Category: Tuesday

After the campaign for the General Election closed, I woke up every morning with one question on my mind:  Have they procured a rogue judge to issue a midnight injunction restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission and its agents from proceeding with the polls scheduled to start on February 25?

But the question did not just sit on my mind.  I put it to colleagues and associates and persons in the attentive audience who share my concern about the parallels between the runup to the June 12, 1993, presidential election, and the one about to be staged.

No, or not yet, were their responses, right up to Election Day.

The morning after, my question was a slight variation on the theme:  Have they procured a judge to issue an injunction restraining INEC and its agents from announcing the results or anything purporting to be the results of the election?

Again, the responses were, no, or not yet.

I will ask that question every day until the election results are declared.  For, between this writing and then, anything can still happen.

In the closing stages of military president Ibrahim Babangida’s transition, even the most unyielding skeptics, among whom I counted myself, thought that, at his most desperate, he could only put off the election.  We rested easy thereafter.

None of us ever thought that the election, the finest Nigerians had ever witnessed, would be annulled.  Babangida had reserved unto himself the authority to disqualify any aspirant before, during, and after the election, but we never thought that he would avail himself of the last option.  But annul it he did.  And a great many who had voted in the poll cheered on. 

This being a  country where nothing is impossible, one must remain resolute in the belief that nothing is over it is really over.

People:  The election is not over until the winner takes office.

That much is now clear from all the skirmishing over the delayed declaration of the outcome. The official position is that nothing about the outcome is over until INEC says it is over.

So, why all the pitter-patter about “collating” returns  Why the delay in releasing them?

They say the resident election commissioners are in transit from the state capitals to Abuja for the conclave at which they will be asked in full public view to proclaim the outcome in their domain. If that is indeed the case, why did INEC frontload the results from Ekiti State?

-In this mechatronic age, why should the physical presence of resident commissioners be  required in Abuja just to announce election results?  What if they are kidnapped en route?   

Stragglers of the anti-June 12 brigade and their retinue of shysters, are latching to what seems to be a lacuna in the poorly-drafted 1999 Constitution to insist that, in addition to winning a majority of the votes cast and securing at least 25 percent of the votes in two-thirds of the 36  states and Abuja Federal Capital Territory,  a presidential candidate cannot succeed without winning a plurality in the FCT.

This cannot be the intendment of the appropriate clause in the Constitution.  For it would mean that the votes of Abuja residents carry greater weight than the votes of other Nigerians, in effect giving them a veto.  It would set at nought the Constitution’s equal-protection clause.

But this shibboleth might be only the opening gambit of the stragglers.  They are a pertinacious breed.

It is a constant cause of lamentation among many Nigerians living abroad that they cannot vote in elections back home.  But that circumstance is not as disabling or handicapping as it might seem at first blush.  For they participate in the elections in every way just short of

Like the folks back home, they follow the twists and turns of the transition keenly.  They comb the internet for scraps of information relating to the elections, but not always with the nice sense of discrimination that one must bring to material from that provenance.

I have before me one such material that was doing the rounds on the eve of the presidential election.   The source identified himself only as a pastor,  and here is his message to fellow Christians:

Nigeria had been a member of the Organization of Islamic Community – he couldn’t even get the name of the body right – for eight unbroken years, with a Muslim president in the saddle. To qualify for all the rights and privileges, Nigeria had to have had ten years of continuous rule by a Muslim head of state.

It needed two more years of rule by a Muslim to enjoy full membership.

The design, the pastor claimed, was to ensure that the leading presidential candidates were all Muslims, so that, whoever won the race would serve out the two years needed for Nigeria to qualify as a full member of the OIC. 

For that privilege, however, Nigeria would have to pay an annual subscription.  A certain percentage of the national cabinet (and presumably high-ranking offices) would have to be assigned to Muslims.

So that, when Buhari displayed time and again a craven partiality for Muslims in making federal appointments, he was merely executing the OIC’s plan for Nigeria.

They never reckoned with the coming of Peter Gregory Obi and the massive following he generated across the country.

God has given Christians the privilege to see through the scheme.  It is therefore “mandatory” and “a service to God” to ensure that President Buhari is not succeeded by a Muslim.

If that were to happen, your children would be barred from certain schools.  And you would be barred from holding certain positions.  Christians must not allow that to happen

God told the children that had given the land of Canaan to them, but that they had to fight for it.  All (Christians) must come out to vote for Obi.  They should mount a door-to-door campaign to convince every single friend to vote for Obi.

This was no Sermon on the Mount, but a summons to hatred and bigotry – in the name of God.  It would be hard to find a more revolting example of the weaponization of religion.

Obi qualified on all counts to run for President.  He never presented himself as a Christian candidate, only as a reconditioned trader who would “move the country consumption to production.”   Why did the pastor insinuate God into his pet desires and press his audience to embrace them as a sacred duty?

He was preying on the innocence of his audience with his fact-free harangue.  The clauses cited with such contrived earnestness are nowhere to be found in the OIC’s charter.  He could not even state the organization’s name correctly.  Nigeria acceded to OIC membership  more than 30 years ago, in the Babangida era

But how many in the attentive audience would take the trouble to check out his claims or challenge him if they found out or knew that he was faking it?

As I end this piece to meet my deadline, INEC has not yet announced the final outcome.  But certain trends are clear.  Religion was in big play.  So was ethnic identity, which cuts across all groups with its contents and discontents but is much stronger in some than in others.  Instead of savouring their gains, some are demanding that the elections be cancelled.

Judging by the provocative reactions to the results declared so far in an election advertised as the most consequential in the nation’s history, and the revanchist tenor pervading them, the question is already being asked:  Is this the new dawn the election was supposed to preface?

In two days, precisely February 26, 2023, Nigerians will elect the country’s next president alongside other public officers – in a free and fair election perhaps. Of the top contenders, however, Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT), is the candidate to beat.

En route to the polls, the two-time governor of Lagos unfurls to manifest incarnations. Ornamented in self-creation, he suffers the muse of manic re-creators. He is the punching bag of every virulent critic and hatchet writer on the payroll of his frantic rivals.

Yet his mettle attains the radiance of rebirth, like the proverbial patriot sculpted of spunk and spittle. In the flora of imagination, he is a hero, a villain, a mentor, and a political godfather. He is a father, a husband, a brother, an uncle, and a grandfather. He is also a patriot. A human.

In the estimation of friends and foes, the heart of his story is redacted and recast. Everybody defends or maligns Tinubu as politics and circumstances dictate – if this isn’t expedient belly magic, what is?

We have seen recipients of his benefactive politics hurl caution to the wind and pay it forward with malice. Some mutate as foes. “This must be witchcraft if not juju,” the acerbic millennial and Generation Z prowling Twitter would say.

Amid the clashing contrarieties triggered by his presidential ambition, only Tinubu’s deeds could validate him or otherwise.

Unlike the other candidates, he endures a complicated backstory pitted with intrigues, mindless vilification, and infidelity of his associates.

He is the general who suffered a mutiny of sorts by his most trusted lieutenants, not for his lack of leadership skills, but for his ennobling generosity, overwhelming presence, and humaneness.

Some protege challenged him to the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s presidential ticket, goaded by a devious, self-seeking cabal, the inconsequential support of a rabid religious mob and the dubious prophesies of fortune seekers on the pulpit, itching to become the power(s) behind the presidential throne.

Alas! They watched their sanctified puppet bite the dust. The latter suffered a dismal outing at the APC primaries. But Tinubu again showed up, extending an olive branch to the fiendish, perfidious character alongside his other rivals thus asserting his depth as a tolerant, astute statesman; a benevolent leader, and a guardian of men.

In politics, Tinubu flaunts a quintessential stone architecture, but the random troll wanted him to give it up for the use of a wily, lesser protege, who played ‘hide and seek’ with his presidential fantasy thus projecting himself as earthen ovule, manhood as quivering scorched egg.

Facts don’t care about anyone’s feelings. The truth sprouts free of “stomach infrastructure.” Of the 2023 presidential aspirants, Asiwaju leads in stature and by his exploits. Nonetheless, he’s frantically dismissed as infirm by parties threatened by his virtuosity and apparent bone strut.

He is the general who suffered attrition of his trusted commanders, only to enjoy the unflinching support of his once fierce adversaries. Perhaps because the latter saw the statesman and titan in him.

There is no gainsaying Tinubu vies for the presidency in dire times. He must appreciate this moment for what it’s worth when the neurotic tick-tock of midnight silences our whispers of dawn.

He vies amid our self-inflicted tragedies: terrorism, comatose oil refineries, substandard health and education, corporate banditry, and Yahoo Plus pandemic, to mention a few.

He vies while secret and open fiends contrive a fuel shortage and an ill-conceived currency design and naira scarcity thus impoverishing large segments of the electorate – hoping they would crucify Tinubu and the APC.

It’s that delicate. Tinubu encounters enemies within and outside his own party. Many plots and tales about him suffer enormous exclusions. In the foundry of political imagery, so much is excluded from Tinubu’s bust that we can feel his silhouette straining against the charged atmosphere, in combat with arbitrary sculpting.

Having bestrode the political scene, like a colossus for three decades, grooming leaders, his politics culminate in pursuit of his presidential ambition. Tinubu banks on his experience in public and private business sectors to improve Nigeria’s fortune.

His politics assumes tactical elegance even as his sportsmanship is made more concrete through upheavals. Ultimately, he is elevated or “reduced” to his essence. He is a blessing to those who truly know him and a role model to his closet and open detractors.

His traducers employ the same tired gimmicks, the same choreographed moves; this pantomime of coordinated hatred subsists in the political arena against his candidacy – within and outside an APC-led government.

Still, they haven’t the higher calibre of men capable of besting him to the nation’s most coveted seat, in a free and fair election.

To serial contender, People’s Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar, and the so-called cabal, who are fearful of a Tinubu-led government, this election is a do-or-die affair. But to Labour Party’s Peter Obi, it’s simply a means to feed his lean repute and cash out.

To the electorate, the 2023 polls become a stylized ritual. Thus every vote cast may assume a public expression of pain and a fervent longing for revenge.

The lurid and detailed sagas behind each voter’s choice rather than the call of citizenship duty, are what drives each voter to a frenzy, for or against a preferred candidate.

Yet the most powerful saga today, the most searing narrative across Nigeria is one of financial ruin, desperation, and enslavement. It depicts the impoverishment of the unemployed, of a frightened abused working class by a heartless political class.

For many, Saturday’s election offers a fleeting reprieve, a comforting illusion of control, that they are able to rise above their small stations in life and engage in a heroic battle to fight back.

And despite the clamour for a younger candidate by segments of Nigeria’s youths, none of their whispered alternatives is in his youth. None has shown the intellectual rigour, emotional maturity, stamina, discipline, native intelligence, and character displayed by Asiwaju.

Tinubu is ritualized personality, a streamlined pond, and a totem for sloganeering. He is detestable to his foes yet excitingly speckless to loyalists. The former is committed to thwarting him, knowing their preferred candidate’s perfection is chiefly for display, not exploitable. He can only tickle their fancy from his social media balcony – his window of appearance.

If all politics thrive by a window of appearance, Tinubu’s face is the sun of consciousness rising over his professed horizon. To his rivals and detractors, Tinubu is both exposed and enclosed, a torment and an idol. He is naked yet armoured, vilified yet ritually adored.

Thus he must understand if, for instance, his democratic credentials are radically questioned by news media notorious for their tyrant disposition to staff, institutionalized bigotry, and double standards.

He must appreciate too why he must soak it all in like a garbage dump, knowing it’s a prerequisite for a patriot seeking to serve Nigerians of vast bigotries, intellect, and stripes. He must respond in truth, patience, competence, understanding, and love.

He must understand that his most bitter critics are essential to his pirouette to greater significance. If the presidency is divinely penned in his Qadar, no force in the world could thwart him.

Of all his names, it is easy to fall in love with his oriki, Akanbi. An Akanbi is an Akanda Eda (inured to the odds, or forged to triumph through tumult).

Nigeria is in a state of war, a frigid blank zone under siege. It would take an Akanbi to liberate her.

When the story of these perilous times comes to be written, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin “Mefi” Emefiele, is sure to emerge as one of the most execrable figures of the era.

I date this evaluation from the moment he allowed himself to be recruited by the resident Svengali in the Aso Rock Villa into the race for the presidential ticket of the ruling APC, the party of President Muhammadu Buhari.

It was not his idea.  If he had any political ambition, he had kept it a secret hitherto. He did not strike you as the type who would want to launch a political career starting as the country’s president.  Nothing about him was indicative of overweening conceit or ambition, at last not from a distance.

But it says a great deal about Emefiele’s credulity and gullibility that he embraced it in double quick time.  His first order of business after obtaining an APC membership card, was to flood the landscape with 500 branded cars to register his arrival on the political scene.  Then he bought copious amounts of media space to advertise his mission and recruited elements of the Mobutist  media to project him as the solution to the trouble with Nigeria

It seems not to have occurred to him that he could not enter party politics nor run for president while remaining custodian of the national monetary policy and czar of the banking system.  He saw no conflict in playing those roles simultaneously. 

Perhaps he did, but was assured by the Svengalis in the Villa that such considerations did not apply to him.  Aren’t there always exceptions to every rule?  And we are here dealing not even with any iron-clad rule but a mere convention.

In whatever case, Emefiele’s presidential bid ended in a puff, well before it had gained traction.  It will now go down as the briefest and least consequential foray into electoral politics ever made by a presidential aspirant.

In the perpetual jostling for advantage that occurs in every regime, Emefiele’s sponsors seemed, at least for a while, to have been out-muscled by a rival power bloc in the Villa, determined to clear any doubt as to who was in control.

They set in motion a machinery to have Emefiele prosecuted on charges of financing terrorism.  Even by Nigeria’s standards, the move seemed exorbitant.

Emefilie fled precipitately, to parts unknown.  And for several weeks, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, regulator of the economy that is the powerhouse of the Economic Community of  West African States and home to one of the three largest economies in Africa, abandoned ship.

He was received back at Lagos airport by a phalanx of soldiers.  Since then, they have kept him under armed protection.

Because the economy is judged far too important to be left to the winds of political partisanship and the whims of political meddlers, the autonomy of the Governor of the Central Bank is formally guaranteed in most countries.   That autonomy is relative, to be sure, but the larger it            is or perceived to be, the greater the respect the incumbent is accorded by his or her peers and the greater the confidence that flows from their decisions.

But, much more than his predecessors, Emefiele seems to be content to take his orders from Aso Rock.  Every so often he is to be found there, more supplicant than sure-footed expert giving the authorities the benefit of his superior knowledge and wisdom.

Before Emefiele pulled out or was pulled out of the race for the presidential ticket, he had determined that the time had come to rein in the excess liquidity that was fueling inflation and making the electoral system a hostage to political actors for whom the surest path to power lies in massive vote-buying.

The stockpile they were counting on to buy the election had to be degraded by redesigning the banknotes in circulation, injecting them into the system, and allowing them to circulate side by side with the old notes, until January 31, when the old notes would cease to be legal tender.

This monumental shakeup was to occur within 100 days.   Under no circumstance would the deadline be extended.  At every opportunity, Emefiele reassured all those who expressed doubt about the feasibility of this compressed schedule that he and the CBN were up to the task. 

That nation now knows at a frightful human and material cost that grows with each passing day that Emefiele was not being forthright.  And even at his most indulgent, Buhari must now be wondering whether Emefiele was in earnest when he assured him that the National Mint had the capacity to produce the volume of new notes the overhaul would require.

According to the best authorities, it was based on that assurance that Buhari instructed Emefiele to have the National Mint print the new notes.  No outsourcing.  And that was how we arrived at this present disquiet where millions of our compatriots are reduced to wallowing in misery of near-Biblical dimensions.

In every clime, it is accepted, even if the tenet is not always woven into policy, that the welfare of the people is the supreme law.  In Nigeria, the governing philosophy seems to be that wanton immiseration of the people is the supreme law.

Surely, a more humane way is possible?

Emefiele has stoutly denied telling the Council of State, trotted out to give Buhari covering fire, that the National Mint was well equipped to print the new bank notes. Emefiele has so many faces that it is hard to tell the one he is presenting at any given moment. Even, so,  I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on that point.

But the capacity to produce the quantum of required bank notes is not the same thing as the capacity to deliver them within the timeframe Emefiele had stipulated for the changeover, plus the additional ten days he was forced by public indignation to concede.

He has neither produced nor delivered.

As we go back and forth, the question cries out insistently: To what purpose is the perfect calendar of woes which Emefiele has inflicted on Nigerians in the runup to the General Election?  For whose benefit?

Cui bono?

The claim that it is designed to insulate the public from those scheming to rob them of their voices and their power by the wholesale purchase of their votes is implausible to the point of absurdity.

How, at any rate, can that objective be attained by making it well-nigh impossible for clients in good standing to draw on their bank deposits to meet their daily needs?

How, Mefi?

We must put the same question to the latter-day Arthur Nzeribe who sought an injunction restraining the authorities from extending the life of the old banknotes even if they so wished. 

What is the busybody’s locus standi?

And to the latter-day Judge Bassey Ikpeme  — she of the “Midnight Judgement – who more than enthusiastically embraced a petition rooted more in politics than law and upheld it when she should have declined jurisdiction.

Finally, the question must also to go the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation,  Abubakar Malami (SAN), who has been carrying on the tradition of the holder of the same office and resident cardsharper in Babangida’s military presidency, the late Clement Akpamgbo, SAN.

Give Kano State Governor Dr Abdullahi Ganduje full marks for “connecting the dots,” pardon the cliché.  Anti-June 12 elements have regrouped big time. 

The public ignores them at its peril.