The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • So long, Onnoghen

    “Call no one happy until he is dead” — Greek saying

    The Onnoghen debacle, Nigeria’s worst judicial stain so far, brings to mind a stream of sayings, like some troubled stream of consciousness.

    One is this piece’s opening quote: “Call no one happy until he is dead”, which not a few attribute to the great Greek historian, Herodotus.

    That could well validate the Greek native belief, gleaned from great Greek tragedies from Sophocles and co, that their gods could be malevolent; and think little of cutting uppity man to size, even with but just seconds left of his breath!

    Such conspiratorial passion would resonate with the Onnoghen sympathy orchestra.

    They wail and rail over his fall, at the acme of his career — the same Onnoghen that could easily have entered Nigerian judicial-democratic lore as authentic hero: the sole courageous Supreme Court judge that voided the rotten 2007 presidential election!

    Call no man happy until their death!

    But it could also be the Greek equivalent of the Yoruba superstition (against the direr taboos), targeted at the mind of childhood, to enforce the norms.

    Interpreted that way, it could just be a logical warning: watch your ways; for your seedy past can always catch up with you!

    Seedy pasts!  That recalls a censorious tone, from one of Nigeria’s all-time judicial greats, the late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, aka Socrates.

    Against the Onnoghen allegations, it is a dramatic juxtaposition: the thunder of a glorious past, against the dross of a sorry present.

    It’s the unfolding tragedy of the Nigerian Judiciary, shorn of old glory — by the unfazed venality of a loud and reckless minority!

    “No one should go to the Bench to amass wealth,” cautioned Justice Oputa, “for money corrupts and pollutes not only the channels of Justice, but also the very stream itself.”

    But the Socrates of Nigeria’s Supreme Court, at its finest epoch, wasn’t quite done:  ”It is a calamity to have a corrupt judge. The passing away of a great advocate does not pose such public danger as the appearance of a corrupt judge on the bench, for in the latter instance, the public interest is bound to suffer and elegant justice is mocked, debased, depreciated and auctioned.”

    Does that — the death of a dazzling legal mind versus the wreck of a corrupt judge — speak to the debacle of former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, who just resigned with rather serious venal allegations buzzing around his name?

    Indeed, the glorious past and the blasted present!

    Oputa wasn’t even CJN, in a conclave of legal giants that included the late Justice Kayode Esho, the late Justice Taslim Elias, who became CJN straight from the academia and the late Justice Akinola Aguda, who never even made the Nigerian Supreme Court, though he was Chief Justice of Botswana!

    Indeed, Esho’s name would appear a sharp rebuke from the grave.  He not only decried “billionaire judges”, he also once recommended this same Onnoghen for sanction, over some alleged misconduct, during Onnoghen’s high court days!

    Talk of an epoch of Titan jurists, brilliant and upright!

    But juxtapose that era with the present, when even serious allegations of putative sleaze, wasn’t enough to make the CJN quit, until the rope virtually tightened around his throat!

    The parting shot from Socrates, to the present judicial Sodom and Gomorrah: “When justice is bought and sold, there is no more hope for society. What our society needs is an honest, trusted and trustworthy Judiciary.”

    But justice “bought and sold” takes the tale from the holy-of-holies of the Bench, to the priestly vestibules of the Bar — and again, compare the old and new!

    The late Fredrick Rotimi Alade (FRA) Williams, with his formidable “weight of evidence”, towered over the conventional bloc of the old school.

    The great FRA, Nigeria’s first-ever SAN, would get a brief from Christ; poach yet another from Satan, and plead the Lawyer’s Creed — everyone’s right to legal representation!

    But then arrayed against FRA and his bloc was a slew of radicals and non-conformists, best epitomized by the great Gani Fawehinmi, aka just Gani, SAM, SAN!

    Gani and co would rail and roar, thunder and bluster; and insist higher morality, not narrow technicality, ought to drive the Lawyer’s Creed.

    Still, look closely: nary any venality on both sides; just the fierce jousting of contrasting legal traditions!

    But now?  The abomination of some dichotomy of SANs: the ones that know the law; the others that “know” the judges!

    All too true: one SAN was convicted and gaoled one month, for a proven attempt to buy justice, with hot, fresh and smoking dollars — to parody Geoffrey Chaucer’s Pardoner, in Prelude to Canterbury Tales, with his hot fresh and smoking papal pardons from Rome!

    A few other SANs await their days in court, on integrity charges that would have been unthinkable, when FRA and Gani battled for the soul of the Nigerian Bar!

    When did the Nigerian Judiciary get to this sorry pass?  That is the grim metaphor the Onnoghen debacle presents — a stinking fish rotten from its very head!

    But again, the psychologists were right — didn’t they posit a (wo)man shows the true essence when in crisis?  So, did the leading lights of the judiciary, when the scandal broke!

    On seeming Onnoghen’s behalf, courts were trading illicit injunctions — and even the National Industrial Court (NIC) pushed its own right to be part of that sickening racket.  Pray, when did a CJN asset declaration controversy became a Labour dispute?

    Top SANs too flexed their muscles, scowling and howling, threatening and growling, not because of the intrinsic justness of their cause but because of a strange hubris, that decreed the CJN, because he is CJN, must be lord and master over the law that made him so!

    The politicians!  Never one to shun inanity, Onnoghen soon became a partisan ding-dong, in a fierce electioneering ping-pong!  Why, Abubakar Atiku, master of the political piffle, even suspended his presidential campaign, his PDP in tow, in fond hope of some rogue mileage!

    Onnoghen himself didn’t quite lead from behind, in the judicial drama of the absurd.  He hung grimly in there, not unlike the Biblical King Saul that sat pat, even if regal glory had long departed his throne!

    But why the hasty resignation, when honour decreed that needful, a long time ago?  Perhaps, because the last escape route, the National Judicial Council (NJC) was expected to conjure, had vanished!

    Since the Jonathan era, when the NJC under CJN Aloysius Katsina-Alu short-circuited Justice Ayo Salami’s career, as president of the Court of Appeal, we all knew the judiciary was in a terrible mess.

    So, a sunken Onnoghen is only a grand and fitting metaphor for a diminished judiciary.  But the judiciary, more than anyone else, must pull themselves from that rot.

    That duty they owe, both to their glorious past; and to renewed hope, for the coming generation.

  • Back on hell’s highway

    If the daily anguish of motoristsplying the Lagos-Ibadan expressway has not reached heaven by now, put it to the growing irritation at the celestial realm with Nigerians penchant to bombard its gates with sundry, mundane issues that modern civilization has long taken for granted. The other day on my Facebook page, I tried a light joke of my terrible experience on Sunday morning of how a journey between Arepo and Magboro – along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway – a distance of less than three kilometres took the whole of four hours to make. A friend in his reaction advised I relocate; another thought I should have left my residence much earlier to beat the inevitable gridlock; yet another concluded that I most likely forgot to pray to stave off the principalities and the powers that seems to have taken residence on that road.

    Of course, just when you think you have seen enough in the hell corridor called the Lagos–Ibadan highway to remind you of Dante’s Hell, an entirely new experience makes you wonder whether the great Lucifer hasn’t finally moved its doomed habitation to Nigeria’s famed “Bible Belt”. Today, that 127.6-kilometre highway, perhaps the busiest in the country if not the entire continent, not only mirrors the dysfunction that Nigeria is, but has become everything a vital national artery should not be.

    On my way to the office a week ago, a tanker said to be laden with Automotive Gas Oil reportedly lost control and in the process spilled its contents somewhere not too far from the popular Long Bridge in the early hours of the morning. With elements of security on holiday and rescue infrastructure nowhere in sight, it was the moment for the devil to take over. And yes he did for nearly 18 hours that would cost the nation millions in man-hours aside the unimaginable public health costs. In my case, I got home very well past midnight – for a journey that would ordinarily take 30 minutes.

    The truth of course is that last Monday’s accident, like the other experience on Sunday, is only one among many of the daily experience of gridlock that has become the lot of the motorists on that corridor. Only yesterday, three persons were reported to have been killed in an accident involving a tipper loaded with granite and a Dangote truck at the Ogere, Ogun State end of the expressway. For those of us living on that corridor, like the millions of commuters on that road, we have probably done little else than hope and pray for divine intervention – even as I sometimes left in wonder if those fruitless hours spent on prayer rain couldn’t have been better deployed in organizing to get the contractors and the federal government to either move forward the completion date from 2021 or at least put measures in place to relieve the daily sufferings experienced on that road.

    For now, the agony endures.

    The unfortunate part of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway story is that nothing of the present suffering is inevitable.Rather, it reflects not only the absentee states of our institutions but alsothe systematic collapse of the norms of the orderly society – the combination of which is the reign of anarchy currently unleashed on the country.

    I have heard it said – not once or twice – that the construction giant –Julius Berger – will not dare to do to citizens of its home country, Germany. I certainly would agree that the laws of their home country wouldn’t allow them were the circumstances to be the same. In fact, such afflictions would readily pass foran assault on the dignity of the people on whose behalf they are called upon to render a service. However, while the laws avail to supply the institutional safeguard, the greater consideration wouldn’t be so much for the law but the imperative of business and the awareness of what corporate citizenship and responsibility entails. That is what distinguishes the civilised world from the rest; ability to put the interest of citizens first at all times.

    What do we have here?

    A federal government which aside being impervious to the grind, continues to feign indifference to the potion of slow death dailyadministered on its own people. A federal government so utterly oblivious to the requirements of the basic infrastructures of safety and rescue on which modern transportation are anchored? Imagine aroad safety institution that is only a little more than an agency for the issuances of drivers’ licenses in this day and age! Who even care about public health issues resultant from the problem when bigger issues beg for attention? What about its responsibility to the contractors given what is known to be its serial failures to meet up with its obligations to them?

    Ours truly isn’t just unusual country; it is probably the only one I know where citizens tolerance limits are infinitely elastic!

    Could things have been different? To the extent the problem is fairly easy to isolate, the answer is yes. Clearly, the first layer of the problem is law enforcement. At the moment, there are simply too many vehicles on the road that ought to have been confined to the scrapyard. Lagos with its Vehicle Inspection Service has proven a clear leader in charting the course of ensuring that vehicles on the road are roadworthy. Time to tighten the screws across the board. Ridding the highways of vehicles that are not roadworthy should henceforth be of utmost priority.

    Now, it remains a wonder to see how things quickly slip out of joint when accidents happen considering the plethora of officials manning the highways. All too often, I have seen FRSC officials act more like spectators even whendire emergencies are indicated. Many, in some cases, are actually complicit in the making of some of the bedlam. It should be possible for officials to be held to account when ugly situations arise. Simply put, something drastic has to be done about the penchant by undisciplined motorists to drive against traffic. That lack of will to punish offenders is probably responsible for 90 percent of the problem that has turned the corridor into the nightmare that it has become. I think it is about time FRSC shows that it can truly bite by enforcing that law.

    Here is my appeal to Julius Berger; surely you can do something – even if our government wouldn’t lift a finger to help us. Let no one hide behind some technical nonsense to suggest that nothing can be done. Julius Berger knows that a lot can be done. The problem is that the company hasn’t even begun the finding. Now is the time.

  • 9th NASS: this way to perdition

    The 9th National Assembly should listen to the voice of reason.  In their quest for quality leadership, they should shun the bedlam of the politically ruined.

    Doing otherwise would be baiting perdition, as the 8th National Assembly has done.

    On the leadership question, therefore, anything from Bukola Saraki, outgoing Senate President, and Yakubu Dogara, outgoing House Speaker, ought to attract instant but negative buzz.  The duo is the tag-team that derailed the present National Assembly.

    The Muhammadu Buhari executive had its own challenges.  But Saraki and Dogara spectacularly rebranded, by their actions and inactions, the 8th National Assembly as an ultra-selfish coven, driven by its members’ primitive greed; not by the pressing need of their electors.

    That would explain the near-total clear-out of the old chamber, though many a hustler survived, just as many a dutiful member sank, in what speaks to the Biblical phrase of the innocent carrying the can with the guilty.

    Though Dogara survived, it’s immensely pleasing that Saraki, the fountain head of that rot, got consumed by voter anger.  It’s a dire warning that perfidy is execrable!

    But the Saraki debacle issued from the tragic delusion that politics was a-moral; and, with spin, you could turn the wrong right, and the right, wrong — “government magic”, in Fela-speak!  It’s reassuring furious voters won’t have that crap.

    Long before US President Donald Trump and aides dawned with their “alternative facts” (a euphemism for pure fabrication), Nigeria had witnessed own loss of pristine innocence, on that stark and sacred temple, where wrong is wrong; and right is right.

    That tragic loss was on 12 June 1993.  On that day, a presidential election held.  Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola (MKO), the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate won.  Bashir Tofa, the National Republican Convention (NRC) candidate lost.  The election itself was deemed the best ever, in Nigerian history.

    Yet, a certain Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (IBB), strutting as a self-named “military president”, decided to play God; and purported to cancel the democratic will of the people.

    Gen. Sani Abacha, his Khaliffa (successor), in those never-again days of reckless military rule, with its power sans responsibility, seized power; and clamped MKO into gaol, from where he never came out alive.

    In-between IBB and Abacha, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo too, hee-hawed: neither hailing the MKO mandate nor nailing the IBB electoral crime.  He settled for and actively pushed a grey area of peace-without-justice, the grand fraud of Interim National Government (ING), just to side-step a sacred mandate.

    Even Obasanjo’s No. 2, during their military rule days, Major-Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua, right in the Abacha era “National Constitutional Conference with full constituent powers”, played the politics of anti-MKO score-settling, against the principle of upholding the truth.

    However, when the dust cleared, all of the dramatis personae, in the anti-MKO plot, ended up in grief.

    Obasanjo and Yar’Adua got gaoled for alleged treason, from which Yar’Adua never made it out alive.  Abacha, the gaoler, himself expired in controversial circumstances, leaving behind a horrible stench of sleaze and graft.

    Ay, IBB has lived through it all.  But even he would appear much chastened, weaned from that rush of tragic delusion, of not only “being in office, but also in power”.

    That had pushed him to write himself into the dustbin of Nigerian democracy history, because of his annulment debacle, even when, in spite of his suspect motives, he ought to now be venerated, for organizing the freest election Nigeria ever had.

    But the grandest loser, of them all, would appear Obasanjo.  Yes, he made it from Abacha’s prison to president, all thanks to the Army Arrangement (AA) – apologies to Fela — of 1999; and was prime beneficiary of the June 12 debacle he helped to nurture and sustain, with his ING role.

    But somehow, he also helped to crash the conservative ruling coalition that had held from independence, and even all through the military years – no thanks to his tragic attempt at remaking the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in his own stark image; and therefore drove away many (wo)men of conscience from that conclave.

    Now, out there in the cold, Obasanjo is self-condemned to periodically screed and bawl; screech and howl, all to grab attention – with each successive racket having less impact than the previous one!

    And now, horror of horrors!  The grand recognition of June 12, instead of May 29, as the true Democracy Day, takes off this year; and Obasanjo is alive and well to see the event – a pestilence he had done everything, in and out of office, to stave off!  But lo!  This cup won’t pass over him!

    This then, was the background to – and the hefty comeuppance of – the elite conspiracy against June 12; and Nigeria’s tragic arrival, at that terrible pass, of the loss of political innocence.

    Still, that made little or no dent on Saraki, as he waltzed his way, into his own self-made hall of shame, after which he would lose everything – including the political fiefdom he inherited from his father, the late Baba Oloye, Dr. Olusola Saraki.

    For him, it was perfidy undiluted: sold his party for personal gain; pawned that party’s inalienable right – the deputy Senate presidency – to the opposition; and conspired to turn his party’s legislative majority into a pitiable minority, in hyper-active plotting to cripple his own party’s presidency!

    That was the wind.  But then came the whirlwind, and Saraki’s political paradise got completely smashed!

    From the formidable emperor of Kwara, Saraki has become the political equivalent of the internally displaced person (IDP), fleeing for dear life, hibernating in some temporary camp!  Talk of sitting in limbo, apologies to Jamaican reggae great, Jimmy Cliff!

    But aside this personal ruin, Saraki’s 8th NASS, like Abacha’s Stone Age dictatorship, got blown away too – with crippling stench of legislative tyranny, that could well have been, but for prompt voter anger!

    As with June 12, Saraki’s personal and NASS debacle has shown trashing decency, for short-term expediency, has its grim expiry.  As Saraki himself could tell, it could be extremely gory!

    Which is why the cant oozing from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is rather amusing.  In parliament, a minority party has its place, just as the majority.  That perking order was settled by voters.

    Therefore, any attempt to grandstand to the contrary, could equal fast-paced doom — and Saraki is living proof.  That could mean morning yet, on PDP’s day of trauma – and further decline, despite the grand delusion of electoral rebound.

    But to the 9th NASS: learn from Saraki’s ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ crash.  Vote leaders that can drive the people’s representatives to serve the people.  That — not personal aggrandizement – is what you were elected to do.  Any other way leads nowhere but perdition.

  • 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?

  • Post-poll bluster

    Crave a window into post-poll bluff and bluster, from the electorally vanquished?  Go no farther than the lair of the Ebora Owu!

    But then, want a double-take: into the jaunts, at the victors’?  Check out the vibes, from the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium, the 2019 version of the yearly feast of ideas, put together to mark Asiwaju Tinubu’s 67th birthday.

    But between the Ebora Owu and the Jagaban Borgu, there may well be playing out Nigeria’s 21st century equivalent of the Greek mythical change of regnant orders: the Olympian overthrow of the Titan gods.

    The Titans were giants: powerful and strong.  The Olympians were a marvel: beautiful and nimble.  But the time, in Greek mythology, was ripe for change — from raw strength to dazzling brains.

    But the beauty was the Titans knew, not without pains, when to quit.  They bowed out with rare grace.  The Olympians too, took over with even rarer magnanimity.

    It’s the dazzling beauty of Greek mythology, as captured by John Keats’s incomplete long poem, “Hyperion”.

    But it’s all a simple yet sweeping metaphor, in Greek traditional common sense, of the grace of wisely yielding to change — as the Titans splendidly did.

    In contemporary Nigeria, however, that common sense would appear not common — and the bluff and bluster, from the camp of the Ebora Owu, is prime evidence.

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is, for good or for ill, one of the towering figures of the current 4th Republic, right from its dawn on 29 May 1999.

    He was not only the republic’s first elected — and two-term — president, he embraced Breton-Woods orthodoxy (most especially, in his second term, 2003-2007), which triggered “reforms” that nevertheless under-developed Nigeria; and mushroomed poverty, just for Nigeria to blissfully count among serf-countries, in the West’s neo-economic imperialism.

    Needless to say, the coming of President Muhammadu Buhari (incidentally, the only re-elected president after Obasanjo) is changing all that.

    PMB’s alternative economic philosophy not only pulled Nigeria from recession, the putative economic stability, that had resulted, has even spurred the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to cut the monetary policy rate (MPR) from 14 % to 13.5 %.

    If that heralds a new dawn, it could well result in progressively lower MPR, crashed interest rates, cheaper credit to fund business and, other things being equal, a booming economy; and eventually, development and prosperity.

    That is the sound bite that came from the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium, with the celebrator himself advising the PMB economic team to shun any hike in the value-added tax (VAT) — being canvassed, by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), to rise from 5 % to between 8.5% to 10% by 2019 year end.

    Aside, Tinubu harped on the imperative of infrastructure upscale — better roads, more modern rail, etc., as the administration has already started — but insisted that electricity held the ace to power the economy into global reckoning.

    Still, he decried estimated billing: the cash cow of electricity distribution companies (DisCos), pushing their democratic right to extort payment sans service — another Obasanjo-era legacy of corrupt privatization.

    But he also charged the PMB government to deliver more electricity to power factories: to create jobs, reduce poverty and spread prosperity.  That, the Jagaban called, “the government working for the people”, thus challenging the people to also work for the government.

    The sweet mutuality of the state working for its people, and a challenged but immensely pleased people working for their state, is never more beautifully put!  That is the fundament of patriotism; and it had its apogee in ancient Sparta.

    Yet, that ethos was almost extinct, in the Obasanjo era (1999-2015).  Back then, government policy became arbitrary ticket to enrich a few friends, but ruin the majority.

    Elections themselves became a criminal selection process, to fulfil all righteousness in periodic (s)elections; with nary any righteousness in the whole charade.

    That flared in 2003, when Obasanjo “won” re-election.   But it hit the very nadir in 2007, when the outgoing president, after a crashed attempt to corral a third term contrary to constitutional provisions, pushed forth a mortally ill Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

    To be sure, elections from 2015 have not become voter el dorados.  In 2015, violence was higher but more localized, to some traditional flashpoints, especially Rivers State.

    In 2019, there was less violence across the board.  But the violence was more spread out, due mainly to non-democrats insisting on, by hook or by crook, “winning” democratic elections.

    The more spread out violence has sent the losers’ camp howling, and projecting the electoral Armageddon that suits their troubled psyche.

    But the election results have shown Nigerian elections are getting better, even if it hasn’t hit the desirable models many Nigerians dream.

    Still, it would appear far better than the brigandage that ruled the roost in 2003 and 2007, when some lobbies, in some parts of the country, abusing the so-called “federal might”, just sat down to cook and award figures.

    Incidentally, 2007 and its do-or-die election marked the beginning of the end for the Obasanjo era, though it would take another eight years (2007-2015) for that Titanic to sink.

    Ironically now, it’s the old evil selectorate, that progressively ruined the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), that now try to pooh-pooh the electoral gains recorded since 2015.

    Obasanjo, the fountain head of that ancien regime, crunching his sour grapes, sees nothing but chaos in the emerging new order; and blusters over his old power and glory, that nevertheless brought nothing but ruin to the majority.

    That is why he would claim Nigerians were more divided today than ever – a contentious hyperbole, for Nigerian “unity” was also a serious issue under his presidency; brag he was the longest serving Nigerian leader (as if sheer length approximates quality delivery); and go to South Africa to resume his charge for the youth to “snatch power”.

    But the last time Obasanjo had the chance to walk his talk on that, he abandoned his darling “youth” and scampered into Abubakar Atiku’s camp!

    The Ebora and the Jagaban, therefore, epitomize two contrasts: the one led an old order to perdition; the other preaches salvation with an emerging order, even as the fierce transition battle rages.

    The former president, not being a classical scholar, might not gain much by the Titan-ic wisdom: of embracing change with painful grace.

    Still, the theology scholar in him should school him in the utmost danger of making false fires.  That was the tragedy of Nadab and Abihu, the two blighted sons of the Levite, Aaron, who made false fires to the Jehovah (Leviticus: 10, 1-2).

    But “false fires” is only a spiritual lingo for cant.  Hauling cant, with the fond hope of subverting change, earns nothing but extreme diminution.

    That is what the former president should be wary of, even as he comes to grip with his post-poll de-mystification.

  • 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.

     

  • Ajimobi: Politics trumping legacy?

    The debt for the above title goes to my colleague, Republican Ripples’ Kunle Abimbola’s whose didactic piece on the odyssey of Abiola Ajimobi, the outgoing governor of Oyo State, stirred this piece.

    Never one to shy from rippling through difficult terrains including those where angels feared to tread, Abimbola’s article, ever point-blank and incisive, couldn’t unfortunately resist ther overture to that popular, yet simplistic narrative that although Abiola Ajimobi may have delivered stellar performance, his supposed conceit did him in!

    Now, I understand the point about Ajimobi being an unlikely candidate for a popularity contest – a terrible flaw supposedly for a politician of such a stature – if you ask me. Again, if you ask me, a steward of state asking a bunch of unruly, red-eyed undergraduates to respect ‘constituted authority’ isn’t exactly good company on a day the mob is not only primed to action but have long declared a fatwa on the establishment.

    You know the other stories – the most striking being the bruising encounter with the musical icon, Yinka Ayefele; the parallel but contemporaneously running sub-narratives of supposed mindless officialdom and the false moral equivalences routinely presented by those with axes to grind; and then the story of an alleged dabbling into the chieftaincy affairs of the ancient city of Ibadan etc. On the latter, I am willing to bet, given the man’s deep roots in tradition, that the entire story has not been told!

    Those are supposed to be Ajimobi’s cross for which he must bear to Golgotha. But unlike Golgotha which, in the eyes of Christendom, was mankind’s redeeming point, such has been the spirited attempt to treat these as unforgivable sins for which an electoral shellacking isn’t sufficient recompense but something as would require a legacy of excellent performance to be wiped off the books!

    That is a-historicity at the worst and poor judgment as best.

    In a clime where losing an election is akin to a death sentence, I understand why the pain of being banished to Siberia can be difficult to bear.

    It is certainly a familiar story. A man known to have done well loses and election which would ordinarily been a walkover. In my own state of Kogi for instance, we had a governor who performed excellently only to be suffer the pain of rejection few years later for the same sins that Ajimobi is accused of – of talking too much and for being rather brash.

    I am talking of the late Abubakar Audu – a man who wasn’t just an enigma but an acknowledged star performer. Apparently, the people of Kogi would rather have a tribe of incompetents take turns than have a man who made things happen call the shots! Today, the people of Kogi know better.

    With successive disasters occupying the Lugard House ever since, and the state barely leaving where the late Audu left it aeons ago, perhaps only death could have aborted the triumphant return of the cocky prince once rejected by the electors to the coveted throne in 2015! As they say, the rest is history.

    Back to Ajimobi – the man who defied all the odds to earn a second term (koseleri), losing election is supposed to big deal. In fact, losing to Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) Kola Balogun in the contest for the Oyo South senatorial seat by a mere difference of 13,502 is supposed to be terrible, irrecoverable injury – a re-enactment of the so-called myth of koseleri!

    Never mind that the man has since moved on: “I hereby accept the result as announced. Although there were a number of grievous infractions and established electoral malpractices, I have decided to let go in the interest of peace…” – a treatise on leadership –the finest grade – from a man known to shoot from the hip. Rather than let him be, some people, it would appear, are only too eager to suffer his legacy to terribe revisionism. That, in my view, should not be allowed to happen.

    Which takes us to the crux of this piece – the Ajimobi legacy. In a country where performance is reckoned in bridges and roads, the story across the board is that the man has peformed excellently well. Yes, away from the urban jungle and cesspit of filth and squalor that it was barely a decade ago, I can tesify that the capital city, Ibadan currently wears a modern face. For a city which owing to its military origins, is known to lack any element of planning, it’s hard to miss the deliberate order that have been imposed in the area of physical planning and urban aestethics under Ajimobi’s watch. The roads are wider and neater; the inner cities are on a steady path of renewal.

    For a city that never had a masterplan, I hear that one is finally in place; ditto a drainage masterplan to ensure the banishing of flooding in the ancient city permanently. From Oke-Ogun to Oyo and Ogbomoso, the testimony is virtually the same of how the administration of Ajimobi has done valiantly well to transform their rustic landscapes into modernity through massive infrastructure upgrades; how he has delivered on virtually al items of modern governance, perhaps surpassing previous administrations before him – all with the caveat that the man could have even done better if he had talked less.

    To yours truly, the man greatest achievement is to be found in how he succesfully terminated the reign of the warlords – the rival transport unions who see themselves are not only above the nation’s law but would routinely unleash violence and mayhem on innocent Nigerians even without provocation. The other part of the story is the matching of the security infrastructure with current and future needs to ensure that the state does not in fact relapse into the wild era preceding him.

    As he departs, it must be with the firm conviction of leaving the state far better than he met it. Clearly, he has certainly laid the foundation for those coming after him to build upon – something that his famed humanity, or earthiness cannot detract from.

    My friend Abimbola puts it beautifully: “Long after present politics recedes into memory, legacy (Ajimobi’s that is) will emerge from that mist to robustly proclaim his case”.

    I concur.

  • Ekiti pendulum

    The Ekiti pendulum has swung yet again — this time the Yoruba progressives’ way, from the results of the February 16 and March 9 elections.

    But who knows where these progressives, now banded together in stupendous triumph, would be at the next electoral cycle?

    Still stick together?  Or, yet again get sundered by personal ambitions, killed by skewed intra-party nominations?

    It’s the Ekiti see-saw, driven by Ekiti progressives’ gather-and-scatter spells!  Since 1999, that has ensured a regular progressives-conservatives power relay, with devastating consequences for the Ekiti people.

    Indeed, the Ekiti pendulum, with its wild swings, has been something to behold:  Alliance for Democracy, AD (1999-2003); Peoples Democratic Party, PDP (2003-2007) — Ayo Fayose’s first coming; PDP (2007, in a disputed election, voided in 2010); Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN (2010-2014) — Fayemi’s first coming; PDP (2014-2018) —Fayose’s second coming); and All Progressives Congress, APC (2018) — Fayemi’s second coming).

    On the surface it has been wild power swings between the conservative PDP and a chain of AD mutants: progressive parties, that swear by the Awolowo name – AD, AC/ACN, and finally APC.

    Also, though Ekiti’s first governor back in 1999 was AD’s Adeniyi Adebayo (1999-2003), 1999 to 2019 is clearly the era of two main players: Ayo Fayose and Kayode Fayemi.

    What is more?  Both Fayose and Fayemi, implementing policies (or non-policies), along conservative-progressive divides, have shown the hopeless nadir Ekiti could plumb; and the dizzying heights Ekiti could scale.

    But both extremes have been the wonderful doings of the fickle Ekiti electorate: now, famously brilliant; then, infamously dumb; but always stoics that enjoy or endure their democratic choices.

    Still, the broad PDP-AD mutants’ power alternation hardly tells the whole story.  Look more closely and you’d see the personal odysseys of a range of individuals, on the hustle for the moment’s winning platform — ideology be damned!

    Take Fayose and Segun Oni.  Fayose is no progressive any more than Oni is conservative.  Yet, both harvested big, from Ekiti’s opportunistic politics, as PDP governors.

    Fayose, a demagogue and ideological vacuum, subscribes to no particular compass, beyond power-scalping.

    In the right place, at the right time, and buoyed by the subversive generosity of visiting perched Ekiti folks with water tankers, he was Ekiti’s local captain of Olusegun Obasanjo’s electoral army of occupation that, from 2003, sacked the South West.

    Fayose’s first coming (2003-2006) was, therefore, a protest against Governor Adebayo’s rather underwhelming performance — a crisis of heightened expectations.

    But it ended in fiasco: a controversial impeachment, that sent Fayose hopping out of town; and a hideous security nightmare, with wanton slaughter of Ekiti lives — Fayose ooooooooooo, Yes ooooooooooooooooooooo!

    His second coming was another study in rank opportunism.

    Goodluck Jonathan desperately sought a second term.  After pelting the Yoruba with stones for their vote, he saw in Fayose a ready, willing and avid tool for an Obasanjo-like encore of electoral occupation.

    But again, it all ended in fiasco: Jonathan lost his presidency.

    But Ekiti, the blighted empire of Fayose’s new “stomach infrastructure”, lost much more: its basic dignity; and the shame of the land of giant scholars, and pristine conscience of the Yoruba, fall under the thumb of an unconscionable intellectual dwarf: loud, boastful, boisterous but empty.

    And the loss, in actual brick and mortar?  Visit the ruins Fayose left of Ikogosi, the nature-tourist haven; from the great heights Fayemi drove it, all in a spade of four short years!

    Segun Oni?  A gentleman’s gentleman if ever there was one.  From his gentle mien and polite conduct, perhaps the quintessential omoluabi: the apex Yoruba urbane temper.

    But then came the sweet lure of cheap, post-Fayose power; and Oni avidly bit the bullet!  The gentleman’s gentleman goes down in history as the quiet rider of a gubernatorial tiger, who ended in its belly!

    Sacked by the courts after exercising illicit power for some three years, Oni cuts the picture of a goodly soul consumed by rank opportunism.  Though now back with the Ekiti progressives, Oni’s pristine paradise may never be regained!

    But the Fayoses and the Onis evolve naturally from the Ekiti progressives’ self-dissipation — like folks cursed — by their manic and periodic gather-and-scatter rituals.  That’s the Fayemi side of the Ekiti divide.

    A gripping tale here is the odyssey of Dayo Adeyeye, now an APC senator-elect of the Federal Republic.

    Prince Adeyeye was, back in 1999, the only AD candidate to lose his bid for Senate, in all of the South West.  In 2006, he stormed out in a huff to PDP, protesting alleged illicit support for Fayemi, as AC governorship candidate.

    But his PDP sojourn would prove, on the balance, arid — though he managed to be Ekiti SUBEB chairman under Oni, endured a failed bid for minister under President Yar’Adua; eventually, for a few months, became minister of state under Jonathan; but also suffered failed Ekiti governorship bids.

    Indeed, in the last of such bids, he stormed back to APC, decrying the PDP primaries that elected Fayose’s deputy, Kolapo Olusola Eleka as PDP candidate — ironically turning full circle, for it was for similar reasons he quit AC in 2006.

    But Adeyeye’s progressive home-coming has been well and truly triumphant.  First, his Ise-Orun votes sealed Fayemi’s second coming (neutralizing the candidate’s trail from the Ado/Ikere tally).  And now, he just stormed into the Senate, signifying his first-ever electoral triumph, after a 20-year wait!

    Still, history will chalk Adeyeye as a progressive-at-heart, who nevertheless surrendered his talents to conservative tendencies, in Ekiti and beyond, because he wanted to settle personal scores of the moment.

    Personal scores of the moment!  That aptly captures the meltdown of Kayode Fayemi’s first coming, when, in 2014, Fayemi and Michael Opeyemi Bamidele (MOB), fought to finish, over the APC governorship ticket.

    It was the classical eedi (Yoruba for spell) that left everyone a loser.

    Fayemi lost his governorship, despite a superlative tenure, if not in politics, then in policy.

    MOB laboured in vain — as he probably knew he would — with his empty Labour Party (LP) platform.

    Fayose coasted to victory — but set Ekiti back for decades, again leaving the feuding progressives of yore to clear the mess.

    The fickle Ekiti electorate proudly cut their nose to spite their face!  It was all to the glory of democracy — enjoying smart choices, enduring dumb ones!  They sure endured their choice of Fayose!

    The good thing, though, is what the Ekiti progressives could do, if they banded together. The Adeyeye-MOB-Olubunmi Adetunmbi senatorial triad, to the 9th Senate, is reminiscent of West’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) 1st eleven, of the 2nd Republic.

    But two years hence, when gubernatorial push-and-shove hits upon the land — will this beautiful alliance still stand?

    Time will tell.  But the omens appear not good — except, of course, the gladiators have learnt their lessons; and the APC itself has learnt to make elective nominations fair and just.

  • 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.

  • The many shades of an election

    This weekend, electors in six different states will again head to the polls, this time, to complete their outstanding elections.These are Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Plateau and Sokoto where elections were declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Although INEC claims that the issue at stake is that the margin of victory in each of the affected state was less than the number of cancelled votes, a case by case interrogation not only reveals different levels of mismanagement that threatens to undermine what should ordinarily be a straight-forward, uncomplicated, process. Except for the case of Bauchi expected to be settled later today, voters in the other states will have to redo the exercise on Saturday.

    Poor electors; it iscertainly bad enough to be dragged out to repeat an exercise which the politicians and their agents not only rendered extremely hazardous but rendered practically a nullity. Imagine being reduced to playing the spectator in a game where they are supposedly the sovereigns.  Only this this time around, things promiseto be twice as vicious and deadly as the gladiators seek to procure victory by means more foul than fair.

    That however is only one side of the intriguing March 9 election story. As it is, not a few have pointed to apparent double standard of the commission given the scenario in Abia North Senatorial District where INEC returned a victory verdict in favour of Orji Uzor Kalu even when the margin of victory between him and the PDP candidate Mao Ohuabunwa was less than the cancelled votes. In that instant, the winner, Orji Kalu had polled 31,201 votes to defeat Ohuabunwa who polled 20,801 – a difference of 10,400 votes in a contest in which 38, 526 votes were reportedly cancelled.

    Orthe more bizarre story from Rivers – whose gladiators are currently locked in deadly combat.  Not only have the two factions contending to seize the big prize been bandying dizzying outcomes from an exercise best described as farce, the electoral umpire would appear at sea over the applicable rule to apply to resolve the conundrum nearly a fortnight after.

    Sure enough, it would be time for lawyers to do battle over matters that are not so much about the merit or justice-ness of the causes of the principal actors let alone the promotion of some nobler ideals of electoral jurisprudence; a battlenot so much about the number of the votes cast on the election day but more about finding the law which ultimately crowns the electoral higgledy-piggledy.

    Talk of the Nigerian electoral cancer fully metastasising; so much for the chicanery called elections in these parts.

    By the way, the 2019 elections were supposed to be marked improvement on the 2015 experience both in substance and style. I do not here refer only to the logistics and the works but in terms of the totality of the voter experience. Thanks to the Card Reader, a seamless experience is not only supposed to be guaranteed;the integrity question which had been at the heart of previous elections would seem ordinarily settled.

    Well, the jury is still out nearly a months after the first round of contest; it needs to be said however that that the mounting evidence of the same old pathologies are certainly enough to unsettle even the valiant of hearts.As we saw in the Southwest, most parts of the Northcentral, Northwest, Northeast and the Southeast where the systems generally delivered passable outcomes, it was only to the extent that local party chieftains and the people cooperated with the umpire to deliver a credible process.Elsewhere particularly in the South-south state of Rivers for instance, there were neither pretences about letting the system run nor to the niceties of rules of procedure as one might expect in a rule-based contest; each party, aided by the military or the police and in some cases, the militia, took solace in self-help to claim victories even without reference to the umpire.

    This takes us to the lessons of the elections. I do understand the pain of the losers; to the extent that the electoral business is a bloody expensive one, a loss comes close to throwing billions down the drain. Moreover, in a country where the only thriving industry is politics, and where the sole motivation for being in politics is money and power, the threat of a looming political and economic Siberia is quite frankly an existential one hence the Hobbesian struggle that have characterised our politics.

    But then, to impugn an entire process only because of a few glitches here and there to me is akin to defecating in the communal pond. Yes, hordes of angry chieftains in both parties are free to let off as much as they want. Unfortunately, much as the umpire still has a lot to do to emplace a credible and transparent process, it needs to be said that this itself alone does not guarantee that rules and institutions put in place to deliver are not suborned to devious ends by unscrupulous actors.

    In the end, getting political players to play by the rules seems to me a bigger challenge than getting INEC to strengthen its processes.