The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Economic paradox: When is a naira not a naira N1=80k????

    Economic paradox: When is a naira not a naira N1=80k????

    Every day creates a new anti-citizen monster. There are several corruption related middleman/woman jobs non-existent elsewhere. Black market foreign currency fronts- sellers- from one anointed tribal group; touts everywhere -airport, government offices, parking and events. Blood bank syndicates. Naira sellers- mint pre-2023 notes, now 2023+ new notes. POS operators at point of need thought to be ‘sub-banks bankers’ but now extortionist and uncontrollably greedy charging 5-20%.

    RESULT: THE NAIRA NOW COSTS MORE THAN THE NAIRA – A terrifying Nigerian economic paradoxical equation for undergraduates.

    WHEN IS A NAIRA NOT A NAIRA? N1 =N1-20k = 80k. QED; No thanks to CBN’s weakness.

    It all started long ago and unchecked by CBN or the individual banking hierarchy which hoarded MINT and elevated it to a status above USED naira notes. Soon that status became monetised and the rest is sad history. The artificial scarcity of mint naira, created by CBN and Nigeria’s banking hall was a deliberate policy to create a new money stream- MINT MONEY, valued above USED money and was meant to greedily capitalise on the lust for MINT notes for social status activities like weddings, etc.

    Was this a CBN ENTREPRENEURSHIP ‘MINT’ PROGRAMME? In fact, banks have almost never dispensed MINT notes across the counter in Nigeria preferring the old dirty variety for bank halls and forcing needy customers to negotiate with the banks’ MINT AGENTS -Gold medal entrepreneurship par excellence- creating wealth out of thin air merely by creating a middleman or woman. Sometimes the bank reserved, as a paid-for favour or for an outright tip, mint notes for regular or high-flying customers and ‘generous friends’ who would receive the mint delivered away from the bank. The face value of the mint naira is always lower than the price paid for it be it in drink, lunch, Christmas present or bribe. That such activities are illegal is not in dispute, but it has gone unchallenged by CBN and is now standard bad banking culture. The customer always suffers loss.

     It will be important to tell the public the actual relative volume of mint pre-2023 old notes returned to CBN at the end of this exercise in misery money!

    We need an economist not a banker in the CBN. The banker has failed to even distribute the $3b new funds in a timely warlike manner through his course mates without stress to the economic life of over 150+ million citizens all of whom except infants have some naira in their pockets, purses, under their pillows and mattresses, hidden in forgotten places. DID FELLOW BANKERS FAIL THE FELLOW BANKER CBN GOVERNOR OR VISA VERSA?

    DID THE BANKING SYSTEM SABOTAGE CBN’S GOOD PLANS AND NIGERIA? The nationwide scenes of panic, despair, frustration are a disgrace to good governance but speak of actual hunger, kobolessness, starvation, anguish, danger of death and actual unimaginable wartime suffering and massive governance failure to provide naira AS AND WHEN DUE. Period. Governance is not just politics or a joke and but a heavy responsibility to ensure routine survival and happiness. Everyone has had an experience of an IDP camp in the last week.

    If the new money has been provided then where is it? If it is with politicians they must be told that the people’s need is more than their political greed. If politicians have cornered a lot of the money then retrieve it from them for immediate disbursement and arrest them and their bankers for economic sabotage causing unrest nationwide. Investigate the banks and force them to produce notes hidden in their vaults. Then prosecute them for defrauding and lying to the citizenry. Fining Nigerian banks is a silly double-edged sword as we the customers will wind up paying the fine through new creative ‘legal support’ bank charges on every account etc. Jail terms for fraudulent or conspiratorial banking officers will be better and cost the customers nothing. Do not fine banks unless CBN can guarantee that the fine will not be creatively passed to the customer to pay.  Money is meaningless to them.   

    Hopefully by the time you read this a lot of the citizens’ cashlessness would have been solved. CBN must identify the saboteurs to its policy and ensure they pay for this national economic sabotage. 

    Any plan we have is open to sabotage and not even by the usual suspects. Our own staff are often to blame and certainly the gods are not to blame. Our refineries stand out glaringly as examples of primary sabotage of the Nigerian Dream. Billions of naira and tens of hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into them under the guise of serial TAM-Turn Around Maintenance, aka Turn Around Mugging of the Nigerian citizenry with the overall result of zero. Instead we maintain full complements of staff in their tens of thousands receiving full and generous emoluments and perks for zero income to the country. Can it be in their interest not to work? Have they lost the will? Or is it beyond them. Above their level? Or is it below their level with junior workers constantly tampering with and spoiling the job? Who benefits? The importers of finished petroleum products?

    When the Dangote Refinery, DR, comes on steam, what next? Will it work or be sabotaged? If it works, the good detective will ask why is the DR not sabotaged like others before it? A million-dollar question seeking an answer only time will expose.  

  • How BVAS came to judgement in Osun

    How BVAS came to judgement in Osun

    The 108-page majority judgement delivered last Friday, January 27, 2023, by the Osun Governorship Election Petition Tribunal reveals three winners and three losers. The winners are: The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Progress, Adegboyega Oyetola; his political party, the APC; and the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS). The losers are: The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ademola Adeleke; his political party, the PDP; and the Independent National Electoral Commission, which conducted the election and mischievously declared Adeleke the winner.

    The main contention before the Tribunal was over-voting: The number of votes used in declaring the results exceeded the number of accredited voters and verified votes captured by the BVAS machine on election day. Such excess votes are illegal, according to the revised Electoral Act 2022. Although this was not immediately apparent on election day but reports were rife that election went on illegally until late in the night in some PDP strongholds, such as Ede. I was in Osun Government House at the time and heard those reports.

    By the time Adeleke was declared the winner by INEC the following morning, Oyetola and the APC had had enough. They requested and obtained a certified true copy of the BVAS report from INEC shortly after the results were announced. After careful study, it was discovered that the total number of accredited voters and the number of votes recorded on Form EC8A in 749 (later reduced to 744) polling units in 10 Local Government Areas did not tally with the number of accredited voters and verified votes recorded in the BVAS machine for those polling units.

    These discrepancies formed the major ground for their petition. Another ground is certificate forgery by Adelekle to which I return later.

    On being served the petition by Oyetola and the APC, Adeleke and the PDP rushed to INEC to obtain a copy of the BVAS report, while the case was already pending in court. This led INEC to generate yet another BVAS report, termed “synchronized” BVAS report, without withdrawing the BVAS report previously issued to Oyetola and APC, leading to two contradictory BVAS reports tendered in court. Interestingly, both BVAS reports revealed significant over voting as affirmed even by INEC’s own witness. Perhaps sensing the contradictions, Adeleke’s counsel disowned the synchronized BVAS report.

    Ordinarily, the synchronized BVAS report was expected to rhyme with the original BVAS report issued on election day and given to Oyetola and APC. This is what happens, for example, when you synchronize your emails with the same address on two or more devices. The same messages would appear on all of them. However, in the words of the Tribunal, “the said ‘synchronization’ (by INEC), rather than rhyme with each other, are inconsistent and contradictory”. The Tribunal frowned at this behaviour, by accusing INEC of “tampering with official records” and condemning it for producing “multiple accreditation reports, contrary to its avowed declaration to conduct free, fair, and credible election”.

    The evidence on over voting was incontrovertible. Over voting ranged from just one vote to 409 in a single polling unit. According to the new Electoral Law, election shall be cancelled wherever over voting occurs as such votes had become illegal. There is no room for rerun in such cases as in the repealed Electoral Law used in the Osun rerun election in 2018. Guided by the new law, the Tribunal cancelled the results of the election in 744 polling units and deducted the illegal votes from the total votes previously declared by INEC for each candidate. It was a case of the heavens falling and sparing no one.

    As is often the case in election rigging, the greatest beneficiary of illegal votes often loses the most votes upon cancellation. Accordingly, Adeleke lost as many as 112,705 votes from the cancellation, leaving him with 290,666, when the illegal votes were deducted from the previously declared result of 403,371. Oyetola lost 60,096 votes from the cancellation. This left him with 314,931, when the cancelled votes are deducted from his previously declared result of 375,027.

    The Tribunal declared Oyetola as the winner of the election and ordered INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return from Adeleke and issue it to Oyetola.

    There was, of course, a scanty 8-page minority judgement, which overlooked the discrepancies between the BVAS reports and the form EC8A but anchors its argument on the non-use of the electoral register and the incompleteness of the BVAS report due to “power outage, network failure and paucity of relevant amenities”. Both issues were addressed as red herring in the lead  judgement.

    Another ground for the petition was certificate forgery by Adeleke and his non-qualification to contest the election. All three judges ruled that Adeleke indeed forged his School Leaving Certificate. However, he could not be disqualified, because he also tendered other qualifications, which were not contested by the petitioners.

    A few issues stand out from the Osun case and public discussion of same. First, the key role of the BVAS machine in checkmating over voting and forged election results has been established. Those who oppose its use either do not understand its function or are planning election mischief. However, the role of INEC officials, especially ad hoc staff hired during elections, deserves scrutiny. Their role in the Osun election impugned the integrity of INEC. It should henceforth ensure severe repercussions for any electoral malfeasance by its officials. Probing and prosecuting the officials involved in over voting in the Osun election would send an important signal.

    Second, journalists and columnists should do their homework well on any story they wish to pursue during this election cycle. It is illiterate journalism for a TV host to ask why Adeleke was the only one punished for over voting in the Osun election. Clearly, that journalist neither read the Electoral Act 2022 nor studied the Tribunal judgement. As pointed out above, both candidates suffered from vote cancellation.

    Third, some lawyers need further education as no well informed lawyer would accuse the lead judge in the Osun case of bias for the humorous reference to Buga dance. Judges, like priests, live in the real world and are free to draw on social events as well as use humour in their work. Interestingly, the same judge lambasted INEC for creating reports to save itself and compared the action to that of the proverbial bird, Eneke, in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which claims to have learned to fly without perching since men have learned to shoot without missing. Was the judge also biased against INEC?

  • Notes from Nigeria’s election campaigns (2)

    Notes from Nigeria’s election campaigns (2)

    Barring something that triggers the declaration of a force majeure, Nigerians will elect a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari this month. The date is set: February 25. Preparations by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are continuing apace. Although, that has never stopped a sudden postponement in the recent past.

    Early in February 2015, then electoral commission boss, Professor Attahiru Jega, announced a six-week shift of polls that had been scheduled for the 18th of that month. His explanation was that troops who should police the vote were bogged down trying to push back Boko Haram insurgents in the Northeast, so that some semblance of elections could hold in the region. The then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) complained about the ‘provocative’ action it alleged was designed to help the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.

    Four years later, Jega’s successor, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, pulled off another stunning last-minute change in polling date. In the dead of night – at about 2.30am on February 16 – just hours before voters were to begin casting ballots nationwide, he announced a one-week adjustment of the schedule. He blamed it on logistics challenges that if not addressed could harm the quality of the elections.

    With such a history it’s no surprise that the specter of postponement has hovered somewhere in the horizon over the past few months. Those fears were fanned when certain INEC official raised the alarm about the potential impact of attacks on its facilities in the Southeast and other incidents of insecurity around the country.

    But Yakubu has been quick to stamp out any such notion, doing so most recently during his outing at Chatham House in London.

    Having slogged through what has been one of the longest campaign seasons in recent history, I doubt whether Nigerians – especially the majority who are not interested in intrigues and manipulation – would countenance any sort of adjustment in dates. They just want the elections done so they can move on with their lives.

    Still, no one can ignore the crisis over fuel scarcity and the bungled naira swap. Disruptions in petrol supply have become a regular feature of national life. They are annoying occurrences that often manifest towards year end as marketers and sundry speculators anticipate whether the authorities would approve upward price adjustments. When that doesn’t occur or when some sort of hike is implemented, the queues miraculously disappear.

    But long after the Yuletide festivities the sight of many still camped at fuel stations in desperate search for fuel has blighted the campaigns. Although, every administration in the last twenty years has had to deal with this, they were savvy enough not to allow it fester in an election season knowing it’s an easy way to piss voters off. It is something that the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, clearly understands.

    Returning to Abeokuta where he made his now famous Emilokan speech, he lashed out at Fifth Columnists and saboteurs who he blamed for the prolonged fuel crisis and timing of the naira swap. It was another explosive intervention which, again, confirmed the acuity of his political instincts as his words connected with the frustration in the streets.

    For the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) it was propaganda gold as they quickly spun Tinubu’s comments to mean he was somehow at odds with Buhari. After all, the naira swap, if not fuel scarcity, was government policy which the president appeared enthused about.

    The criticism was in line with previous opposition suggestions that the president wasn’t really backing the APC candidate. They pointed to his not attending APC rallies after the opener in Jos. The riposte from the ruling party was a reiteration of Buhari’s enduring support by announcing his commitment to ten campaign stops with Tinubu.

    For many ordinary Nigerians who suffered unnecessarily in a bid to access cash, tensions over the naira swap haven’t totally eased despite the shift in deadline. People who are used to having cash are suddenly suffering from withdrawal symptoms. The rhetoric from Buhari and the Central Bank says the currency redesign initiative is largely targeted at vote buyers. That partly explains the timing.

    The good thing is that the measure would impact all political parties. Since the CBN policy is being projected as a cure-all solution, losers should be prepared to accept defeat without blaming their loss on their opponents superior vote-buying capabilities. The cynics would argue, however, that there’s no law made under the heavens that Nigerians cannot get around.

    As for the fuel scarcity, it remains to be seen whether the queues would remain an awkward backdrop when Nigerians go to the polls in another three weeks, or whether a wand would be waved causing them to disappear.

    This close to polling day nothing has happened in the campaigns to change my view that it would be another two-horse contest. In fact, the longer the process has lasted the more the inadequacies of the lesser of the four prominent parties – Labour Party (LP) and New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) – have become apparent. Their lack of nationwide spread should now be evident to even the most starry-eyed of supporters. At best, they may drain support from the two main parties in their regional redoubts.

    When the dust finally settles on February 25 many would be trying to make sense of how the internal squabbles within PDP affected the outcome. A victory for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar would mean that the G5 governors and their arrowhead, Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, were overrated.

    But their continued refusal to campaign for him means he could underperform in a number of pivotal states like Rivers and Oyo. That’s a major worry given that the other major vote pots – Lagos and Kano – are strongholds of his rival Tinubu.

    In the last few weeks the former Vice President’s camp has launched an aggressive fight back against its foes within PDP. Unfortunately, it looks like too little too late. The demand of the Wike camp for party chairman, Iyorchia Ayu’s, head to be served to them on a platter isn’t going to happen. Just as unlikely is the prospect that the rebels would capitulate and kiss Atiku’s ring without something to show for their struggle.

    Over seven years ago, five governors joined forces with the opposition to bring down the PDP government. This cycle, the curse of five has struck again as the same number of governors by their position may just prevent their party from returning to power – at least for another four years.

  • Nigeria’s top queues: Road, PVC, CBN crises, petrol

    Nigerians, accused of not queueing in the past and disciplined by WAI and its kobokos are now involuntarily queueing for their rights. Nigerians struggle with at least four queues. They are construction foul-ups like the Lagos end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, (LIE); Petrol- both vehicle and jerry can; PVC; CBN’s callously self-created new Naira currency crisis. Every single one of these queues is caused by one government failure or other-negligence and incompetence and poor planning and poor execution. Let us take them in order.

    The LIE queue: A serially criminal government failure to urgently provide the funds to initially maintain it motorable and then finish the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway with an extra lane. Remember our 30 years of problems would have been far less if the third lane approved by the Gowon regime had been included then. Instead, it was mysteriously stripped without reduction in cost. Today’s problems started with a leadership lack of a vision. Those with vision were shut down. It is the responsibility of our universities social and political research institutions and Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) to calculate the costs of inaction on all the roads nationwide and tell us the findings.

    There is a huge cost to government negligence. Seeing 10-20 kilometres of stand-still traffic, five lanes deep, daily for years, screams negligence. Every time is more traumatic than the time before. No Nigerian becomes accustomed to preventable traffic queues. And all, with no apology. The cost of government failure to the Nigerian traveller and transporter is incalculable but must be calculated in the cumulative billions of go-slow hours and consequent x 4-6 times petrol, engine oil, wear and tear costs which increase our petrol consumption with no productivity. Remember that many transport operators have operated 1-2 trips rather than 2-3 per day, thus compounding the agony and fears of a cumulative billion road uses by users. Add to this a total misunderstanding of basic transport and civil engineering principles in the contract which allowed constructing of the access before the exit roads and you have created our huge traffic jam disaster. Engineering 1-0-1 says do the exit roads before the access road.

    The petrol AND the jerry can queue: Government is an ostrich hiding its head in the ground while exposing its butt to ridicule. Power shortage is endemic in Nigeria, paralysing health, education, business services. Almost every single business in Nigeria now runs on petrol generator now that diesel is so expensive. But apparently in a country with over 10 million generators running hospitals, clinics, homes and offices, government has a hospital & business killing law which says ‘NO SALE OF PETROL INTO LARGE 25LITRE JERRYCANS. Are we to drive the 5Kva generators in unfuelled cars to the petrol station? Modern cars do not allow syphoning of petrol from the tank once it is in there. This was to prevent theft of your petrol. Government should not allow its security services to stop petrol stations helping hospitals, schools and businesses to survive to pay the huge new energy bills.

    GOVERNMENT: The fuel and electricity problems are yours not ours. Allow petrol to be sold in jerry cans to legitimate citizens with generator-run businesses, hospitals and homes with immediate effect. Smugglers will always smuggle but hospitals and businesses will die.  Do not close stations or arrest petrol staff for solving your problem.

    THE PVC queues would never have existed in the first place if we had a year round registration and pickup or used our National Identity Number. Thank goodness very many are actually picking up their PVCs for the election on February 25 and March 11, IT REMAINS FOR THE PVC holder to use the card not for sale but to buy our future by making the right choice at the election a very personal decision. The PVC queue will soon transform into the longest Election Day Queues we have ever had. The longer the queues, the more difficult it will be to bribe, steal the people’s will. The people, given the freedom to voice their political opinion must express it with the future in mind.

    The new naira deadline has been extended as expected in spite of the posturing, as always happens in Nigeria.  The CBN governor put Nigerians in endless queues, needless time wasting, energy consuming, and money losing due to its late announcement of the extension till February 10. The announcement was annoyingly too late to be welcomed by the very distressed citizenry, panicking everywhere. Many banks illegally and arrogantly threatened a refusal to accept the legal tender one to four days before the CBN deadline of January 31. That must be a crime and it will be repeated definitely before February 10 if government does not fine such illegal deadline behaviour. The CBN typical of our institutions got everything wrong in logistics, spread and availability of sufficient new currency even if we factor banking hoarding, corruption up and down currency food chain.

    It is no use boasting that N2tr has been changed when so many honest Nigerians have no access to the new money and probably possess most of the N1tr+ still outstanding. Can CBN correct its unforced ‘CBN currency crisis’ errors and make currency exchange easier, with no cost  Nigeria-wide before February 10 and direct to CBN till 17 days before the election. Experts say the time is still too short quoting two years for the Queen-to-King change. But that change is cosmetic and not economic.

  • Rescue hostages now; Military success; $2b Lottery

    Rescue hostages now; Military success; $2b Lottery

    As we get closer to the election GOVERNMENT OWES US A DEBT; IT MUST RESCUE OUTSTANDING HOSTAGES: There are still too many hostages and it is up to this government to see to the release of all hostages, rich and poor, connected and unconnected, captured under its watch, a government security failure, even if it means dining with the devil in the short term. This must be accomplished by the February 25 election for the full credibility of the security side of the Buhari government to be restored.

    Government must not transfer hostages as liabilities to the new government. No one can bring back the 55-100,000 estimated murdered or remove the misery of families and five million in and out of IDP camps, but we can say it is over or as nearly over as possible only when government can achieve that release of the final hostage. It is the right of the families and the right of the kidnapped to freedom. Government must make every effort and be seen to get results in the next one month, not for cheap publicity, but because the government owes freedom to its citizens as their right.

    The renewed Armed Forces must be tasked with the release of ‘OUR FELLOW NIGERIAN HOSTAGES’ BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY AND WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT.

    Meanwhile, back at home our gallant armed forces seem to have attained the upper hand over the bulk of the Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa. Even the besieged governors are finally smiling on TV confirming that the Armed Forces have the upper hand. Congratulations to all in the Armed Forces and thank you for your sacrifice and gallant service. Congratulations, congratulations to the government of the today for providing sufficient equipment including night vision goggles and drone support and motorcycles and air-support to fight such a well-equipped foe especially in the early days when our troops were disgracefully underequipped. Sadly, this lapse had to be pointed out by soldiers and civilians, while it was denied by the army which court martialled protesting soldiers and gallant officers trying to inform the higher authorities of the desperate situation.

    Hopefully the Armed Forces will review such punishments especially now that equipment has turned the tide confirming they were right.

    In Los Angeles, there are believed to be nearly 70,000 homeless out of 555,000-600,000, yet California is the fourth largest economy in the world. The homeless politics is wrapped up in a struggle between contrasting Democratic Party and Republican ideology, principles and practice of politics. The tents and cardboard homes on the street are a scar marking the line between poverty and practically nothing.

    In total contrast, the supposed good news across America is a mind-blowing lottery prize in the US of $1,350,000,000 and may be even $1.9b and it has been won apparently.  For your record $1B=N460b-780b, $350M= N161b- 273b, $1.35b=N621b- 1,053b [1.053trillion] as the winning ticket. In the past it has reached over $2b =N920-1560b [N1.56trillion]. Research has demonstrated that it is getting more difficult to win the winning ticket with chances quoted a chance of 1 in 290-300million -the number of combinations of the lottery balls. Of course, there are several smaller prizes along the way but they usually do not amount to much. While only 40-60% of winnings go to the winner, 6-15% goes to the lottery agency and the rest goes to government as taxes.

    It is not nuclear physics that the current system of an infinite number of combinations is unfair to those who actually bought tickets. The old lottery traditional style was better and had winners every time because it only recognised ticket numbers sold. Now we are face a mountain of poverty, even in America and a single nearly $2b lottery win. Even if the tax is 20-30%, the winner will have $15, 16, 17 hundred million in the bank. It makes no sense. Even in expensive Los Angeles, surely $100-200m could comfortably be built to house the homeless. The new Mayor Karen Bass, a political veteran has returned home to LA to address such issues. Though she is a Republican, her heart is with the poor and downtrodden. Homelessness, drugs, alcoholism, sex crimes and illness, mental and physical, all go hand in hand, for every case in no particular order.

    Why are we talking about far away America? To point out that every single country has its unusual behaviour. As was pointed out in the 2018 film How It Ends, The American Army names its helicopters Apache, Chinook etc. which are names of Native American tribes the army fought on the road to expansion. I never thought of that before even though I have sat in a Military Museum based Chinook as part of a family expedition in the US.  Was that decision out of deep respect for brave fallen foes and as a way of making reparations or as a trophy sign to remind the army of past victories?

     On the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway, heavy vehicles hug the new fast lane so much so that it appears to be the new law but this the opposite of what FRSC taught when initiated by Professor Wole Soyinka and when we were Special Marshals. At that time, the slow lane was allocated to trucks and that was the lane nearest the curb. Has the law been changed? Certainly, it is ignored by the traffic authorities.

  • Let’s tread cautiously for the next 30 days

    Let’s tread cautiously for the next 30 days

    The presidential and National Assembly elections are exactly one month (30 days) away today. In this last month of election campaigns, there is every reason to be very careful in order not to ignite the fire that could affect the conduct of the election, precipitate post-election violence, or lead to the outright postponement of the election. Therefore, extreme caution should be exercised by politicians and their supporters, the media (mainstream and social media), civil society organizations, and security agencies. Prospective voters also should be careful enough not to be swindled by purveyors of fake news, amplifiers of lies, and PVC collectors.

    The campaigns so far have been characterized by two major types of violence, both of which should be brought under control, if only for the sanctity of the forthcoming elections. First, the entire ecosystem within which the election campaigns are taking place is marred by physical violence, typified by terrorist groups of different shades (Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province) in the Northeast;  bandits and kidnappers in the Northwest; and bandits, ISWAP, and Fulani militants in the North-central. These violent actors are particularly rampant in the North, but they have also wreaked havoc in the South. This is particularly true of the so-called “unknown gunmen”, who have been ravaging the Southeast.

    The atrocities of these criminals are well known and need not be catalogued here. What is important is for the security agencies, especially the police, to bring their nefarious activities under control. It is not enough to deploy security forces on the day of election to the point of intimidating voters; it is more important to create the atmosphere for peaceful election before election day. The onus falls not only on the security agencies but also on the executive leaders at federal and state levels whose responsibility it is to deploy the security forces. In particular, President Muhammadu Buhari’s vow to deliver fair and credible elections will come to naughts if the elections are prevented or marred by violence.

    Another form of physical violence is associated directly with the campaign organizations. Politically motivated violence by supporters and thugs of various candidates have been reported throughout the country. Within the first month of the campaign, which took off on September 28, 2022, the Independent National Electoral Commission tracked 50 incidents of violent attacks on various campaign rallies and facilities in at least 21 states. Data from the office of the National Security Adviser indicated that in just one month, from October 8 to November 9, 2022, 52 cases of electoral violence were recorded across 22 states. The cases surged in the following weeks with Yiaga Africa reporting 46 cases in 27 states within two weeks alone, between November 12 and November 24, 2022. So far, it is reported that at least 27 people have been killed in the various attacks in 2022 alone. The cases are expected to surge even further as the elections approach.

    It is all too easy to conclude that the responsibility for managing political supporters rests squarely with the politicians they support. However, I have been a political consultant long enough to know that once a campaign takes off, various support groups often spring up beyond the politician’s control. It is therefore important that supporters of presidential candidates at ward, local government, and state levels should register and monitor support groups within their jurisdiction.

    There are at least two types of nonphysical violence that could be disruptive to political campaigns and the election. One is social media violence committed in cyberspace. Although nonphysical, cyber violence could inflict serious damage to political campaigns by peddling fake news, false allegations, and unfounded rumours. Unfortunately, such information often makes it to mainstream media, where it is misconstrued as fact, especially by less informed voters. So-called Obidients are particularly fond of peddling such information online. Some examples were cited on this column last week.

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    Mainstream media-television, radio, newspapers, and magazines-have a duty to avoid circulating false social media information or any information that could impact negatively on the election preparations either by political parties or INEC. Besides, even when they have information from candidate A about candidate B that could be disruptive to the latter’s campaign, care should be taken to verify the authenticity and credibility of such information before going on air or to press with the information.

    Another form of nonphysical violence that could be highly disruptive is verbal violence, especially by one campaign organization on another. The last few days have witnessed the exchange of such verbal violence between the campaign councils of the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party. In the back-and-forth accusations between the two parties, one (the APC) stands on verifiable data about the PDP candidate, while the other (the PDP) seems to be recycling old discredited or unfounded information about the APC candidate, by transmuting the case of a corporate entity to that of the candidate, even when there is no legal connection between the two.

    The problem with such exchanges is twofold. One, this late in the campaign, it is doubtful if any unverifiable accusation about a candidate can dissuade the candidate’s ardent followers from supporting him. Two, however, negative information about a candidate can deepen doubts about the candidate and, therefore, persuade hitherto undecided voters against him.

    It is, however, doubtful if any information about corruption can seriously damage the chances of a Nigerian politician, given the national and international perception of Nigerian politicians as corrupt. Indeed, the exchange of corruption allegations between the campaign councils of the two leading political parties in the country cannot but confirm the country’s grouping among the most corrupt countries in the world, thus further denting the image of the country.

    Against the above backgrounds, it is high time the combatant campaign councils sheathed their verbal swords. Enough of the verbal attacks and let the courts decide, where necessary. At the same, the media should not deepen the controversy by simply interviewing opposite sides of the verbal war. The only result is amplification, if not overkill, of the same allegations. We’ve heard it all. 

    The remaining 30 days should be devoted to what each candidate wants to do for the people and how they want to do it. The situation of the country is so harsh now that voters would prefer verbal relief from the candidates rather than the exchange of verbal accusations and insults between candidates. Such a shift in focus is sure to reduce the impetus for supporters to go at each other.

  • Notes from the campaigns (1)

    Notes from the campaigns (1)

    With a little over five weeks to polling day, this campaign cycle is turning out to be quite strange. Things have picked up after the Yuletide and New Year festivities, but the excitement that normally accompanies a typical Nigerian election, has been largely muted. I am yet to see anything near the feverish, frenetic dash to the finishing line that we witnessed in 2015. Perhaps, it may yet come.

    But a sleepy nation was served something close when the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign hit Kano in the first week of the year. In scenes reminiscent of what happened seven years ago when then candidate Muhammadu Buhari visited the ancient city, a massive crowd seized the streets in celebration of a political cause.

    For the ruling party and its flagbearer, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it was a chance to lay down a marker and show that despite the incumbent not being on the ballot, despite home boy Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso being in the contest, this remains one of its most reliable strongholds where a very strong turnout could be decisive in producing a winner.

    In this election season, three hundred people gathered around a stage somewhere would be described as a “mammoth crowd.” But the Kano rally truly qualified to be described in those terms if you are not viewing it through partisan, green-tinted goggles.

    There were those who were keenly monitoring the reception that Tinubu received in Kano as a gauge of his connection with a Northern electorate that has bonded so well with Buhari through several elections. So, in mustering those numbers the candidate and party scaled a hurdle of sorts.

    People argue that attendance at rallies is no indication of depth of support. That may not be totally correct. Rallies have their uses otherwise parties would have stopped investing so much effort and resources holding them.

    In an attempt to be dismissive people talk of “rented crowds” and “organic” ones. The assumption is that when a party has a massive turnout, the attendees must have been procured at tidy sum. On the other hand, those who attend a rally that flops are genuine supporters of a candidate. Nothing can be more ridiculous!

    The amusing thing is those who are quick to sneer at other people’s crowds as rented are quick to celebrate whenever they manage to organise an outing that attracts a couple of thousands.

    In reality, putting together a rally that attracts massive numbers involves financial resources and organisation. It is actually evidence of the strength and depth of a party in that environment if it is able to pull it off. Rather than just viewing it from the cynical perspective that all who came did so because of hunger, consider the fact that they could also be party cadres identifying with a cause. Truth be told, every party that holds major rallies spends money to bus its supporters to the venue. It’s nothing new in these parts. The sneering, therefore, may just be a bad case of crowd envy.

    One interesting feature of the campaigns – at least from the perspective of the APC – had been the absence of Buhari from the hustings, despite his vow to lead the effort from the front. The main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) sought to make political capital out it by suggesting that the president wasn’t really backing Tinubu.

    Well, he responded by committing himself to attending 10 rallies – beginning with those held in Adamawa and Yobe. When the president actually showed up in Yola to raise Tinubu’s hands, PDP grumbled that the endorsement was less than fulsome because he didn’t specifically mention his name – he just talked about supporters voting for all APC candidates top to bottom. That would include the presidential candidate by the way!

    This is the campaign where many cried for a discussion about the critical issues facing the country but have been served dross in return. If you thought it hit a low with a debate about the sartorial sense of the APC Vice Presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, what came after has been joyful mudslinging and the parroting of inanities.

    For a couple of weeks the hue and cry was about gaffes made by Tinubu. One day at a rally he was about telling voters to cast their ballot for his party but said ‘vote PD…’ and quickly corrected himself to say ‘vote APC.’ On social media his opponents and critics were orgasmic, next day a major national newspaper ran an almost celebratory headline that declared ‘Tinubu says vote PDAPC.’

    The gaffes have since become more infectious than COVID-19. PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar caught it and was captured on video imploring his supporters to vote ‘APPDP.’ It spread quickly within the family because before his slip of tongue, his wife Titi had also tripped and canvassed support for ‘APC’.

    Not surprisingly, one recent report stated all the major campaigns have been focused on everything but a discussion about the critical issues facing the country. They would disagree and say they’ve been speaking about the economy, insecurity and sundry matters. But anyone who has been listening would probably have heard a lot of ‘I will do this, I will do that’, with very little specifics as to how they intend to perform magic.

    I’m not too certain how much foreign influence has tipped the scales in recent Nigerian elections. But for weeks everyone has been making a beeline for Chatham House in London. First it was Tinubu. Now, Labour Party’s Peter Obi has had his say. Kwankwaso is expected. It’s only Atiku that has not responded to the invitation so far. Beyond the chance to posture as the greatest orator since Cicero, how the chatter from this distant location will change voting patterns in Okigwe or Kontagora remains a mystery to me.

    What’s a campaign without a healthy dose of the salacious? In the last week an audio tape by an ex-aide of Atiku’s, Michael Achimugu, in which the former Vice President was captured retailing how public funds were channeled through the so-called Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) when he was in office went viral. The scheme was supposedly executed with the approval of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

    Rather than offering a credible response to an embarrassing admission by its candidate, the PDP campaign resorted to insinuating that the whistleblower was suborned by Tinubu who it claimed also had questions to answer over funds forfeited to the US government in the past. Significantly, the party didn’t deny its man was the one on tape. It didn’t address the allegations. It’s only response was ‘you also have dirt on your hands.’

    As Election Day draws ever closer, anticipate a greater degree of desperation. We are already seeing that manifesting with the resort to ethnic sentiments by one of the campaigns in the North. It remains to be seen how voters would respond to the low ball appeal to tribalism. That would show how much progress Nigeria has made in 62 years to unify its disparate parts.  

  • Peter Obi and his concept of structure

    Peter Obi and his concept of structure

    Early in his presidential campaign, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, former Governor Peter Obi, had a ready answer for those who accused his campaign organization of lacking structure. By structure is meant the existence of campaign offices and an army of supporters in the 774 Local Government Areas of the country, which Obi’s campaign completely lacked at the beginning. Additionally, his political party currently has no siting Governor and less than 10 Members in the National Assembly, who could assist him in mobilising possible voters. Obi’s response at that time was simple: People are my structure, he claimed.

    The truth is that the lack of structure helped Obi in two ways: One, he was able to secure the ticket of the Labour Party without a traditional primary election battle immediately after dumping the Peoples Democratic Party, which fielded him as Vice President in the 2019 presidential election. Two, while the major parties were enmeshed internal squabbles during and following the primaries, Obi had free rein in the dying Labour Party and was able to immediately start off his campaign.

    He quickly galvanized the youths into the Obidient movement, using social media influencers and IT specialists, by reeling out statistics upon statistics, both true and false ones, and pointing out what is wrong with the country. He keeps telling the youths what they wanted to hear: I will make Nigeria change from consumption to production; generate so much megawatts of electricity per year; invest in education and health; create employment, and so on. Look at my record. I did it in Anambra state (although the present Governor of the State, Chukwuma Soludo, contested Obi’s claims).

    As the campaign progressed, Obi kept redefining the constituencies of his structure. They now include the 100 million people living below the poverty line, the 35 million unemployed youths, those who spend all their earnings on feeding alone, and Almighty God.

    But that’s not the only reason some youths are following Obi. To be sure, they are frustrated with the status quo; but Obi has ignited the fire of their emotion by convincing them that it is going to be the same status quo in 2023, if they vote for any of the establishment candidates in APC, PDP, and NNPP. That’s enough arrow in the hands of his followers to throw at the establishment candidates.

    In no time, his followers took to social media, especially Twitter and Tiktok, to launch a campaign of disinformation and distortions, targeting the establishment candidates, especially the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whom they fear is the frontrunner. They falsely claimed that Rabiu Kwankwanso, the candidate of the NNPP, had accepted to be Vice-President to Obi. They mischievously developed a collage of photos, with Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the PDP, eating with some poverty-stricken members of society, while Obi is giving out laptops to school children in the same photo collage.

    They reserved the most ridiculous caricature for Tinubu. In one case, Tinubu’s head is put on the body of a cart pusher with Obi’s picture boldly plastered on the cart. What is worse, they revel in false allegations against Tinubu and falsify the mega size of his campaign rallies by posting false images of scanty gatherings somewhere else. The whole idea is to paint a messianic picture of Obi as the nation’s saviour and most popular presidential candiate.

    Obi himself has continued to fuel this image. For example, he gave the impression that he went to Egypt to understudy their stable power supply and educational system so he could use the knowledge to improve power supply and the educational system in Nigeria. Thanks to investigative journalism, led by Sahara Reporters, it turned out that Obi lied to the Obidients and other would-be voters about his mission. He actually went to Egypt to attend the Africa Export-Import Bank conference held in that country.

    It will be recalled that Obi was a businessman and banker, having been Chairman of two banks before he ventured into politics. He amassed so much wealth in his business dealings that he was able to keep funds in offshore accounts, without disclosing them when he became Governor (see PANDORA PAPERS: Inside Peter Obi’s secret businesses-and how he broke the law, Premium Times, October 4, 2021). Since the accounts were maintained during his governorship, it is unclear how much of Anambra funds went into them.

    He recently turned the whole idea of structure on its head by suggesting that he wants to change the structure of the political system, the structure of corruption, the structure of poor governance, and so on. He even promised to declare war on electricity supply. How he wants to achieve these changes is never stated but his supporters have been eating his words and swallowing them.

    The fact cannot be denied that Obi’s candidacy has galvanized some youths to take elections seriously. It also cannot be denied that there are also other youths who have been put off by the shenanigans of the Obi campaign and decided to register or collect their PVCs in order to vote for other candidates. Be that as it may, Obi’s decision to target the youths is very strategic. Over 30 million of them registered to vote. It is not clear at the end of the day how many of them will collect their PVCs and how many will eventually vote. Nevertheless, any candidate who neglects the youths in this and subsequent election cycles does so at his or her own peril.

    Nevertheless, one thing is clear: Given the intoxication of his supporters by Obi’s rhetoric of change and youth empowerment, security agents must be on the alert when the election results are released, if they do not favour Obi. Afer all, the fanaticism of the Obidients is another variety of the fanaticism of the supporters of former US President Donald Trump and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who became riotous after their principals lost the election.

    However, before that happens, the Obidients must be told that, like America’s Donal Trump, Obi is only riding on their back to his political goal. Besides, Obi is a political prostitute, who sleeps with one party today and another tomorrow. Having reached the ceiling in APGA as a two-term Governor, he moved to the PDP, where he was a Vice-Presidential nominee in 2019. Sensing that he could not win the presidential nomination in 2022, he moved to the LP where he negotiated the presidential ticket.  

  • Fr Achi RIP; Edo Rail; Life Skills teaching?

    Fr Achi RIP; Edo Rail; Life Skills teaching?

    Each of the estimated over 55,000- 100,000 death at the hands of herders, bandits and terrorists is a heinous crime. What callousness by people who were once babies and children and may even have played with some of the deceased as youth. But where do we place the most recent horror incident of bandits failing to gain access to the Parish House of St Peter and Paul, Kafin-Koro, Paikoror LGA, Niger State then setting fire to the house and wickedly burning the Catholic Priest Fr Isaac Achi to death? May God grant that he Rest In Perfect Peace. May God grant his family, the church and the community the comfort at this cold and calculated action. When a family sees a son becoming a priest, there is joy and no anticipation that such a horrendous mode of death. Even soldiers’ families do not expect death though there is always that possibility. We pray the perpetrators are apprehended.

    Twelve more Edo station train attack victims were rescued over the weekend. We must give credit to the hard-working, risk-taking team combing the now-deadly forest. Keep up the good work. Governor Obaseki will reward you!   

    There is growing pressure on Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to relax the time line for change to new notes beyond the deadline of January 31. Under-banking, absent ATM services and security threats and absent ATM cards for millions especially in riverine and northern states are valid reasons. However, the reason that the UK has given four years for the ‘Queen E’ change to ‘King C’ on British currency is an invalid comparison. In Nigeria’s case, it a cunning way of reducing fraud funds for our elections by all parties. The UK’s case is merely cosmetic change of royalty with zero security or election changing necessity.    

    Another market fire, in Ibadan, reported by the authorities to have been started by negligent refuse burning, abandoning the important follow-up continuous supervision of fire till it burnt out. Why do we keep neglecting our responsibility? This was perfectly preventable fire like every perfectly preventable road crash, pothole, medical emergency, rubbish-filled gutter leading to a flood, expressway with all drainage points blocked by dirt, fires under communication and electricity cables. Prevention is better than cure!

    It appears that personal and public safety standards and rules are ignored or turned on their head with impunity, or just not being taught and learned by target groups? In our country the education system is so far behind that a huge number of right-thinking Nigerians and even foreigners are forced to enter the field as NGOs and UN and other bodies to embark on the advocacy required to educate the population in ‘doing the right thing’ in all areas. Such areas include the Prevention of Premarital Pregnancy, Breast and other Cancers, Fires, Road Crashes, Sexual Offences, Domestic Attacks, Child Abuse, Human Rights, Security Brutality, et cetera. It may interest the readers that simple things like advocacy to get seat belts used by all motorists, to get motorcyclists to use the crash helmet, to get all girls and women to examine their breasts for lumps were driven by Educare Trust from 1994 and more intently from 1998 when it established Educare Trust Exhibition Centre through advocacy in schools and beyond. It may be hard for readers today to imagine that drivers in those days refused to wear seatbelts despite the obvious advantages and safety factors starring them in the face. Some human beings are resistant to change even for the better. We are told that Rwanda is a good example of a well-run and well-educated population that listens to good advice from its government. So it should be possible to be upscaled to a larger country like Nigeria.  

    Education in all these areas is ‘Required Teaching’, ‘Required Reading’ and ‘Required Learning’ in schools at all levels in such well-run countries. There is an urgent requirement to have these ‘Topics of Social Development’ urgently inserted into the ‘National School Curriculum’ at Primary and Secondary Level to quickly produce a ‘Social Life-Skills Educated Population’ by making an ‘Annual Social Life-Skill Advocacy Update List’. This would list the over ‘50 Social Life-Skills Topics’ required to inform the students about life skills before they are released ‘Ignorant of Life Skills’ into the country of their birth. They would be the education army required to educate the rest of the population, first in their own homes and streets and then the community spreading to an educated country.

    So far, we have trivialised this important subject ‘Life Skills Advocacy Topics’, leaving the contents not to be taught at all or to be taught through an occasional, random, infrequent visit by one NGO or another. Education is the ‘Elimination of Ignorance’. Ignorance kills. The complete education of the child is government /parent/ community responsibility, not the assisting NGOs who are often insulted by officials for helping.

    Sadly, the outdated very traditional education curriculum has a gaping hole in ‘Social Life Skills Knowledge Advocacy’ in all areas of social skills endeavour. Sadly, it takes Nigeria years to update school curricula, whereas wise countries have continuous exercises monitoring societal and global trends, releasing a pamphlet for example, mid-school year as an ‘Appendix to 2023 Curriculum-Number 1’ to take care of ‘Emerging Social Life Skills’ as they arise. Life skills are as important as the much-touted entrepreneurial skills! Nigeria must not fail our youth again!

  • The youth bulge and the 2023 presidential election

    The youth bulge and the 2023 presidential election

    The alarm bell has been sounding for quite some time that the explosion of the youth population, otherwise known as the youth bulge, is a ticking time bomb. It has led to the youth bulge theory, which postulates that rapidly growing population of youths in a country typically gives rise to rampant unemployment and large pools of disaffected youths, who are susceptible to recruitment into terrorist or rebel groups, gangs, fraudulent practices, and other criminal activities. The theory further states that the most vulnerable countries are those with weak political institutions and weak leadership.

    The data backing up this theory come from the age structure of the world population, continent by continent, country by country. I concentrate here on Africa, with special focus on Nigeria. The data show that, of all continents, Africa has the youngest population, with about 70 percent under the age of 30. If the trend continues, Africa’s youth population is expected to surpass 830 million by 2050. While the global median age is about 30, at least 23 African countries are below this median, making them the youngest countries in the world.

    Nigeria is among these countries, with over 70 percent of the population below age 30 and 60 per cent below age 25. The major triggers of population increase in the country include early marriages, high birth rates, lack of effective population control, and lack of access to whatever family planning services there are. So long as these triggers persist, the youth bulge in Nigeria will not abate and its effects will escalate.

    To complicate matters for Nigeria, her immediate neighbours continue to exert demographic pressures on the country. This is particularly true of landlocked Niger Republic to the North, which has a median population of about 15 years!, making it the youngest population in the world. It is no wonder then that herders, bandits, and other criminals have been infiltrating the Northern border to cause havoc in Nigeria, even when the Nigerian government is squeezing her loan-stuffed treasury to bail out their government.

    Just as the Nigerian government is not doing enough to control her borders, so is the government not doing enough to reduce demographic pressures on herself, despite the widely circulated estimate that, by 2050, Nigeria’s population will exceed 400 million, making her the third most populous country after China and India. By that time, those above 65 (currently only about 3 per cent of the population), would have died off, moving today’s teenagers (13-19) to between 40 and 46, while another army of youths would have replaced them.

    The implications of the youth bulge have been very severe for Nigeria and may become even more disastrous, if appropriate steps are not taken. They are particularly evident in rising unemployment rates, consistently higher than 30 percent, and rampant criminality and attendant insecurity. Youths are also in the forefront of election thuggery and violence as well as protests to express their frustration and press their demands, as witnessed during the #EndSARS protests in 2020.

    The linkage between the youth bulge and criminal activities stares us daily in the face. We see the teeming population of youths in cities across the country, roaming the streets, when they should be at school or at work. We see young criminals being paraded by security agents as terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, gunmen, cultists, Yahoo Boys, and so on. We encounter them in election thuggery and violence. We’ve seen disaffected youths in the forefront of protests in Nigeria and elsewhere, from the Arab Spring to the ongoing youth protests in Iran, now in the fourth month. According to the Global Protest Tracker by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, youths have been in the forefront of 400 antigovernment protests in more than 132 countries since 2017, many of them in Africa. At least 135 of these protests are directly on economic issues.

    In recent years, conscious of their powerlessness in effecting change, Nigerian youths have become politically active in a bid to take advantage of their large number. Beginning in 2016, civil society organisations, headed by Samson Itodo of YIAGA Africa, began to clamour for age reduction in running for elective offices in order to give youths more opportunities for participation. The Age Reduction Bill, otherwise known as Not Too Young to Run, was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018.

    This brings us to the youth bulge and the 2023 presidential election. Although 39 year-old Chris Imumolen is the youngest presidential candidate, a number of youths are supporting Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, using a variety of social media outlets to register their support, stuffed largely with exaggerations of Peter Obi’s records and activities and outright falsifications of other candidates’ records and activities. Of course, many more youths are supporting other candidates. It is just that the self-styled Obidients are louder in cyberspace, where there are no polling stations.

    Youth participation in politics is one thing, controlling the youth bulge and providing youths with better life chances are yet another. Major tasks lie ahead for the next President in controlling the youth bulge, including (1) embarking on a reliable population count, rather than relying on estimates based on projections, as a basis for planning; (2) developing a population control policy; and (3) widening access to family planning measures to control high birth rates.

    While the above measures will take time to produce the desired results, the task of minimising the existential threat of the youth bulge is even more urgent. The immediate term approach has been to provide palliatives in terms of temporary employment, such as the current government’s N-Power programme, and economic incentives, such as SME and startup loans.

    However, more sustainable pathways to controlling the effects of the youth bulge lie in facilitating employability and creating appropriate jobs. This dual objective could be achieved by (1) providing adequate facilities, funding, and staff for meaningful education in which learning is geared towards the labour market, rather than mere certificates without job-ready skills and (2) creating an enabling environment (infrastructure, power, water, etc.) for agriculture, industries, light manufacturing, SMEs, digital hubs, and the service industry as these are the true job creators, not the government per se.

    Since citizens are resident in particular communities in different states, it is high time power and resources were decentralised so that states could implement these programmes more effectively.