The Nation Newspaper

Category: Festus Eriye

  • The Tinubu administration at mid-term (1)

    The Tinubu administration at mid-term (1)

    It’s hard to believe that two years have gone by since that heady day at Eagle Square, Abuja, when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu casually declared ‘subsidy is gone!’ It was a statement that set off reverberations across the country; changing life as we knew it for many Nigerians.

    He had promised to take tough decisions to reset the economy and put it on the path to recovery and enduring prosperity. Well, this was as bold as they came! It’s wasn’t for nothing that his predecessors skirted the issue, waiting for the next person to act.

    Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, once spoke of how he and like minds made the case for removal of petrol subsidy to then President Muhammadu Buhari. He would listen patiently as they made their presentation, nod sagely as statistics laid bare how the country was bleeding to death financially. Still, he did nothing about the killer.

    Every administration that tried to terminate the subsidies faced confrontation from labour unions, opposition parties and civil society groups. The average man had come to believe that low-priced petrol was the only way the government was impacting his life. He didn’t care who was paying for the commodity to stay cheap. Taking that away was the most unpopular thing any administration could do. They all chickened away at the first sight of political trouble.

    Petrol price in Nigeria as at May 29, 2023 was N198 per litre but would jump to over N500 within days of the removal of subsidies. It would then breach the N1, 000 mark in 2024.  This action, along with the unification of multiple naira exchange rates, set off a wild inflationary spiral – the likes of which had not been witnessed for decades.

    Many ordinary people could not make sense of the harsh new realities of life. No amount of explanation by officialdom could assuage their pain because someone somewhere in the past had chosen to sustain their false life, paid for with borrowed money.

    Read Also: Wike declare 19 days of project commissioning for Tinubu’s second anniversary

    Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, who used to the Central Bank Governor, captured the situation of the country in 2023 this way: “This particular government inherited a dead economy from a microeconomic point of view; this government inherited a dead horse that was seen standing but people didn’t know that it was dead. I think it’s important for Nigerians to understand this.”

    He was talking about how the country maintained a fuel subsidy regime that gulped $84.39 billion between 2005 and 2022. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which was the sole importer of petrol, had piled up trillions of naira in debts from carrying the payments in its books.

    The nation was spending 97 per cent of its revenue servicing debt, with little left for recurrent or capital expenditure. The previous government had resorted to massive borrowing to cover such costs. Today, that ratio is now in the region of 65%.

    To ensure Nigerians continued to enjoy cheap naira, the exchange rate was also being subsidised by the government, with an estimated $1.5 billion spent monthly by the CBN to ‘defend’ the currency.

    But this policy led to the abuse of the arbitrage gap, with thousands of BDCs and corrupt public officials feasting on the multiple exchange rates. The power of CBN officials grew as they flexed their muscles in allocating scarce forex to those they chose to. Nigeria was soon failing to fulfil its remittance obligations to airlines and other foreign businesses, such that FDIs and investment in the oil sector dried up.

    To address the crisis, the government resorted to floatation of the naira – a move that saw the currency almost breaching the N2, 000 to the dollar barrier. Today, rates have stabilised to a little south of N1, 600. This is still a world removed from the artificial rate of N460 circa May 29, 2023.

    To say the first year of the Tinubu administration was tumultuous would be an understatement. The new president was not afforded the customary honeymoon – a period where every sin was easily overlooked. From day one he was in the eye of the storm, fending off attacks from the unions and others enraged by the removal of subsidy. Barely a month in the government was already facing threats of nationwide strikes.

    Many battled to feed as outrageous prices kept food out of their reach. Official response was to address the stopgap with a slew of palliative measures while hoping short term initiatives would quickly take effect.

    Such was the gravity of the economic challenges in that initial period that the government searched frantically for hope in every new positive economic data. It was hard to imagine that some form of stability could be achieved within four years, such that Tinubu could look voters in the face and say give me another term to finish the job of reshaping the economy.

    That’s why, in grading his performance as president, any honest assessor must admit that the storms of the first 12 months have, to a large extent, been stilled. Certain benefits may not have reached the most vulnerable in society, yet there’s no denying that progress is being made.

    History will forever record the incumbent as the man who slew the fuel subsidy sacred cow and buried it. This was thought to be an impossible task. Even in the face of intense political pressure and harsh criticism he refused to return to the status quo. Now, the benefits are beginning to show.

    Federal and state governments now have more money at their disposal to spend on infrastructure and other programmes. It was recently revealed that public debt had dropped from $113 billion in 2023 to $94.2 billion currently after the central government paid $19.2 billion. States have been able to clear N185 trillion which they owed.

    There was even better news from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) showing that Nigeria had cleared her legacy debts. All these things have been made possible with money which would have been frittered away, but is now available to clear the overhang.

    It may look like an intangible, but one of the great achievements of Tinubu in his time in office is changing the mindset of people. Gradually, they are shedding the entitlement mentality that assumes that because we produce crude oil refined petrol has to be sold at giveaway prices. Nigerians are adjusting to paying the appropriate price for the commodity and embracing the reality that market forces would determine pricing. That is totally different from a time not too long ago when some anonymous government official would fix prices arbitrarily.

    In other positive news, Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, disclosed that the economy has witnessed four consecutive quarters of growth, exchange rate stability, and resurgence in private sector confidence.

    Central Bank Governor, Yemi Cardoso, equally boasts that after a period of turbulence, the economy has stabilised. “Investors don’t go where there is instability. Investors don’t go out to lose money, they go out to invest because of the stability in an economy, and they can plan,” he said.

    “We obviously have been through a long period of instability, and I think that clearly what is being recognised is that the Nigerian economy is now stable and there is interest in those who want to invest, to now invest.” 

    While these statistics may be cheery for the president and his team, his greatest challenge now lies is seeing how the ordinary man can testify of stability and improvement in his own economy. There’s so much that’s been done that’s still not trickling down to the weakest in the population.

    That’s something he must address as he enters the critical third year of his presidency.

  • An anatomy of the Delta PDP defections

    An anatomy of the Delta PDP defections

    Commentators are running out of adjectives to describe the emptying of Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, his predecessor, Ifeanyi Okowa, and the entire Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) family – root and branch – into the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Their erstwhile party hastily summoned a meeting of its National Working Committee (NWC) to make sense of the punch it had just taken in its gut. Across the country the political firmament is reeling.

    Even the local APC appeared just as stunned by its sudden good fortune – the unexpected influx of yesterday’s foes, now turned overnight comrade-in-arms. In one move, aspirations and ambitions were shredded.

    Take the case of former Deputy Senate President and the party governorship candidate at the 2023 election, Ovie Omo-Agege. He was believed to be shaping for another run in two years and loved to sign off his press statements as ‘APC Leader, Delta State.’

    Vice President Kashim Shettima who led the ruling party’s team to receive the new entrants, pronounced Oborevwori the state party leader at the defection ceremony in Asaba. “Now that you have come, we are all co-owners because according to the constitution of the party, the governor of the party is the leader of the party in the state. This is now as much as your party as it is ours,” he said.

    In one unscripted moment, uncontrollable political forces knocked Omo-Agege off his perch and handed his ‘title’ to another. I doubt he was particularly amused. But the options open to him are limited: lick his wounds, accept the new reality or consider his future within the ruling party. Unfortunately for him all the structures that matter have united under the APC umbrella in Delta. Pulling in a different direction hardly makes sense at the moment.

    Read Also: Nigeria ‘ll soon begin crude oil extraction in Ogun Tongeji Island – Senator Adeola

    On the national scale, the impact of the defections on the opposition is both numerical and psychological. Leading lights like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, have repeatedly argued that their best chance against President Bola Tinubu was to combine resources in one mega platform. Their appeals to the PDP have been rebuffed by the party’s governors. What they’ve tried to sell as an unstoppable coalition now looks like a giant balloon pierced by a sharp object.

    The alliance was supposed to be a magnet for all those unhappy with the president and his APC government. You would, therefore, expect a haemorrhage of support from the ruling party based on all the surrounding negativity. Strangely, the defection traffic has been going the wrong way. Those heading to APC are breaking out of the closet by the day; the ones purportedly rallying behind Atiku’s special purpose vehicle remain a mystery.

    As of April 23, and without a ballot being cast in anger, APC now controls 22 governorships – up from 21. PDP is down to 11, while the likes of the Labour Party (LP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) all have one apiece.

    Delta is no ordinary PDP state – it’s a dyed-in-the-wool one which the party has held effortlessly since 1999. To lose it is akin to the heart being ripped out of the organisation or, more appropriately in this case, the organ being handed out by a willing donor.

    This was the state that produced Atiku’s running mate at the 2023 elections. Less than two years after he has now spoken of his regret accepting the nomination. He told Arise TV: “Even when we were campaigning, I realised our people were not interested in having another northerner come into power. But the decision had already been taken at the federal level by the party (PDP) and I had been nominated. Still, in retrospect, I now believe I should have gone with the will of my people.”

    His selection destroyed Atiku’s relationship with former Rivers State Governor turned Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, as well as upended PDP presidential challenge. The same man has now turned around to repudiate the very basis on which the ex-VP ran.

    Okowa has confirmed what many have argued that PDP shot itself in the foot by collaborating with its flagbearer to stomp on its long-held zoning principle.

    The unique nature of the Delta defections cannot be overemphasised. We’ve seen governors decamp without their deputies following; we have witnessed ex-governors like El-Rufai quit in a huff, only to be accompanied by a handful of near-anonymous lightweights. Never has an entire political structure – from local government to governor, state legislators to federal representatives – uproot from one place to another in one fell swoop.

    It’s a psychological blow that will shape the direction of politics over the next two years – especially with dark whisperings suggesting the opposition could still lose a couple of governors to the ruling party.

    While APC apparatchik are crowing and bragging about the 2027 polls being in the bag, the opposition have been struggling to spin the defections as inconsequential. We’ve been reminded of how former LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, won millions of votes without a governor in his camp two years ago.

    Others have sneered that governors have only one vote like other citizens.  That may be factually correct, but they have the ability to influence hundreds of thousands of voters given the resources they control. Atiku picked Okowa as much as for his personal qualities as for the resources he would bring to the table. This last factor effectively neutralised whatever advantage Wike enjoyed in this area.

    We are now being told governors don’t matter, but anyone who understands Nigerian politics knows it was the defection of five PDP governors that transformed a feeble APC in 2014 into the credible challenger that broke PDP’s hegemony.

    Those seeking to use Obi’s performance to downplay the defections need to be reminded of the factors at play back then. So strong was the ethnic card two years ago that governors from other parties who should have opposed him, encouraged their supporters to engage in tactical voting across the Southeast: vote LP for president, our candidate for governor.

    It was the reason the presidential election results were so different from the gubernatorial ones in the zone. Obi scored well over 70% of votes cast in several states but two weeks later his LP platform only won the governorship in Abia.

    Today, APC has 22 governors to PDP’s 11. These numbers have been held up as signalling the demise of democracy and the onset of the one-party state. But those singing this dirge forget that historically there have been worse statistics.

    In 2003, PDP controlled 27 states, the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) eight and Alliance for Democracy (AD) one.  At the height of its powers in 2007, it had 31 governors, ANPP 3, Action Congress (AC) and APGA one each. The party also had 85 out of 109 senators, 260 out of 360 members of the House of Representatives. Yet, none of today’s mourners suggested back then that democracy was endangered.

    The 2023 election broke certain myths with the triumph of the same faith ticket. But it also reinforced the reality that no party can win the presidency without a broad base across the zones. The ongoing realignments are strengthening APC in the South-South and Southeast which PDP once took for granted as its impregnable fortresses. The ruling party is already formidable across the North-Central zone and can build on its advantages.

    The emerging political map looks dire for the opposition coalition as the only thing it’s feeding on presently is frustration among a section of the political elite in the Northwest and Northeast. Its messaging on the state of the economy doesn’t seem to be resonating as to pry people away from the ruling party.

    Even if they were to sweep every available vote in the two far North zones, the past experiences of former President Muhammadu Buhari show that isn’t enough to win. But even these two zones, Tinubu and APC have shown that they can be competitive by holding on to ground they won two years ago.

    To change the narrative, Atiku and company have to come up with their own dramatic political moments that show a broadening of appeal. As things stand momentum isn’t on the side of their stuttering alliance.

    Potentially, more debilitating for them are emerging signals the ex-VP and his co-travellers are determined to rehash their historic error of downplaying zoning. That would most likely lead to a repeat of 2023 outcomes with minimal efforts by the victors.

  • Rivers: One month after emergency rule

    Rivers: One month after emergency rule

    A little over one month ago, President Bola Tinubu, placed Rivers State under emergency rule, suspending Governor Siminalayi Fubara and members of the House of Assembly for six months. In the intervening period, debate has raged non-stop as to whether the drastic action was necessary.

    Those who believe the president overreacted are probably only focused on the narrow aspect of individuals losing out in a power struggle; or of scheming for advantage ahead the next elections.

    They forget that this battle was playing out in a terrain hosting a huge chunk of the nation’s oil and gas assets. For a country struggling to get its economic reset right, any major disruption of its key revenue generation sources could be disastrous.

    Tinubu cited attacks on pipelines in his broadcast announcing emergency rule. He didn’t go into too many details as to the gravity of the situation. What is clear is that late in March, ominous storms were gathering over Rivers State following the Supreme Court judgment that castrated Fubara politically and empowered his foes – the 27 pro-Nyesom Wike lawmakers.

    The apex court recognised Martins Amaewhule as Speaker and the other 26 legislators as legitimate members of the assembly. The verdict voided all that the governor had done with the so-called Victor Oko-Jombo three-man ‘legislature’ and had harsh words for Fubara for demolishing the assembly which had been bombed intentionally to prevent the initiation of impeachment proceedings in October 2023.

    While the judgment threw up clear winners in the long-running saga, and appeared to open a window for resolution, what would follow was a hardening of positions. It was obvious that the two sides had travelled too far in opposite directions – deleting the word compromise from their dictionaries in the process.

    The assembly quickly issued a string of ultimatums. The governor, clinging to whatever was left of his pride, pushed back on the ground he was stilling waiting for the certified true copy of the judgment. That would be released in short order – leaving him no further room to delay compliance.

    The days following would be humiliating. He announced plans to present the year’s budget without first agreeing terms with the lawmakers – resulting in the televised embarrassment of his convoy being denied entry into the lawmakers’ complex. He was left to make his case to the court of public opinion outside the shut gates.

    Read Also: Air Peace spreads love at Easter as Nigerians react with joy

    It was just the beginning of his troubles as on March 17, Speaker Amaewhule forwarded a notice of gross misconduct allegations – the initial step in the impeachment process – to the governor and his deputy Ngozi Odu. By this very move, Rivers entered into uncharted waters.

    To say the polity was heated up would be understating things. Ethnic tensions were ratcheted up, playing the crisis as an attempt to injure the Ijaws politically. Threats of attacks against oil pipelines and other facilities were openly made. It wasn’t long before they were carried out.

    But for the emergency declaration we may now be in the post-Fubara era in the state, given the overwhelming majority held by his foes in the assembly. The only thing that could have prevented that outcome would have been the appointment by the Chief Judge of an investigating panel that would have returned a not guilty verdict – short-circuiting the process. But that wasn’t a given.

    Had impeachment succeeded, control of the state’s entire power structures would have been back in the hands of Federal Capital Territory Minister Wike – a polarising figure who is as much loved as he is reviled by sections of the populace within and outside the state. Those who loathed that outcome would have been left with only extra-constitutional means to resist, seeing as whatever legal challenges they came up with would have failed.

    Notorious for his blunt speaking, the minister recently admitted that he preferred the permanent ouster of Fubara by impeachment, something he was certain would have come to pass. He then asked those criticising the emergency declaration to go bow at Tinubu’s feet for saving their man in the nick of time. Over a month ago he had boasted there would be no blowback from the governor’s ouster.

    Interestingly, Fubara’s reaction to his rule being truncated has been relatively tame. He has asked his supporters to be calm. A few days ago he told them to keep supporting the president. That isn’t the sort of rhetoric you would expect from someone who felt hard done by. If anything, it looks like the reaction of man who has assessed his chances through realistic lens and knows he was saved by the bell.

    The same cannot be said for some of his supporters who view emergency rule as an injustice. They are the ones sponsoring women protesters to take to the streets weekly, in the process triggering counter-protests by the same gender on the opposing side. How such demonstrations help the governor’s cause is hard to understand. But such is their belief that he would somehow have survived the impeachment storm he was facing before Tinubu’s intervention.

    Whether in medicine or other aspects of life, a key goal of emergency action is achieving stability. There’s no question that for all the street protests and legal challenges, the political temperature in Rivers is much lower today than it was a month ago.

    Within days of the Sole Administrator, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (rtd), taking the reins allocations and other funds which had been frozen by the Supreme Court judgment were released by the Federal Government, bringing succour to workers who face an uncertain future while the budget standoff between Fubara and the lawmakers lasted.

    Despite criticism, some semblance of governance has been restored to local councils which have also been caught in the political crossfire as well as grounded by the apex court’s judgment. Even the much-feared sabotage attacks on oil facilities have not manifested.

    That’s why rather than split hairs savaging the president for his actions in Rivers, all reasonable people should be working to ensure reconciliation and the restoration of constitutional order. The emergency proclamation indicates that the interregnum ‘may’ be extended if the conditions that caused it remain in place. Surely, that’s not an outcome anyone wants.

    Six months may look like six years to people who are used to exercising power. But in reality that’s just what it is – six months! This point is significant given widespread reports of a meeting in London between Tinubu and Fubara during his recent two-week overseas trip.

    Credible sources say the meeting is just a first step to a larger gathering of critical stakeholders in the crisis. Having stared into the abyss all sides now appear ready to make deals that would ensure the unusual governance setup in Rivers isn’t unduly prolonged.

    These are the same compromises spurned two years ago by parties that thought they could prevail by their own strength. Hopefully, those who influenced Fubara to dump the deal brokered by Tinubu in 2023, now realise that however powerful a governor might be, in certain states there’s a balance of terror that you can only navigate by compromise.   

  • Monarchs, murder and ethnic baiting

    Monarchs, murder and ethnic baiting

    There’s no question that whatever happens in Kano often has implications for the way Nigeria’s unending game of thrones play out. Five years ago when then Governor Abdullahi Ganduje dethroned Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Emir, he thought he had consigned him to history’s dustbin.

    He probably expected the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to retain power in the state and sustain his legacy. Instead, the reverse happened. The New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) led by his one-time leader, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, seized power and the new governor Abba Yusuf immediately took a sledgehammer – literally and figuratively – to everything his predecessor held dear.

    He tore down multi-billion naira properties – public and privately owned – for the flimsiest of the reasons, only to have the courts slam billion naira penalties on the state for his recklessness. But monuments that became rubble were nothing; the real prize was scrapping five emirates that had been created at Sanusi’s dethronement.

    To rub salt on injury, the ogre that Ganduje thought he had banished into some anonymous corner of Nasarawa State would soon be strutting with all his peacock glory within the precincts of the Kano palace. While Sanusi accepted his removal fatalistically, his replacement, Aminu Bayero, has put up a legal fight that has created the surreal situation of one city with two kings vying for supremacy.

    In restoring the former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor to his role as monarch, the state government blithely ignored an existing court injunction. Much was made of whether the ruling was given by a judge on vacation, who supposedly gave an order from outside the country. That matter is still tied up at some stage of a serpentine judicial process.

    The state government has protested vehemently that it had power under the constitution to appoint traditional rulers. Not many dispute that. However, from day one there had been suspicion that agents of the Federal Government or powerful Kano politicians now opening out of Abuja were invested in frustrating whatever the Yusuf administration was trying to accomplish.

    Hours after his unceremonious ouster, Bayero came back to Kano aboard an aircraft allegedly provided by National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu. He was said to have been led to an annex palace by an escort of troops. The claims soon had a furious Ribadu threatening legal action against those who made them.

    Despite the ferocity of his denials, elements of Kwakwanso’s NNPP and the state government swear that the Presidency and especially Ganduje are determined not to see Sanusi restored as emir. Not much proof is provided beyond the usual peculiar interpretation of judicial rulings and interventions by security agencies.

    Shortly before last week’s Eid-el-Fitr celebrations, the state police command imposed a ban on Durbars and other processions ostensibly because of security threats. Such religious holidays are occasion for the emir to parade through the streets in all his finery. But now there were two monarchs laying claim to the throne, with the very real prospect of the competing marches turning into a test of strength and popularity.

    While Bayero has largely stayed out of sight, Sanusi has carried on business as usual. On his way home after the Eid prayers at the popular Kofar Mata Eid prayer ground in Kano on Sunday; violence broke out within his entourage. By the time the dust settled, one Surajo Rabiu, a vigilante had been stabbed to death, while another sustained injuries.

    The police invited a senior title holder, Wada Isyaku, the Shamakin Kano, for questioning over defiance of the ban on durbar-related activities. What would make headline news was when a similar invitation was extended to Emir Sanusi requiring him to come for questioning in Abuja.

    A vortex of criticism was automatically unleashed with many opposition figures accusing the police of being misused to oppress the monarch because of political loyalty. It was clear the criticism hit a raw nerve because shortly before the emir was to keep the Tuesday appointment, the invitation was withdrawn. The Police issued a defensive statement explaining their action was devoid of any political undertone.

    What many critics found objectionable was having the traditional ruler travel to Abuja when his account about the violence could very easily have been obtained by the state command. For others, such an invitation should never have been issued given his eminence.

    The fact is the police and other security agencies out of overzealousness blunder from time to time. The Sanusi summons is a reminiscence of the Kogi State government and police command banning all rallies simply because Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan announced she was visiting her hometown. But by intervening the way they did, they opened the door for her defiance, reinforced her image as a victim and thoroughly embarrassed themselves when her full house rally held without a hitch.

    Read Also: Monarchs, APC stakeholders seek shift of governorship seat to Kwara North

    The Police in Abuja may have deescalated tensions, but they emerged from this episode not looking good. They look like they can be very easily pushed around or buckle very easily in the face of a little heat.

    But that said, the impression must never be created that certain persons cannot be held to account when crimes have been committed because of their lofty positions in society. Let’s not forget that someone died during a procession that the police had banned.

    There’s no evidence anyone went to court to challenge their right to hold such events. Having seemingly acquiesced to not holding them, whoever authorised it surely has questions to answer. Even if there had been no death or violence, questions should be asked as to why one party obeyed and the other defied the order.

    But it isn’t only the police who have emerged from this not smelling of roses. Some political leaders in their desperate need to criticise something have gone overboard. Take former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, for example.

    It is common knowledge that Sanusi and El-Rufai are very close pals. When the emir was languishing in his internal exile home in Nasarawa, it was the former Kaduna governor who travelled there by road to ferry him home. So, it is only natural that he would take more than passing interest in what looked like fresh trouble for his friend.

    That perhaps explains why on April 6, 2025 he posted on his X handle an article purportedly written by one “Chuks Emeka” which trashed what the author referred to as the “Yoruba-led federal government’s” complicity in the police’s actions against Sanusi.

    Questions have been asked as to whether “Chuks Emeka” exists anywhere other than in the imagination of the former governor – the suggestion being that this was just a convenient pen name to be blamed for unwholesome opinions. By referring to the “Yoruba-led federal government”, the supposed writer was engaging in the most despicable form of ethnic baiting. By ventilating his toxic views on his handle, El-Rufai was identifying with the same condemnable hate.

    Another quote from the supposed “Emeka” piece reads suspiciously like something the 2025 vintage of the former Kaduna governor could have said or written. “And it is being carried out under a Yoruba presidency, one that many of us across the country supported out of hope for national healing, restructuring, and competence.”

    It is amazing what bitterness can do to a man who would love to be seen as enlightened. It is especially sad that a politician who clearly aspires to one day lead a nation cannot see how he’s diminished by launching low attacks against an important ethnic group within the whole.

    Perhaps El-Rufai and the “author” whose piece he admired so much that he had to reproduce it on his handle need to be reminded that even in the Southwest, Bola Tinubu didn’t win 100% of votes in his home region. Out of a total of 4, 350,987 votes cast at the presidential election in the zone, he received 2, 542, 979 – about 58.4%.

    In the Northwest where a total 6, 468, 492 votes were cast, he received 2, 652, 235 – about 41%. This was better than Abubakar Atiku’s 33.9%. The president actually got 30 percent of his total votes from this zone.

    He became president by after meeting constitutional requirements and picking up a pan-Nigerian mandate. Referring to his administration as the “Yoruba-led presidency” would be as fair as calling Muhammadu Buhari’s regime the “Fulani presidency.” No amount of bile should make one descend that low.

  • Rivers: The many uses of an emergency

    Rivers: The many uses of an emergency

    President Bola Tinubu truly set the cat amongst the pigeons when he declared emergency rule in Rivers State a week ago. Given that few saw it coming, initial shock was soon followed by reactions of volcanic proportions – along predictably partisan lines.

    We saw this movie and fallout in 2004 and 2006 when then President Olusegun Obasanjo interrupted democratic arrangements in Plateau and Ekiti States. It would be fair to say that the current action follows the template he put in place in those instances.

    Obasanjo’s action was met with cries that the apocalypse was upon us and democracy as we knew it was dead and buried. It should surprise no one therefore that in an already polarised country, Tinubu’s move would be greeted with an even more deafening chorus of disapproval in certain quarters.

    The critics would have you believe that the president is incapable of acting altruistically where the politics of Rivers State is concerned. They argue the emergency is a contrivance to neutralise Governor Siminalayi Fubara and empower his foe and former benefactor, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike.

    In reality, the six month suspension was really a stay of execution that has preserved his status for foreseeable future, with prospects that he could even see out his tenure. Without that intervention, in a matter of weeks he could have become an ex-governor.

    The 27 pro-Wike members of the House of Assembly who had been waiting for over a year to take their pound of flesh from a man, who turned their temple into a pile of rubble, suddenly saw their quarry snatched from their grasp. They were set for the kill; the last thing they expected was intervention that gave the enemy second wind.

    Although, they had the numbers to achieve their goal, the impeachment process is unpredictable because lawmakers are not the only players. The easy part for them is drawing up gross misconduct charges. That notice has to pass through the Chief Judge who the constitution empowers to set up a panel of respected, impartial, apolitical people to review the accusation.

    He’s not under any obligation to pick those who would help the assemblymen achieve their ends. He can empanel those who would clear the embattled governor of all the allegations – bringing the process to a screeching halt.

    Just days before the president’s surprise announcement, Wike declared at a Port Harcourt reception that he wouldn’t stop the assembly from carrying out their constitutional duties. If it meant the impeachment of his successor, he assured his auditors the heaven wouldn’t fall.

    Amidst the din of criticism many can’t see that the president has done both sides a massive favour. For while the lawmakers could push the impeachment process forward, there was no guarantee that it would have delivered their preferred outcome. At the same time, Fubara was on the ropes, subjected to daily humiliations by those he once humiliated.

    Things were not going to get better with two sides determined not to work together. The governor’s praise singers at a point when he felt he had an upper used to chant ‘Dey your dey!’ – Pidgin English for stay in your lane. It was a ditty the legislators quickly adopted for mockery after the Supreme Court verdict which restored their power.

    Read Also: uMunthu Fund exits Baobab Nigeria

    I am certain that those who criticise the emergency declaration wouldn’t have been any more enthused had the assemblymen pulled off the impeachment. Constitutional questions are being raised around the power of the president to suspend a governor. It should be pointed out that the Supreme Court skirted issue in the Dariye legal challenge. It would be surprising if they got themselves further entangled in a provision that gives the Executive sufficient space for discretion.

    The legality of the impeachment alternative, which no one disputes, wouldn’t have made it more palatable, given that unlike suspension, it involves a permanent separation from a powerful office.

    Tinubu insists he acted as any responsible president would to ensure peace and protect the nation’s strategic economic assets. His opponents argue his intervention was unnecessary and just part of manoeuvring towards the 2027 general elections. Anyone who understands Nigeria’s politics knows that to prevail in the presidential contest you must control at two least of three vital voting hubs – Lagos, Kano and Rivers States.

    Of the three, only Lagos is currently in the hands of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Kano is run by Rabiu Kwankwaso’s New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), while Rivers is held by a divided Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). This makes it a plum prize for those eying the next electoral contest.

    Seen from this context, it is tempting to view emergency rule as part of some Machiavellian scheming. But rather than convey any clear advantage to a side that favours him, what the president has done is deny the Wike group a winner-takes-it-all victory. Impeachment would have removed Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu, clearing the way for Speaker Martins Amaewhule, to step in.

    The president could have allowed this outcome that favours his political ally and claim he only allowed the constitutional process play out. That would have been more helpful towards his 2027 ambitions.

    The fallout from the emergency declaration has been useful for an opposition struggling to get a bearing. Conventional wisdom suggests the only way to terminate APC rule is for all other parties to come together through a merger or in form of a coalition. It’s a typical ‘me-too’ idea that seems attractive because the current ruling party deployed a similar template to topple PDP in 2015.

    Key promoters of the idea like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, saw in the firestorm an opportunity to energise their project. They hurriedly called a press conference to announce a coalition that obviously hadn’t coalesced. The cast of characters at this pre-unveiling event was sufficiently underwhelming you have to fear for the long term viability of the offspring they would birth.

    This was also an opportunity for the army of Nigeria’s would-be saviours to sing their usual dirge. It’s the same croaky rendition about the demise of democracy and all things good from undertakers who had their opportunity to make a difference. It’s almost as if by joining in the attacks their legacies would suddenly be washed clean.

    A case in point in Obasanjo who patented the declaration of state of emergency in Plateau and Ekiti States. He suspended the Joshua Dariye in the former and Ayo Fayose in the latter, naming sole administrators in their place. You would have thought he would stay out of this controversy given his past. No way!

    He has plunged in headlong, accusing members of the House of Representatives of receiving bribes to ratify the emergency proclamation. They have denied the claim and whatever evidence the former president has isn’t public knowledge yet. What we do remember is that today’s critic of legislative corruption has severally been accused of sending huge sums to effect leadership changes at the National Assembly and to prosecute his stillborn Third Term agenda. Fortunately for him Nigerians are famous for their collective amnesia.

    The emergency declaration and its aftermath has been a window for assessing the state of play in national politics as we approach the Tinubu mid-term. The constitution lays out how a president who wants to take this step should proceed. First, he makes a proclamation and then sends same with details of his programme to the National Assembly for ratification. This provision is a check against unilateral action by any emperor.

    The lawmakers must by two-thirds majority ratify his action or it is dead in its tracks, restoring power to those who had been suspended.

    APC doesn’t have two-thirds of the National Assembly members. An effective or united opposition could have halted the process, but almost all their legislators backed the president’s action. Shortly before the vote, Atiku grandly announced how he and his coalition partners were rallying lawmakers to hand the president a significant political defeat. In the end they were left with egg on their faces, quibbling about morality of using the voice vote to ratify the emergency.

    Unfortunately, this controversy has provided another opportunity for frustrated politicians and their supporters to attack the Supreme Court and others wings of the judiciary. It’s always amusing hearing laudatory comments when judgment goes in their favour and bitter jibes about compromise when it doesn’t.

    The president has acted and had his way. Emergency rule is in place and appears to be working in the early days. Legal challenges are flooding in to be adjudicated on by the same vilified judiciary. What fun it would be to hear the opinion of the critics if the courts rule against Tinubu.

  • The Senate as theatre

    The Senate as theatre

    The foundation of the Fourth Republic Nigerian Senate was set in the dramatic. Twenty six years after, not much has changed as the chamber is roiled by a storm that began as a minor disciplinary matter, but has now been framed in the untamed courts of public opinion as a case of abuse of power.

    As a political reporter back in 1999, I recall being present at a pre-inauguration get-together in Enugu for senators-elect. As the event wound to a close I was privileged to corner the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo who conspiratorially whispered, ‘the deal has been sealed.’ The deal in question was that majority of the lawmakers had agreed to back him for the Senate Presidency. The event was on a weekend.

    Between then, and Thursday, June 3, 1999, when voting took place, President Olusegun Obasanjo who didn’t want a strong personality heading the National Assembly, mobilised his allies within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and across two opposition parties, to thwart what many had thought was a given. By the time the dust settled Enwerem had prevailed by 66 votes to 43. Such was the shock of the defeat that Okadigbo, who looked like he had been poleaxed, took a while to arise from his seat.

    But that was just the beginning of the drama. Enwerem would be toppled in a matter of months after being accused of corruption and falsification of documents. A big deal was made as to whether his academic qualifications which bore the names ‘Evan’ and ‘Evans’ belonged to the same person. Okadigbo would take over the seat he was earlier denied but only occupy it for barely a year before being ousted by forces sponsored by the Executive Branch.

    Who can forget that it was in the belly of the Senate that Obasanjo’s Third Term project which looked all but done was undone, in a theatrical seating that had many lawmakers mocking the then president’s well-funded bid to perpetuate himself in office?

    Read Also: TETFUND plans strategic partnership with NILDS

    In 2015, the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the presidency and secured a comfortable majority in the Senate. The party’s hierarchy and new president, Muhammadu Buhari, favoured Ahmad Lawan for the Senate President. They didn’t factor in the ambition of former Kwara State Governor, Bukola Saraki, and elements of the ‘New PDP’ tendency. So while the obedient lawmakers were being whipped into line in one location in Abuja, a rump of the party in cahoots with the PDP were already in the chamber voting. It was an embarrassing coup d’état that destabilised the administration for the next four years.

    Today, that dramatic tradition continues in the Godswill Akpabio versus Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan controversy. Many view the clash as some kind of David versus Goliath sequel – with the Kogi legislator in the shepherd boy role and the Senate President as the Philistine giant. How wrong they are; the reverse is actually the case here.

    In one corner you have a beautiful woman with a colourful past. She’s a wily fighter who knows how to weaponise vulnerability and hurl emotional grenades. She’s not new to taking on powerful men, having fought her former governor, Yahaya Bello, to a standstill.

    She defiantly told the Senate President after refusing to move from her seat according to the rules: ‘I’m not afraid of you!’ It was a pregnant statement that many scrambled to decode. By next morning, she had moved things a notch further by openly accusing Akpabio of sexual harassment on national television.

    In the opposing corner you have the supposedly powerful former Akwa Ibom governor turned Senate President. He is a genial gaffe machine with a penchant for off-colour jokes; a walking disaster every time he opens his mouth. Even worse, this isn’t the first time a woman would accuse him of being fresh with her.

    Former Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joy Nunieh, once claimed she slapped Akpabio – then her supervising minister – after he tried to kiss her. He rebuffed her claims by directing people to ask her ‘four husbands’ about her character. He also claimed that they were about the same age so nothing could have attracted him to her.

    The same thing cannot be said of Natasha. She is dazzlingly beautiful and very conscious of the fact. But she would also be something of a problematic witness given that she once accused former President Goodluck Jonathan aide, Reno Omokri, of making advances toward her.

    Omokri was able to prove that at the time the supposed encounter allegedly took place he was in the US. He had his passport and airline tickets as evidence. Once he placed those online his accuser quickly deleted her posts. The matter was reportedly settled after payment of cash. With that in her past I can just imagine how much some vicious lawyer would give to cross-examine her. Was this just a case of mistaken identity, mischief or something more disturbing?

    One of the deadliest accusations any man – weak or powerful – can face is sexual abuse or harassment. People quickly believe the accuser female. The question that often pops ups is why would she lie if these encounters didn’t happen.

    One of things muddying the water in the current face-off is that Akpabio is a figure many hate. He has foes who have been gunning for him for ages. They see in his current troubles an opening to take him down. They didn’t want him as Senate President and detest his alliance with President Bola Tinubu. They don’t like the fact he leads a National Assembly that isn’t adversarial towards the Executive but favours cooperation. Others can’t stand him because of what they view as buffoonery in his utterances.

    The opposition see in him a weak link in the government. They see blood in the water. Their belief is if they can take him down the administration can be destabilised at a critical juncture of its tenure. All of these things colour the interventions of the critical and throw things out of perspective.

    No matter how things are twisted, remember that the row started over a simple matter of seating arrangements. Senators – male and female – have testified they have moved seats several times. Those rules were there long before the Kogi senator was elected and haven’t been changed. But Natasha refused to move and openly defied the Senate leadership. Should the rules have been ignored just to accommodate her defiance? Many have argued that knowing punishment was coming she decided to bring the tent down on everybody – making the sexual harassment allegations seem like an afterthought.

    This is not to say that her claims against Akpabio shouldn’t be dealt with in a fair manner. But that petition is a totally different matter which she never brought up over a year after it allegedly happened. That notwithstanding, she has placed something on the table that has to be addressed.

    Her critics say her anger boiled over after being removed as chair of the Senate’s Local Content Committee and shunted aside to head the one on the Diaspora and NGOs. Is this truly the case?

    While one is against powerful individuals abusing their positions to take advantage of others, questions must be asked about how Akpoti-Uduaghan has gone about prosecuting her fight. Is this about seeking justice over things allegedly done to her by the Senate President or is it an all-out war against the institution? With her swinging and slashing in all directions it’s becoming hard to tell.

    In an interview she just gave to the BBC, she likened the Senate to a cult where people are afraid of uttering contrary views for fear of retaliation. That’s like slapping the coward tag on over 100 of your colleagues who you still hope to work harmoniously with. It’s not a very smart move because you would need allies to reform the place you dislike so much.

    Even more curious is her surprise appearance at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) where she, again, ventilated her sexual allegation claims. Aside the fact that she wasn’t a member of the Nigerian delegation, her choosing that platform to wash dirty linen speaks of questionable judgment knowing that the IPU has no power to sanction or regulate a sovereign country’s legislature. So what was the whole show about?

    In the end only one chamber would matter as the senator pursues justice: the courts where she filed suit for defamation and challenged the legality of her suspension. She would also have her day to respond to Akpabio’s wife who has equally sued her for billions. Hopefully, she has stronger evidence than that the man she accused, squeezed her hand in a ‘suggestive’ manner.

  • Fubara: Between a rock and a hard place

    Fubara: Between a rock and a hard place

    Prominent Nigerians in trouble quickly find religion. It’s a soothing balm when they are down; a ready tool when they want to manipulate the gullible. Sometime last year, the once all-powerful former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, found himself a regular presence in the courts, fending off corruption charges an arm long.

    On one of those occasions, the now frail looking banking supremo, shorn of the power and prestige of office, turned up clutching a massive copy of the King James Bible that the Archbishop of Canterbury would have been proud of.

    Just days after receiving the political equivalent of an uppercut from the Supreme Court, Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, was spouting scriptures to lift up the spirits of his deflated supporters.

    He referenced Philippians 3:18-19 which says: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.”

    He meant it as a rallying cry to his troops, encouraging them in the vain belief that there’s still a way to victory in a rapidly narrowing path through the courtroom. But sometimes Bible verses serve a dual purpose. This one also had a barb directed at foes he had repeatedly accused of only being interested in plundering the state’s finances. Surely, they were the ones “whose God was their belly.”

    Last Friday in Abuja, the governor’s arch nemesis and erstwhile godfather, Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, was croakily leading a conclave of his closest allies in a session of praise and worship, fuelled by what looked suspiciously like one or two glasses of alcoholic cocktails, to celebrate a thumping legal victory over a man he had dubbed a ‘mistake.’

    It was a measure of how much the triumph meant to him that the minister who often comes across as rough and tough, and hard as nails, was momentarily overwhelmed with emotion and was captured dabbing away tears. He knew he had been in the fight for his political life.

    Fubara, too, knew it was all or nothing. Having been rebuffed by the lords of the highest judicial temple, his only hope now lay with the Lord which art in heaven! Hence the recourse to the Holy Book.

    Read Also: CAN president to Nigerians: Let’s pray for national healing during Lent

    This war of attrition could have played out in a totally different way but for the wrong choices made by the governor. President Bola Tinubu was barely six months in office when as part of his earliest fire-fighting assignments he oversaw a parley at Aso Rock between contending parties in the Rivers’ political crisis.

    At the end of the talks an eight-point communiqué was issued which many felt would extinguish the flames consuming the Rivers PDP government. Key points of the pact included withdrawal of court cases by all sides, recognition of Martins Amaewhule as Speaker and the 27 lawmakers loyal to him as members of the assembly. It was also agreed that legislature would be free to do its business wherever it chose and wouldn’t be hindered in any way by the Executive.

    It’s interesting that what Fubara, his supporters and advisers spurned 14 months ago, is the exact thing the Supreme Court has established as irrevocable law. What could have happened if all parties had acted with good faith at the time they were required to do so? Unfortunately, in the time elapsed the key players have crossed the Rubicon. Now, only the vanquishing of one’s foe would suffice.

    The president’s intervention was hailed by many as statesmanlike given that the problem wasn’t that of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). But his good gesture would be frustrated by parties whose main concern was to see Wike’s vicelike grip over the state’s governance apparatus broken. As is to expected in any Nigerian political conflict, Fubara’s Ijaw kinsmen soon weighed in, injecting a dangerously ethnic dimension to the conflict.

    The governor was told that the Tinubu deal favoured Wike. He was advised to man up and fight fire with fire. The minister had had his turn in power and should let his successor breathe. These were the sentiments that encouraged the governor to stymie the plan and embark on an experiment with an illegitimate four-man assembly – a car crash that was just waiting to happen.

    With a political solution dead in the water, the only path left was the courts. But something interesting is happening in Nigeria these days. Governors with a political agenda approach state high courts secure in the knowledge that they would do their bidding. Their Abuja-based rivals do their battles through the Federal High Courts also sure that these would be favourably disposed towards them. Even when the Supreme Court – universally accepted as the final bus stop – delivers judgment, litigants don’t want to accept verdicts that go against them.

    In his initial reaction, Fubara made the point that he disagreed with the judgment. The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), proceeding from the viewpoint that the poor would suffer due to directive to withhold state allocations, demanded the Supreme Court – whose judgment is supposed to be final – reviewed itself.

    Not to be outdone, the Ijaw National Congress (INC) released an incendiary statement that looked beyond the verdict. It warned against the governor’s impeachment.

    The statement signed by the group’s president, Prof. Benjamin Okaba, stated: “If Governor Fubara’s tenure is truncated by the Martin Amaewhule-led Assembly or anybody else, the INC cannot guarantee the sustenance of the current peace in the Niger Delta, nor the continued rise in oil production – a veiled warning of potential disruptions in the region’s petroleum industry.”

    The statement goes on to give a short history the contributions of the Ijaw people to the political development of Rivers State. In this instance, Fubara’s reversals are being painted as an assault against the interests of his ethnic group. It doesn’t matter whether his comeuppance came through the courts.

    Blackmailing the central government with threats of attacks against the nation’s economic interests is par the course in this region. But the INC is a mainstream pressure group, it remains to be seen whether it would stand by this extreme position just because of a downturn in one man’s political fortunes.

    The threat of impeachment hangs over Fubara today as it did fourteen months ago.  It was that fear that drove the errors that have kept the crisis alive over the last one year. It was what led to the bombing of the assembly’s chambers. It was the lone factor that informed the sudden need to renovate all structures of the legislature arm – demolition of several buildings within the complex.

    While these steps may have appeared very wise to the governor and his supporters, they drew widespread outrage. The Supreme Court reiterated that shock that one arm of government could visit such subversive violence against a co-equal arm in the pursuit of political ends.

    Fubara first speech last Friday was measured and conciliatory. The second was emotional, laced with menace and actionable intelligence Telling the youths to ‘wait for instructions’ means exactly what? Instructions to do what exactly? Can Fubara and his legions prevail in a battle against the state?

    All through the crisis the governor has exhibited questionable judgment. Going on record telling the youth you will give them signal at the right time isn’t smart. Are you encouraging them to rise up against the state? The recent history of the Niger Delta shows that youths have been used for violence. Even if it were to come to that would such destruction force the Supreme Court to reverse its judgment?

    Why boast about not being afraid of impeachment when nobody asked you? This unforced revelation could be a pointer that it’s what you spent your waking and sleeping hours thinking about.

    There are two main routes for resolving the logjam. One is impeachment given that the two sides have shown they can’t tolerate each other. The lawmakers just gave the governor a 48-hour ultimatum to present the budget to them. This was unnecessary, provocative and petulant.

    With the Supreme Court verdict they already have Fubara where they want him. No matter how long he foot-drags, he would sooner than later have to comply. Their action can only then be interpreted as symptomatic of the state of relations between the sides. It’s also indicative that pulling the impeachment trigger is only a matter of time.

    The pro-Wike forces have the numbers to force it through. If it ever happens, the heavens won’t fall. Fubara wouldn’t be the first person to be removed in such a manner despite the threats.

    The other option is an uncomfortable cohabitation that enables the governor see out the remaining two years of his tenure as a lame duck. It would be a very long two years requiring him to swallow a daily or weekly dose of humble pie in dealing with a hostile assembly. For a governor who once boasted that the 27 legislators existed only because he permitted it, this could be a fate worse than death.

    Nigerian governors are very powerful. But we’ve seen time and again that they can be brought to heel. Success in this high office is often a function of political skills rather than deployment of crude force and threats. Fubara can choose to play the politics he needs to survive, or go down in flames as the martyr who actually believed he would save Rivers from a godfather. Either way, this doesn’t look like it would end well for the governor.

  • El-Rufai’s long goodbye

    El-Rufai’s long goodbye

    Last week in this column, I tried to examine former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai’s, theory on the North’s king making role in Nigerian politics. I was keen to move on to some other subject this week, but the man of the moment clearly had too much on his chest and had to unburden. Cue Monday’s soundbite-laden interview on Arise TV. So, permit me dear reader, to drop my twopence on this matter.

    Almost six years to the day, the former governor visited Lagos as guest speaker at the Bridge Club where he gave an exposition on how to retire political godfathers. Given the time and location, it was no mystery who his comments were aimed at.

    The dust had barely settled on the 2019 polls where former President Muhammadu Buhari secured a further term – albeit with diminished voter enthusiasm. The country had not even put the ritual of a second inauguration behind it, but El-Rufai was already talking about the race for the 2023 All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential ticket.

    He admonished the then incumbent to deal with ‘desperate’ and ‘over-ambitious’ elements within APC whose activities, he said, could make the president’s second term difficult from day one.

    That same pattern has been noticeable in the past couple of months. His party’s federal government led by Bola Tinubu has been in power for less than two years, but he started his scheming much earlier; defiantly holding meetings with elements of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    The sole purpose of these explorations certainly isn’t strengthening the ruling party, but how to take it down from its perch. Why else would you profess membership of one party and be brazenly consorting with others – not caring who took notice?

    El-Rufai loves to brag about his fearlessness. He thrives on supposedly ‘speaking truth to power’ – which in itself is something more politicians should be encouraged to do. Unfortunately, his volubility may just be his greatest weakness.

    In my 2019 piece titled “El-Rufai the godfather slayer”, I wrote that the man was “something of an enigma. To some he is a straight talker given to shooting from the lips. Others would say he shoots first and reflects later – thus pushing him into the category of loose cannons.”

    Watching and listening to him in his latest interview you came away with the picture of an angry, embittered individual who was determined to burn as many bridges as he could find. He blithely declared that he no longer considered longstanding associates like his successor Uba Sani and National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, as friends.

    Read Also: N30trn Ways and Means: Senate panel accuses CBN of frustrating probe

    He would then allege a grand conspiracy between the twosome in cahoots with the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to destroy his reputation via the agency of an ongoing House of Assembly probe of Kaduna State finances under his watch.

    Ribadu is supposedly driving this because he is interested in becoming president in 2031 and wants to eliminate all potential Northern rivals. This is a weighty allegation to be made against even an estranged friend. Unfortunately, El-Rufai who is alleging doesn’t provide any proof beyond suppositions and suspicions.

    He, also, finally got round to blaming Tinubu for his failed ministerial nomination. Although, he admitted the president was well within his rights to change his mind. It is understandable that he would feel a sense of deep disappointment having appeared like a shoo-in for the cabinet. But let’s not forget that he was nominated and screened by the Senate. Whatever stumbling block prevented the president from making a call to clear the way must have been a veritable immovable mountain.

    Some of the information in the interview was unnecessary and only served to raise questions as to what his true motivations for past political moves were. For instance, to what purpose was his going on about how he and the president were never friends?

    One thing is clear: his political journey in the APC is clearly at an end. His recent actions are not indicative of someone intent on promoting healing in home but rather those of a man who would rather wreak as much havoc as possible on his way out. He’s doing so by accumulating foes instead of multiplying friends – not a wise move by any politician

    Criticising the party’s leadership since Tinubu assumed office., he said: “I’m a founding member of APC, but I have concern about how the party is being run… how many people sacrificed a lot to ensure that it was an internally democratic party with progressive ideals, two years after the election of President of Tinubu, none of the party organs is functioning. The progressive ideals are not being pursued with any vigour,” he said.

    “APC is my party. But the APC has left me; I didn’t leave the APC. We founded this party based on certain values, but today, the party has moved away from them. I feel stranded.”

    “If I can’t find those progressive values in APC, sooner or later, I may have to find another platform to pursue them. But I still hope the party will correct its course,”

    Fair criticism, if indeed the party hasn’t been meeting in line with its constitution. But it’s funny how history repeats itself. These same rumblings are reminiscent of what transpired at different times under Buhari when influential members of the party complained about party organs not functioning.

    Well known El-Rufai associate, Salihu Lukman, then a member of the National Working Committee (NWC) wrote long public letters bemoaning dysfunction within the APC structure. But not many who were so dissatisfied have taken things to the scorched earth level of threatening defection.

    Early in April 2023 under the chairmanship of Senator Abdullahi Adamu, Lukman claimed that the National Executive Committee (NEC) and Board of Trustees (BoT) were ineffective, stressing that they have not been holding meetings in accordance with the party’s constitution.

    In a statement titled: “APC and Questions of Progressive Credentials”, he complained that the NWC had rendered other party organs prostrate since 2022.

    He alleged that no statutory organ of the party had functioned in line with the constitution of the party, adding that the National Advisory Council (NAC) was yet to be constituted.

    The former Director-General of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF) lamented that the Adamu-led NWC had committed fundamental infractions like the ones that led to the dissolution of the Adams Oshiomhole-led NWC in 2020.

    These infractions, he said, included the refusal to convene the NEC and National Caucus meetings, and refusal to give quarterly financial reports.

    Clearly, the ruling party has had a challenge in this area, so it is a bit dubious making it look like a Tinubu invention.

    The way it is being flogged by El-Rufai looks like someone is preparing an alibi or justification for an imminent action.

    Of course, it is to be expected that whoever takes over would effect changes that make the party more democratic internally. So, hopefully the NEC and Caucus meetings scheduled for this week could be part of that course correction. Dissent is part of democracy and no party member should be crucified for being critical. However, questions have to be asked when disgruntlement crosses the line and becomes open fraternisation with political opponents whose stated agenda is ousting your own party’s government.

    Questions have to be asked when a notable member of APC takes to social media every other day to launch attacks against the president, fanning embers of anger against him in the North, excoriating his Southwest kinsmen and denigrating his appointees as incompetent ‘Lagos boys.’

    This is more so when the likes of the ex-Kaduna governor never raised a voice in anger when Buhari was accused of lopsided appointments in favour of the North. That galling hypocrisy is what blunts some of their criticism of Tinubu’s appointments.

    It remains to be seen how much more of El-Rufai’s slash and burn criticism the APC hierarchy can take before moving against him in some fashion. He may not even wait around much longer to be served such humiliating punishment. As he has said, the party has left him and he’s clearly on his way out to the perfect platform. Talk of a divorce made in heaven.

  • Nigeria’s presidency: Winning without the ‘North’

    Nigeria’s presidency: Winning without the ‘North’

    Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El- Rufai, has been in the headlines lately no thanks to his rampaging posts on X. In one of the latest, he warned President Bola Tinubu risked receiving the same treatment meted to former President Goodluck Jonathan by the North when he sought a second term.

    He declared that less than two years into Tinubu’s tenure, his relationship with the zone had deteriorated badly – something he mournfully intoned was the recipe for electoral disaster. He reminded the uninformed that his region has always been the kingmaker in Nigerian politics.

    The ex-governor would have us believe he spoke altruistically out of love for his All Progressives Congress (APC) and not as one emitting bile after losing out in the sharing of political spoils. We choose to believe that this is the case.

    The storm ignited by his words had barely died down when former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, who no one can accuse of being charitable towards the current administration jumped on bandwagon. He echoed El-Rufai’s threat that unless Tinubu appeased the North he was in danger of receiving an electoral shellacking in 2027.

    Lawal argues that the president’s policies were impoverishing the region. This would suggest that the North was something of an Eldorado as of May 2023 which has now been despoiled by Tinubu’s reforms. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The region has had a longstanding problem with multifaceted poverty; a challenge which the regional elite have failed to do anything about in six decades.

    Long before El-Rufai and Lawal began weeping in their kunu, a group called the League of Northern Democrats led by former Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, had emerged early in the life of the current administration with a clear agenda of hostility towards the administration.

    Of all the regions in the country, the North is one that Tinubu has pandered to whether regarding appointments or in the quantum of resources devoted to fighting insecurity. Yet, the shrillest cries of discomfort continue to resound from the quarters of sections of the elite. So, it’s hard to say whether it’s truly a case of a people hard done by protesting justifiably, or one of those used to exercising power suffering withdrawal symptoms. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.

    Read Also: AI Summit: Nigeria, France, 56 others launch platform to bridge digital divides

    From the little that’s been said already the threat of withdrawal of Northern support will hang over Tinubu like the Sword of Damocles as we head towards 2027. The sense that whatever that region decides determines what plays out nationally would also be tested.

    Unfortunately, the notion of Northern unity in political action is more myth than reality. Perhaps there was a time in the First Republic when this was so. But we’ve seen through the past few decades that no region in Nigeria ever goes 100% in one direction electorally – with very few exceptions.

    Yes, the North has played kingmaker in very unique circumstances, but those are not everyday scenarios – especially given existing ethnic and religious cleavages across the region. That is why in reality there’s a far North politically and a Middle Belt who don’t always see eye to eye on issues.

    We don’t need to travel far to see that the region hardly ever acts with one voice. At the 2023 polls, certain interests misled the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into believing that it was only a Northerner who could win, and that there was nothing wrong with Atiku Abubakar succeeding his kinsman who would be rounding off eight years in power. They miscalculated and lost badly despite running a campaign that openly appealed to ethnic sentiments.

    The Northerners in PDP were clearly not on the same page as those in APC who came to back power shift to the South in the national interest. In any event, the majority of the region’s votes went to Atiku but that didn’t make him president.

    Rather than painting a false picture of regional exceptionalism, the likes of El-Rufai need to realise that Fourth Republic election outcomes have confirmed that you can win the presidency without necessarily winning in the far North. Celebrating the 2015 poll results as though it was based solely on what APC and Buhari pulled off up North is also disingenuous.

    Buhari received massive Northern votes as he had always done but what made the difference when he was elected was that he won in the Southwest. Without that it would be a repeat of his usual frustration of being shown up as regional champion. The drafters of our constitution ensured that no such persons would ever sit in the office of president.

    I recently saw a graphic of Nigeria’s 2011 presidential election results showing a country slashed almost equally in two halves. All the states above what is generally referred to as the Middle Belt or North Central zone were won by Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), while the then ruling PDP took the entire South – with the exception of Osun State which was won by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

    Further back, the result of the 1999 polls was a clear nod to the nationwide strength of the PDP under whose umbrella the cream of the national political elite had congregated. The upshot was a performance that was robust across the zones.

    Four years later, there was a clear impact on the results after four years of Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency. PDP would shed significant votes in the far North with the entrance of Buhari as candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) which had its strength largely across the North but was quite feeble down South.

    The results of the 2007 poll largely mirrored those of 1999 because PDP and its key rivals presented Northern candidates. The ruling party had Umaru Yar’Adua, ANPP Buhari and Atiku Abubakar who had been exiled from the ruling party fronting ACN’s challenge. In this race the role of the North as kingmaker was a non-issue.

    A similar scenario would have played out four years later had Yar’Adua not died unexpectedly.

    His demise thrust the country’s fragile power sharing arrangements back into the front burner. The ruling party was torn between denying a sitting President, Goodluck Jonathan, the party’s ticket and managing the unprecedented situation caused by Yar’Adua’s death. Wouldn’t it be fair to let another Northerner step in to complete what should ordinarily be the zone’s clear run at finishing two terms?

    The agonising would play out within PDP as the major Northern presidential aspirants Aliyu Gusau, Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar and Bukola Saraki, formed a common front to challenge Jonathan. They even had shadow elections that threw up the former VP. In the end this regional challenge on behalf of the supposedly invincible kingmaking zone collapsed spectacularly at the party’s Eagle Square Abuja convention, with Atiku making a bitter speech full of name-calling that acknowledged his imminent failure.

    At the general election where Buhari reprised another of his strong performances across the far North, producing an electoral map that virtually split the country into two halves. In spite of being spurned by the far North, PDP managed to hold on to its key strongholds in the Middle Belt and by so doing retained power. Despite leading in the majority of the states in his region Buhari still fell short – making nonsense of the myth that the North is the be-all factor in Nigeria’s politics.

    The theory that El-Rufai has tried to sell might have been valid in earlier republics. What was once a monolith has greatly fragmented with the Middle Belt increasingly carving out a unique identity with its electoral behaviour in recent cycles. A close look at the results of the 2023 polls is quite revealing.

    Before the election, not many gave Labour Party’s (LP), Peter Obi, much of a chance up North. But he ran a cunning campaign with focus on religious sentiments in the minority areas of the region. It resonated in the face of fierce resentment generated by the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC.  The upshot was the unheralded party making inroads in South Kaduna and winning in Nasarawa.

    Tinubu didn’t win the North, but where he fell short he came a respectable second to meet the 25% constitutional requirements. All he needed was run up the votes elsewhere and emerge with the highest votes.

    So, rather than engaging in political blackmail in the name of their region, politicians need to scrutinise election results to see how the likes of Obasanjo and Jonathan managed to win, without winning the ‘North.’  It’s a pathway to power that remains valid even in today’s very polarised Nigeria.

  • Managing Nigeria’s youth challenge

    Managing Nigeria’s youth challenge

    For too long we’ve been told how Nigeria is a nation bursting with potential. You only have to look at our population of well over 200 million people. With wherewithal, this is potentially a massive market for virtually all products known to man: from food, to healthcare to housing, it should be attracting entrepreneurs and global corporations like moth to light.

    But a closer look at the figures throws up another reality. Seventy percent of that population are 30 years and below. Of that demographic, 42% are under the age of 15.

    In 2022, the Federal Ministry of Youth Development projected that up to 35% of young people between 15 and 34 years were unemployed. With an explosion in the last 20 years of public and private sector education investments, every year the country churns out millions of ‘educated’ youths – some employable, others unfit for employment – but all looking for work that’s unavailable.

    Every couple of months an additional layer is added to the multitude of the frustrated who left school thinking their shiny new certificates would deliver to them a better life. They would soon get rude reality checks after discovering those with superior paper qualifications who have been on the queue for ages.

    For years, many leaders didn’t realise the dangerous situation they were creating. Scores of universities owned by state and federal governments or private individuals and institutions were casually approved, with no thought to how the multitudes that would emerge from them would find fulfilment. Even with the nightmare now our reality, approvals are still being given for more tertiary institutions.

    Little wonder that in the last five years, the contraction of opportunities has created a new wave of migration by young people – the so-called ‘japa’ (Yoruba for escape) phenomenon. There are no clear figures but reasonable estimates would put the number of those who have fled in search of a better life in the high hundreds of thousands.

    Social media is awash with celebratory posts from those who successfully landed in their new havens – much to the envy and anguish of those still trapped in these parts, plotting how to outsmart visa authorities of some European country.

    Many were not so lucky; they never got to gloat on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram, because their japa dream ended in the watery belly of the Mediterranean; others in the anonymous dunes of the Sahara Desert. And yet for many others who felt anywhere else was better than home, they discovered that hell has levels after suffering extreme maltreatment in the likes of Libya.

    Throughout history economic adversity has driven people to other lands in search of a better life. So what is happening in Nigeria at this historical juncture is not unique. What should concern us is doing something so that our homeland isn’t a place people – young or old – flee from.

    In the end no country, no matter how welcoming, is going to open its borders for an unending inflow of desperate migrants from the ends of the earth. We are already seeing that resistance. During the campaigns for the U. S. presidency last year, the Republican candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump, made the anti-immigrant message central to his sales pitch. It worked a treat as millions of Americans swept him back into office despite his moral baggage.

    Across Europe, we are also seeing many countries that were quite accommodating to outsiders now electing parties whose main attraction is their hostility to immigrants. That’s why it is pitiable seeing the desperation of young people who think that salvation lies only in escaping from Nigeria, not knowing that slowly, but surely, the door is closing to that option. The only truly viable alternative in making your home liveable, not wasting valuable time despising it.

    Unfortunately, for years not too many youths have taken an interest in things related to politics and governance. Seduced by the easy pleasures of entertainment and whatever distractions social media offered, many focused on getting easy money any which way.

    It is evident in the rapid spread of online financial scams involving mostly young people. Each month the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) parades hundreds of freshly arrested suspects. But the more they are apprehended, the more they multiply, damaging the image and reputation of the country around the world.

    Many of these youths have long since lost their moral compass. They are content with blaming those in government for messing up the country without accountable, or getting involved in the process of running things.

    The finger pointing conveniently ignores their own roles in tarnishing the country’s reputation and damaging its credit. They blithely ignore the fact that those above voting age who fail to engage the process by which they are governed as just as complicit as those who have mismanaged Nigeria.

    A turning point of sorts was probably the #EndSARS protests which began nobly as an uprising against police brutality, but terminated under a cloud of controversy at the Lekki toll gate. An action that staggered the authorities, triggering the dissolution of the infamous Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), was hijacked by external forces with diverse agendas.

    Although the protests ended as a heroic failure, they were a pointer to young people who drove it, that with better organisation, they could achieve great things politically. Two years after the protests, the campaign season leading to the 2023 polls saw the involvement of more youths in the political process. Many were first time voters. They were also naive and saw their desire for change manipulated by Machiavellian politicians who were only interested in riding on their backs to power.

    One of their big errors was a sense of entitlement that assumed they were ready to govern solely by belonging to the largest demographic in the country. Public office requires preparation and voters would not easily hand the highest ones to novices. Another mistake was deluding themselves that, somehow, they didn’t contribute to messing up the country. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

    Read Also: Nigeria receives $52bn as Afreximbank’s largest beneficiary

    There are scores of politicians under 40 who have held political office at state and local government levels and contributed to the making of our current condition. Many were in state assemblies or even the House of Representatives. One of the brightest stars of the Bola Tinubu administration at its onset was Dr. Betta Edu. She was young, bright and beautiful; and obviously being primed for greater things. But she would crash down in the corruption controversy which engulfed her ministry early in 2024.

    The starting point to unlocking the potentials of Nigeria’s huge youth population is a humble acceptance that all have sinned against this country. Secondly, we must acknowledge that young Nigerians have the ability to do great things even if they are resident in this country. Some of the biggest entertainment stars to come out of Africa – the likes of Wizkid, Burna Boy and Davido – are all Nigerians. Their compatriots are also doing great things in sports, fintech and filmmaking to mention a few.

    This is why any wise government would turn attention to harnessing what this demographic can offer. In his Independence Day speech last year, Tinubu proposed a 30-day youth summit supposedly “to address the diverse challenges and opportunities confronting our your people.” On New Year Day he promised that the Youth Ministry would rollout modalities for the conference in the first quarter of 2025.

    On the face of it, the intervention shows an administration that understands the country has a huge challenge on its hands. The worry is how to ensure that this doesn’t end up as another jamboree for the usual windbags to bask in the limelight for a couple of hours. At the end of the day billions would have been spent with not much to show for the splurging.

    There is also a question as to whether we need 30 days to discover what we already know. It’s not rocket science understanding that young people are looking for opportunities, jobs, help with funding their education and starting businesses. Many are equally looking for a country where things work; a country whose leaders are role models.

    That said, the government deserves credit for this initiative just as it should be commended for others like student loans and credit schemes. It should, however, ensure that the proposed summit which supposedly is to produce an actionable template for unlocking the massive energy of our youths doesn’t end up as another Nigerian horror show.