Category: Festus Eriye

In the last few months popular musician, Seun Kuti, son of afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, has been in the news for reasons far removed from music.

Early this year he was caught up in a social media slanging match with Peter Okoye of the pop group P-Square for having the audacity to suggest that Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, was unlikely to win the elections because he was an opportunist.

His remarks drew the ire of Okoye who had installed himself as some sort of vigilante calling out anyone in the entertainment community who had less than laudatory things to say about Obi, or who stated a preference for the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Just as that incident was receding in our memory, we find Seun thrust into our faces again over an unseemly altercation with a policeman captured on video. Pushing and shoving would be capped with a slap across the face.

Once the footage went viral, Inspector General of Police, Alkali Baba, jumped into the fray, ordering the musician’s arrest for serious assault. Kuti has since been granted bail by the magistrate court, but had before then been walked through the humiliating process of being handcuffed and having his mugshot taken.

The case is ongoing in court so I can’t really go into the merits. But the episode has raised several interesting talking points. Firstly, the outrage has been remarkable in its near totality. In a country which at times seems like it has lost all sense of what is right or wrong, it was refreshing to see people from all ages and across ethnic and political divides agree that slapping a cop isn’t the wisest thing to do – your renown and celebrity notwithstanding.

But those who know a bit about the famous Ransome-Kuti family wouldn’t be too surprised that the singer has gotten himself into hot water with the authorities. Seun has shown that he’s the true son of his father who had scant respect for the establishment. While I don’t recall any instance of him striking a cop, Fela, in his heyday, had withering contempt for the police and soldiers. When he was not skewering them for their brutality, he was mocking their corruption and cluelessness.

He was as fearless as they came, taunting the military for their robotic devotion to command and obedience in his afrobeat classic ‘Zombie.’ In another of his inimitable hits, he sang ‘uniform na cloth na tailor dey sew am’; a defiant declaration that he couldn’t be intimidated by anyone just because they were in some sort of fatigues.

Fela was a giant and he left a challenging legacy. His children would struggle to measure up, chart paths of their own or end up as poor imitations of the old icon. So far, they haven’t done too badly in their musical careers, but there would only be one Fela – artistically or for notoriety.

I am sure Seun wasn’t looking for attention when he let fly with a slap to the policeman’s face. This was road rage defined and the finer details of the trigger would become clearer if this trial proceeds further. Irrespective of the justification, he has admitted to striking a cop and that would be regarded as outrageous in most societies.

So what can we take away from the widespread condemnation that his action has attracted? Has the Nigerian Police Force suddenly become so beloved that people are horrified someone could deign to slap one of them? Are Nigerians now so respectful of institutions they can’t stand to see them rubbished in such a way? Could some of the outrage be down to gloating by those who were not too thrilled by his recent political interventions?

Let’s be clear. I totally condemn any attack on policemen or their facilities. Any society that wants to progress must have law and order. It must treat those charged with enforcement with utmost respect and dignity.

But like anyone accused of any crime, we must presume the singer is innocent until the court convicts him – irrespective of what we’ve seen in the viral video.

That said, this episode affords us another opportunity to look at the awkward relationship between the police and the larger populace. A little over two years ago, the nation was rocked by the #EndSARS protests against police brutality. Although there was much sympathy for youths who were at the receiving end of abuse and profiling, the demonstrations would spiral out of control with the killing of policemen, burning of stations and other public facilities, jailbreaks, blocking of major road arteries and near breakdown of law and order.

Several panels of inquiry set up by state governments in the aftermath of the uprising have made multimillion naira awards to compensate several victims of brutality who were able to prove their case. In the course of hearings Nigerians heard bloodcurdling testimonies of torture and abuse that led many to lose their limbs; all of these perpetrated by those supposed to protect them.

It is understandable why the police would want to hype the Seun slap into some sort of high crime. They wouldn’t want other celebrities, powerful, influential or rich people to think it is an example they can copy.

However, do the Nigerian police who are so miffed by the musician’s action ever indulge in similar slapping assaults – where the recipient cheeks are those of ordinary, powerless citizens? They do so all the time, but because we have come to accept that as standard conduct on their part, you don’t get the same sort of outrage that has attended Kuti’s momentary loss of self control.

It doesn’t appear as if a significant segment of the Force drew any enduring lessons from the #EndSARS episode. A few recent examples confirm this. In March, the Delta State Police Command announced the arrest of five officers – four male and one female – who had been captured on video brutalising a helpless woman. In the viral footage the victim was stripped naked and they were seen binding her hands behind her back.

Early in April this year, the Rivers State Police Command arrested one of its officers who had also been caught on video flogging and slapping a young man by the roadside over an unstated offence. The victim was humiliated before his wife who watched helplessly as her husband took the beating.

In yet another outrageous incident in April, a young businessman was shot dead by a policeman in Asaba after he refused to part with N100 bribe. The list of such incidents in recent times is as long as the arm.

While it is proper to teach people to respect and cooperate with law enforcement officers at all times, the police also need to clean up their act. The uniform they wear is a public trust. The arms they bear are paid for by tax payers who have rights. They are to serve them, not terrorise, oppress or intimidate them. That is the only to get people to treat cops with anything that approximates affection or appreciation.

Many years ago, in a bid to build a connection with the people, the Force came up with the slogan ‘The Police is your friend.’ If only they can subject this statement to more up-to-date polling. The results will confirm how desperately the institution needs to reform so that people will truly believe they are on their side.

We live in ugly times. A generation of Nigerians have come to adulthood without any memory of what it was like to have experienced the ‘good times’ in this country: a period when the naira was at par with the dollar, when our tertiary institutions rated against the best in the world, when we were so flush with petro-dollars and didn’t know what to do with the cash, so we threw a global party for black people called FESTAC.

All that many Nigerians under 40 know is a nation in decline, one that stubbornly refuses to fulfil its potential in the hands of largely mediocre leaders. As we stumbled from one era of disappointment to another, our people became programmed to expect the worst. Today, we have one of the most cynical populations on earth; the product a widening distance between the governors and the governed.

As Bola Ahmed Tinubu prepares to take the presidency on May 29, he would be doing so against the backdrop of a bitter campaign where ethnicity and religion were key factors. He becomes leader in an environment where people have lost all sense of what normal political contestation involves.

For many, it is only fair if they are winners. Hate and bloody mindedness have eclipsed all other noble values. On social media, savagery – interpreted as how nasty and obnoxious you can be to another person in an ongoing conversation – is celebrated. People would rather believe and deploy fake news if it suits their cause. What a time for anyone to take over as Nigeria’s president!

Tinubu will be inheriting some of the challenges that outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari promised to tackle when he took power eight years ago – economy and insecurity precisely. To his credit, the incumbent has largely destroyed the threat which the Boko Haram insurgency posed. But under his watch kidnapping, banditry and mass killings by herders assumed a scary dimension.

In 2015, as candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) he tongue-lashed Goodluck Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration for woeful economic management that saw the dollar to naira exchange rate verging on N200 to one. In the last one year there were times when it appeared like our currency would breach the N1,000 to the dollar barrier.

No fair-minded commentator can assess Buhari’s record without taking into account the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the unscripted Russian invasion of Ukraine. But if we accept that these were events outside anyone’s control, the same cannot be said of the own goal that the naira redesign policy was. In the annals of cockups, this definitely ranks as a prize winner. No one may be able to put a proper cost to the devastation done small businesses by one instance of policy confusion. The emotional trauma and humiliation suffered by many is hard to describe, not mention that some actually lost their lives because of the actions of the Central Bank.

At some point at the height of the cash crunch and petrol scarcity in January and February, it appeared that the nation was at breaking point. But people gritted their teeth because they could see the finishing line and their hope was that a new administration could offer different solutions.

Now, a clear winner has emerged and it doesn’t matter if his victory is being contested at the tribunal. Both supporters and those whose didn’t vote for him are waiting to see what difference Tinubu would make.

Therefore, one of the earliest tests that could ultimately shape his presidency is how well he manages the burden of expectations. Put bluntly, a country in dire straits, is expecting deliverance in a hurry. That tells me quickly that the new president may not get anything like the traditional honeymoon period.

Conventionally, new leaders are afforded that period of anywhere between three and six months where friends and foes treat them gently and with courtesy, allowing them bed down to the task they’ve been handed. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. Many of his embittered political foes who have been on a losing streak since 2015 would be on the attack from day one.

Those who have refused to accept the verdict of voters, the counting of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and have served notice that any verdict of the courts that’s not in their favour wouldn’t be acceptable, would remain hostile. The only option is for Tinubu to hit the ground running and not stumble.

The challenge is that he’s being handed an in-tray of problems for which there are no quick fixes. That’s where he urgently needs to start managing expectations. People are quick to point to the impact and successes of his tenure as Lagos State governor over eight years. But not many remember that in his first few months in office, while he was sorting out the financing for his programmes, he was harshly criticised. But once he resolved the cash end things began moving smoothly.

One of the toughest decisions awaiting him is the removal of the fuel subsidy. There’s a national consensus that Nigeria can no longer afford it. The sticking point is when to do it and how to go about it. Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, predicted recently that without ending the subsidies government would have to resort to printing money in order to pay its workers.

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) agrees that the waste should end but only when four local refineries have been fixed. The prospect of that happening in the short term is remote. The much waited Dangote Refinery would be inaugurated on May 22, a mere week to the onset of the new administration. It remains to be seen whether it alone can mediate the anticipated brutal effect of the removal.

Tinubu has vowed to remove the subsidy irrespective of the anticipated opposition from Labour and civil society groups. With budgetary allocation for it ending in June, he may need to consider whether his first business in the saddle would be to manage social upheaval with unpredictable consequences, or kick the can a few months down the road, while he steadies himself at the controls.

Another front on which the president may find himself being quickly tested is insecurity. Bandits, kidnappers and other crime entrepreneurs would want to see if the new leader is a soft touch or someone to be feared. He needs to deliver some quick wins in this area to send out the right signals to those concerned and sustain the feel good factor for his government.

Tinubu spoke last week of his intention to follow the example of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. One of the key legacies of his short reign was that he brought calm to the oil bearing Niger Delta with his peace deal with the militants. This was something that all of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s machismo couldn’t achieve. In much the same way, Buhari’s successor must deliver creative solutions that allows hapless rural dwellers return to their farms without the fear of attacks and quickly puts kidnappers on notice that it won’t be business as usual.

Just as important as these challenges is the question of perception management. The new president has been on the receiving end of vicious attacks on social media for years. He says he doesn’t care what people say about him in that rough and ready terrain. But he should care. Millions of people who don’t patronise the more restrained traditional media have their world view and perceptions about public figures shaped by what they gobble up on social media. If he’s to succeed and strike the right rapport with those he governs, he needs to take the fight to those currently defining him negatively – unchallenged – every day.

If the 2023 presidential election were to be held tomorrow these are the issues that would determine the outcome: religion, ethnicity, hate speech, fake news, among others. They would most likely still be casting a long shadow in six months when actual polling would happen.

Of the lot, religion stands out at this moment for the heat it has generated. Many had hoped the election would be about critical issues confronting the country, how well the government has handled them, and what the candidates are offering to improve the situation.

It is fascinating watching how even those who argue that the contest should be a referendum on the performance of Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, are orchestrating the politics of piety hoping it becomes a winning formula.

The ruling party stirred controversy with the Muslim-Muslim ticket that it has consistently argued is only a strategy to win votes, rather than an assault on the Christian faith and its interests. But if it hoped it’s action would be viewed in the same light as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) picking another Northerner to succeed one who would have served eight years in office, it was mistaken.

Those who think APC made error are not content to wait till February 2023 to punish it for its miscalculation. Rather, they have whipped up this huge brouhaha to discredit the Bola Tinubu-Kashim Shettima ticket.

Especially shocking is the very frontal intervention of certain Christian leaders in the debate. Even before the selection was made, they had started making ominous threats. Others have since followed up with ecclesiastical edicts to their followers on who to vote for and who not to support.

If, indeed, APC has made a historical error that supposedly hurts one religion’s interests, the way some of these leaders have gone about their opposition may well turn out to be a grievous mistake on the same level. To put it delicately, many haven’t acted with wisdom.

They have carried on as though the voting population are entirely Christians who will be mobilised to defeat those who have defied them. But one of the unintended consequences of their hysteria is to create a them-versus-us atmosphere.

Just as they can mobilise their followers, Muslims across the divide can do the same – creating a dangerous contest for religious supremacy in an already unstable polity. Who needs that given the history of sectarian conflict in parts of the country?

The clerics stoking the fires with their fiery sermons need to reflect on the likely outcome of their adventure, especially when the obedience (apologies to Peter Obi supporters) of their followers isn’t guaranteed.

Familiarity with the Scriptures shows that human beings don’t even obey God all the time. In fact, the vast majority daily fall over themselves to disobey the Almighty. That’s why at every point in time there are more sinners than saints.

A little humility would help these excitable clerics realise that despite their huffing and puffing, there’s no guarantee all Christians would vote for candidates of their faith, or Muslims only for those who share their beliefs.

Indeed, if polling units were erected next to the pulpit in some worship centres, the leaders would be astonished to discover how their faithful followers have voted.

If the current raging over faith balance is about exercising influence, then we need to learn from the Americans whose presidential system of government we copied.

In the US, it’s often said that the president’s closest adviser is his spouse. She’s the one he sees last each day and first thing in the morning. After supposedly powerful courtiers might have made their case in the office, she has the ability to turn their counsel upside down on the pillow next to him.

That country’s history is replete with famous and very influential First Ladies – from Eleanor Roosevelt, to the likes of Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. 

Given that her husband, Franklin, lost use of his legs due to paralytic illness, Eleanor began giving public speeches and appearing at campaign events on his behalf. Mrs. Carter was just as controversial as she sat in on Cabinet meetings and also served as an envoy abroad.

When Bill Clinton wanted to launch a tenure-defining healthcare initiative in his first term, it was his wife Hillary he asked to head the committee to push its passage through Congress. She was also actively involved in vetting candidates for political appointments.

This isn’t to advocate an intrusive First Ladyship in Nigeria given the constitutional ambiguity over the role. However, if the current hyperventilation over the fact that the APC’s presidential running mate is a Muslim like his principal is about exercising influence and power, we must not dismiss as irrelevant the fact that Tinubu’s wife, is a pastor. What could be more powerful for Christians than having one of their own in the bedroom of the president?

Under our constitution, the Vice President is powerful simply because he automatically takes over if the incumbent dies in office. Beyond that, he’s only as relevant as his boss wants him to be. In the Fourth Republic we’ve seen a couple reduced to just drinking tea and opening conferences after falling out with the president.

Playing on fear and ignorance, some have argued that the same-faith ticket is a vehicle for Islamisation of the country. But those who seek comfort in the Muslim-Christian ticket should explain how it furthers their religion’s interest when the presidential candidate is from a different faith.

If this is truly about contending for one’s faith, then we should ask how balancing a political ticket enhances the cause of the gospel. In all the parties you won’t find anything beyond hazy commitments to upholding the right of citizens to freedom of worship.

In reality, three of the most notable presidential candidates are Muslim. Their antecedents should provide comfort or discomfiture for those who are worried about any sort of religious conspiracy. Some have pointed out that Tinubu who some now wish to ascribe some sort of evil agenda to hasn’t forced his wife to abandon her faith. The same cannot be said of his rival Atiku, two of whose wives converted to Islam and took new names.

In the long run, fanning the fires of religious hysteria doesn’t help those doing so. They stand in grave danger of getting burnt by the fallout.

What is really tragic is how this electoral cycle is being wasted on identity politics when it should be about discussing inflation, unemployment, a ballooning population and its implications, healthcare, infrastructure, insecurity and so much more.

Another thing to watch for is how fake news and hate speech are becoming factors as election day draws nearer. More and more, I am reminded of how former US President Donald Trump rose to power. At the onset the outlandish reality star and wheeler-dealer was viewed as something of a joke by Republican Party grandees.

But he and his campaign showed that there was no truth they could not twist. As they casually deployed alternative facts they found a large pool of ignorant Americans ready to lap up anything spewed out by the charismatic politician. Many who ended up voting for him did so after gobbling up the falsehood he circulated, especially when it connected with their prejudices.

In today’s Nigeria, social media has become a cesspool of lies which the ignorant lap up as fact. Videos are doctored, images are photoshopped to project victims in unflattering light. Quotes are attributed to individuals who never made such statements.

Those who share these things are not concerned about consequences when the truth eventually comes to light. They are solely driven by hate, not a need to engage in reasonable discussion. You only need to venture into the comment sections to understand how deep the vein of ethnic and religious hatred is.

Unfortunately, many pushing these things are young people who don’t want their notions and assumptions challenged. It’s their way or the highway. It is the mindset of the bully and dictator that has taken hold of those you would describe as Nigeria’s future. What a scary cocktail we’re toying with: intolerance and misbegotten religious zeal.

• This article was originally published in The Nation on July 26, 2022.

Most leaders on the verge of leaving office are preoccupied with matters of legacy; fretting about how history would remember them. They want their time and deeds to be painted in brilliant colours, rendered in laudatory prose. I am sure President Muhammadu Buhari is no different.

For a man who ran unsuccessfully for president thrice and each time contested his loss to the highest court based on the belief he was rigged out, the desire to transform the way elections are run in Nigeria became something of an obsession. I am sure in the 2023 general elections he saw an opportunity to deliver the freest and fairest polls ever.

From 2015 when he came into office to now, he superintended the contested 2019 polls and many off-season elections at state level. The reviews of those exercises have been mixed. Despite the best efforts of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), each poll threw up the same old stories about rigging, violence, technical and logistics failings.

Although the government has been quick to claim credit for improvements in gubernatorial elections in Anambra, Ekiti and Osun, each of these supposedly better-run polls still manifested age-old blights associated with voting in Nigeria.

In the last two to three years, as the nation anticipated the next general elections, there was a seeming political consensus on the need to improve. This led to the amendment of the Electoral Act which introduced innovations that were supposed to ensure the people’s votes count. The new law introduced limits to what individuals and parties could spend in the quest for office. So much noise was made about stamping out vote-buying.

So while the National Assembly led the efforts to amend the laws, Buhari clearly had his own trump card stashed away in the deep recesses of his babanriga. It was the naira redesign to neutralise powerful politicians who allegedly had been building up a frightening war chest to prevail in the contest for office.

As the rollout of the policy ran into hitches, the government tried its best to force the bitter pill down our collective throats – never mind that we were gagging. This was the magical solution for money laundering and terror financing, as well as the best way to demonetise the electoral process. For many, however, the suspicion was that it was political – targeted at truncating the ambitions of one or two individuals.

Their position was that it was unthinkable that a party in power would unleash a poorly planned and executed policy in an election season. If it planned to win it would do the opposite.

In the end, vote buying wasn’t eliminated. Rather the buyers became more creative in the absence of their preferred currency. The unintended consequences came in cascades. Turnout hit an abysmal all-time low across the country because of disenchantment on the part of a populace frustrated by inability to access their funds. No one can estimate how many small scale businesses which are largely cash dependent folded over the past three months. And, horror of horrors, people were reduced to buying cash for a fee.

If it was just a case of suffering it might have been bearable. But it was more. This calamitous policy killed people. Just a few examples. There was a viral report of a man who deposited his critically ill wife in hospital and dashed to bank to hustle for cash. By the time he returned empty handed, she had bled to death.

A radio presenter in Ibadan who chose to trek to work because of lack of cash, slumped and died along the way. A tragic collision between a Lagos BRT bus and a train claimed seven lives. The father of one the victims said she hardly ever used the bus, but chose to do so that day because she only had N200 on her.

The cruel irony of the new naira fiasco is that it was the product of the government of man whose political journey has been driven by an uncommon connection with the talakawa or masses. Their guttural cries of ‘Sai Baba’ was the soundtrack that ushered Buhari into Aso Rock. Sadly, they were the ones mainly brutalised by the failed currency change scheme.

They were the ones camped from morning to night at bank premises waiting for cash that never came. They were the ones who stripped half naked in bank halls when their frustrations boiled over.

The naira swap was sold as a scheme that would revolutionise the economy. It hobbled it instead. The government regularly shares statistics of millions it claims to have pulled out of poverty. It would be interesting to know how many have been dumped back where they came from because of the initiative.

With the intervention of the Supreme Court, the policy is now dead on arrival. We are back to spending old notes that were supposed to disappear with the appearance of the new. After weeks of confusion and prevarication, none of the objectives were achieved. Instead, we are left with wreckage of thousands of small businesses, massive reversal of gains in the area of financial inclusion and huge losses for commercial banks.

One of the fallouts of Emefiele’s kamikaze policy is the report that banks are witnessing a shrinking in deposits as people scarred by the naira scarcity saga appeared to have taken to hoarding cash. Even the infamous new naira notes which we were assured by the CBN was in abundant supply have virtually vanished. So, what was the point of it all? Was this policy just an end in itself?

The damage done to the CBN as an institution is unquantifiable. A Central Bank is supposedly independent but this episode has shown that Emefiele was just a poodle who would not act or speak until he had received his marching orders from the Presidential Villa.

What happened a couple of weeks ago confirmed it. People woke up on a Sunday to read Anambra State Governor, Chukwumah Soludo, telling them of his conversation with the CBN governor who had disclosed that banks had been instructed to receive and pay out the old notes. Many who were desperate for good news took to sharing this on social media. But it was not official. By evening the CBN spokesman issued a statement saying the bank had not issued such instruction.

As pressure built up with the states set to file contempt charges against Emefiele and Malami on Tuesday, Buhari issued a statement at his Pontious Pilate best, washing his hands off the handling of the matter by Malami and Emefiele. Within minutes of the statement appearing on social media, the CBN rushed out its own statement authorising banks to obey the Supreme Court order. It was clear they were just waiting for clearance from some higher authority.

This episode is all too revealing of the distance between our leaders and their people. It is especially troubling when this disconnect is between a supposed lover of the downtrodden and the people. People living a hard scrabble existence expected their government to move fast to end their misery. They did nothing of the sort. When at the beginning of the crisis, APC governors went to see him to push for an urgent intervention, he asked for seven days to sort it. He finally took action of sorts ten days after. Unfortunately, those who had no money to eat needed immediate relief.

Even after the Supreme Court order on March 3, the government was ominously silent, with an air of defiance. There is every reason to believe that but for the threat of contempt charges which were to be entered, nothing would have been done.

Today, there is a measure of relief, but the pains people experience trying to access cash are by no means over. Let no one be fooled, the CBN only acted in the face of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) threat to shut down the country. Imagine if that sword wasn’t hanging over Emefiele, would he have cared?

I have heard different descriptions of how Nigerians were maltreated over the naira crisis, but none comes close to Prof Wole Soyinka’s intervention for exactitude. He accused the CBN Governor of being sadistic and committing crimes against humanity by reducing the populace to an unbelievable level of despondency. Many who went through hell in the last few weeks won’t argue with that assessment.

But that’s not the problem. In Nigeria, crimes hardly ever attract commensurate punishment. So they keep being repeated. Many public officials who have done things for which they would have been executed in places like China are living large and flaunting it in our faces.

After the disastrous collapse of his signature policy that led to deaths, Emefiele without shame clings to office. If he had any dignity he would have stepped down. Buhari isn’t likely to oust him given that he was clearly taken by the redesign policy. But since his appointee won’t go willingly, the next president can reap immediate goodwill by showing him the door early. There are many ways to skin the rat called tenure.

As for the incumbent president, it is rather sad that for his all accomplishments in infrastructure and other things, many would only have bitter memories of how the promise of something new became a multifaceted nightmare for all.

One of the big stories of the 2023 general election cycle was about how former Anambra State governor and presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, had become a third force come to disrupt Nigeria’s cosy two party arrangement. But two elections, just three weeks apart, confirm that rumours of a revolution in our politics were grossly exaggerated.

The outcome of the February 25 presidential contest rubbished all opinion polls which predicted a sweeping victory for Obi even in the most unlikely of places. More conservative voices had suggested that the Labour flagbearer would struggle to meet the constitutional requirement of winning twenty five percent of votes cast in 24 states given his very weak support in the North.

That turned out to be the case. However, he did exceed expectations as those who pointed at the weak structures of his party believed he would only do well in his Southeast homeland. But he broke out – winning majorities in several South-South and North-Central states.

That stronger than expected performance had Obi laying claim to the presidential prize despite the umpire confirming he came a modest third. On the strength of the buzz generated, many awaited confirmation on March 18 during the gubernatorial polls, that he and his Obidients had come to stay as the predicted third force.

As I write this, Labour is in a desperate fight to claim Abia State. Elsewhere, including most notably Lagos, the coalition that delivered the famous February 25 upset win had scattered. Even in his home state of Anambra where his movement was expected to punish Governor Chukwuma Soludo for having the audacity to question Obi’s bid, the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) coasted home with a comfortable majority in the House of Assembly.

So how did the Obi wave disappear in a little over a fortnight? Was this just a personality cult that took on a life of its own with blood transfusion from an ethnic group’s political aspirations? Was this just an opportunistic arrangement that took advantage of a very strange environment leading to the elections? Who goes to electoral battle by dealing the same electorate whose favour they seek with a calamitous cash crunch? Obi and Atiku Abubakar actually hailed the Central Bank’s naira confiscation gambit.

Even his popularity with young people in the run-up to the polls suggested opportunism. At 62, he was no spring chicken. But a demographic fed up with the leading parties saw in the sixty-something someone younger than the two septuagenarians heading the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) tickets.

He was wildly popular with Christians because religion became a hot button issue the moment the ruling party’s Bola Tinubu made the strategic choice to run with Senator Kashim Shettima, a fellow Muslim from the northeastern Borno State. This was a risky and controversial move given that, conventionally, parties balance their tickets along religious and regional lines.

But it wasn’t an unprecedented one because in 1993, the Southern Muslim candidate of the then Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief M. K. O. Abiola, successfully ran with Babagana Kingibe, again, from Borno State, who shared his faith.

Tinubu’s decision to travel the same route as Abiola unleashed the hounds of hell. Some of his closest Christian supporters from the North like former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, broke loudly and publicly with him. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and its affiliates were not far behind. Their furious reactions showed quickly that the APC candidate had a major problem on his hands.

Sensing an opening to be exploited, Obi quickly took his campaign to the church, embarking on a whistle stop tour of prominent Pentecostal congregations. He was often welcomed with cheers that shook the rafters. On one of those occasions, he challenged the church to “take back your country.” The body language of pastors of these mega churches made it clear they were delighted with him.

Tapping into the rich vein of religiously intolerance which had built up between 1993 and 2024 would yield massive dividends for the Labour candidate as we would soon see. The amazing thing is the other side of the faith divide didn’t take up the bait by urging their followers to ‘either take back or defend their country.’

Even up to the eve of the polls most political commentators were largely dismissive of Obi chances, pointing to the lack of nationwide penetration by his Labour Party. They missed how riled up the Christian population had become because of APC’s same faith ticket. They underestimated the influence that powerful Pentecostal preachers had on their congregations – many of whom were blackmailed to toe the denominational line.

Perhaps those who came closest to identifying what was going on were a series of polls which suggested than beyond disruption, Obi would go on to win by lopsided margins. One or two even predicted he would triumph in Lagos, Tinubu’s fortress which he has defended successfully against all forms of encroachment for over two decades. It was unthinkable and many laughed them to scorn because the pollsters mostly took limited online samples.

But on February 25, the unimaginable happened. Tinubu’s territory was breached with the unheralded Obi eking out a roughly 10,000 vote majority. That wasn’t the entire story. A party that wasn’t expected to do well beyond the Southeast, triumphed in key South-South and Middle Belt states. In the end Labour won in 12 states just like the bigger APC and PDP.

It was a stunning performance. It was as if the end had truly come for the powers-that-be. It gave hope to Obi supporters who had celebrated the polls as evidence that their insurgency against the old political order was about to be brought to a successful conclusion. So, while they found themselves in a disappointing third place in the presidential contest, they could console themselves with pinching Tinubu’s Lagos crown jewel as well as winning governorships in a swathe of Southeast, South-South and North-Central states.

More than that, Obi and Obi-dients who truly believed they won the presidential election had an opportunity to prove that their performance on February 25 wasn’t a fluke. Some of them urged their members to turn up in large numbers on March 18 to crush those who had “stolen their mandate.”

While many have been very generous in their plaudits for the former Anambra governor and his efforts, clearly what happened in Lagos and elsewhere must be put in proper perspective. Everyone loves a romantic story and there was none more seductive than an unheralded billionaire figure with a reputation for frugal living taking on entrenched political forces and overthrowing them. It was a narrative that foreign correspondents lapped up and regurgitated.

Some even called the events of February 25 a revolution that was televised. March 18 would show that there was nothing revolutionary about what played out three weeks earlier. Rather, we just had affirmation that the same factors that have always driven Nigerian politics are ever so present.

I have touched on religion but ethnicity was also a powerful factor. For the first time in a long while, the candidates were from the three most populous groups in the country. It was no surprise when each did well in their home base. Former Vice President Atiku President did extremely well in the Northeast, Tinubu performed well across the Southwest. But Obi’s performance in the Southeast was astounding. In some states he scored more than 90% of votes cast. In modern times the only places where that used to happen was in the old Soviet Union or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.  It was all down to a region embracing one of their own.

When that factor was taken out of the equation on March 18, when the issues became local even within tribal enclaves, we had totally different outcomes. In Imo State, where Obi won over 80% just three weeks ago, his Labour was wiped out; the ruling APC took 25 out of 27 Assembly seats. In Ebonyi, the ruling party retained the governorship comfortably. This state is particularly interesting because while it gave Obi and Labour near total support in the presidential election, in the simultaneous National Assembly poll APC took the three senatorial seats.

Clearly, what occurred three weeks ago was just an opportunistic political foray that was going nowhere. In the end it blocked the PDP’s path back to power and helped elect Tinubu as the much-vilified Soludo had predicted.

One day is a long time in politics, three weeks a life time. The events of the last 21 days are an object lesson in the folly of drawing hasty conclusions about Nigeria’s power games. Suffice it to say the structures Obi swore he had come to overthrow remain firmly in place. His legions have scattered in different directions. That’s another way of saying the disruption just got disrupted.

Nigerian election outcomes are all too easy to discern. Once one side starts crying too loudly know it has lost. On the basis of that simple test, the poor imitation of a three-year-old’s tantrums by the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) agent, Senator Dino Melaye, was an indication of how things had gone for his principal former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

As you read this, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), is on the verge of being formally declared winner of one of the most bitterly contested presidential elections in recent memory. His victory against the backdrop of giant odds is well nigh miraculous. The formidable forces who never wanted him to get the ticket fought him all the way to the finishing line. Yet, because it was his destiny, he prevailed.

This election would be remembered for many things, but most especially because of its stunning surprises and twists and turns. For Tinubu, what would been a perfect triumph was soured somewhat by losing his Lagos stronghold to the unheralded Labour Party (LP).

In the larger scheme of things it didn’t really matter because he wasn’t running for governor. However, such has been his grip on the state politically that it had been taken as a given that electoral contests here could only go one way. Little surprise, therefore, that his foes celebrated like they had won the World Cup.

Long after the dust would have settled many would be trying to make sense of how Peter Obi’s LP managed to pull off what PDP and other more endowed political organizations have not been able to do for more than  twenty years.

The biggest error would be to ascribe this victory to some sort of superhuman effort on the part of Obi and his Labour cadres. Rather, it was the result of the perfect storm produced by a coalition of the incensed. Forces that had one thing in common – anger towards Tinubu – banded together to wreak maximum havoc.

One critical piece in the coalition was the ethnic symbolism around Obi’s candidacy. Although, he tried his best to present his bid as pan-Nigerian, Southeasterners saw in him their best opportunity of producing a president of Igbo extraction in a long while. So, backing from his kinsmen was total as has been reflected in the lopsided voting patterns across Igboland and some areas of the South-South zone. But as motivated as these voters were they couldn’t have tipped the scale on their own.

They were joined by a huge chunk of the Pentecostal Christian vote triggered by Tinubu’s strategic choice of a fellow Muslim as running mate. The unyielding rejection of the same faith ticket by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). While they stopped short of openly endorsing anyone, taking the politically-correct position of asking their followers to vote according to their conscience, some pastors were not so circumspect.

In the run up to polling day, leaders of some of the nation’s leading Pentecostal congregations were openly telling members what to do. Those who weren’t doing so publicly were employing blackmail on their in-house WhatsApp platforms. They made it clear that voting the Muslim-Muslim ticket was some sort of mortal sin. Many bought into such thinking as if opposing such a ticket somehow made them better Christians.

Obi understood how offended many Christians North and South were by the Tinubu and Kashim Shettima combination and he milked them religion card for all it was worth. He became a regular visitor at worship services of these mega churches, receiving raucous welcome from excited members and posing for photo-ops with their  pastors. It all paid off handsomely on Election Day.

Just as devastating as the religion factor was social media. The damage done to the APC candidate didn’t just start with the campaign season. Over the last few years he has been the target of the most savage attacks sponsored by those who were less than pleased with the performance of the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. Although, he wasn’t in government many blamed him for facilitating the president’s rise to power.

These attacks became more personal and vicious once he announced his intention to run for president. He was caricatured as the ultimate bad guy who was just grasping and power drunk. He was painted as infirm and too old for the office he sought. For many who would go on to vote on February 25 the only source of information by which they would make their voting decisions was largely fake news. While his opponents were on rampage his supporters underestimated the harm that was being done on social media. By the time they took the fight to their foes the damage was already done. Tinubu had been defined in terms his enemies wanted.

Another vital part of the coalition that pulled off the Lagos surprise were youths – many of them first time voters who were just babies when the APC flagbearer was a governor. Some of them were not even born when he was an active part of the pro-democracy movement in the 90s.

Many were part of the #EndSARS demonstrations which grounded the country two years ago. What was supposedly an anti-police brutality movement was soon turned into an anti-Tinubu action in Lagos. For many young people who took part in the demonstrations their impressions of the former Lagos State governor were shaped by that ugly episode in 2020. Unfortunately, the aggrieved from those events have been waiting to exact their pound of flesh from APC and it’s leaders in Lagos. They found common cause with others who had it in for Tinubu last Saturday.

The final component of the electoral Molotov cocktail was the twin scarcities of new naira notes and petrol unleashed against citizens inexplicably in the election season. The former which was supposedly targeted against would-be vote buyers became an agency of nationwide misery and suffering for the masses of the people. The natural reaction was to vent frustration against Tinubu and the government he installed. Many were motivated to vote against the ruling party and its candidate as punishment. Others simply elected to stay home resulting in widespread apathy and low turnout.

So was what happened during the presidential election a watershed in Lagos? Not exactly. Every election is local and the governorship and state assembly polls holding across the country on March 11 would be no different. In many states there was tactical voting which suggests that outcomes could be different in 10 days. In Lagos no one should get ahead of themselves.

For one thing, the ethnic edge would not be as pronounced. Obi isn’t running and all the candidates of the leading parties are of Yoruba extraction. Religion also wouldn’t be a factor as the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, is at the head of a balanced ticket.

Of course, those who gave APC a bloody nose last weekend would love to do it all over. But in pulling their surprise they delivered a wake-up call to the ruling party. That’s why I doubt whether thunder would strike in the same place twice come the next polling day.