The Nation Newspaper

Category: Festus Eriye

  • Igbos and the new Nigeria

    Igbos and the new Nigeria

    Before President Goodluck Jonathan is canonised for conceding defeat at the March 28 polls, let it be pointed out that his action was not unprecedented – even in these parts. Last year, after losing the Ekiti election to Ayo Fayose, Governor Kayode Fayemi did the unthinkable: he called his opponent and congratulated him.

    Sections of his All Progressives Congress (APC) who thought he had been too hasty were outraged because they felt the results had been rigged. But he explained that he conceded to avert bloodletting that could have followed had he rejected the outcome.

    In calling General Muhammadu Buhari even before the final tally was in, Jonathan has offered a similar rationale. There’s no doubt that his action deflated the tension that had built up in the polity and removed the ground upon which some of his supporters could have stood to react violently.

    What Jonathan did, despite all the accolades, was ultimately in his best interest. The other option open to him was to take the nation down the road travelled by former Cote d’Ivoire leader, Laurent Gbagbo, with unpredictable consequences for himself and Nigeria.

    The change in Abuja has been the most obvious talking point, but something equally far-reaching also occurred in the regions. Despite religious polarization Buhari achieved a breakthrough in the North-Central zone for the first time. The South-West that has always travelled a parallel route with whoever governs in Abuja now finds itself in proper alignment with the center.

    Although it may not appear that way on the surface, the region most likely to witness long term impact of the changes in the polity is the South-East. For the first time ever the Igbos backed the wrong horse and voted themselves out of power at the center.

    It’s not something that happens every day. In the First Republic the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) which controlled the Eastern Region aligned with the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) to control the federal government.

    Again, in the Second Republic the pattern was repeated as the Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe-led Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) joined forces with Shehu Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria (NPN) to form the central government. Although NPP had an outcrop in Plateau State under the late Chief Solomon Lar, its main strength was in the East.

    The abbreviated Third Republic threw up unusual political dynamics as the two-party system manufactured by the Ibrahim Babangida military junta produced a Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) that were fairly equal in strength across the regions.

    Still, the dominant faction of the Igbo political elite largely drifted towards the center-right NRC. That explains why the party’s presidential candidate in the ill-fated June 12, 1993 elections, Bashir Tofa, chose Dr. Sylvester Ugo from the South-East as his running mate. He could have gone West or to the South-South zone.

    Ever since the onset of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has maintained a vice grip on Igboland that only the All Progressives Grand Alliance’s (APGA) modest excursion into Anambra has been able to distort.

    In 2015, Igbos were even more fulsome in their support for Jonathan than his own kith and kin in the South-South. In many states of the South-East the incumbent received over 90% of votes cast on March 28.

    Although Jonathan was sold as one of their own, the closest he came to being Igbo were his middle names Ebele Azikiwe. That is just like saying Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, is Yoruba because of his first name!

    Aside the names, the other plausible reasons for the South-East welding its fate so tightly to Jonathan’s was his promise to build them a bridge across the Niger. Of course there was also gratitude arising from the fact that the president favoured several of their sons and daughters with choice political appointments.

    With the results in and APC headed for the center, the dominant tendency among the Igbo political elite have woken up to a strange new reality: they could roam the opposition wilderness for anything from four to 16 years. Or to rip a page from the PDP’s book of dreams 60 years?

    So lopsided was the regional backing for Jonathan that APC couldn’t even manage a senate seat in the entire zone. That caused Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha, Senator Chris Ngige and others to convoke a wake where they bemoaned the miscalculation by the zone’s elite. The upshot is that Igbos are likely to miss out on the top four political positions come June.

    The grumbling has triggered two types of reactions: defiance from the sociocultural group Ohaneze N’digbo who insist they have no regrets backing the losing horse. On the other hand, desperation has seen some suggesting that some newly-elected PDP senators from the zone defect to APC so the zone could be allotted the Senate Presidency.

    I don’t believe Igbos did anything wrong in voting the way they did. After all, the North-West and North-East followed the same pattern in their backing for Buhari. Indeed, the President-Elect received a hefty 1, 903, 999 million votes in Kano – leaving Jonathan with a measly 215, 779.

    It would have been expecting too much to think the scenario in the South-East could have been any different. The main political strain in the zone has always been center-right or right wing. They have always hewed to the center. There was no reason for them to dump Jonathan for Buhari in a country where an incumbent has never lost an election.

    But having voted the way they did the Igbo must realize that there would be consequences. They cannot consume the cake and insist on having it whole. They cannot have something for nothing. Their political elite lost the gamble and must now watch the high stakes power play in Abuja from the sidelines.

    Of course, constitutional protection means the zone cannot be totally marginalized or punished for its choice. They would get the ministerial seats allocated to each state as well as other appointments courtesy of the federal character principle.

    In reality it isn’t the zone that is losing out but the dominant faction of the regional elite. Now the few Igbo ‘nobodies’ who tagged along with APC when it wasn’t fashionable to do so, and when its prospects didn’t look so attractive, would be the immediate beneficiaries of whatever is being divvied up in Abuja.

    As the former PDP lords pine away in unaccustomed opposition wilderness, yesterday’s ‘upstarts’ would be promoted and built up by the new APC powers-that-be with federal patronage. Over the next few years their power and influence would grow as the new governing party dismantles the strongholds that had been built throughout Igboland in the last 16 years. It is a script that PDP knows so well; how galling that they would be at the receiving end.

    March 28 means that in the not distant future the balance of power in the South-East would be more even between progressives and conservatives. The likes of Second Republic governors Jim Nwobodo and the late Sam Mbakwe were like aberrations in their day. Ultimately, their ideological foes saw the off. But the day is not far off when a Rochas Okorocha wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb among the Igbo political elite.

    This is not to say being in opposition is such a terrible fate. For most of Nigeria’s civil rule or democratic experience, the main faction of the South-West political elite have always managed to maneuver themselves into opposition to the center.

    But rather than bemoan their fate, they took their destiny in their hands and focused on rebuilding the zone. Today, Lagos is globally celebrated as a model for good governance on the African continent.

    A long stint on the opposition sidelines might not be a bad thing for the South-East after all if it inspires the governors and leaders to look inwards and transform their region – rather than praying to be in good graces of the latest master of Abuja.

  • From Mandela to xenophobia

    Sometimes it is hard to believe that the country that produced Nelson Mandela is currently the scene for nauseating waves of xenophobic attacks that have seized global headlines.

    There are very few people anywhere who have not been inspired by the powerful story of how the former South African president emerged from 27 years’ incarceration to ascend his country’s presidency. What is especially remarkable about the man was that he emerged from prison without bitterness and was willing to forgive former Apartheid rulers who had brutally kept blacks in sub-human conditions.

    Mandela’s generous spirit inspired what came to be known as the Rainbow Nation – a South Africa which committed itself to its different races living together harmoniously.

    It is rather sad that the generousity of spirit demonstrated by Madiba and some leaders of his generation hasn’t percolated down to some of his countrymen. One of the worst blights on South Africa’s image post-1994 majority rule is regular orgies of xenophobic attacks.

    Wikipedia estimates that between 2000 and March 2008 up to 67 people were killed in such incidents. A series of riots triggered by rage against foreigners claimed 62 lives.

    The latest wave of attacks which have already cost 15 people their lives are believed to have been triggered by comments made by the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini. He reportedly said foreigners must pack their bags and get out of South Africa. He made the comments in the presence of the country’s Police Minister Nathi Nhleko and provincial Member of Executive Council (MEC) Willies Mchunu.

    Since the violence flared 5,000 people have marched in Durban to express their disapproval of the attacks. But not so for the king whose spokesman Prince Thulani Zulu told South Africa’s Daily Sun during the week he had nothing to be sorry for.

    At the root of the anger of South African blacks towards the foreigners in the midst are the old claims: they have taken away our jobs, women, commit crimes and make the environment filthy. While one can appreciate the frustration in a country where unemployment and poverty remains high among the black population, it hard to see how this constitutes ground for killing and setting fellow Africans ablaze. Such bestiality is unacceptable.

    Unfortunately, many South Africans are so insular and ignorant they think the sun rises and sets in their country. A colleague in Johannesburg once told me that some of his countrymen travelling to other locations on the continent would say things like “I am going to Africa” – as though their country were part of Europe, Asia or America.

    That ignorance blacks out the fact that while their country was laboring under Apartheid many of their fathers and grandfathers lived in the same countries whose nationals they so despise now.

    Countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Nigeria and others not only supported their struggle by hosting freedom fighters they educated and funded them generously. Some of those countries that were then termed Frontline States were subject to repeated deadly military incursions by the Apartheid regime. All of that is conveniently forgotten now.

    Despite the humiliations they received in the past and sometimes receive now from their white compatriots, black South Africans somehow believe they are superior to other Africans. We await empirical basis for this belief.

    Unfortunately, xenophobic attacks continue because successive governments in Pretoria have not dealt with them firmly. South Africans have been getting away with murder and this must end. If the authorities will not move to stop the nonsense then other countries must act to protect their people.

    South Africans often sneer at the rest of the continent but don’t see anything wrong in their ambitious companies making killer profits from the rest of us. A good place to begin to sending the message that the killings are not acceptable is to target their business either with official sanctions or consumer boycotts.

    In addition, all those who have fuelled these attacks with their inflammatory hate speeches must be held accountable. People like Zwelithini should be investigated by the ICC and if found culpable prosecuted. Enough is enough.

  • PDP stares at the abyss

    One of its former national chairmen, Vincent Ogbulafor, once famously predicted that PDP would rule Nigeria for 60 unbroken years. Beyond reacting with consternation to that comment the opposition were in no shape to mount any credible bid for power, and such was the ruling party’s dominance of the political space it was hard to fault him.

    A mere two weeks to voting day Jonathan was still bravely declaring that his party was too large to lose. After last weekend’s drubbing it is now clear that size couldn’t keep ‘Africa’s biggest party’ in power. Even worse, its huge proportions may just be its undoing out of office.

    One of the things that kept the PDP growing over the years was access to federal patronage. It was what president’s used to keep rebellious party men in line and what they used to seduce the desperate from opposition ranks.

    In Nigeria government remains the biggest business – especially for the political class. For them being cut off from the central administration in Abuja is like an organism being separated from its life source. It is that mindset that produces statements like ‘our people have never belonged to the opposition’ as though being out of government was a leprous affliction.

    It doesn’t require clairvoyance therefore to predict that in the North where the Buhari-APC Tsunami has swept away a slew of PDP office holders we would witness massive defections to the new party in power in coming months. The same thing is bound to happen in the South-East and South-South.

    The president-elect in one of his earlier speeches after his election triumph declared that the one-party state was dead. I disagree. In another couple of months the APC might become the dominant party as the hungry flood its ranks in search of patronage.

    I predict that the PDP will shrink dramatically unless it can throw up strong-willed leaders in the years ahead who are prepared to makes the sacrifices necessary to rebuild the party.

    A sharp decline of the Nigeria’s once dominant political force would be a disaster. As the birth of the APC has shown, this country desperately needs a credible alternative at all times to keep whoever runs Abuja on their toes.

  • How Buhari can avoid Jonathan’s fate

    How Buhari can avoid Jonathan’s fate

    For most of the last four years President Goodluck Jonathan was Nigeria’s dartboard – the target at which we all projected our collective frustrations. Nigerians have voted for change and by that token made Muhammadu Buhari the new receptacle of our collective rage if things don’t start changing fast.

    By convention, new governments get a honeymoon period where there’s little or no criticism as they try to bed in. The length of this blissful time varies depending on circumstances. Sometimes it could be as short as three months or as long as a year. But something tells me that for the new president and his All Progressives Congress (APC) that honeymoon would be very brief.

    When Nigerians voted out Jonathan, and his ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) on March 28, the problems that cost the outgoing president his job didn’t disappear with the ballot. They loomed large over Buhari from the moment he was declared winner.

    The list is long and intimidating: a stuttering economy that has seen the naira collapse against major world currencies, massive unemployment, chronic inability to provide electricity, endemic corruption and a devastating insurgency that is yet to be stamped out.

    This list of national troubles was compounded by a bitter election campaign that tested our ethnic and religious divides to the limit. It would require major work to heal the wounds and bruises of the last three months – and that is another of the heavy responsibilities that has landed on Buhari’s plate.

    As daunting as the task may seem, the president-elect and his team have a unique opportunity not just to address the problems that now seem intractable, but also to change the very nature of Nigerian politics if they are willing to take radical steps.

    Jonathan failed because he promised transformation but only delivered a damp squib. Instead of a breath of fresh air and a new Nigeria, we were confronted with business as usual and national decline to levels we never imagined possible. Values disappeared, parts of our territory were appropriated by mindless killers masquerading as Islamic zealots, and institutions were desecrated before our very eyes.

    Those whose responsibility it was to ensure that these things didn’t happen couldn’t understand why we were complaining about the appalling new order. Their misunderstanding of what the times required is what has brought about the leadership changes that have been celebrated across the length and breadth of the country.

    Permit me to refer here to one of the immortal quotes of disgraced former United States President Richard Nixon. Before he went to the White House, he had run for governor of the state of California. On November 7, 1962, after he lost to Democratic Party incumbent Pat Brown, an embittered Nixon attacked the media, telling them: “you don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

    In another eight weeks we won’t have Jonathan to ‘kick around anymore’ over fuel scarcity, Boko Haram attacks, electricity and sundry headaches. The APC and its supporters who had excelled in their role in opposition would now have to make the swift adjustment to being on the receiving end. It’s a different ballgame when the buck stops at your table.

    A few days ago Public Affairs Adviser to President Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, who had sworn repeatedly that Buhari would never come to power, was forced to make peace with the new reality in the land. He then declared – hopefully – that PDP would stage a comeback in 2019.

    Some may want to dismiss him as a humbled dreamer, I don’t. If Buhari and APC don’t do what is required to move this country forward, it is possible that in 2019 PDP or a coalition of parties could oust them from power as we’ve just witnessed. Let’s not forget that Jonathan received it on a platter barely four years ago – and the party that toppled him is roughly two years old!

    So, lesson number one for the president-elect and his party is: goodwill can disappear. The same people are jumping around doing cartwheels and screaming ‘Sai Buhari!’ are capable of turning around to chant ‘Ba mu so.’

    In 2011, ten million votes separated Jonathan and Buhari. This year the challenger has prevailed with less than three million votes. If ten million voters can desert a candidate in the space of four years, it would be no big thing for three million to evaporate.

    The second lesson is that being nice and honest is not enough to succeed as president. In the beginning, and for much of his reign, Jonathan was sold as a simple and humble man. But he stumbled at the hurdle of competence.

    Nigerians are looking for leadership that would deliver results. Buhari and APC will not solve all of Nigeria’s problems in four years; they would be courting disaster if they create that impression. But if by 2019 Nigerians can flip a switch and receive electricity, they would reward Buhari with another term. If not, then all of his reputation for honesty wouldn’t save him from punishment at the ballot box.

    The only guarantee of longevity in power is good governance – and it begins with the team the president-elect puts together.

    The APC is a patchwork of parties and interests so it is understandable that Buhari would be paying back lots of political IOUs. However, the biggest mistake he can make is to fill his cabinet, or the circles around him, with jobbers and the same old faces that have haunted the corridors of power in both military and civilian dispensations over the last four decades.

    The experience of these people cannot be discounted and they could serve the new president very well as respected and distinguished counselors. But the federal cabinet should be skillfully put together in such a way that it addresses the practical reality of paying off those who worked for Buhari’s victory, while infusing the government with younger men and women with the energy and vision required to transform the country into a prosperous 21st century democracy.

    Perception is important and should not be dismissed lightly. The PDP repeatedly raised the issue of Buhari’s age during the campaigns and we countered by saying there are times when an older leader is what a country needs.

    That said the new government needs to tap a younger generation between 30 and 60 so that a new layer of leaders can be groomed to build on whatever the Buhari administration would do in the years ahead. If he’s to be viewed as a forward-looking leader, he cannot afford to surround himself with his age mates.

    But of all the deadly poisons that finished off Jonathan and PDP, the one Buhari needs to avoid the most is the arrogance that creeps upon and ultimately overwhelms the powerful. The outgoing administration and its leading lights got so power-drunk they forgot that the people are actually the ones who decide who governs.

    That arrogance was repeatedly captured in statements like ‘We will never handover to this or that’; ‘this person or that one will never become president – we would rather handover to the military.’ All those comments make no reference to voters. Those who had been voted into power now assumed they had the power over life and death.

    It was that same arrogance that led Jonathan and PDP to turn state institutions like the armed forces, police, DSS into toys to be deployed for partisan ends. They and these institutions came to be reviled by all those they oppressed. In the end the oppressed spoke loudly with their ballots.

    On March 28 and the weeks that preceded it, Nigerian voters were reminded again that power belongs to the people. Desperate politicians courted then assiduously with everything from bags of rice to crisp US dollar notes. By kicking out Jonathan, voters now know what their votes can achieve. It would benefit Buhari and his team not to become so arrogant and distant from those who can decide their fate.

  • A referendum on the Jonathan years

    A referendum on the Jonathan years

    It is great that  terrorists have been pushed out of Baga, Bama and others but how does that translate into electoral advantage for Jonathan in places like Chibok where hundreds of families are still grieving over their missing daughters? How does it help him with families across Adamawa, Yobe, Borno, Gombe and Kano who lost husbands, wives and children as the insurgents rampaged unchecked over the last four years?

    Six weeks have evaporated like a puff in the wind and the postponed day of reckoning is finally upon us. Voters would pass judgment on All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari’s, past and present and decide whether they want to go on an adventure with him and his party.

    Crucially, the March 28 election is even more about President Goodluck Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) being placed on a scale by the people they have ‘served’ over the last four years.

    The polls are not about Prof. Attahiru Jega and his performance as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Neither are they about the alleged sins of former Lagos State Governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign has devoted countless millions producing negative advertising and hate documentaries against the two men you would be forgiven for thinking Jonathan was running against them instead of Buhari.

    If the president had sat out this election, next Saturday’s contest would have been defined in a different way. But he’s on the ballot seeking four more years in office: that automatically transforms the polls into a referendum on his tenure.

    In seeking a revalidation of his contract with Nigeria he will face the same parameters used to judge people who want a renewal. First there has to be a review of what has been done in the initial term and a decision made as to whether the individual who has put himself forward is the man to lead the organisation going forward.

    So what has Jonathan made of the four-year mandate he received in 2011? Has he done enough to earn a fresh contract? Will Nigeria be a safer, respected and more prosperous country if left in his care for another four years?

    Granted that most voting decisions are neither objective nor rational, I still believe that a sizeable number of voters – especially the undecided – should be asking these questions as they make up their minds whether to return him to the presidency.

    Jonathan took office with overwhelming goodwill. Riding on the back of the national need for healing following the unscripted demise of Umaru Yar’Adua, he brushed aside Buhari’s 2011 challenge. People wanted him to succeed and expectations were high because he and his late boss were Nigeria’s first university-educated executive presidents.

    It was refreshing that he was from the Ijaw minority in the South-South zone – breaking the usual three-cornered Hausa-Igbo-Yoruba power struggles. His grass-to-grace story was attractive and romantic – offering the possibility of a fresh start  under a humble head of state after a succession of arrogant and autocratic leaders.

    That goodwill translated into him getting 10 million votes more than Buhari. Although many still dispute those figures as rigged, they are the ones recorded by INEC for posterity. They are also the ones upheld by the courts.

    Usually, incumbents face very testing elections when they seek a second term. The margin of victory often contracts when compared to the first time around. However, it takes some special talent to blow away 10 million votes such that, today, Jonathan stands on the verge of making history as the first incumbent president in Nigeria to lose his reelection bid. How did things get this bad for him?

    Although expectations were high, the new president raised the bar even further by promising ‘transformation’. But instead of a landscape transformed, what we have after four years is a country devastated on many fronts.

    Jonathan apologists have printed reams of glossy paper itemising his supposed great achievements. They churn out statistics to open our eyes to the transformation we cannot readily appreciate. The things I always remember are that he established 12 federal universities, built almajiri schools and Nigeria’s economy became Africa’s largest under his watch.

    This list might impress party hacks but that’s as far as it goes. There was a time where opening universities was a big deal. Not anymore. Private individuals are establishing them all over the place.

    As for the size of the economy, the tag is just a salve for our egos and not much more. Nigeria’s economy might be the biggest on the continent but that honour is vitiated by one of the iconic images of the Jonathan era: the National Stadium, Abuja packed full of the unemployed who had gathered for an ultimately fatal Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment exercise last year.

    Ours is the largest economy in Africa at a time when our currency is lying prostrate against major currencies of the world. It would have been a boon if were exporting goods, but because we are enslaved to imported petrol this massive economy is headed farther and farther into the woods.

    In any event, I cannot imagine that Jonathan and his team – with a straight face – would claim that the ‘magic’ they performed in the last four years was what shot the country atop the continental economic rankings.

    The problem with Jonathan’s ‘achievements’ is captured by a link that his online supporters keep retweeting. It says something like ‘If you are from Ogun State please click here to see how GEJ has transformed your state’! If I live in a community and cannot see this so-called transformation then it is just fiction – or whatever has been achieved is being oversold as transformative.

    If Jonathan’s positives are not resonating, it is because his negatives are so overwhelming. Every regime has its fair share of scandals but this one seems to have a manufacturing plant that spews out sleaze. Over the last four years it has staggered from tales of billions of dollars allegedly missing from the NNPC, to flamboyant ministers blowing millions on armoured limousines to bungled arms purchase runs leading to embarrassing seizure of millions of dollars traced to the government in far away South Africa.

    Just as the image of the president was taking a battering internally, the country was not doing better externally.  The phantom phone call scandal involving Morocco left the president in the ridiculous position of having to deny something that his government officials had been vehemently insisting happened. It is not without reason that the administration’s critics call it ‘clueless.’

    Another defining character of the last four years has been the subversion of the rule of law and the destruction of institutions. It’s as if from day one the scheming for a second term took hold of the president. In order for that ambition to be realised, key national institutions have been virtually destroyed and compromised. The police, DSS and armed forces have at various times been pressed into partisan political assignments on behalf of the president and PDP in ways that are just nauseating.

    But ultimately the institution mostly badly affected by Jonathan’s desperate craving for another term is the ruling party. The PDP is going into elections in its worst shape since 1999. Under the incumbent, distinguished members have been deserting in droves as ambitions and interests clashed. Each time this happened, Aso Rock court jesters would dismiss the departed as paperweights who the ruling party could do without.

    Governors Rotimi Amaechi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Magatarkarda Wamakko, Abdulfatah Ahmed and Murtala Nyako were casually allowed to go without the political implications of losing five states to the opposition sinking in. Former national chairmen like Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbeh and Kawu Baraje left. House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal and one of his predecessors Ghali Umar Na’Abba have jumped ship. So also have numerous senators, representatives and ex-ministers.

    Add to that list of heavyweights former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who was humiliated out of the party because his continued presence was an obstacle to Jonathan’s second term bid. After dismissing him and calling him names, guess who came calling under the cover of darkness at the former VP’s Yola home a few days ago begging for support? Candidate Jonathan!

    Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo who always swore he was PDP for life ended up tearing his party card in a farcical ceremony at his Abeokuta ward. His departure was celebrated too. Much as PDP would want to pretend that those who left weren’t politically relevant, these departures are akin to losing blood or limbs – the organism invariably becomes weaker.

    One of the challenges that came to define the Jonathan years is the insurgency in the North-East. Several months after they carved out a caliphate on Nigerian soil, an African multinational force in collaboration with the Nigerian military has driven Boko Haram out of most towns they occupied.

    A few days ago, Jonathan was quoted as boasting that the sect would be defeated within a month. There’s no question that the president and ruling party expect an electoral boost from the victories of the military.

    But such unrealistic expectations come from a profound misunderstanding of the dynamics at play here. It is great that  terrorists have been pushed out of Baga, Bama and others but how does that translate into electoral advantage for Jonathan in places like Chibok where hundreds of families are still grieving over their missing daughters? How does it help him with families across Adamawa, Yobe, Borno, Gombe and Kano who lost husbands, wives and children as the insurgents rampaged unchecked over the last four years?

    Where there has been transformation it was of the undesirable sort. I, like many faceless millions, voted for Jonathan in 2011. Back then we used to say we were voting for him and not PDP. The result was the creation of a pan-Nigerian mandate that swept him into office. Today, a president who emerged as a unique Nigerian creation has ended up the hostage of Ijaw clan chiefs and ex-militants.

    A Nigerian president has been reduced to manipulating ethnic militias like the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) whose agendas are largely separatist in his desperate bid to cling on to power.

    Jonathan has been executing a cross-country dash from pillar to palace to pulpit – bowing before strange gods and demi-gods as he struggles to stave off a defeat that is increasingly looking inevitable.

    And it was all so unnecessary. Imagine what the political landscape would have looked like today had the ‘New PDP’ faction not broken away from the ruling party? Perhaps there were too many interests to appease and none would ever have been satisfied with any form of compromise.

    Unfortunately, the ambitions of the president deepened the fault lines. The upshot is that in a few days we all would cast votes that could radically alter the political landscape. If his party is kicked out of power Jonathan would then have truly delivered ‘transformation!’

  • Fayose and the elderly vote

    Fayose and the elderly vote

    Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, increasingly sounds like a man who has started something and is clueless how to finish it. He has blundered badly but is too ashamed to admit it. There’s no dignified way for him to pull back, so he keeps pushing out silly attack adverts against Buhari and signs them off with a line claiming he has ‘No Apology.’

    Fayose has this false notion that at 70 people become physically and mentally incapacitated. Some of Nigeria’s most celebrated leaders are in that age bracket. Pastor E. A. Adeboye, General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) – one of the world’s fastest growing Pentecostal congregations just celebrated 73. His schedule which includes grueling travels around the world is more than some presidents undertake.

    Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) – an energetic man of God is over 70. Fayose’s colleague, and chairman of a faction of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), Plateau’s Jonah Jang, just turned 71. He has not quit office yet. If anything he’s running for Senate on March 28!

    Fayose’s feverish verbal assaults against the APC presidential candidate for committing the offence of aspiring for office at 73, suggests that he may not be too keen to live to that age of ‘incapacitation.’

    The governor drove the drama to a new low in Lagos last week when at the parley between PDP governors, the media and civil society, he announced to all gathered that his mother aged 72 uses Pampers. What sort of character will subject his mother and family to such indignity and public humiliation? This was too much information for those gathered as the embarrassed giggling that followed his disclosure showed. Clearly, high office doesn’t automatically make a man classy!

    In his depiction of septuagenarians as useless Fayose risks turning a huge segment of the voting population against his chosen candidate. In most countries the elderly represent a powerful demographic that politicians court assiduously at election time.

    His disrespectful denigration of those 70 and above has not made Buhari less popular. Instead it will drive the offended in this age bracket to embrace one of their own. And PDP has ‘Mr. No Apology’ to thank for that.

  • PDP: Six weeks is not enough

    PDP: Six weeks is not enough

    In less than two weeks Nigerians would be voting in elections that may turn out to be a watershed in the country’s democratic development. Despite all the advantages of incumbency, a very strong possibility exists that an invigorated opposition could topple the ruling party for the first time ever.

    President Goodluck Jonathan says his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is too big and established to fail. The owners and operators of the tragic ocean-going vessel ‘The Titanic’ had similar notions of its invincibility before it sank like a stone in the Atlantic. The president might be privy to intelligence we don’t have, or perhaps this is just bluster to project a positive front even when things aren’t going the way you would like.

    The two main political parties have commissioned their own private polls and have a fair idea which way the wind is blowing. That notwithstanding, both sides would tell you in public that they would win handsomely.

    To further muddy the waters you have clerics who also say they know who will emerge winner. To give their claims credibility they boast that God let them in on the secret. There’s a little problem though: some say General Muhammadu Buhari would win, others insist Jonathan would prevail. One thing that’s not in dispute is that God is not the author of confusion. In another fortnight those who truly heard the Almighty and those who were just hearing things would be separated.

    For those who make no claims to prophetic or clairvoyant capabilities, there’s a common sense way to project what is about to happen to the nation’s power configuration. These informed observers understand our political behavior and can sense which of the leading contestants has a credible route to power judging by the way the electoral map is shaping.

    Of course, their projections cannot be foolproof being the works of men. There are also imponderables that may yet come into the mix over the next 12 days to throw all assumptions out of the window. However, for the sake of today’s column we must stick with what is known at this point.

    So what is not in dispute? This is the most bitterly contested election in a generation. The exchanges have quickly headed for the gutter. The feeble attempts at discussing policy have been drowned out by a slew of invective.

    Jonathan’s campaign has informed us that leading opposition figures have body odour and should be in jail for their supposed crimes. Cash-strapped television stations have lost their heads and broadcast potentially libelous smear documentaries just because they have to pay bills.

    First Lady Patience Jonathan – not one to sidestep a fight – declared her husband’s rival ‘brain-dead’ and suggested that Northerners breed like rabbits without caring how present and future almajiris would be fed. She added helpfully that her own people were not that way.

    We’ve heard – albeit without a shred of proof – that the All Progressives Congress (APC) splashed out all of N5 billion so that Buhari could stand in the spotlight at London’s Chatham House.

    Of course, the APC campaign are no innocents and have given as good as they have received. They have questioned the psychiatric health of the Jonathan campaign spokesman as well as his choice of leisurely diversions in the past. Among other choice insults their characterization of the president as ‘clueless’ might just be the mildest.

    This recourse to coarse abuse simply says one thing: people are not looking to be persuaded about whom to vote for anymore. Minds have been made up and there’s not much that either side can do now to convert voters in a significant manner as to swing the direction of the election from what it would have been had it held as scheduled on February 14.

    Nothing has happened in the last five weeks since the polls were shifted that can be classified as game-changing. Rather all that has unfolded has hardened positions and attitudes. Take the smear documentaries against Buhari and former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Tinubu.

    The airing of the videos didn’t reveal allegations or accusations that were not already in the public domain. Before they were broadcast there was advance warning that the ruling party was considering the nuclear option. That fact conditioned how many received it.

    For PDP supporters who watched gleefully and shared same online, the recordings merely preached to the converted. On the other hand they only served to incense APC supporters who felt that rules for political broadcasts were being blatantly violated while so-called regulators of the industry kept disgracefully mute.

    The purpose of the documentaries was to destroy the image of the APC leaders and turn voters against the party. The hope was that after viewing them, Jonathan and his PDP would smell like roses compared to the opposition. That hasn’t happened.

    Where the president and his supporters miscalculate is that they don’t understand the depth of feeling of those who have turned against the ruling party. Demonising Tinubu isn’t going to make the typical APC supporter love Buhari less. Calling the general names hasn’t turned his admirers to deserters because they are in love with him – and love is blind.

    I am equally mystified as to why Jonathan and the PDP think that the gains of the military campaign in the North-East will shift the electoral equation in any significant way before March 28. The perception of the president as not being up to the job transcends his handling of the insurgency – although that has been a major contributor.

    The dampener for Jonathan is that many can see the desperate attempt to manipulate the military success for short term political gain, and they are unmoved. What has been achieved over the last four weeks doesn’t obliterate the memory of five years of unrelenting bloodshed and traumatisation of the North-East. The contributions of our neighbours are no big secret and that vitiates the degree to which the president can claim credit.

    I am amused when PDP and the military get worked up at the lack of outpouring of love and affection from the public for their efforts. You don’t have to browbeat people to make them express what they don’t feel. When the Cameroonians called a demonstration in support of their troops, the response was massive. When Nigerian government officials and their spouses tried the same thing in Abuja, the response was underwhelming.

    In anger sponsored agents embarked on picketing selected offices of newspapers in Abuja. But they just don’t get it: you can’t decree affection. The moment the government chose to politicise the military’s actions they took it out of the realm of the patriotic and made it partisan.

    Again, by jumping legs first into the polarised political atmosphere and forcing through the polls postponement, the military turned many Nigerians against the institution as they were perceived as being too willing to do the partisan bidding of the ruling party.

    That perception that the armed forces had been sucked to deep into terrain they shouldn’t be found in was what Lt. General Martin Agwai (retd) erstwhile boss of SURE-P harped on at former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s 78th birthday celebration. For his troubles he was kicked out of his job.

    Clearly, the military’s victory over Boko Haram in the North-East is not what is resonating with voters in the South-South, South-West, South-East, North-Central and North-West. If it was so important to them there would have been enthusiastic and spontaneous celebrations of the successes. Insurgents being chased out of Bama or Baga won’t be the reason many would vote for Buhari or Jonathan. The insurgency would count in the North-East but not in the way the PDP campaign is hoping.

    Perhaps the clearest indicator of how the presidential contest of 2015 is tilting lies in the body language of the two main candidates and their campaigns. The PDP campaign projects a defensive air. The president looks stressed and disturbed. Each new day there’s a new embarrassing story like the Nigeria-Morocco diplomatic fiasco or the First Lady putting her foot in her mouth.

    Each time the PDP presidential campaign makes some new outlandish claim like blaming the opposition for the recent fuel scarcity they come across having lost the plot.

    For Buhari, it has been a remarkable turnaround from the candidate who ran on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) four years. He may not be the perfect candidate but he has handled himself with calm assurance this time around, and he has also learnt to play politics better. That is evident in the remarkable cohesion that his patchwork coalition of opposition parties has shown going into the elections.

    In the weeks leading to his 1992 loss to the then Democratic Party challenger Bill Clinton, the air around former United States President George Bush Snr. and his Republican Party was decidedly gloomy. It is akin to what surrounds the PDP.

    When the party’s governors insist Jonathan would win – and tell voters to ignore the ‘APC propaganda’, they are simply reinforcing the notion that the other side is now dominant. Clearly, six weeks isn’t enough to undo the damage of six years.

  • Patience Jonathan and the flamethrowers

    Patience Jonathan and the flamethrowers

    Patience Jonathan and the PDP’s army of flamethrowers are a gift to APC. By reducing the 2015 presidential campaign to a contest of who can hurl the coarsest insults they do more damage to their principal than to their intended targets.

    A few days ago caught up in the euphoria of campaigning, the First Lady declared General Buhari ‘brain-dead’. In another outing earlier she directed party’s supporters to stone anyone crying ‘change’ – the opposition slogan. She then spiced things up by declaring that in her part of the world men don’t produce more children than they can cater for – a jibe at the army of almajiris who have become her husband’s pet project.

    Before she got the rush of blood to the head, the PDP presidential campaign dove into the gutter by calling opposition leading lights unprintable names. One such raging press statements described their body odour and bad breath. These clearly are the issues that PDP believes  would make voter prefer Jonathan  to Buhari: that the opposition candidate’s associates smell badly!

    I used to think there’s method to madness but not any longer. The more I observe the ongoing meltdown in the PDP presidential campaign, the more I am mystified at what has become of the party’s famed election-winning machinery. How is it possible that a party which triumphed at four general elections since 1999 could be putting such a chaotic show?

    How do these insults win votes for Jonathan and the PDP? When Mrs. Jonathan denigrates northerners for producing children they cannot cater for, is she suggesting that the problem doesn’t exist down south? When she calls a very popular northern political leader ‘brain-dead’, how does that help her husband across the region?

    With their gross name-calling, Mrs. Jonathan and the others have inserted themselves front and centre of the campaign. They have become the focus of attention. It’s just three weeks to the elections and precious time that should be spent selling her husband is being used to advertise  unpleasant  individuals the public would contend with if Jonathan returns for four more years.

    How can people who claim to be religious be spewing such hatred ? What sections of the Bible or Quran encourage such vile abuse and lying in the name of politics?

    Those who are so proud of their ability to abuse others should know that what they consider an endowment isn’t so ennobling. It defines them more as base persons than those they seek to tear down. It reflects badly on the president when his spouse is indecorously abusing the much older Buhari who also happens to be a former Head of State. People only need to compare her conduct to Aisha Buhari’s and draw their conclusions.

  • Jonathan, the photo op ‘General’

    Jonathan, the photo op ‘General’

    Four weeks ago, President Goodluck Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), using the service chiefs forced Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, into acquiescing to a six-week postponement of elections that the entire country had been primed for.

    The military ostensibly needed the time to finish off Boko Haram – or at the very least degrade its fighting capabilities. So they fired off a missive to Jega informing him they would be unavailable for middling assignments like general elections. Boxed into a corner, the commission did the pragmatic thing rather than expose its ad-hoc staff and potential voters to unknown hazards.

    But it was also a badly kept secret that the ruling party desperately needed breathing space to stave off what would have been a St. Valentine’s Day electoral massacre had the polls gone ahead on February 14 as scheduled.

    So, while the army would be busy bruising the head of the insurgents in the North East, the PDP would take the six-week breather to equally degrade the surging momentum of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari.

    In that time, the ruling party hoped its monetary advantage would come to tell as the opposition depleted its resources. It would have more time to destroy the credibility of INEC and its leadership as well as besmirch the reputation of APC’s leading lights through negative advertising. But more importantly, it hoped that positive spin-off from a successful military campaign against the insurgents would work to the advantage of the incumbent.

    Everything that has happened since the fateful night of February 7 when a doleful Jega announced the movement of the polls, confirms that the postponement was forced through to buy time for Jonathan and PDP. So have their chances been dramatically improved over the last four weeks?

    It’s been a long time since the nation enjoyed any measure of sustained success against the insurgents. The gains achieved in the military campaign in the North-East, in conjunction with multinational support from Chad and Cameroon, are heartening. Boko Haram have been forced out of places like Baga, Mubi and Monguno, and for the first time in a long while they are the ones turning tail and running.

    That marks out the liberation of territories as the signal achievement of the last month. It lines up with the expectations of the administration.

    But any expectations that Jonathan and his party would not seek to make political capital out of the military gains were swiftly dispelled when barely days after the battles the president showed up in fatigues on the frontline for photo opportunities. The victories quickly became PDP’s property and not a national achievement to be owned by the whole country and its people.

    Given that these gains happened on his watch, no one can restrain him from dashing to claim credit. But he should also be ready to take responsibility for allowing the mess to fester to the point that a huge chunk of sovereign Nigerian territory was seized by the insurgents. If he wants to take credit for cleaning up a mess that developed under him, he’s welcome.

    However, he must understand that it is the electorate who would determine whether he deserves any credit for what the military has accomplished so far. As for me, I am sufficiently impressed with the speed with which Jonathan sewed his Nollywood General’s uniform.

    If only he had acted with such alacrity in confronting the insurgency as it evolved over the last five years, we may not be where we are today. Did 15,000 have to die, did millions have to become Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), or tens of thousands become refugees in Cameroun? Did the rural economy and local governance structures of the North-East need to be devastated before the Nigerian state could be roused from its slumber? And for this the president is proudly strutting around with a walking stick!

    All the election-focused frontline photo shoots cannot obliterate the fact that the president had all of five years to do the needful, but he dithered at critical points.

    How can we forget that years ago when many were canvassing the very tough action that is now being taken, Jonathan was against dealing with Boko Haram harshly because he didn’t believe we should unleash the military against ‘our own people’? What is he doing now?

    How can we forget that when in 2012 the United States wanted to declare the sect a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) in order to target and cut off its financial supply, this administration sent very senior officials to the State Department to lobby strenuously against the move? They found listening ears in the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

    At that point, a delegation of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) led by its president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, fed up with its members being murdered by Boko Haram arrived Washington to push for FTO designation and tougher measures against the insurgents. Imagine their shock when they found officials of their own government lobbying furiously for the very opposite.

    Today, Jonathan and his party put the gains of the military down to the arrival of recently purchased armaments. The president has been accusing all his predecessors of not equipping the armed forces. At a campaign stop in Lagos not too long ago he alleged that Buhari didn’t buy a single rifle for the military when he was Head of State.

    What he was inferring was that the military were not properly equipped. Now it is fashionable to admit the truth in order to project the image of ‘the great armourer’ of the Nigerian military. But anyone who has not been afflicted by political amnesia would recall that Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, said the same thing eons ago. For having the temerity to suggest that the insurgents were better armed than our soldiers, the Presidency unleashed a barrage of verbal attacks against him.

    How many recall that at some point the wives of a group of soldiers posted to the frontline staged an embarrassing public protest insisting that their spouses wouldn’t move an inch unless they were properly equipped?

    How many lives were lost before the president finally accepted that truly our soldiers were outgunned? Today, the president sends delegations to go and appease the parents of the Chibok girls. This is the same man who with his wife made public statements claiming that the abductions never happened! In one of the lowest points of the Jonathan tenure, the First Lady wept theatrically and claimed that the whole episode was the work of her husband’s political foes.

    The truth is that the Jonathans don’t do empathy very well. Today, the president is posturing as the champion of communities like Baga. But many will recall that when news first broke that Boko Haram had massacred an unprecedented 2000 persons in the community, not a peep was heard from the Presidency. Instead, Jonathan was busy sending condolence messages to the people of France over the killing of 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine!

    If he truly loved the military he would not have waited until the election week to do what he claims his predecessors left undone. People are not fooled. They can tell that this love-in with the armed forces is election-flavoured. It is just too late in the day to start to show leadership in this critical area.

    A tired old cliché says that the hood does not make the monk. It is action, not a well-cut uniform, that makes a credible Commander-in-Chief. When President Barack Obama signed off on the execution of Osama bin Ladin he didn’t need to dress up like General Norman Shwarzkopf of the Iraqi Desert Storm war fame.

    It is going to take more than the two-week military offensive in the North-East to alter perceptions about Jonathan’s performance as it concerns insecurity. Voters are going to be asking themselves: between General Buhari and ‘General’ Jonathan who will do a better job in guaranteeing national security? You are that voter: decide and vote wisely!

  • How Jega became the devil

    How Jega became the devil

    If you are looking for evidence of disarray within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ranks, look no further than the mixed signals it is sending over how it views its newest bête noire – chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega.

    Party chairman, Adamu Muazu, now says the ruling party has absolute confidence in Jega’s ability to organise free and fair elections. Coming against the backdrop of the demonisation of the man by leading members of PDP – like head of the Presidential Campaign Council, Ahmadu Ali, spokesman, Femi Fani-Kayode and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, this conciliatory statement was a tad suspicious.

    It was reminiscent of the public show of support that some owners of struggling English Premier League clubs often extend to their embattled managers. Perhaps it was to lull the unsuspecting fellows into a false sense of security. More often than not, days after receiving the dreaded vote of confidence they get the sack.

    Predictably, Muazu was calling Jega a liar twenty four hours later when he received a delegation of Africa Union (AU) election observers in Abuja.

    One of the buzzwords of the Goodluck Jonathan administration is ‘transformation.’ After the theatrics of the last fortnight, I now concede that PDP is truly the party of ‘uncommon transformation’. In a matter of weeks they have managed to convince themselves – only – that the mild-mannered Jega is a devil with two horns.

    How this dramatic transformation has come about remains a mystery. But the relationship has so deteriorated that Clark and his group not only demanded the INEC chief’s resignation but also his arrest. Some so-called ‘Goodluck Jonathan Lagos Grassroots’ group has been placing full-page advertisements in newspapers listing what it considers evidence of the electoral umpire’s bias. The adverts usually end with an earnest prayer or wish for his resignation.

    This is the same man that supervised the enthronement of Jonathan as president in 2011 even when his chief rival, Muhammadu Buhari, was crying that the polls were rigged.

    He is the same fellow who oversaw the Ekiti State 2014 governorship polls. When Fayose ‘defeated’ Fayemi the commission was lauded even when only 476,870 prospective voters, representing 64.98 percent were eligible to vote in the exercise.

    INEC in the state received 732,166 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) for distribution but only 476,870 were collected. Out of this, approximately 65% that were eligible voters even less – 360, 455 – not up to 50% of those on the roll, took up the option of exercising their rights. PDP didn’t quibble about statistics back then; they joyfully claimed ‘victory’.

    Now the party’s Presidential Campaign Organisation is demanding 100% PVC distribution as the basis for assessing INEC’s success or failure. In 2014 in Ekiti, 65% was wonderful, in 2015 that level of card release has become not only unacceptable; it is evidence of Jega’s partiality.

    Although he has firmly stated that the polls earlier slated for February were shifted on the strength of a letter written to him by Service Chiefs demanding a six-week postponement, the ruling party insists on pushing its version of events that it was also down to the commission not being prepared.

    Well, PDP got its postponement, but it harvested widespread condemnation for forcing it through at gunpoint. Hell hath no fury like a drowning incumbent or party – especially when handed a pyrrhic victory. The speed with which the military high command rushed out its pledge of ‘neutrality’ after the contentious shift, underscores how damaging the military’s meddling has been for the powers-that-be.

    Jega would have been crowned with a halo by now if only he had sung from the ruling party’s smeared hymn sheet and accepted his commission was unprepared. Unfortunately, the professor doesn’t do political karaoke!

    In the hands of the PDP, the INEC boss has now been conferred with a special talent for ubiquity that only a Nigerian equivalent of the Scarlet Pimpernel can manage. He’s been seen by ruling party agents – here, there and everywhere. Today, when he isn’t holding meetings with the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), he is closeted with All Progressives Congress (APC) top shots in the agreeable environs of Dubai to plot the best way to ease Buhari into Aso Rock. That is according to the spooks at Legacy House.

    He has, according to PDP, come up with a scheme that has ensured that PVCs were distributed in such a way that they all landed in APC strongholds. Only a ‘naughty’ professor could have pulled that off.

    As though his litany of sins were not enough to send him on pre-retirement leave immediately, Jega has suddenly developed a suspicious fondness for technology. It is enough to infuriate any patriot who’s not a supporter of the opposition.

    Why can’t we return to the perfect 2011 TVCs since many haven’t received Temporary Voters Cards (TVCs), the PDP has asked? Never mind that only PVCs were used in the Osun and Ekiti elections and no one asked for Jega and his team to be strung up on trees.

    And what is this strange device called the card reader which would require a team of nuclear scientists from NASA to test properly before they can be used by dim witted Nigerian voters? The fact that we all use ATM machines, debit and credit cards, is no reason to burden us with such sophisticated things as PVCs. Truly, Jega must be a devilish alien sent to cause confusion in Nigeria.

    But hang on for a minute. Didn’t Jonathan promise at his Lagos rally that he was now going to fight corruption with technology? His team was probably tuned to a different frequency. If our great leader is now a convert to technology, why are his people still unbelievers – rooted in the dark ages?

    Indeed, Jonathan has even boasted that it was under his watch that Nigerians first started bothering about voters’ card. Before him, I suspect, voters were probably content with identifying themselves using palm fronds. Truly, a president with many firsts!

    In the past, opposition parties were usually the ones to moan about the partiality and incompetence of INEC and its predecessors. For the first time ever a government in power is rolling out its entire machinery to demonise and destroy the electoral arbiter. For me, it is a sign that the commission’s leadership is inching in the direction of impartiality.

    When the elections finally hold on March 28 and April 11, they will not be perfect. There would be much for all sides to criticise. The losers in this bitter contest are bound to end up in court. However, I find it interesting that PDP is setting such standards for INEC before it would accept the results of the coming polls.

    Among other things, it is demanding that every registered voter must have a PVC – even those who refuse to make the effort to go and pick up theirs; every card reader must be proven to be functioning; better still, let’s go back to TVCs; it even wants to get into the commission’s internal administrative arrangements to ensure that APC sympathisers are not in the majority!

    What is sauce for Jega should be sauce for Jonathan. Perhaps we should apply the same high standards set for INEC to assess the PDP’s presidential candidate. Before he can be reelected Nigerians want 24 hour electricity, perfectly tarred federal roads in cities and nicely-finished inter-state highways.

    We also demand the return of all Nigerian territories seized by insurgents – in other words, the country as Jonathan received it in 2011; the return of the abducted Chibok girls unharmed; pipe borne water; health care in every hamlet, a 10% drop in crime rate; single-digit inflation rate; single-digit unemployment rate etc – just to mention a few things on our shopping list. Good luck Jonathan!