Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, is a past master at the art of the political insult. He has no use for the elegant putdown; his words are often bruising, brutal, guaranteed to leave a mark. His latest verbal bomb lobbed at his Edo State counterpart, Godwin Obaseki, ticks the usual boxes.

Reacting to his colleague calling him a “bully” for rebuking Deputy Governor, Phillip Shaibu, Wike said: “You came to beg a bully for you to have a ticket. A bully was your DG Campaign and a bully bullied you into Government House. What a shame. You came back with your wife to thank the bully saying that after God, the bully made it possible for you to be there”.

He went on to call Obaseki a “serial betrayer,” apologising to former All Progressives Party (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, who had predicted that his erstwhile political godson would soon turn on his new-found benefactors.

The two governors have been feuding over the power struggle in the Edo chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which has pitched Obaseki against old warhorses like Chief Dan Orbih and others who controlled the party before the local APC crisis gifted them a governor.

A convention adopted by Nigeria’s two leading political parties makes the governor defacto ‘leader’ in his domain. In that capacity he has the power to impose and depose. His word becomes law and heaven help the dissidents who would not bow before the emperor.

In some states, governors have made the pragmatic choice to cohabit and share power with powerful individuals, while casting envious glances at neighbours ruling like lords of the manor. For some, that adjustment became a bridge too far – leading to nerve-wracking battles with those who helped them climb up the ladder.

This was case with Obaseki who chafed at attempts by Oshiomhole to exert political control over a successor he personally chose and imposed.

Rather than suffer the indignity of an Akinwumi Ambode who was denied the ticket for a second term in office as Lagos State governor and took it with equanimity, he leapt into the “enemy’s” embrace, cutting whatever deal guaranteed him the platform to run again.

He took it for granted that the old ‘governor as leader’ formula would subsist, not knowing he had landed in shark-infested waters. His attempts at imposing his will have been robustly resisted not just because those who called the shots formerly were powerful; they were also age-old allies of Wike – whose influence is far-reaching within the South-South PDP and across the party nationwide.

The frustration reached a peak triggering suggestions that Obaseki might just have another attack of Sokugo – that famous wandering disease – referenced by Cyprian Ekwensi in his classic ‘Burning Grass.’ His deputy Shaibu openly declared that if those resisting them would not bend, there were other options to the PDP.

Obaseki had clearly not reached that point, warning the resistance at one point to either accept him as leader or leave the party. These were not the words of a politician who understood compromise, but those of a conqueror fresh from vanquishing an acclaimed godfather. They spoke of the giddy power of governors who can determine everything from who becomes local government councillor to who gets elected president.

What Obaseki and Shaibu haven’t considered is that the conditions and dramatis personae that enabled them prevail over Oshiomhole are different from those of their latest battle in PDP. Equally, their direct opponent is made of sterner stuff.

For while the former APC chairman was known as a pugnacious fighter right from his days as president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), he also has a softer, philosophical side – realising when to fold his tent and go home following his political humiliation.

The same cannot be said of Wike who has clearly not heard of the saying that he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. He embraces every new clash with gusto and plunges into fresh conflicts headlong.

I think of the Rivers governor and I am reminded of the boxing style of such iconic heavyweight champions as Joe Frazier and Mike Tyson. It doesn’t matter what you throw at them, they keep coming back at you – grinding you down slowly, relentlessly.

Wike is not an elegant boxer; he’s not averse to throwing the odd below-the-belt punch. In his latest broadside against Obaseki he managed to drag some allegations about the Edo governor’s face-off with the Oba of Benin over returned Benin artefacts, into a matter that was purely about internal party intrigues.

Check his never-ending war with his erstwhile boss and current Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi or his bitter break-up with former PDP chairman, Uche Secondus, a man he helped install in office and you find the same pattern – relentless counter attack with no quarter given.

In some ways the two governors are alike: both love a good scrap and don’t like to back down. They love to have the last word, but the Rivers governor is in a special class when it comes to this. So Shaibu hurling threats at the PDP was akin to waving a red flag in the face of the bull in a bullfight.

Obaseki, couldn’t understand why Wike was so enraged, telling him the PDP wasn’t his personal property. How wrong he is! Maybe it wasn’t eight years ago. After the loss of federal power and patronage there was need for someone to step up and sustain the party. There were not too many takers – leaving the Rivers governor to pay the bills and call the shots.

Post-2015 his influence over the party has been well-nigh suffocating. Some governors have fled the opposition ranks citing his supposed overbearing ways. Wike has a vice grip on the party. If the Edo governor doesn’t get that, then he doesn’t understand APC is not PDP!

As things stand Obaseki may no longer enjoy his stay in his new home unless he’s willing to crawl to Port Harcourt with his tail between his legs to beg the king. That’s not a viable option for a guy who boasts about putting godfathers out of business.

But with his newly-minted foe, who doesn’t look like the forgiving sort, threatening: “Let me tell you Obaseki, I know your cohorts and I will smoke all of you out,” he’d better watch out.

One theme Wike kept harping on in his statement was ‘betrayal.’ But what did he expect? In the amoral defection politics that has prevailed in Nigeria through the years, people change parties to get elected into office. They don’t make the switch because of deep ideological convictions or anything so elevated.

When Obaseki was negotiating with the PDP many speculated his heart wasn’t really in it; he only wanted to use the platform to secure re-election and return to APC. Since achieving his objective he has often stated his desire to remain in his new home. But at the first sign of trouble talk of defection has been revived. It’s all about control and hanging on to power.

That said, Wike’s sense of moral outrage does seem a bit overdone. He bemoans Obaseki’s “betrayal” and swears he’s never done anything similar to anyone. It would be interesting to know what his former boss Amaechi thinks and what words he would use to describe their parting of ways. Betrayal, perhaps? Politics is a bitch.

This isn’t just a clash of two individuals with outsize egos. It is all so revelatory of the depth of the internal crises raging within Nigeria’s two largest political parties. Both are bitterly riven with factions. The APC is staggering under a cloud of confusion towards a national convention with no clue whether it would come out whole or in bits.

The PDP is no better as the politics of zoning threatens to rip it apart.

Unfortunately for the country, there are no other options to take advantage of these parties going into elections divided. Those who claim to be offering a third way are reverting to the old formula of gathering names. No one is making any effort to capture the imagination of the country with the power of their ideas.

That’s why, in the end, one of the jaded big two parties that is better able to manage the fallout from ongoing clash of egos, would find itself in power, leaving us all with that sense of déjà vu.

 

Back in the days when the Communist Party ruled the old Soviet Union, leadership succession and change in its governing Politburo was always shrouded in mystery. There were hardly ever any elections worth the name.

More often than not the way you knew someone had lost out in the latest palace coup, was that he disappeared from sight and public functions. He would no longer feature in the photographs of grey, old men standing stiffly at the dais, reviewing another parade.

Events in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last 48 hours bear a striking resemblance to the way the way the Soviet commies of old used to go about their business.

Yesterday, Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, rocked up to the party’s national secretariat in his massive SUV, to preside over a meeting of the so-called Caretaker and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC). This is the same panel which had become so closely associated with Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, almost to the point of ownership.

Hours before, word had leaked of a special conclave at Aso Rock involving President Muhammadu Buhari and some influential APC stakeholders where the order to dethrone Buni and for Bello to step in, was allegedly given.

Secretary to the CECPC, Senator John Akpanudoedehe, was still denying reports of the shock leadership change, when the Niger governor confirmed to the media he was now the party’s ‘Acting Chairman’ – standing in for the incumbent who was not around. No one explained the Yobe governor’s whereabouts and the suggestion was he was out of the country.

Pressed to confirm if Buni had been ousted, Bello would only mutter “no comment.” That’s an interesting response because it neither confirmed nor dismissed the notion that he had been fired on presidential directive. What was more important was that a new man was sitting in the chair taking actions to nudge the ruling party towards actually holding its convention on March 26 as scheduled.

Significantly, one of Bello’s first acts was to swear-in APC’s 36 state chairmen. The last time they were in Abuja they expected that there would be oath-taking, instead they were merely handed certificates and shuffled out of the room with a promise that oaths would be administered at some indeterminate date.

Many interpreted this as part of Buni’s deliberate dithering to delay the convention until the very last minute. The mystery of it all was that the CCEPC was a creation of Buhari and members held office at his pleasure. It would have been expected that they would be in thrall of him and be quick to executive his orders.

But the longer the committee’s lifespan lasted, the keener their appetite for tenure elongation became and the bolder their arrowhead got.

In January this year, former Director General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF), Saliu Moh. Lukman, in a lengthy article pointedly accused Buni and other members of his committee of having no respect for Buhari because rather than facilitate the holding of the convention, they were inventing reasons why it couldn’t hold as scheduled.

On November 22, 2021, Buni, and Kebbi State Governor, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, led a delegation to consult Buhari, emerging to announce agreement had been reached to hold it in February 2022. But beyond this declaration not much was done until it became a fait accompli that the convention wouldn’t on the date stated.

With the air thick with intrigue and many speculating that the interim leadership was in cahoots with those who wanted to hold a convention and presidential primary same day sometime in June 2022, tension rose to a fever pitch. The CCEPC chair was accused of nursing ambitions to become either President or Vice President, manipulating his office to actualise these dreams.

It was in this charged atmosphere that the interim leadership issued the provocative statement that zonal congresses would hold on March 26, with no word about the convention.

This very action was indicative of how confident they had become in their control over the party. It also revealed the contempt with which they held those who were not in their tendency.

But they miscalculated badly. They thought Buhari would do nothing to get his hands dirty, just as they assumed the governors – some of whom had cooperated with them in times past – would just moan and do nothing.

With a revolt staring them in the face, the party which had sent communication to the Independent National Electoral Communication (INEC about zonal congresses in the morning, would dispatch another same day announcing the convention would hold, after all, on March 26. Magically, a comprehensive programme was rolled out.

Given the manner in which they treated Buhari’s directives, it was evident Buni couldn’t have been acting alone. He was doing so with confederates whose agenda dovetailed with his until a recent divergence.

With the Yobe governor out of the picture, in one day APC has taken steps that make the holding of the convention more of a reality. The zoning arrangement proposed by the Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s panel would be speedily rubberstamped.

But even as the party moves towards choosing a new national executive, it is yet to exorcise legal worries it conjured with the untidy manner erstwhile chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, was toppled in another Aso Rock palace coup with Buhari presiding.

The president had during the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held at Aso Villa on June 25, 2020 called for the dissolution of the National Working Committee (NWC) which had become split by factional rifts.

Buhari and others who attended the NEC approved the sacking of the Oshiomhole-led NWC and the setting up of a 13-member caretaker committee headed by Buni. There was no discussion, simply a stampede by all and sundry to fall in line after the president’s announcement.

But lawyers have argued that the party’s last elected leadership was not removed for disciplinary reasons. That would have required for the accused to defend themselves. The president only suggested that dissolution of the committee would foster unity.

However, Article 21 D (vi) of the APC Constitution stipulates that an officer or officers of the party must be given right to fair hearing before they are removed by any organ of the party. This was not the case in the sacking of Oshiomhole.

At the outset, the caretaker committee as its name implied was to help the party elect a new NWC at the convention and function for an initial six months. If there was need for an extension they were to revert to NEC. But this hasn’t been the case each time there was an elongation of its tenure – a legal banana peel if ever there was one.

More trouble would come with last year’s ruling by the Supreme Court that triggered a difference of interpretations between Attorney-General Abubakar Malami and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as to the legality of the Buni Committee.

This was in relation to the judgment on the Ondo State governorship election appeal filed by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its flagbearer Eyitayo Jegede against APC and Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.

At issue was whether Buni’s headship of the CECPC didn’t violate Section 183 of the 1999 Constitution as amended. A seven-man panel of the court by a slim margin of four to three held that Akeredolu could not be removed from office because Buni was not joined in the suit by Jegede. What if he had been joined?

Section 183 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) bars a sitting governor from holding any other office while serving as state governor, while Article 17(4) of the APC constitution clearly states that ‘no officer in any organ of the party shall hold executive position office in government concurrently.”

The APC papered over the cracks at that time, but they are still there barely-hidden.

Now, the head of caretakers who have been operating on a legal tightrope has been shunted aside in another manoeuvre not known to the party’s constitution. Perhaps, in line with current trends within APC, the Yobe governor acquiesced with the “consensus” arrangement to take him out of play.

In one its many dictionary meanings, the word ‘caretaker’ refers to a person who is in charge of a place or thing in the owner’s absence. Here’s hoping that the complicated case of Buni and his band of caretakers, and the legal implications of their actions, doesn’t transform them into undertakers for their party.

 

The most common reaction to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency’s (NDLEA) bombshell accusing suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Abba Kyari, of being a kingpin of an international drug ring operating the Brazil-Nigeria-Ethiopia route, has been astonishment.

But this shouldn’t be so because we’ve seen over time how the cocktail of money, power and ambition can become a powerful incentive for deviant behaviour.

In the 80s, General Manuel Noriega, military ruler of Panama, long an ally of the United States and collaborator with its intelligence agencies, was toppled by US forces and made to face trial in America. In 1988, he was indicted by federal grand juries on charges of racketeering, drug smuggling, and money laundering. He was sentenced to 40 years in jail but served just 17 years on account of good conduct.

Kyari is actually a disaster that’s been waiting to happen because this isn’t the first time he and his team have been accused of engaging in conduct unbecoming of police officers. Most of those allegations never got traction because of the halo that had built up around this ‘uncommon’ officer.

His association with the bursting of some of the most sensational crime stories of recent years like the apprehension of suspected billionaire kidnapper Evans, the arrest of notorious kidnappers operating along the Abuja-Kaduna Highway among others, only helped to burnish his image.

But there’s always been something fake about the media promotion of the exploits of Kyari and his team. All those made-for-Facebook photos of them in action looked too staged. They came across as poor actors in a badly-produced Nollywood movie. Many who actively participated in enabling this ‘Supercop’ narrative must be squirming in embarrassment now.

But even in the face of what we now know, he must still be presumed innocent until the courts find him guilty. That said, video recordings and photographs capturing him participating in a felonious act are past embarrassing.

So also was the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) indictment linking him with suspected cybercriminal and money launderer, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi. That agency long ago established a reputation that produced the popular saying ‘The Feds always get their man.’ They wouldn’t rush out an indictment against a powerful figure in a friendly nation if they didn’t have the goods on him.

Despite the voluminous material produced by the Americans, the Federal Government and Nigerian Police have laboured to act either to facilitate Kyari’s extradition to face US charges or clear him unconditionally.

The latest episode was the Police Service Commission (PSC) delaying a decision and asking the Force to conduct another investigation.

By taking the nuclear option and going public with its findings, the NDLEA forced the hands of government – causing it to throw Kyari to the wolves.

Many swear that the way his profile was being burnished, he was on the fast track to becoming Inspector General of Police. Such speculations make you shudder to think that scenario could have become reality.

But this isn’t just about the tragic fall of an individual who was being prepared for greater things. He has been fed into the processing line and will get his day in court hopefully. However, the saga raises many questions begging for answers.

First is how he managed to stay in position despite the plethora of allegations of corruption and abuse of office levelled against him over the years. These charges now have a ring of credibility around them. But would they be revisited?

Read Also: Abba Kyari and the rest of us

The DCP was supposedly on suspension but was apparently still exercising some form of supervisory control over the so-called Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT). How is it possible that this was allowed to happen? There should be clarification as to the nature of his relationship with his team during suspension.

The disclosures are damaging for the IRT, suggesting it may be deeply tainted or compromised. Like every organisation it would have honest, conscientious and hardworking officers. But the activities of rogue officers have invited scrutiny as to how it functions. It was such abuse that caused government to dismantle the former Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). Can the IRT be allowed to carry on business as usual with the heavy cloud of suspicion that has now settled over it?

The NDLEA allegations again underline the impunity of the powerful in Nigeria. The police in the UK just sent a questionnaire to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the probe of his possible breach of COVID-19 regulations. But here we see a police officer repeatedly ignoring the invitation of a law enforcement agency.

We’ve seen this happening in different ways at different level. Individuals who secured judgments against federal and state governments, the police and army, have no hope of ever enjoying the fruit of their judicial victory because those who should enforce such rulings have no respect for the rule of law.

The reason Kyari is in custody isn’t because of any change in behaviour by the authorities; it’s because someone decided to splatter the mess all over the public domain making any possible cover-up impossible.

The NDLEA celebrated the officer who blew the whistle on the deal and he deserves to be celebrated. Some others could have quietly accepted the cash and clammed up.

But the transformational work General Mohammed Marwa (rtd) has done there notwithstanding, no one should delude themselves that the agency is made up only of angels.

The police in their response to the Kyari scandal pointedly claimed NDLEA officers were in cahoots with drug barons – even the group linked to the latest bust. How deep does this go and how long has it been going on? The business of tampering with drug exhibits certainly didn’t start in January 2022.

The whole country is chattering over the scandal. It is titillating, juicy gossip material. We are enthralled by every new detail of one man’s personal tragedy, but in this sad story we are confronted with further evidence of our moral decline.

How is possible that such a senior officer who’s supposed to be on the side of the light and the law has been entrapped fraternising ever so comfortably with agents of darkness, in a manner that suggests it wasn’t a one off? To think that Kyari is the only such sinner in Nigeria today, is to live a lie.

Beyond the titillation, serious minded people should be asking how to reverse the nation’s moral decline such that faith in institutions is restored and people can once again differentiate between what is right and wrong.

Back in 2014, as the resurgent opposition pummelled Goodluck Jonathan’s reeling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration, it saw opportunities in the challenges confronting it, to shape its campaign template.

Where the government was being embarrassed daily by a slew scandals, the opposition presented itself as the alternative that would clean up the Augean stable, contrasting its candidate’s Spartan lifestyle with the obscene display of plundered wealth by the then powers-that-be.

Where Jonathan appeared clueless to stop the insurgency that was setting off bombs in the federal capital city and elsewhere, the opposition offered up a retired general with a tough reputation as what the doctor ordered.

The struggling economy was not in the sorry shape it is today. Still, it was troubled and people were horrified at the prospect of the dollar to naira exchange rate cresting N200. Not many would have envisaged it would be verging on N600 to one.

As terrible as these issues were, the perception that the country was in the hands of a weak leader who was being manipulated by his appointees was another killer blow. I recall how back then former President Olusegun Obasanjo dismissively suggested that five women were the ones actually running the country.

Nearly eight years after, a fairly competent opposition could have dusted up the All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign template with minor adjustments and run with it in 2023.

Which isn’t to say that the Buhari administration hasn’t accomplished certain things in its time in office. The problem is Nigeria’s challenges today are so overwhelming they dwarf whatever modest achievements the president has. He may have gotten trains running and managed to deliver a Second Niger Bridge in the Southeast, constructed roads and bridges, but those are just trickles of good news in a larger sea of bad ones.

Take the economy for instance. There were few statistical bright spots last year. In Q2, the country recorded its biggest GDP growth under Buhari. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that the economy grew by 5.01 percent, following the upward growth trajectory of 0.51 percent in Q1 2021. That same pattern was sustained in Q3 with 4.03 percent.

But what does that statistical positivity translate to considering that unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2020 which was at a 33.3 percent high, was projected by no other than Doyin Salami, chairman, Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) and now Economic Adviser, to hit 40 percent by the end of 2021?

If more than one-third of the populace are not working, the country isn’t working. There’s not much hope that the jobless rate is about to come crashing down.

A link definitely exists between the sky-high unemployment rates and the insecurity menace. The devil has been finding jobs for idle hands and paying generously too. According to a report by SB Morgen (SBM) Intelligence, an estimated N10 billion was demanded by kidnappers ($19.96m) in the first six months of last year. I would suggest those estimates are quite conservative.

But the insecurity problem is fast veering off the tangent of mere criminality to crimes against humanity. Last week newspapers reported how bandits killed over 200 innocent citizens in a mindless orgy of bloodletting in Zamfara State.

The Buhari government is now placing all its bets on a bombing campaign using its newly-acquired Tucano jets. But even if as Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, suggests carpet bombing does the trick and defangs the bandits, what about the underlying conditions that threw them up? Will they also be bombed out of existence?

Insurgency in the Northeast and banditry in the Northwest have devastated the northern economy – with far-reaching consequences for the entire country. Farming has taken a hit along with its supporting value chain and dire consequences for food security. Productive hands have fled, preferring to eke out a living riding commercial motorcycles down South.

Against this backdrop, I am not sure why anyone would want to be president given the scary challenges awaiting whoever takes over from Buhari. Interestingly, rumours suggest that even Jonathan, once condemned as incompetent in handling lesser troubles, is keen on returning to confront problems that have become behemoths.

So what sort of president does the country need at this point? For starters, we’ve seen with the incumbent that the hood doesn’t make the monk. The belief that a retired general would do a better job of securing the country has not held up.

At this point we don’t necessarily need a former security operative but a visionary with a plan; someone who understands that the country – especially the North – isn’t going to be stabilised just by bombing forests.

What solutions do they have that are superior to Buhari’s famous order to security agents to shoot on sight anyone found in the bush with an AK-47?

Jonathan recruited mercenaries to tackle Boko Haram in the period leading to the 2015 polls and there was a brief respite. What solutions can our would-be presidents bring to the table that are different from the blunt axes currently being deployed?

The next president must be someone who understands business. He should be someone the local and international business community can trust. Nigeria’s current crises will not abate until there’s significant positive movement on the economic front.

He must be a unifier who can begin healing to the country not just from the polarisations of recent years, but also from the additional damage that would be done as aspirants go into full blooded battle for tickets of the two leading parties.

Already, we are seeing a troubling willingness on the part of politicians to tear up agreements that have evolved through the years for peaceful power sharing. Flawed as it may be, zoning has been a template that stabilised the polity from the Second Republic till date. The suggestion that it was just a device conjured to deal with a momentary problem is fraudulent.

Even those who make a song and dance as why merit should be the yardstick for picking the next president, don’t have a measure by which an individual’s suitability for that high office can be judged? Are you qualified because of elocution or erudition? Remember we once had a PhD as president and Nigerians threw him out.

In the end we are left with the aspirants’ track record and our gut feeling. Sit back, pass the popcorn, you’re about to witness one of the most thrilling reality shows on earth as Nigeria picks a new president.

It’s hard to ignore the deeper political significance of the exchange that just took place between the presidency and one of the pillars of the Northern establishment.

On Sunday, December 12, the Daily Trust newspaper which many regard as a fairly reliable barometer for gauging Northern political sentiment, published a scathing appraisal of the administration’s management of the insecurity challenge under the title ‘Life Has Lost Its Value Under Buhari’s Nigeria.’

Beginning with a gruesome reminder of the incineration by bandits last week of 23 travellers in Sokoto State, to the brutal execution by unknown assassins of a commissioner in President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina, the article painted a depressing portrait of a region heaving under unrelenting bloodletting.

It goes on to slam the president for not showing enough empathy or projecting a sense he understands the gravity of the situation.

Understand, that this wasn’t coming from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or sections of the media critical of the president and his administration. This was a heart cry from quarters that have been largely sympathetic.

The depth of feeling suggests a tipping point has been reached in a region where the very ground on which the president walked was worshipped.

Although Buhari is president of all of Nigeria, the North was his stronghold where he easily strung together massive electoral landslides. Through several polling cycles he was the Teflon candidate against whom nothing negative could stick. Such was his appeal that the ambivalent nature of the establishment classes towards him couldn’t stop his rise to the top politically.

Former Osun State Governor and one-time National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in his new book ‘My Participations’ has revealed how in the process leading to the 2015 general elections, prominent members of the northern elite vigorously opposed the emergence of Buhari as the party’s flagbearer.

So, while in his hour of triumph, he would declare that “he was for everybody and nobody”, there was never any doubt that the North embraced him as their own. Even office holders of the then ruling PDP worked clandestinely for his triumph six years ago.

Naïve voters often assume that ‘one of their own’ would be a good thing for their tribe and communities. This sentiment was evident in the Trust editorial as it recalled unerring support for Buhari at the ballot box across the region through the years, wondering whether the scourge of insecurity was a fair payback.

People in the Southwest also asked similar questions after ten years plus of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenures as military head of state and civilian president, left them with a broken highway leading to his Abeokuta hometown, as well as the pivotal Lagos-Ibadan Expressway seemingly in a never-ending state of rehabilitation.

The promise of Buhari – especially with regards to security – was that a tried and tested general who in the 80s led the charge that crushed the Maitatsine religious insurrection, would succeed where a President Goodluck Jonathan successfully defined by the opposition as clueless was floundering.

The thrust of the Trust piece was that the general hasn’t done better than the callow civilian.

As is to be expected, the presidency has responded to unfriendly fire from supposedly friendly quarters, and I find the reaction interesting in tone and content. First, the statement by the president’s Senior Special Assistant (Media & Publicity), Garba Shehu, was noticeably restrained – lacking the usual fire for fire approach beyond accusing the paper of ‘lurid political journalism.’

It itemises diplomatic and military steps Buhari has taken to check insecurity. Most Nigerians – especially in the parts of the North worst hit by banditry – don’t question the efforts, they want immediate deliverance and are frustrated because the administration has largely delivered only promises of deliverance.

The presidency’s statement is especially disappointing in the excuses it makes.

“Nigeria is not unique. Violence and terror have risen steadily across the entire African continent over the last decade. The Economist magazine in a recent publication wrote about “The Next Afghanistan,” warning the global community of the horrifying security in our neighbourhood, citing specifically the states of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger,” it stated.

The escape to Afghanistan isn’t tenable. For every Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso cited, people can point to Ghana, Benin, Togo, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Liberia and others from the same region which are not wracked by the same scourge.

To be sure, Nigeria is a massive prize for international sponsors of terror. Still, the fact the country’s challenge isn’t unique is an excuse not exclusive to the current administration. If it was unacceptable from Jonathan, nothing makes it more palatable from Buhari – irrespective of the packaging.

The government and its defenders are quick to excoriate critics of its performance, saying they fail to credit Buhari with the fact bombs are no longer going off in Abuja. That may be so, but ISWAP is still lobbing mortar into the heart of Maiduguri.

The nation’s capital is just an artificial oasis of peace surrounded by states in ferment. Niger which is just two hours away from the FCT has complained of many of its communities where ISWAP/Boko Haram terrorists have planted flags.

A few days ago Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, lamented that insecurity in his state was getting out of control. From Zamfara, to Kaduna to Katsina and Yobe, the stories are not more cheering. People cannot travel and get to their destinations unscathed. In some communities, bandit leaders like Turji Kachalla hold sway, levying taxes on hapless citizens.

This isn’t just about playing statistical games to say how many bombs went off in your tenure. It’s much more serious. Before our very eyes a people’s way of life is being transformed negatively. A region that built its wealth through agrarian means can no longer go to its farms without fear.

Before our very eyes criminals are descending into unbelievable levels of barbarism and depravity and we’re losing our sense of shock. What sorts of humans will deliberately set 23 people ablaze in their vehicle? What government policy can ever restore such evil arsonists to some form of humanity?

It’s a tough assignment. But as Akande pointed, Buhari applied for president and got hired. He shouldn’t expect pity; he should get the job done. With 17 months still to run, it’s too early to dismiss his administration as lame duck.

But no government, Buhari’s or the one that comes after, will pacify this land until they come to grips with why bandits and terrorists keep multiplying despite all the deadly force that’s being applied to them.

Omicron, oh my God! It’s another variant of what’s turning into a permanent pandemic. For much of the year we were warned that the Delta variant was the deadliest of the coronavirus strains so far and spreads faster.

Now we hear that Omicron is more transmissible.

Beyond that, no one can say if it produces a more severe COVID-19 sickness that the earlier mutations. Given the speed of spread chances are that it could shortly become the dominant strain across the world.

It is much easier to confront a foe whose strengths and weaknesses you know. More than a year after the world celebrated the COVID vaccine breakthrough, so much about the coronavirus remains a mystery.

Throughout last year political authorities across the world sold the vaccines as our passport to a life as we knew it. Former U.S. President Donald Trump bet re-election on delivering the vaccine. His conqueror, Joe Biden, set ambitious targets for vaccinating all Americans on assuming office, with a view to returning the country to normalcy by the summer.

Double vaccination was the armour that the virus couldn’t pierce – until Omicron happened. Questions are now being asked about the efficacy of being double-jabbed against this strange new variant. It is scary stuff.

And the world has reacted with fear – even countries that have been so voluble about following the science, are flailing because the scientific community is playing catch-up to a chameleonic virus.

On Saturday evening, the United Kingdom added Nigeria to a so-called Red List which already had 10 African countries. Travelers from such domains would no longer be allowed entry until further notice.

Before latest step, South Africa where the Omicron variant was identified late in November, had been the primary target of travel restriction by Western countries.

The ban has triggered a furious backlash with many calling it ‘travel Apartheid,’ hasty and unjustified.

The anger is understandable. The British move just made a train wreck of the best-laid Christmas plans of thousands of families on both sides – those who want to visit Nigeria and those looking to travel in the other direction.

As at the point of taking the action, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had only identified three cases of Omicron. Compare this with a total of 437 cases as of Tuesday in the UK. Of that number 333 were in England, 99 in Scotland, representing an increase of 101 in 24 hours.

British authorities admit that cases of Omicron in people without any travel history have been confirmed, meaning it is now being transmitted within the community – without much input from visitors from Africa or elsewhere. If that is the case it makes the ban even more illogical.

Many whose business and holiday travel arrangements have been thrown into disarray, are calling on the government to retaliate. But it’s not that straight forward. A tit-for-tat ban would be soothing for the national ego but not for much else. All that it would accomplish would be compounding the disruptions the Red List has caused.

Beyond the bluster and the tough talk by ministers, there’s not much that countries like Nigeria and South Africa can do to reverse the actions taken by the UK and Canada ‘in their national interest.’

The Senate and House of Representatives clearly understand this and have taken a more measured tone, calling on the Federal Government to constructively engage with British authorities with a view to reversing the restriction.

They appealed to the British to be sensitive to the diplomatic relationship between the two countries in taking decisions that affect Nigerian citizens.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, revealed the Federal Government is working with the UK on the matter and says the British are very keen to remove Nigeria as quickly as possible from the Red List.

It would be nice if this happens as soon as he hopes, but I am not that optimistic because there are too many variables outside the control of the two governments.

For one thing, the travel ban is as much a health measure as it is political. Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to be seen showing strong leadership in dealing with the Omicron threat; he doesn’t want to come across as backing down because of the backlash that has greeted his action.

The prospect of being skewered by the Opposition Leader at Question Time for flip-flopping on such a sensitive issue like coronavirus isn’t something he’s likely to embrace.

Secondly, Omicron cases could spike in the UK and the same thing happen in Nigeria where COVID checks at entry points have been anything but strict. The Nation has reported how deportees from high risk European countries were allowed into the larger populace without going through the prescribed tests.

One migrant sent home from Australia, told our correspondent how he and 31 others deportees from Europe were herded into two buses by officials and lodged at a Lagos hotel without inquiry about their COVID-19 status.

They mingled freely with other guests and didn’t get to take the tests until after seven days. Even worse, they were checked out of the hotel even before results were available.

Amidst all the brouhaha over Omicron, one piece of data emerged that should trouble us. Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said in Madrid, Spain at the 24th General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) that 97% of Nigerians are still unvaccinated due to poor access to vaccines by poorer countries.

But the Chairman of the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, is more bullish, claiming the government had invested enough and was in position to vaccinate 70 per cent of the Nigerian population before the end of 2022.

Given that the government had set a target of 40% coverage by the end of 2021 and has only achieved 3%, that target for next year can only be charitably described as optimistic.

The amazing thing is that in the face of these grim statistics, the country continues to defy all COVID-19 disaster predictions. With no vaccines, indifferent adherence to non-pharmaceutical protocols, low testing and less-than-transparent reporting by many states, infections and fatalities arising from the pandemic are down.

It is something that science hasn’t been able to explain. As it was in the days of the Delta variant, so now in the time of Omicron. While the world frets, Nigerians just march on without a care in the world.

 

 

 

The 2023 general elections are still 15 months away, but the run-up is shaping up as one massive chess game. The provision for political parties to adopt direct primaries as the means of picking their candidates can only be seen in that context.

The divide is clear. On one side, state governors who suddenly find themselves vulnerable – with no guarantees of being able to install chosen successors or further their own ambitions – are up in arms.

Congregating on the opposite side are those chafing under the iron rule of governors: from serving lawmakers who sense they won’t get another term, to former office holders who were once fond proponents of the indirect primary system, but can now see all its flaws.

A few days ago, Director-General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Lukman, accused members of the National Assembly – amongst them 12 former governors – of hypocrisy, saying they all profited from evil practices associated with indirect primaries.

He said: “From the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives to all the APC and House Representatives members, they must have all paid for every vote they got during internal party primary leading to their election. At that time, they must have been very good loyal partners of governors.

“There are at least twelve former governors currently serving as APC senators. While negotiating to emerge as senators, they must have also been working to ensure the emergence of their preferred choices who are currently serving as governors through the dreaded indirect method.

“Could these former governors who are currently serving as senators claim to be innocent of all the undemocratic practices associated with the indirect method? Could the current serving governors be the only promoters of the bad undemocratic practices of imposition, vote buying, etc. through the indirect method?”

Strong words indeed considering that Lukman was speaking for the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC) governors. The tone suggests that those involved in the power struggle know how high the stakes are.

Politics is all about interests and there’s nothing wrong with governors seeking to protect whatever advantages they currently enjoy. Once upon a time a governor said he couldn’t speak on who would succeed him, but boasted he knew those who wouldn’t. They are that powerful.

In much the same way, there’s nothing wrong with National Assembly members deploying whatever powers they have to cut the emperor-governors to size.

To be clear, in the evolution of Nigeria’s democracy, we’ve seen that no system is immune to being corrupted by fertile-minded Nigerian politicians – be it the direct or indirect primary. Tales were told of how in the days of the much-vaunted Option A4 voting system, a candidate sought to induce voters on the queue by handing them loaves of bread with a Naira note sandwiched inside!

There are serious issues of transparency, affordability and security thrown up by the current debate. We’ve just witnessed the Anambra governorship election where the APC candidate, Andy Uba, emerged as his party’s flagbearer with a generous 230,201 votes but only managed 43,285 votes at the main polls.

Was this a case of potential voters dancing themselves lame before the main event, or people just losing their appetite – thinking that in delivering the flagbearer their job was done? There are troubling questions about the numbers thrown up not just in the Anambra APC primaries but in several other states.

Given their rickety administrative structures and logistics any arrangement put in place by parties can always be easily manipulated. So ordinarily, the focus should be on how to improve efficiency in these areas. But in a system where government is everything reform is the last thing power mongers want.

The main complaint against the indirect primary or delegate system is that it’s unjustly rigged to favour a president or governor whose appointees alone can guarantee victory for an anointed candidate.

Let’s consider two examples from many across the country. In June this year, one week after defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to APC, Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade, appointed 500 new aides. This dramatic job creation exercise was by an individual who already had 2,000 such appointees.

In November 2019, his Edo State counterpart, Godwin Obaseki, swore in 247 new aides. This figure doesn’t include commissioners and Special Advisers.

How can those who are not fortunate to be governors, contest fairly against such individuals with the indirect primaries arrangement?

Direct primary would definitely stretch the resources of parties and tip the balance in favour of the well-heeled who may not be public office holders. INEC has also admitted that supervising such a process would be financially challenging.

But indirect primaries are not necessarily cheaper or less prone to manipulation. Anyone who has followed politics knows that this system is also about the highest bidder prevailing with delegates.

One fundamental issue is whether in inserting the direct primaries clause lawmakers overreached themselves by meddling in what should ordinarily be the internal business of political parties.

It was the same question when legislators tried to micromanage elections by dictating whether INEC should use manual or electronic means to transmit results.

In the end neither side is being altruistic but simply jockeying for advantage in the looming contest for power at all levels nationwide. They need to be reminded, however, that democracy is about mass participation.

This isn’t guaranteed where one powerful individual gets to dictate, assisted by deployment of public funds and assets.

President Muhammadu Buhari has been trying to define his legacy as pro-free and fair polls, pro-mass participation by ordinary party members. He famously stated in an Arise TV interview earlier this year the no individual should sit in one corner of the country and dictate to the party.

Now that it is clear governors and other interests would press him not to sign the amended bill as presented, he needs to walk his talk – back a provision that guarantees what he says he really wants or eat his words.

Were he to do the latter, he risks an embarrassing political defeat with legislators vowing to override any veto. As things stand, the clause which protects their interests virtually guarantees that the votes are there to turn the bill into law irrespective of what Buhari does.

Intriguingly, the bitter moaning by governors over what would inevitably be an internal contest suggests that many are not exactly flavour of the month with their party’s rank and file. But there’s still time for them to try being politicians rather than bosses whose orders must be obeyed.