The Nation Newspaper

Category: Festus Eriye

  • Buhari’s budget blues

    In his military days, President Muhammadu Buhari had the reputation of being unbending and unyielding. But since swapping his khaki for voluminous babanrigas, he is showing increasing flexibility – even on matters he clearly disapproves of.

    A case in point is his admission mid-week that he signed the 2018 national budget reluctantly, as withholding assent would slow down the economic recovery process.

    His anger over alterations made by the National Assembly to the proposals submitted by the executive have been well covered. Reporting the legislators to the Nigerian public, he said: “The National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.

    “Many of the projects cut are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation.”

    In specific terms, significant cuts were made in allocations to key infrastructural projects like the Mambilla Power Plant, Second Niger Bridge, East-West Road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Itakpe-Ajaokuta Rail and Enugu Airport, to name a few.

    Buhari’s complaints have become part of an annual ritual. In June last year, then Acting President Yemi Osinbanjo, grumbled about the legislators not having the power to distort the proposals sent to them by the executive branch. Despite his displeasure at the modifications, he still signed the ‘deformed’ appropriations bill into law.

    Expectedly, the legislators have retorted that the constitution didn’t direct them to rubberstamp budget proposals from the executive.

    Indeed, the United States’ constitution from which the Nigerian one is largely fashioned, originally gave the ‘power of the purse’ to the legislature. In the course of their political evolution some powers in the process were ceded to the executive branch – allowing it to initiate proposals to be treated by congress.

    The 1999 Nigerian constitution requires the president to play that agenda-setting role by submitting a budget proposal to the National Assembly which cannot become law until it is passed by both houses and signed.

    Submitting those proposals to the assembly presupposes more than a perfunctory role in the process for the lawmakers. The budget is just like any other bill the executive might initiate and send to the legislature. It could end up as something radically different from what was sent in.

    One of the earliest bills proposed to the assembly by former President Olusegun Obasanjo when he just assumed office, was an anti-graft legislation fashioned after a similarly stern legislation in Singapore. By the time the bill had passed through the prescribed readings, it was clear to that class of legislators that were they to pass it as proposed, a whole bunch of then would shortly become inmates in Kirikiri or Kuje prisons.

    They then approved a watered-down version which Obasanjo gladly signed – knowing there was nothing of the sort on our books at that point in time.

    It is illogical to think that the appropriations bill which originates from the executive is such a unique legislation that it should make its way through the legislature – untouched – just for ceremony. At least the constitution doesn’t say so.

    If it is not to be tampered with then there’s really no point in going through the whole rigmarole of the president leading an entourage to lay the document before the assembly.

    Across the world there is no uniform template that prescribes how the process should run. Each country determines what works for it. The South African constitution, for instance, gives parliament powers to hold hearings and call government officials and other experts to give evidence. But the legislature and its committees do not presently have the right to suggest changes to the budget.

    However, many countries with the parliamentary system allow amendment powers. In Australia and the UK, changes have been made – although they are not very significant.

    That said, it would be very naïve to think that such a powerful document that directly impacts the wellbeing of the people, can be insulated from the political calculations and realities of present day Nigeria. It doesn’t happen in the real world.

    In the US, the budget is often a political football that sometimes results in the government shutting down when the opposing sides are unwilling to compromise.

    While the Presidency would like to believe its proposals should be untouched, its position is undercut by a March 2016 ruling by the Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja in a case instituted by Femi Falana, SAN.

    The court ruled that the National Assembly has powers to add, reduce and review budget estimates laid before it by the executive.

    Obviously, this would not be the final word until the Supreme Court weighs in with its opinion. Until that happens, Abuja’s game of political hostage-taking and ransom payment would continue.

    Buhari and his advisers have to realise that however good their budget intentions may be, they would never become reality if they fail to acknowledge that their power over the process is limited. Indeed, the advantage is skewed in the direction of the legislature.

    Politics is a game of interests. The executive is interested in ensuring that its proposals return largely unscathed. How can it ensure that this happens without what appear to be arbitrary additions and subtractions?

    The key clearly lies in robust consultations between the arms. In each budget cycle we are greeted with headlines about legislators threatening ministers and heads of agencies to appear to defend their estimates.

    In this last process, Buhari at some point had to order his officials to honour the invitations, while one or two ministers were engaged in a very public war of words with those supposed to approve their budgets.

    This being Nigeria, we understand this process of consultation and engagement has been abused in the past as a means of extorting money from ministers and heads of agency for passing their budget. Lobbying simply became a dirty word that signified carting about millions in Ghana-Must-Go bags in exchange for passing the budget.

    Elsewhere, lobbying isn’t necessarily about bribing lawmakers or other top officials with cash. It is about groups, companies, industries – even countries, trying to influence government policies and actions to protect their interests. Lobbying has become a multi-billion dollar industry across the world and is often properly regulated to guard against political corruption.

    If your interests are important to you, then you have to lobby those who have the power to further those goals or frustrate them. In the US and elsewhere this process of give and take often involves the executive accommodating the interests of influential lawmakers by providing projects for the legislator’s constituency – in what is referred to as pork-barrel legislation. The truth is lawmakers are also politicians who fave voters from time to time, and need to impress them with what they have accomplished on their behalf.

    The bastardised form of that arrangement is what is now referred to as ‘constituency projects.’

    Until a creative way of harmonizing executive and legislative interests is worked out, the National Assembly would continue to find ways of stuffing the budget with projects the Presidency never ordered – and there’s not much Buhari or any other president can do about it.

     

  • Mimiko, Ondo PDP and the storm in a tea cup

    Mimiko, Ondo PDP and the storm in a tea cup

    As you read this on Sunday morning, I suspect that all is calm on the streets of Akure and the apocalyptic prophecy of Governor Olusegun Mimiko that INEC’s rejection of his preferred candidate, would set the state on fire, hasn’t come to pass.

    Early Friday morning, protesters took over some streets in Akure, the Ondo State capital, setting bonfires and demanding that the commission recognises Eyitayo Jegede, gubernatorial candidate of the Ahmed Makarfi-faction of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) as their authentic representative in the November elections.

    A few days ago, Ondo PDP and Mimiko, had been rocked by news that an Abuja Federal High Court had declared businessman Jimoh Ibrahim the PDP governorship candidate.

    Anticipating what was about to come given that INEC had vowed to obey all court orders, the party sped to an Akure High Court to secure an order restraining the electoral body from removing Jegede’s name from the ballot.

    That tactical move now appears to have come too late because an even more devastating punch would be delivered to the party and Mimiko with INEC setting aside Jegede’s name and substituting same with Ibrahim.

    For the governor, it is a stunning personal reversal given that Jegede was his anointed successor, while he and Ibrahim are sworn political foes. It would be calamitous for him were the controversial businessman to somehow claim victory at the polls and be installed in Government House.

    For all the powers they are said to wield this was one situation that exposed the limits of gubernatorial clout. Mimiko’s options for reversing the unfavourable situation were limited and the institutions that can do so remain awkwardly outside his sphere of command. This is more so given that judges would be keen to play it by the book with so much focus on them.

    No surprise therefore that the governor ran to Aso Rock to confer with President Muhammadu Buhari. Maybe there’s something about a face-to-face briefing, but I suspect that everything that could have been said about the tense political situation could have been done over the phone.

    In reality, the best that the president could have done for Mimiko and his troubled PDP is ensure that security forces restore calm to Akure streets and sustain the peace. Beyond that I don’t see how Buhari who wouldn’t interfere in his own party’s National Assembly leadership power struggle, was going to ‘order’ INEC to change its decision to recognise Ibrahim in place of Jegede.

    When Mimiko says he ran to the president to intervene because INEC’s decision was capable of setting the state on fire, the suggestion is that Buhari could somehow prevail on the Commission to rectify the ‘wrong’ that has been done. But that isn’t going to happen in a hurry.

    Politically, it is in the president’s interest for his foes to intensify their internecine warfare – wearing themselves out to the advantage of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Indeed, the crisis is god-sent for government at the centre given that the management of its own governorship primaries left its ranks bitterly divided.

    With Olusola Oke leaving for the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to pursue his dreams, and Olusegun Abraham heading for the courts to sustain his fight for the APC ticket, a divided house was set to confront PDP and most analysts didn’t rate the party’s chances.

    As things stand Mimiko is caught between a rock and a very hard place. He has to be seen to be doing something by rushing off to Abuja. But he would be better served reviewing his legal strategies as only the courts can deliver him and his party from their current quagmire.

    Indeed, rather than blaming INEC he should be blaming himself and the local party. The commission is in a comfortable place where it can argue that because of its commitment to the rule of law it would obey all court orders.

    Now, there are two orders. Justice Okon Abang of the Abuja Federal High Court ordered INEC to accept Ibrahim as PDP candidate, while an Akure High Court restrained the Commission from substituting or replacing Jegede on the ballot for the election.

    In this instance which of the courts was INEC to obey – the higher ranked Abuja Federal High Court or the state High Court? We are not talking of a situation where litigants can hide under the confusion of courts of coordinate jurisdiction giving conflicting rulings on the same matter.

    So rather than training his guns on INEC, Mimiko and his own faction of the Ondo PDP ought to be taking the fight to the judicial leadership for guidance and clarity.

    Surely, the governor couldn’t have so quickly forgotten the role played by the court in his coming to power. The ruling against Jegede is from the High Court and there are higher courts – so it’s not as if the candidate and PDP have run out of legal options.

    That should be his focus rather than dancing too quickly to the melody of blackmail and violence coming from the streets.

    As for the protesters and rioters who took over the streets on Friday, perhaps, someone needs to remind them that a thousand burnt tyres won’t make a judge reinstate Jegede if he’s not convinced by the facts that have been pleaded in court.

    In any event, such politically-motivated demonstrations however violent they may be are not sustainable beyond a few hours. This is not even a protest arriving from a volatile event like a general election. So Mimiko was being unduly dramatic with his claims that the misfortune of his preferred candidate would tear Ondo apart.

    As chief security officer of the state he should mobilise security forces to clear the streets, while Jegede’s supporters take their case to the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court  – if they so choose. That is the way our institutions and processes can become better.

    Inside the head of a Nigerian politician

    Anyone who’s had contact with them knows that the thought processes of the Nigerian politician are unique. What you and I, the uninitiated, would consider folly, they regard as the height of wisdom. A few examples during the week underline this train of thought.

    Take the demonstrations in Akure mentioned in the earlier piece. Someone somewhere imagined that if he unleashes some urchins onto the streets, the threat of the spiral of violence would force the hands of the powers-that-be.

    Through the years we have seen this blackmail fail again and again when deployed. But that hasn’t stopped politicians from trying one more time.

    In 2011, after he swept the polls up north but lost to the PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan in the national presidential election results declared by INEC. This outcome was the trigger for a wave of violence that swept through several states – leaving many dead and property worth millions destroyed.

    Whether the reaction was spontaneous or sponsored remains moot. What isn’t not in doubt is that the incumbent government soon asserted its authority on the street – making the violent protests a futile knee-jerk reaction to an adverse political outcome.

    In the last two weeks, former First Lady Patience Jonathan has been in the courts battling to recover her millions of dollars which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has frozen. On both occasions, there were sponsored demonstrators entertaining the photographers outside while the lawyers did their business inside.

    I am still trying to work out whether the so-called protests were supposed to make the EFCC chairman and the presiding judge shiver in their boots. If not, then all they do is offer cold comfort to the accused.

    But even that is worthless because we know that the demonstrators are not people with the courage of their convictions, but individuals bussed in to play roles for a fee.

    This is not to deny that the streets have not affected the direction of political events. From Iran to The Phillipines we’ve seen people’s power topple tyrannical regimes and ignite revolutions. But in such instances the movements were authentic and often spontaneous. Here what we witness again and again are pointless spectacles staged by fifth rate actors.

  • Thoughts on Muhammadu Buhari’s three rooms

    Thoughts on Muhammadu Buhari’s three rooms

    In our environment, the comments made by Aisha Buhari, wife of the president, about how those who worked to install her husband in power had been supplanted by new faces  from nowhere, rank any day as a bombshell.

    This is more so when taken in the context of claims by Senate President Bukola Saraki that a ‘government within a government’ had seized power from Muhammadu Buhari.

    Again, her comments were especially weighty coming shortly after the very public disagreement between All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and party chairman, John Odigie Oyegun, over the management of the Ondo State governorship primaries.

    The row was grist to the rumour mongers’ mill – especially those who have been hoping and praying for a falling out between Tinubu and Buhari. For them, it was confirmation of unending social media tales of how the former Lagos State governor had been shortchanged and how a new ‘mafia’ had emerged to clip his wings.

    But as explosive as her observations were, the damage was largely controlled for as long as the president and other powerful figures to whom Mrs. Buhari had made oblique reference, kept their counsel.

    Her comments only reinforced everything that had been spun by the conspiracy theorists without throwing up much that was new. For instance, her observation that many of those who worked for APC’s victory felt unappreciated was by no means new.

    It is an issue that had come up in the past and which one of the president’s spokesmen had addressed by saying Buhari still had thousands of appointments to make. So, in a sense, what she was saying wasn’t novel.

    But just when her controversial remarks were being swept away by the cascade of daily developments in this social media age, the president goes and rearms them with his own comments. If Aisha Buhari’s words exploded on the BBC like an IED, the president reply was almost nuclear in dimension.

    Was the president’s missus right in going public with a political position that put her husband in bad light? Would she not have been more effective deploying feminine wiles and skills in ‘the other room’ to bring the president to her way of thinking? If you were in her shoes would you have gone public?

    I have spoken to many men and women who feel that Aisha was wrong in going public. Many cannot see how her action helps either her cause or the president’s. If anything, they feel it only brought the First Family scorn and embarrassment.

    But that is assuming we have all the information about this discussion between the couple. We would also be claiming to understand the basic motivation that drove her to speak out.

    Is it not possible that madam’s interview was an act of frustration after seeing her ‘Other Room’ lobbying rebuffed by the old soldier? Could it be that she felt the only way to get across to a stubborn general was to fire a shot across the bow – so to speak.

    We can speculate all we want, but the fact is for as long as Buhari refused to be drawn publicly, his wife’s comments were gradually losing their potency. But the moment he uttered those words in Germany, the little cloud mushroomed.

    Let’s assume that Aisha was wrong to have gone public with words that suggested that the First Couple were at political odds. But by making his denigrating statements Buhari only aggravated things.

    I have heard people defending the president, arguing that he did nothing wrong as an African who was only stating the facts. We forget, however, that the president is no longer an ordinary husband. He may have married his wife eons ago in his own cultural setting, with his own sense of a woman’s place in the home, but he’s no longer an anonymous retired general.

    Today, he is the president of the largest black nation on earth with women making up half the population. His actions and utterances are scrutinised at home, and they are even more so when he shares the stage with world leaders.

    The world and the way women are treated has changed radically. We would be deceiving ourselves when we conveniently rustle up our ‘African-ness’ to explain utterances that are inexcusable no matter what has provoked them.

    It is amusing to hear many invoking African and religious traditions to defend the president, because these same persons are spending fortunes training their female children in the most expensive universities locally and overseas? Surely, all that investment isn’t just for these daughters to fulfil their destiny in the ‘Other Room.’

    I have also heard people say that Buhari was just being himself: a general who is trained to shoot straight. My reply is that history is replete with generals who had similar military training but ended up becoming some of the most accomplished diplomats the world has ever known. And that’s quite an achievement given that diplomats are noted more for wrapping the truth in cotton wool, than releasing verbal grenades.

    So could the president have handled this differently while disagreeing with his wife’s position? Absolutely! She made comments about politics, but he broadened his response to include his worldview on the place of women in the home. It was too much information and it was all so unnecessary. Worse still, it wasn’t even a badly executed joke as we were initially made to believe. It was his firm position!

    “My wife belongs in the kitchen,” Buhari said in part. There was a time many decades ago when ‘a woman’s place is in the kitchen’ was considered an apt saying. But not anymore. The world has moved on. That is why the federal cabinet over which our president presides has so many women.

    “My wife belongs in the living room,” the president added. Is that saying that the woman is just another acquisition or decoration for the living room? Again, the evidence of the age disputes that position. US Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump is in trouble today largely for objectifying women. Our own president should be setting a better example.

    Some people may want to run back to religion for refuge at this point, but history wouldn’t help them. Israel, India and Pakistan are all lands steeped in religious tradition and have strong patriarchal cultures, still out of them rose strong women leaders like Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto.

    Finally, Buhari’s now famous words position his wife in ‘the Other Room.’ Any one going into marriage understands the conjugal responsibility that comes with the institution; it doesn’t require restating. But by playing up this ‘other room’ aspect we inadvertently align ourselves with those who see women as nothing more than sex objects.

    I cannot imagine anyone who has female children of whom he or she expects great things, being comfortable with the president’s comments, or joining in the bar room jokes they have generated.

    Buhari as president is not just a political leader, he’s also the father of the nation who should be setting an example for all citizens irrespective of their gender.

    In Germany, while responding to his wife’s provocative comments, he could have said something like this: “I respect my wife’s right to an opinion but I am yet to see any evidence of her claims.”

    It would have been short, sharp and disarmed what has turned out to be thoroughly bad press for Buhari, the First Couple and Nigeria.

  • Recession, hypocrisy and grandstanding in Abuja

    Recession, hypocrisy and grandstanding in Abuja

    A recession is a terrible thing to waste. Beyond the pains, the economic downturn offers this nation and its people an opportunity to take hard but necessary decisions that were impossible in times of plenty.

    This period is especially unique because the political leadership at the centre has exhibited the will to confront the vampires who have sucked the nation dry for ages. They may not be doing a perfect job, but they are having a go at it.

    Now, necessity is forcing everyone to focus on how to get out of our bind.

    Everywhere you look, families and companies are cutting back to cope. Luxuries and extravagancies are being slashed from budgets. Many middle class homes are suddenly discovering that it is impossible to keep up with the Joneses when the naira is exchanging at almost N500 to the dollar.

    Banks and telecommunications companies, for long the picture of ruddy financial health, have been ruthlessly shedding staff as they struggle to stay afloat.

    In government, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, at his presentation of the ‘Change Begins With Me’ initiative to the corporate world in Lagos during the week unveiled a long list of perks and privileges that have been cut by the Executive Branch because of the recession.

    You may dismiss their inability of ministers to buy new cars – following the example of President Muhammed Buhari – as tokenism, but every kobo counts at a time like this.

    Across the road at the National Assembly we’ve heard the leadership making all the sympathetic and politically-correct noises about how ‘things are tough’ and Nigerians are suffering. For our own good, the lawmakers have even shipped a slew of bills to the Executive which, ostensibly, contain the silver bullet that would terminate the recession.

    But not for our caring lawmakers any nod at even the smallest of tokens to show that they, too, are willing to sacrifice at a time like this.

    One of the priority projects for the senators in the last one year was the purchase of SUVs befitting their status as federal lawmakers. Never mind that some of them had just received loans to buy brand new cars. They justified the request for additional cars saying the fresh ones would be for official assignments.

    In the face of public outrage the senators struggled unconvincingly to  justify the timing of such huge financial outlay. But exhibiting the typical disdain of the average Nigerian office holder for public opinion, they went ahead after a fashion.

    Not all senators ended up getting the new SUVs – only the presiding officers. Additionally, one senator from each of the 36 states also benefitted using the yardstick of rating.

    But that is small beer compared to what Nigerians have always moaned about, that our federal lawmakers – unjustifiably – are among the highest paid on planet earth. Even with the economy on all fours they retain that dubious ranking!

    The influential British magazine The Economist in a report two years ago estimated that Nigerian legislators ranked only below their Australian counterparts in their global survey – taking in annual salaries of between $150,000 and $190,000 per annum depending on exchange rates for 180 days of sitting.

    By comparison their counterparts in Britain receive $105,400 yearly, United States ($174,000), France ($85,900), South Africa ($104,000), Kenya ($74,500), Saudi Arabia ($64,000) and Brazil ($157,600).

    The report then makes the damning assessment that the average legislators’ pay is more than 50 times Nigeria‘s GDP per capita – and that, in a country where millions live on less than two dollars daily and the value of the minimum wage is now roughly $40 a month.

    The foregoing is not to demonise the lawmakers but to point out that a bicameral legislature is a luxury for a country in Nigeria’s shape – and the recession is a wonderful opportunity to do something about it.

    In April this year, Senegal scrapped the Senate to save money. Egypt did the same thing in 2013. In the last 20 years several other countries have done so.

    But that is not likely to happen in a hurry here because our commitment to cutting waste and make savings in Abuja begins and ends with our lips.

    Sometimes when I come across some Facebook campaign trying to interest Nigerians in a drive to ‘Scrap the Senate,’ I picture people banging their heads fruitlessly against the wall.

    For the Senate to disappear, there would need to be a constitutional amendment. This bunch of politicians who have secured a lucrative and prestigious retirement in the upper chamber are not in a hurry to commit political suicide.

    But imagine how much this country would shed with a unicameral system. According to BudgIT, between 2011 and 2014, the National Assembly received N150 billion yearly. This fell to N120 billion in the 2015 budget. The study shows that between 1999 and last year, allocations to the National Assembly amounted to N1.26 trillion.

    As I said earlier, our lawmakers are so concerned about the recession that they have sent a bunch of bills to Buhari which they believe would turn things around. You don’t have to be clairvoyant to know that none of the bills prescribes downsizing the legislature. At least, the Executive made an effort by pruning the number of ministries.

    In fact, the constitutional amendment process currently on in the National Assembly rather than looking for ways to divert funds to proper development projects, is focused on vanity items like creating new states, reshaping executive tenure and removal of immunity clauses.

    Late in the week news broke of the decision of the House and Senate to invite Buhari to address them on what he’s doing about the recession. While they are at it, they should equally brief the president on what they are shaving off their bloated financial package to help the country out.

    Anything short of that would  amount to hypocritical posturing on the part of our ‘caring’ lawmakers.

    In defence of Mama Peace

    Nigerians are an interesting lot – but never more so than in this season of recession and rocky change. Now, depending on which side of the political divide we find ourselves, we defend the indefensible and rationalise that which is beyond the pale.

    Take for instance the current bid by former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, to unlock about $22.5 million dollars which she claims belongs to her. She was not in the picture when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) secured a court order freezing the suspicious funds traced to some companies.

    The firms in question have since pleaded guilty to money laundering charges. Out of the blues, Mrs. Jonathan shows up laying claim to the huge sums.

    Confronted with searching questions as to how she earned the foreign exchange, we were suddenly informed the monies belonged to her mother. Don’t ask whether the old woman owned an oil bloc.

    In her defence, a rent-a-crowd protest took place in Yenagoa on Thursday led by the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) during which the ‘protesters’ argued for release of the frozen funds.

    Some of the ‘protesters’ reasoned this way: “Patience Jonathan is not the only First Lady in this country. A wife to former Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President and President … are you expecting her to be a poor woman?”

    The fact is there’s no constitutional recognition for the office of the First Lady so there can be no official earnings accruing to a non-existing position. Secondly, her husband, no matter how generous his earnings in the office he occupied were, was never paid so lavishly in dollars to enable his spouse accumulate so much.

    It is only in Nigeria that the richest people are those in government. President Barack Obama is not among the richest persons in the US. The wealthiest people in America, Britain and across the West are entrepreneurs, entertainers, sportsmen and professionals among others.

    With these ‘youthful’ defenders of the indefensible reasoning this way, we should be greatly troubled about the future of the country.

  • APC: Conflict is not the problem

    APC: Conflict is not the problem

    Nigeria’s former ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) dreamt of a 60-year hegemony over the land. But the dream crashed in less than 16 years as the party imploded under a perfect storm of internal conflicts and do-or-die ambition.

    In less than one year, the tragedy of defeat has been compounded by those divisions festering to the point where a once proud political behemoth became a caricature with three ‘chairmen’ laying claim to headship.

    Since coming to power, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has managed to paper over the cracks and present a united front in public, despite persistent rumours that all was far from well within its ranks.

    Former Lagos State Governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s explosive letter demanding the resignation of the national chairman of the party, John Oyegun, has blown any such pretence to smithereens.

    On the surface it was triggered by the handling of the party’s governorship primaries in Ondo State. But reading between the lines you sense the heart cry of a man who has been bottling up so much in the interest of the common good.

    Tinubu is an experienced politician who no doubt understands the implications of coming out publicly with such a crunching attack on Oyegun. He knows how it would be interpreted and the impression it would create about the party.

    Questions are already being asked as to whether history is repeating itself. Has the PDP disease of irreconcilable differences finally infected the APC? Can we assume that the same incurable divisions that laid the former ruling party low are about to send its successor to an early grave?

    Before we start writing obituaries, let’s put the issues in proper perspective.

    Way back in 1999, the founding fathers of what would become the PDP sought to create a party that would bring the mainstream of the Nigerian political class together under one ‘umbrella’ – their ideological beliefs notwithstanding.

    Given that over the years power had moved interchangeably between the military and civilians several times, the thinking was that there were – in reality – just two political ‘parties’ in Nigeria: the military and politicians.

    In trying to rally the bulk of the political class under one big tent, the promoters of the new party were making the honest admission that what separates parties in Nigeria is not ideology but simple ambition, and a sense that you are better placed to grab power by associating with a particular group or the other.

    Let’s not forget that even the political strand that eventually emerged at the last minute as the Alliance for Democracy (AD), was actually part of those discussions until some of the leaders sensed that in the contest for the presidential ticket of the new mega party, they would be at a disadvantage.

    The PDP formula produced a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that enabled the party to retain a vice grip on power for 16 years. It was not ideology or the absence of internal disagreements that made that happen.

    It took the longsuffering Nigerian opposition that same amount of time to come to the realisation that the only way they would ever make a credible challenge for power was to create their own SPV – another large tent where all comers were welcome – from the far right to the extreme left.

    So, those who mock the APC as a mere SPV set up for the sole purpose of ousting Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP don’t know what they are talking about. That’s what political parties anywhere on planet earth do – try to get power using every legal means they can think of.

    Against this backdrop it is unimaginable that these assemblages of strange bedfellows would be devoid of internal divisions. We should actually expect that as the multiple tendencies cohabiting under one roof contend for power and control there would always be tension.

    These internal divisions ordinarily ought not to be enough to bring down the house because the glue that binds all together is securing and retaining power.

    What has been the problem for PDP in the last seven years is therefore not the absence of internal conflict but the mismanagement of the divisions.

    The erstwhile ruling party foundered because the longer it held power the more arrogant and insensitive those who controlled it became. Rather than building the institution around a set of principles and rules, they sought to personify the party and dictate to it.

    Rules were not obeyed, agreements reached between supposed gentlemen were hurled out of the window because they were not written on tablets of stone, fairness and equity became strangers – leaving the party as democratic in name only.

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s power grab through the failed Third Term Agenda set the tone given that the constitution clearly set out a two-term limit. Beginning with his fight with his former deputy, Atiku Abubakar, over this issue the party would not be the same again.

    The decline gathered pace with the unscripted demise of President Umaru Yar’Adua and the rise of Jonathan. By 2011, his bid to run for a second term while trampling on internal zoning arrangement prepared the ground for a northern regional revolt four years later.

    Of course, other factors like ambition, corruption and all-round incompetence of the administration led to the fall of the last PDP administration, but the inability of the then lords of the ruling party to manage internal differences led to the departure of five governors in one fell swoop.

    It was a pivotal moment, but so blinded with power had Jonathan and the then PDP chairmen become that they blithely dismissed the rebels as the problems of the party who they were only too glad to discard.

    Those who follow Nigerian politics understand that what happened in APC – from formation to electoral triumph – has been nothing short of the miraculous. Very few people expected that  those who came together to form it could ever work together.

    Former presidential adviser, Dr. Doyin Okupe, once famously declared that the unusual assemblage would collapse and never get to the stage of actually becoming a party. But at every turn APC defied expectations not because the potentials for ambitions and egos clashing was absent; it succeeded because its founders were more driven by the desire to oust PDP than anything else.

    I recall the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, retailing an anecdote about what happened in a heated moment between party leaders early last year. He said in  words to the effect that he knelt down and ‘told Asiwaju let us not fight now; let us win first – we can fight later.’

    The tragedy of the PDP was that it forgot what was in the common interest of its members and leaders. That ailment can also afflict APC if its leaders forget where they are coming from and how they managed to get elected when conventional wisdom said it was impossible.

    The myopic within the party can choose to make it about Tinubu and his supposed ambition to control things. But their lurid allegations contrast with the testimony of President Muhammadu Buhari about the man. He once said that while others were busy scheming for one thing or the other, the former Lagos governor ‘never thought of himself.’

    APC should ask itself if it could have handled the Ondo primaries and aftermath better. That is only one of the flashpoints. What about the bungling of the National Assembly leadership contest that led to the ruling party snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

    The party’s problem today is not the existence of factions and ambitious people; it is the inability to lead by established rules and principles such that when people lose contests, they can lick their wounds content that they have received a fair shake.

    No patriot should be happy that PDP is in disarray, neither should anyone be crowing at the evident signs of trouble in APC. That Nigerian politicians have now largely gathered in these two big tents is a function of the natural evolution of our politics.

    Our desire should be the strengthening of these two parties so they can check each other and provide the people a credible governance alternative at every point in time.

  • Too much change too soon

    Too much change too soon

    While this column was on break, a giddy mix of events stirred the polity – provoking extreme reactions of incredulity and outrage. One of those things that attracted the most discussion was the launch of the ‘Change Begins With Me’ campaign.

    For many who admit that there has been a near-total erosion of the values of decency, honesty and discipline, and accept that there is a need to take action to reorient a society that is increasingly philistinic, support for Lai Mohammed’s baby was largely tepid.

    On the other hand, those who felt duped by President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) promise of change, were on the verge of a collective heart attack.

    Such was their fury that the bunch who promised ‘change’ had the audacity to demand ‘change’ from the recession-stressed! If they had their way the word ‘change’ would have been expunged from the dictionary!

    Increasingly, the politically-dispossessed who lost power directly and their dependants who survived on their connections, are finding common cause with many who bayed fervently for ‘change’ early last year. And it’s all down to the disastrous state of the economy.

    I accept that a hungry man does not make the best analyst – but there’s the rub. We’ve lived a lie for so long we refuse to accept our true reality. The fact is our economy was never as healthy as it was presented.

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan claims he handed over an economy that was ranked the largest in Africa. Well, it is either someone was playing cruel games with statistics, or the giant had clay feet.

    Two years ago, former President Olusegun Obasanjo issued a dire critique of how sick the economy was under Jonathan. But because he had fallen out with the Peoples’ Democratic Party and his erstwhile political godson, it was dismissed as bile from a bitter old man.

    But signs that the economy was already in trouble were all too evident. Earnings from our only source were on the decline. States, local governments and federal parastatals were beginning to owe salaries. Many federal contractors had not been paid for years causing them to abandon their sites. Insecurity across the North-East had destroyed the economy of region – triggering a ripple effect that would hit the rest of the country with a splash in 2015 and 2016.

    What made things tolerable in the last couple of years under Jonathan was that whereas Nigeria was not generating much money except what it earned from oil, a false sense of normalcy prevailed because stolen money was keeping the economy afloat.

    Billions were being plundered on a regular basis across all tiers of government with no questions asked. Banks were happy because their vaults were full. The building industry boomed because looters were ‘washing’ hot money buying mansions and building estates.

    It helped also that in the Niger Delta militancy had become an accepted professional calling. There was really no need to get violent, or militant in the true sense of the word, because governments at federal and state level were buying peace by paying protection money to the troublemakers.

    With no one bursting pipelines oil exports continued unhindered. Sullying this idyllic picture, however, was unrestrained oil theft that was going on. No one can estimate what Nigeria lost to this illegal trade in the last two decades.

    This was the state of affairs when we were thumping our chests celebrating borrowed robes as Africa’s number one economy. If the fundamentals were truly right, there’s no way the collapse we have witnessed would have been so swift and dramatic. What we had was a shiny exterior but a very rotten core which caved in at the very first application of stress.

    So if it makes you and your friends happy, you can keep telling yourselves Buhari invented the current recession as his ‘thank you’ to millions of Nigerians who voted for him.

    In a way, he did. He came and upturned the whole structure of the Jonathan economy which was running on graft. The illicit cash flow that was powering our false sense of wellbeing dried up the moment Buhari started chasing thieves with a vengeance.

    What the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) under Ibrahim Magu is doing was unheard off under PDP governments – not even under Nuhu Ribadu.

    If anything, EFCC chairmen were ousted when they became too zealous in carrying out their mandate, or when they dared turn their searchlight on powerful members of the ruling party.

    For as long as I can remember, Nigerians have always bemoaned corruption in high places. The late celebrated Afrobeat icon, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, made his name singing about our dictatorial and kleptocratic rulers. His songs were smash hits because his adoring fans could identify with the sentiments they contained.

    So I don’t think that most people quarrel with the fact that Buhari has come to ‘change’ something they’ve always abhorred. What no one forgot to mention was that the disruption of the ‘corruption in high places’ which we so ‘disdained’ would directly disrupt life as we’ve known it for several decades.

    Put in another way, Buhari’s ‘radicalism’ is like too much change too soon for many people. You could blame him and say he didn’t have an alternative in place before dismantling a ‘winning formula.’

    But that suggests he should have allowed the continuation of a system diametrically opposed to everything he stood for. Demolition can happen in an instant but the rebuilding process takes much longer.

    There’s nothing palatable about the pressures that we are facing. But rather than moaning and whining, we should all be looking at how we make our individual adjustments while the government implements its own measures.

    It is the only way out. Nations pass through periods like this. Ghana in the early 80s went through economic hell. Her people were humiliated out of Nigeria – expelled in thousands – clutching their few miserable belongings in what came to be known as ‘Ghana-Must-Go’ bags.

    Today, that one-time basket case has been so turned around that – without any sense of shame – many Nigerians now brag about their children schooling in Ghanaian institutions. We boast about buying choice properties in posh areas of Accra.

    It could be worse for Nigeria; we could be like Venezuela – another oil producing country which never thought to diversify – where today citizens queue and fight on the streets to buy basic needs.

  • The Dame and her millions

    The Dame and her millions

    I confess that I have missed Dame Patience Jonathan’s one day, one drama reign as First Lady. Since Buhari’s ‘Change’ scrapped the First Spouse circus, we have been reduced to the subdued offerings of the office of ‘Wife of the President.’

    So imagine my astonishment when I read the headlines about the redoubtable dame laying claim to dodgy millions of dollars which the EFCC had frozen in some company accounts it was investigating.

    In the past people have described Mrs. Jonathan as fearless. She has demonstrated that by taking on an EFCC that has shown it means business. But sometimes it is hard to know when fearlessness graduates into recklessness.

    The lady is clearly one who wears her emotions on her sleeve – a trait that saw her make a string of badly-judged moves in her time in power. Those mistakes came from a misunderstanding of what her role really was.

    As First Lady she actually saw herself as co-president to her husband. She exercised executive authority in ways unheard of in this country. Little wonder that Obasanjo once said that under Jonathan, Nigeria actually had four or five presidents. The incumbent aside – others were Dame Patience, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Diezani Alison-Madueke.

    In staking claim to the questionable monies the Dame never paused to consider that questions would be asked as to how a Bayelsa State civil servant came to amass so much.

    What is more embarrassing is that some people would deign to defend her because she was once a presidential spouse – knowing what the legitimate earnings of office holders are.

    Sadly, the collateral damage to her longsuffering husband are grave. It is one thing when suspected wrongdoing is traced to his appointees. It is a totally matter when the stench starts emanating from his bedroom.

  • Living dangerously in Nigeria

    Living dangerously in Nigeria

    These are very dangerous times to be alive in Nigeria. The nation is convulsing under the activities of organised criminals and freelancers.

    Last weekend, unidentified gunmen stormed Iba Community in Lagos State and abducted the traditional ruler, Oba Goriola Oseni, from his palace.

    Oseni’s abduction is only the latest in the thriving business of hostage-taking across the country. No one is safe – the famous and the faceless are snared sooner or later.

    Those not abducted for ransom, are spirited away and slain by people who think such ritual killings are the doorway to a life of riches.

    If you escape the kidnappers and ritualists, you could be unfortunate to reside in certain coastal areas of the South West – like Ikorodu – which recently became the designated killing fields of unknown murderers – conveniently classified as ‘militants.’

    The mystery of this strange episode of mass murder that stunned Ikorodu and some communities in Ogun State is that no one knows what sins the victims committed to deserve the death sentence. One frightened resident spoke of how the gunmen would stand by the roadside casually picking off their victims as though they were game.

    Over the years there have been clashes between herdsmen and local farmers. But many communities in the South West, South East and parts of North Central are still reeling from killings of uncommon brutality and regularity blamed on Fulani herdsmen. Some of the victims of these mass murderers were simply lying at home, or caught unawares as they worked on their farms.

    The South South zone is not left out of the wave of insecurity as militants look to destabilise the economy and the government by attacking oil production facilities and killing soldiers who stand in their way.

    This grim picture suggests that insecurity has worsened across the country with the only bright spot being in the North East where Boko Haram insurgents are in retreat and very close to be being defeated militarily.

    It is surprising, therefore, that President Muhammadu Buhari during his one-day visit to Zamfara State two weeks ago, declared that the security situation in the country had improved significantly since he assumed office.

    It is troubling that he didn’t limit his positive assessment to what has been achieved on the terror front. Reading the decimation of the extremist Islamist sect to mean peace and security across the land is grave error that is not backed by evidence on the ground.

    If the security reports the president receives suggest that things are calm across the country, then he’s being misinformed and the authors of such briefings are doing a disservice to the country.

    That said, it doesn’t require clairvoyance to see that there’s a link between rising criminality and Nigeria’s sick economy. Less than 18 months ago, Nigerians and then government in power back then were celebrating our designation as Africa’s largest economy. How did the so-called powerhouse find itself on its back in so short a time?

    People with a political grievance would be quick to blame Buhari for ‘mismanaging’ the economy as though history began in 2015. Unfortunately, we’ve just been wearing borrowed robes with our heads neatly tucked in the sand.

    Labels are nice and a sop to national pride but have very little value beyond that. For all the accolades our economy doesn’t have the strength in the depth of the likes of South Africa and Egypt who, despite not having our oil, can boast of manufacturing, tourism and others as major income earners.

    Our ‘largest’ economy has been shown up for what it is. It was ‘thriving’ largely because of reasonably high oil revenues and a sub-economy fuelled by cash flows from corruption.

    It collapsed because the price of crude crashed and Buhari disrupted illicit cash flows that were not the result of genuine economic activity, but simply the result of public officials and politicians dipping into the national till.

    It is so bad that a recent report quoted Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of the House of Representatives, as recounting the bizarre tale of how security agents recently dug up cash in the region of N1 billion from a farm where the ‘owner’ had buried it.

    Similar billions can no longer lubricate the economy because the government and its agencies are actively monitoring for any signs of money laundering. It is no wonder that the economy has contracted in the last two quarters.

    What looked like the economy was thriving – despite the absence of genuine activity and our monoculture system – was down to former ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) administrations turning a blind eye to massive plundering that was taking place.

    Today, many of the direct beneficiaries of that system are suffering from withdrawal symptoms and have become restless. Pipeline vandals who were engaged unhindered in a thriving business of illegal bunkering have had their livelihood taken away by a hostile government.

    Many residents of Ikorodu and surrounding communities which used to a major base for bunkering, swear that the recent mass killings were perpetrated by erstwhile vandals who had been forced out of their lucrative business.

    Beyond lashing out in anger against host communities, many have also diversified – deploying their criminal organisations to the equally lucrative hostage-taking endeavour.

    Even the other manifestations of insecurity in the Niger Delta and in clashes between Fulani herdsmen and local can be traced to unresolved economic issues.

    What is troubling is that as the security problems have festered, governments at different levels appear overwhelmed.

    Late in May, I was privileged to be part of a group that interviewed the president to appraise his first year in office. I recall asking him whether Nigeria’s security architecture could withstand the multifarious security challenges rearing their heads by the day. He never really addressed the question to my satisfaction – perhaps he didn’t want to admit the obvious.

    I believe, however, that it wold be foolhardy to expect Abuja alone to deal with the problem of worsening insecurity. No country ever has enough policemen or soldiers to guarantee security in the age of terror or at any other time in history. What makes the different is the strategy applied and the sum of collective efforts.

    In many countries effective crime fighting begins with citizens and communities assisting security agencies with quality intelligence. But here we expect these same organisations which have proved ineffectual to perform magic without our help.

    We may not have state police yet but communities can help by getting involved in intelligence gathering and cooperation with security agencies.

    Ultimately, the only thing that is going to calm things down is for the economy to rebound. But who knows how soon that would happen? The desperate are not likely to wait that long.

    In the short term we still need to utilise our security resources in a different way. I believe that Buhari has to put his security chiefs under pressure and replace those who appear not to be delivering. It works all the time: people are set targets and where they fall short they are out.

    We should also reconsider a redistribution of our security assets. There are too many men and women deployed to VIP protection and carrying bags and umbrellas, or checking vehicle particulars, who should be out there fighting serious crime.

    Lastly, the collapse of our social values also means that not many don’t see any point in hard work and would vote for criminality if it will deliver billions in quick order.

    It is sickening where the twenty-something-year old son or daughter of a minister can be found with inexplicable billions in their account and people don’t feel disturbed.

    It is alarming that people as so depraved to imagine that killing another human somehow produces wealth. Parents, schools, churches, mosques need to return to the basics of reorienting people.

    When this society goes back to recognising right from wrong, we’ll start witnessing a commensurate drop in the crime wave across board.

  • Obi at 55

    Former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi was 55 on July 19 – a landmark that can be described as the prime of life. In that time he has made his mark as a successful businessman and player in corporate Nigeria.

    He also seamlessly made the transition from private sector to public life as governor. While you may not always agree with his politics, most acknowledge that he is a gentleman. Since leaving office this man of means has devoted himself largely to philanthropy.

    Here’s wishing him many more years doing good works and pursuing his  political goals.

  • The many troubles of Saraki’s Senate

    The House of Representatives used to be the boxing ring of the legislature where politicians combined brain and brawn to resolve matters of moment.

    From the first Fourth Republic House where legislative pugilists tangled over furniture allowance, to a succession of coup plots against sundry Speakers, chairs have been hurled, punches thrown and well-starched agbadas shredded in the national interest.

    Sometimes the scuffling got deadly. In 2007, during the battle to oust then Speaker Patricia Etteh, a member representing Kano State slumped and died in the heat of battle. His colleagues ferried his lifeless body out of the battleground and carried on regardless.

    In one of the most enduring images from that war of attrition to remove the House’s only female Speaker, a certain Dino Melaye who was a passionate and outspoken defender of Etteh, was disappointed by his bulk as his garments were reduced to rags by fighters from the opposing side.

    In those days, people theorised that the House was volatile because it comprised younger, more hot-blooded types, while the Senate was filled with the elderly for whom climbing the chamber’s steps was exertion enough.

    But those days are long gone. Today, the House and Senate have traded places. The former is now the more dignified and quiescent place. True to the colour of its furnishings, the red chamber has become the scene of uncommon display of passion since Bukola Saraki was enthroned as Senate President.

    A naughty voice just suggested that Dino Melaye’s political promotion for Rep to senator has everything to do with it!

    But seriously, the events of last Tuesday during which the fiery Kogi senator clashed with his colleague Senator Remi Tinubu, must rate as the nadir for the National Assembly. He allegedly threatened to beat her up and add the coup de grace of impregnating her.

    Although he has since denied most of the allegations, Melaye had an interesting defence. ‘How could I have said so when she’s well into her menopause,’ he asked rhetorically. This raises the intriguing speculation about what the raging senator would have said or done had the lady in question been 10 years younger.

    A little over a month ago, I was reading what, by Saraki’s reckoning, the Senate had achieved in one year. One thing that was certainly not on that list was peace of mind, or institutional stability of the sort enjoyed by his predecessor David Mark.

    In June last year, after outsmarting his party by reaching a deal with Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) lawmakers to emerge Senate President, I predicted that Saraki was unlikely to enjoy the prize he had won given the circumstances and bitterness that trailed the process.

    I projected that his tenure would be akin to riding a bucking Bronco at an American rodeo show – a rather turbulent and unsettling experience.

    I suspect that Saraki felt that as was the case with the Aminu Tambuwal rebellion in the House four years earlier, the party would swallow its humiliation after a while and accept what had become reality.

    But what people forget is that while PDP lived with its Tambuwal comeuppance, it never forgot what happened. He became a marked man treated with much suspicion. Had he not left for the APC and PDP been returned at the centre, I doubt if he would have returned as Speaker.

    In a further departure from the Tambuwal scenario, APC had to live with the double humiliation of having Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President courtesy of the intricate deal that produced the new legislative leadership. That it still rankles is evident from the recent statement attributed to APC National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, to the effect that they had no problem with Saraki but could not abide Ekweremadu as number two.

    While all of this might partly explain the lingering instability in the Senate, it doesn’t tell the whole story. The other side of the tale is how Saraki and his supporters have analysed the roots of their troubles and the strategy they have adopted to rescue themselves.

    Used to similar operations under PDP presidents from Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to Goodluck Jonathan, they are convinced that President Muhammadu Buhari, or those working at his behest, is at the root of their woes – desperately manouvering to change the Senate leadership.

    But nothing could be farther from the truth. Buhari’s politics are as distant from Obasanjo’s as the east is removed from the west. Under the first PDP president the hand of the Executive was never hidden in such matters. Agents of that branch would move into Apo Legislative Quarters under the cover of darkness with Ghana-Must-Go bags of cash, and by morning a full-blown coup would be executed on the floor of the chamber.

    Buhari is a straight arrow that is unlikely to get his hands dirty in such dark schemes. Early in the contest for the Senate Presidency he made it clear he was ready to work with whoever emerged victorious. Many in the APC found his position naïve and frustrating as they felt a president in this environment needs to take more than a passing interest in who heads the legislature.

    Knowing the character of Buhari, isn’t it rather pointless on the part of Saraki’s supporters hoping that he would, at some point, order the judiciary to terminate ongoing legal processes against the Senate President all in the name of a political solution? For a man who plays by the rules that is not going to happen.

    The only path that would have stopped all these problems is for the forgery and false assets declaration petitions never to have been filed. People forget that the case about adulteration of the Standing Orders was reported by his bitter fellow senators angered by the manner of his emergence.

    If Saraki and his supporters don’t like the Executive meddling in their business, isn’t it curious that they think that those who petitioned are only doing the bidding of the Presidential Villa? After last year’s contest, were the losers not further humiliated and the party’s peace overtures spurned, making the offended more determined to exact their pound of flesh?

    Even the case at the Code of Conduct Tribunal is something that cannot be blamed on the president. The originators of the petition have been traced to Saraki’s former party in his home state Kwara. A monster has been born and now you blame the midwife for facilitating the delivery.

    The Senate and Saraki need to take a good look in the mirror and honestly analyse where their troubles are coming from. Part of the biggest problem of the legislators is their penchant for blaming others.

    In the heat of discussing the forgery trial last week one emotional senator declared that there was too much hatred against the National Assembly. That may be so. But has he stopped to ponder why the Executive that isn’t peopled by angels is not so reviled?

    It is unfortunate that a chamber filled with men and women who have achieved so much in their individual capacities often comes across as exhibiting an inferiority complex. It is as if as a whole they have something to prove to a hostile world on the outside.

    They are forever on the defensive – demanding to be respected by all and sundry. At the drop of a hat they would ‘summon’ anyone from high court judge to ambassador, often ending the invitations with bald threats of ordering the arrest of those who failed to comply. That is when they are not threatening to impeach a president whose only sin is his refusal to short-circuit an ongoing judicial process.

    None of that is necessary if people respect you, accept your work as important and you conduct yourself in a dignified manner. But when the elected servant puts himself on a pedestal, has a bloated sense of entitlement for doing very little, he sets himself up for trouble.

    Nigerian senators love to prefix their names with the word ‘Distinguished.’ But that adjective is something that is earned – not just appropriated by fiat. What was distinguished about last Tuesday’s abuse fest? What was dignified about the ‘she made me do it’ explanations?

    Judging by their actions since Saraki’s CCT and forgery trials started, it’s hard not to conclude that the legislators are their own worst enemies – not Buhari or some other imaginary foe.