suck the teeming unemployed youths roaming our cities, riding motorcycles, and mugging motorists and passer-by as a horrible means of eking out a living; the Buhari government should lay the foundation to develop a knowledge-based economy. It is the knowledge-based economy that could transform our country from a third-world laggard to a second-tier government within a generation. The labour intensive jobs is merely a stop gap, to save the country from a war by the unemployed against the seemingly employed.

    Even the security challenge will get a lift from creation of employment. While buying arms and ammunition is inevitable to fight the scourge of insecurity, the ultimate security lies in the provision of employment opportunities. As the challenges in the northeast and lately in the northwest show, the theatres of war within the country will continue to mutate unless opportunities are created for the jobless youths in the country. Those in authority must not be foolish to think the other regions are immune to such organized banditry that is plaguing the northern region.

    Of course, the federal government’s agricultural programme is a step in the right direction. The building blocks has been laid, especially in the provision and distribution of fertilizer. The government should immediately rebuild the river-basin authorities across the country. Also, the social investment programs of the government is a worthy change-agenda. So the tradermoni, school feeding and similar programs should reach all the states in the federation post-haste. The time for change has come; so without hesitation, the APC led government must urgently move to the promised next level.

  • Winning the peace

    The 2019 general elections will reach a denouement this Saturday after the gubernatorial and state assembly elections. With tension ricocheting across the country in the past few weeks, I earnestly hope it will be an anti-climax to the palpable fear that the 2019 general elections will ferryArmageddon to our country. Except for few states where local warlords are raising the stakes, the tension associated with the general elections has dimmed.

    It is also heart-warming that President Muhammadu Buhari who won the presidential election has set an agenda to win the peace. His conciliatory statement, while visiting his re-election campaign team and after receiving his certificate of return, shows he may have realised the best essence of public power: doing public good. In his first incarnation, after the 2015 election, the president spoke about paying each according to the measure of votes given to him during the election.

    While he was fairer in his conduct than in his words, the president would have realised that perception is as important as reality. Many opposed to his re-election bid, relied more on what he reportedly said in the past, than what he did with his powerssince 2015.   As he would also have realised, four years is a short time in the life of a nation, such that before he could really settle down after winning the 2015 elections, he was faced with preparing for the 2019 election.

    The same scenario could play out going forward unless he ignores the merchants of rancour and face the task of doing public good. The ancient wisdom says: time waits for no one; make hay while the sun shines. If he wants to be remembered positively, he must speak and act statesmanlike going forward. While he may have a lot of power to make mountains move, he cannot compel people to love and respect him. But by his words and action, he can make any reasonable person love and respect him.

    Of course, there will be those who are adamant at hating him. But he can gain the respect of the majority if he acts fairly to all persons in all circumstance. As a guide, he can borrow the famous four-way-test of the rotary club. That indomitable redoubt for doing public good will help him rebuild our country which is badly fractured along ethnic and religious lines. This fracture has been assuming a dangerous proportion in statesthat have non-homogenous populations.

    Feeding on the mood of the nation, some misguided persons are trying to set Lagos on the part of tribal recriminations in the name of politics. Those who lost the national election of penultimate Saturday are trying to push Ndigbo to fight their hosts in Lagos, as if the national election was a tribal contest between Igbo and Yoruba.While majority of Igbo may have supported the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which lost the election, there are sizeable members of All Progressive Congress (APC), who are Igbo.

    So those stoking ethnic agenda to advance their failed political interest, must not be allowed to foist crisis on the foremost cosmopolitan city in Nigeria. Lagos has been welcoming to all comers regardless of tribe or religion. Indeed, it has been more rewarding since the past 20 years,because Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu created a template that has made the city the sixth biggest economy in Africa. Those opposed to the political tendency in Lagos, must seek to wrestle power through the ballot box, and not by making Ndigbo their cannon fodder.

    The coming governorship election in Lagos State is between experience and experimentation. While the candidate of PDP, Jimi Agbaje,who has no experience of working in the public service is an experiment, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC, who has served as a commissioner and also headed vital state agencies in the state is overwhelmingly experienced to continue the trajectory that made the Lagos economy one of the biggest in Africa. Sanwo-Olu’s credentials and experience would no doubt be a gain for Lagos.

    At the presidential election, the political leadership of Ndigbo made the wrong call by supporting PDP, which eventually lost to APC. While they are entitled to their choice, they must accept they miscalculated. Agreed that Peter Obi,the PDP vice presidential candidate may be an attraction to support Atiku, many discerning commentators knew that the project would not fly. So, it was a huge mistake to corral the south-east zone to vote PDP, when the zone that produced the presidential candidate overwhelmingly supported his opponent.

    An Igbo adage says: you cannot cry more that the bereaved, otherwise you will asked if you know what killed the dead. No doubt, in the failed Atiku’s presidential project, the political leadership of Ndigbo cried more than the bereaved, despite words of caution from several quarters. This column maintained that the PDP project was an emotional gambit, and not a referendum on the public service records of the two leading presidential candidates. It pleaded with limited success that the chaff should be separated from the grains.

    Next Saturday, the governorship and state assembly elections would hold in Lagos. As I have argued above, the candidate of the APC is miles ahead of the PDP candidate in terms of experience and public service records. Also, the dominant political tendency in the state is sagacious and entrenched and will prevail. It also has a record of performance and capacity to take the state to the next level. So on a fair assessment, the candidate of APC deserves to be re-elected, and is most likely going to be re-elected.

    Ndigbo should support the candidature of Sanwo-Olu, because he is not only a better candidate, he has the brightest chance to win. Politics is a game of the possible, not the ideal. Talking of ideal, Sanwo-Olu fits into the ideal candidate more than any other contestant. So on what basis would anyone advise Ndigbo to cast their net in a famished river, with a promise they will make a haul. This column has preached the need for a strategic alliance across the Niger for nearly a decade, and the time to actualise that has come.

    The Igbo has nothing to gain by posturing as political antagonists of their host in Lagos. It will not be a sign of weakness, if they work with APC in Lagos State. Many arguably view the Yoruba and Igbo as the major competitors in the Nigerian project, and some on both sides mistake the competition as war. While agreeably each competitor will always want to win, common sense dictates that a gamely competition should never be a do-or-die affair, otherwise there would no game the next time.

    This column urge Lagosians from all divides to overwhelmingly vote for APC at the governorship and state assembly elections on Saturday, for continuous progress.

  • Buhari vs Atiku

    As February 16, slated for the presidential election approaches, the die is cast between ‘the buharists’ and ‘the atikulates’ to match their words with action. They must go to the polls to cast their vote for their preferred candidate. While many wished the frontrunners were intellectual denizens like Oby Ezekwesili, Kingsley Moghalu, Omoyele Sowore or their kindred spirit, the fact is that all things being equal, either Buhari or Atiku will be our president-elect by evening of February 16.

    So, like Julius Caesar said on January 10, 49 B.C., after crossing the Rubicon river: Aleaiactaest (the die is cast) for our dear country on her march to the 2019 general elections. But, also like 2Baba and his melodious brethren have been preaching through their songs, all Nigerians should work for a peaceful election. I have no doubt that the greatest legacy President Muhammadu Buhari can leave is a free, fair and credible election. While he is entitled to run to win, he must never contemplate the election as ‘a do or die affair’.

    In making a choice between Buhari and Atiku, what should be the guarding principle?In my view, it should be who amongst the two candidates will better wage the war on corruption. Perception wise, Buhari is viewed as incorruptible, while Atiku is seen as susceptible to corruption. Buhari’s famed incorruptibility was very instrumental to his winning the presidency in 2015. Atiku’s corruption index was key to his being denied a succession advantage by former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, in 2007.

    Practically, Atiku in an interview last weekmooted the idea that he could offer amnesty to corrupt officials willing to return their loot to the national coffers. No doubt such a proposal will find favour amongst his supporters who are facing corruption charges in court. Some of his vociferous supporters who have been politically exposed are facing financially related charges in court. Either they are accused of outright embezzlement or of they have taken humongous loans from Banks which they have refused to repay.

    Perhaps that peculiar circumstance may be because Atiku’s politicalelite base is substantially members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who were in power for 16 years, during which they had access to public resources. But beyond the politically exposed there is a huge number of potential voters who believe that regardless of the corrupt practices associated with the PDP candidate, life was better while ‘the corrupt practices’ lasted. This group are adamant that national progress should be measured in terms of the present cost of one bag of rice compared to the pre-Buhari era.

    On his part the anti-corruption agencies under President Buhari prefers to fight corruption frontally, even refusing to consider plea bargain. In fairness to them, they have recovered substantial sums from the thieving elite that raped our country for better part of the 16 years the PDP were in charge at the centre. Buhari on his part is viewed by many as ascetic and incorruptible. He preaches that it is either Nigeria kills corruption or corruption will kill Nigeria.

    Unfortunately Atiku supporters do not believe that Buhari is sincere in the fight against corruption. They easily point to allegedly corrupt officials close to the president, who are not targeted by anti-corruptionagencies. They have also ingeniously linked the lopsided appointments in Buhari’s government as corruptpractices. So, while the anti-corruption agencies have performed better under Buhari, some framers of the campaign issues are pushing the existence of other forms of corruption, beyond stealing public funds.

    But assuming the electorate are discerning enough on the issue of corruption, their responsibility would be to weigh between an Atiku who may be more nuanced in spreading political appointments, even while he may be soft on financial related corruption and a Buhari who may surround his kitchen cabinet with his folks, even though he would be more trenchant in fighting corruption. In essence, the choice to make will be which of the two likely scenarios would better serve a country held captive by debilitating corruption in public service?

    Ordinarily, the coming election should have been a walk-over for a president who has made the fight against corruption the cornerstone of his administration, considering that corruption kills more Nigerians than even Boko Haram. In fact, it is corruption that undermined the efforts made by President Jonathan to fight the insurgents. Even the prevalence of perhaps the greatestcause of death in our country,malaria is attenuated by corruption, which has reduced the resources available to fight the scourge.

    The same challenge applies to the debilitating infrastructure that has hobbled our lives. Whether it the absence of roads, rails or even social infrastructure, corruption is at the bottom of the challenge. Considering the staggering billions of dollars, stolen since the era of oil boom, the fundamental challenge to our national existence is no doubt corruption. The countries that Nigeria was at par with at independence have long zoomed past, because they applied the resources they had more judiciously.

    Even the issue of a buoyant economy will be a ruse if there is no substantial honesty amongst government officials. One example. Nigeria has had many national economic development plans, yet in industrial terms, Nigeria is an import-dependent economy. Whether it the industries that were established or the banks to back it up, all have been swallowed in the cesspit of corruption. All the big ticket industries like the Ajaokuta steel industry, the various paper mills, the vehicle assembly plants, the refineries, the Nigerian Airways, the Nigerian Shipping line and the gamut of other enterprises, all have been killed by corrupt practices.

    So, ifthe electorate are discerning enough, the single most important factor to determine who wins between Atiku and Buhari should be who between the two has a better strategy to fight corruption. Of course, the two are not the best the country can offer, but either of the two will be our president-elect by February 16. In making a choice, one has to decide whether Atiku’s plan to grant amnesty would yield more resources to the national coffers than Buhari’s preference of chasing those accused of corruption until their vomit what they have stolen.

    Again, they must decide whether an aggressive enforcement or a liberal disposition to ruleswould better grow the economy, both in the short run and the long run. Furthermore, whetherthe stricter Buhari persona will drive an enhanced national development programmemore than the liberal Atiku persona or vice versa? Between the two who has the more effective aura needed in the fight against sundry criminality, including Boko Haram? Also, which of the two will better enhance the resuscitation of the sorely lacking physical and social infrastructure? Everything considered, it appears Buhari is a better option than Atiku.