The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Where are the voters?; Corruption!

    Where are the voters?; Corruption!

    In Osun State population 4.7m, 1.9m PVCs [41%] were made and in the election Adeleke Adeleke – PDP 403,371 [20% of total PVCs made, 27% of collected PVCs  voters and 51+% of actual voters],  wins over incumbent Governor Adegboyega Oyetola – APC 375,027 [19% of total PVCs made, 25% of collected PVC voters and 48+% of actual voters] with Lasun Yusuf – Labour Party 2,729[ 0.1% of actual voters] totalling 781,127 voters [52%] out of 1,479,595 PVCs collected. This means 698,468 [48%] DID NOT VOTE.

    Remember that INEC complained that out of 1,955,657 PVCs issued only 1,479,595 PVCs [75%] were collected, leaving 476,062 [25%] no shows – more than voted for the winning party. In addition, where were the 698,468 [uncollected PVC owners-35% of total PVCs] + 476,062 [24% collected PVC, non-voters] = 1,174,530 PVC holders [60% of total PVCs]?

    Are they ‘GHOST PVC holders’ equivalent to one and half times the number of the actual voters? Imagine if they had cast 1,174,530 or even 698,468 or 476,062 ‘protest votes’ for a minority candidate? He would have won easily.  There is an unacceptable waste of INEC budgeted resources. Are INEC waste papers incinerated or recycled for school children’s jotters?

    The election went without violence. However, intimidation, fear factor and voter apathy due to a perceived lacklustre past performance and bleak future and little difference between the candidates/parties/ideology may have paralysed many voters. PAST PERFORMANCE MATTERS EVEN IN A RIGGED ELECTION.  So, what kept the electorate away? Civil Society/INEC should investigate this epidemic of ‘Non-picked-up’ or ‘Non-use of PVCs’.

    WILL OSUN STATE BENEFIT FROM THE NEW GOVERNOR’S PLANS AND ACTIONS OR WILL THE NEW GOVERNMENT JUST BENEFIT FROM OSUN STATE?

    The election points to a 20-30% lower population, 150-160m, than the 200m boasted about! Were the PVCs criminally made for non-existent or for voters with multiple registrations?

    The election may be over, but will Osun State recover and eventually grow with serious SDG-compliant policies and practices and anticorruption strategies by the new government?

    It seems INEC could reduce its ‘Printing Voter Card Budget’ and plastic footprint by one third by researching and better predicting actual voter numbers. Just think of the cost of the 48+% unused and therefore wasted voter cards! Sadly, crime in politics persists and criminally we heard a lot about N2,000, N5000, N7000 and N10,000 offered for the new name for ’vote trading’-the new name to soften the criminal interpretation for the action which is bribery and corruption! ‘Vote trading’ should not be used as it reduces voter corruption into a political gimmick.

    Is vote buying better than vote stealing, ballot box stuffing, creative vote counting and underage voting? All are wrong, prosecutable and must be prosecuted. The politicians responsible, are criminally influencing the result, should be jailed and barred from public office.

    If you cheat to get power, you will cheat to stay in power and cheat the treasury while in power leading to massive ‘approved’ corruption inflating  governance costs to ‘recoup with 1000% interest’  election expenses. Now we must add N100m to that bill if the governor seeks the Presidency in future.

    We applaud the progress of a British Nigerian Kemi Badenoch, 42, in the conservative party and the corridors of power around Number 10 Downing Street and being among the last five from over 30 PM aspirants. Fortunately, she did not face a criminal N100m or $240,000 fee to buy a form. We wish her success.

    Nigeria has borrowed, particularly during the last seven years, creating a debt profile of N41+trillion-? N45trillion by end 2022. N41,000,000,000,000 or N150,000 -N200,000/Nigerian if my math is right. Some of Nigeria’s creditors are now also in financial trouble with citizens protesting high cost of living and falling currency values, the Covid disruption of family and business, high oil prices, the trouble with Russia, impending food shortage, destructive climate change events paradoxically causing massive flooding, heatwaves and frequent forest fires destroying economies and livelihoods. Can Nigeria’s children pay our current debt without paralysing our home economy and decimating even further our ‘toilet-paper’ currency, the once proud ‘N1 :$1.5’?

    Governments and politicians at state level in Nigeria often inherit debt and uncompleted projects without question, not prosecuting guilty political predecessors, who corruptly diverted funds and robbed their true employers, the people, of salaries, pension and infrastructural inheritance. Hail Nigeria, where the captains of state and federal government agencies regularly turn into pirates accused in their hundreds and sometimes convicted of stealing sums totally trillions- caught only after crazy amounts have been stolen from Nigeria’s children’s present needs and future.

    The latest among smiling, playacting dead, diseased or maimed accused was the Accountant General of the Federation, responsible for the safety of Nigeria’s public money, accused of N80b- 200billion i.e. N80-200,000,000,000, [N300- N2,500 per Nigerian population 160+m ] and owning 15+houses, caught only because he offered a 15-year-old any house in Abuja which she reported to an uncle who deserves GCON, a whistle blower reward and recognition by SERAP, Transparency International etc.

    Who in the ICPC/EFCC/SFU failed to screen before appointment and monitor during the accountant general’s tenure? Is this ‘anti-corruption government’ so corruption-porous and without checks and balances and alarms when the first N1m or N1Om/N100m/N1,000m/N10,000m/N100,000m/N1b took off? We trivialise the word ‘Accountant’. It is a burden and means ‘to keep account’ and ‘Account for’ the nation’s funds. That is his only task but strangely full of apparently unmonitorable temptation. Monitor governments.

  • Overwhelming endorsements for Oyetola’s re-election

    Overwhelming endorsements for Oyetola’s re-election

    The current Governor of Osun State, Gboyega Oyetola, should be re-elected to a second term. And he will be re-elected on Saturday, July 16, 2022. This is the wish of majority of the state’s traditional and religious leaders. It is the wish of the elite and the masses alike. It is the wish of the workers, particularly civil and public servants, as endorsed by various unions. It is the wish of artisans and okada drivers. Above all, it is the wish of the majority of voters in the state, as revealed by various opinion polls.

    There are several major reasons why Oyetola should be re-elected. First, by all standards of measurement and within a short time, Oyetola courageously and methodically recorded significant achievements in infrastructure, healthcare, education, welfare, and the peaceful coexistence of Osun citizens.

    Oyetola has constructed or completed over 2,000 kilometers of roads, including  Gbongan – Akoda road; Ikirun-Iragbiji road Osogbo- Kelebe-Iragbiji road; Idi-Odan-Anaye-Araromi road; Ada-Igbajo township road; Ede-Ara-Ejigbo road; Moro-Yakoyo-Ipetumodu-Asipa road; Akindeko-Awosuru-Alekunwodo road; Osogbo-Kelebe-Iragbiji road; Ejigbo-Ara Junction-Ede road; Ikirun-Ekoende road; Aagba road; Modakeke -Famia road. To cap it all, he started and completed Ola Iya Flyover virtually within one year.

    Rather than listen to market noise about industrialisation or adopt a diffuse focus on several industrial projects at the same time, Oyetola focused on gold mining, which led to the state’s partnership with a Canadian listed gold developer. In no time, the first and only large-scale commercial gold mine in the country was established and production has begun. In due course, the mine will become a major employment generator for youths and wealth creator for gold entrepreneurs.

    Oyetola’s achievements in the Health sector are even more remarkable. He constructed or renovated and also equipped 332 Primary Health Centres, one in each ward in the state, thereby bringing healthcare closer to the people. At the same time, he improved significantly on the state’s major referral hospital, the State Specialist Hospital in Asubiaro, Osogbo. What he accomplished in this Hospital is beyond ordinary: In addition to a 120-bed ward, he constructed a new Children’s Ward; a Surgical Ward;  a Trauma Centre, a Blood Bank Building; and 30 units of Doctors’ Quarters. He also paid special attention to the health of public and civil servants, by renovating the Government House and the State Secretariat Staff Clinics. On top of it all, he established the Osun Health Insurance Scheme to which subscription has been growing steadily.

    The regular payment of workers’ salaries and pensions deserves special mention. Ordinarily, the regular payment of workers’ entitlements should not be regarded as an achievement as such. However, in the special circumstances that federal and state governments have found themselves, in which the majority of state governments owe arrears of salaries and pensions, Oyetola’s achievements are spectacular in this regard, more so when the three financial deficits he inherited are duly considered, namely, (a) arrears of salaries and pensions; (b) debt servicing on loans for capital projects; and (c) dwindling federal allocations and stunted Internally General Revenue for the first two years of his administration.

    The two-year delay in the effective take-off of his administration is another major factor to consider in assessing Oyetola’s achievements. It will be recalled that the administration was virtually in limbo for the first six months as it faced election litigation that went all the way to the Supreme Court. To complicate matters, COVID-19 hit just as the administration was taking off, thereby putting everything on hold for another 18 months. Within this period, the #EndSARS protest took place with devastating destruction of various private and public facilities, including the Governor’s vehicle. Effectively, then, the above achievements occurred within a short span of less than two years.

    The critical question, which has not been fully covered in previous assessments, is how Oyetola has been able to accomplish so much in so little time. Three key factors are working in his favour—his personality; the template of his governance model; and his knowledge of finance and the financial world. Oyetola is a calm, cool-headed, and reflective personality, who listens attentively to suggestions and alternative viewpoints.

    He also developed a governance template anchored on inclusive and participatory governance. I participated in the development of this template, which led him to seek the people’s input at every turn and take their demands as the starting point of participatory democracy. Thus, at the beginning of his administration, he sought public opinion through Town Hall meetings and a Citizens Needs Assessment, conducted by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) recently replaced by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

    While participatory democracy is key to progressive governance, it could lead to conflict between two successive administrations, particularly when the electorate demands a change in policies they didn’t like during the preceding administration. That was the case with the changes that Oyetola made to the education policies established by his immediate predecessor. Although abundant evidence exists that the changes were in response to the people’s demands, no argument could convince his predecessor that they were not premeditated (for details, see Continuity and change in Osun’s education policies, The Nation, March 11, 2020 and Premium Times of the same date).

    A third factor underlying Oyetola’s achievements is his superb understanding of financial management. He brought into governance his years of experience as an Insurance guru and boardroom expert. Of the numerous Governors I have worked closely with, none has as much understanding of the financial world as he does. His financial background allowed him to develop an alternative financing model, which attracts only contractors who would do the job within a limited time but take agreed staggered payments over a specified but short period of time. This is a smart alternative answer to borrowing from financial institutions with prohibitive interest rates and long-term payment burden.

    Despite the hue and cry about insecurity, Osun state remains arguably the most peaceful state in the nation. It is not by accident. Oyetola quickly built on the amity established by the preceding administration between the Fulani community and their herders, on the one hand, and farmers and villagers, on the other hand. He was among the first to embrace and set up Amotekun in the Southwest and its officers’ activities with police enforcement. He equipped both the police and Amotekun and got them to nab bank robbers, cultists and Yahoo Boys in the state, while keeping kidnappers away.

    As affirmed by the APC big rally in Osogbo yesterday, there is no alternative to re-electing Oyetola, if Osun is to remain peaceful, progressive, and a safe haven for citizens and investors alike.

  • ‘Work is NOT punishment. Work is perfection’; Roundabout revolt

    ‘Work is NOT punishment. Work is perfection’; Roundabout revolt

    Who are responsible for keeping maximum security terrorists in an under-equipped, undermanned ‘less than medium’ security facility-terrorist captured at huge cost to Nigeria and inspirational military bravery with so lives lost? All gains cancelled in one night – so painful to watching war widows, fatherless children and bitterly conflicted colleagues of the fallen heroes, sacrificing blood and lives to capture the 67 terrorists and 443 others now free.

    Will security improve or are we just ‘shocked and disappointed’ again after seven years in power? Does the released prisons’ budget since 2015 tally with the visible expenditure? Why were they not confronted on exiting the prison?

    So, 103 days after, seven Kaduna Abuja train kidnapped citizens are freed, leaving 43 still in dangerous humiliating captivity. While we rejoice with the freed and sympathise for the delay, we wonder what plans will release the 43? Sadly, Nigeria’s kidnappers demand huge ransoms beyond victims and families and private and public sector reach. Personal and relations’ lifelong livelihood home investments and assets are liquidated. Do not forget the Fellow Nigerians murdered by their kidnappers, merely for ‘entering a train’.   Nowadays, when you ask most people to do anything, even when they are paid, they do it resentfully, grudgingly with a huge frown or otherwise show they should not be doing the task or/and are unwilling to complete the task. The result is half-completed tasks nationwide starting in the room, home, classroom, lecture hall, office, ward, clinic, hospital and contracts. So, few tasks are completed, leaving shoddy-jobs. Your artisans will mess up their areas, the cleaner will only clean easily inspected areas. Nobody wants to clean up their own mess. In fact, it seems they plan to create work for each other.  Professionals come late to work, take long breaks and are hostile to clients and customers thinking ‘work is punishment’.

    Copy out the slogan ‘Work is not punishment’ and paste it around your offices and on WhatsApp. Sadly, the drive towards entrepreneurial gain has meant that people are reluctant to do work-for-no-pay and the loss of the golden age of ‘Volunteerism’ now considered to be a foolish, ‘Mumu venture’.

    School punishment with manual labour like extra grass cutting and fetching extra water and cleaning the toilet have unfortunately ingrained the idea that ‘work is punishment’. The idea of ‘work is a honourable responsibility’ is rarely visible in work-is-not-my-father’s -business Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDAs) including Nigeria’s schools – remember Chibok classrooms and filthy dormitories-  prisons – all highlight our monumental security work failure. Such places are often left dirty, to be cleaned and maintained only when an ‘0ga-at-the-top’ is visiting.

    Even when cleaned, most offices remain eyesores in the corners and especially on the walls where the staff members heads and bodies and the chair backs have rubbed dirty stains and lines into the painted walls from years of sleeping-on-duty hair oil stains and plastic chair/concrete wall interface  damage. By now every office manager should know that chairs should be moved at least six inches off the wall to prevent such damage. This can be done with a flat board wedged behind the chair legs. This would reduce the need to paint offices more regularly. If not, we will continue to face eyesores like disgusting dirty offices, largely because supervisory staff and workers see ‘work as punishment’ when ‘work is not punishment’ but ‘work is an honourable responsibility’.

    Workers do face problems. Apart from low morale from poor salaries and the poor economy, there is often poor and inadequate modern equipment to make work easy. We see road sweepers, rubbish clearers, rubbish clearing vehicles. Most of the workers are underequipped and the equipment provided is often inadequate. Budgets for cleaning equipment, toilet paper, toilet cleaning etc. are diverted. Remember that we are all workers, not just the hands-on workers. What do we face in our work that is militating against maximum performance? What do you face? Is your office clean, are you and your workers working optimally?

    The real question is ‘Could you, your environment and office be better positioned if all workers around you imbibed the spirit and practice of the slogan ”Work is not punishment. It leads to perfection”?

    Of course, work must be ‘honest work’ and a worker must work hard enough to be ‘worthy of the pay and eventual pension’. Sadly, some governments and pension funds specialise in denying worked wages and pensions as-at-and-when-due, destroying the work ethic and morale and motivation of even the best workers and also their families and communities. A society without hard workers as rewarded role models faces destruction.

    Roundabouts and ‘T’ junctions and crossroads have become the nightmare focus when it rains and late after office hours when the police and FRSC have ‘hands-off’ their joint responsibility to maintain legal road movement. Sadly, the common courtesy of ‘Giving Way To Traffic Already On The Roundabout On Your Left’ which used to be a badge of traffic efficiency, resides in the dustbin of ‘Traffic Courtesy’. Today we face the wicked viciousness with which public and private drivers block roundabouts and junctions.

    The common sense ’If you don’t go, I can’t go’ is abandoned and replaced with ‘If I don’t go, you won’t go’. This ‘Roundabout Revolt’ by Nigerian drivers is anger-driven and an irresponsible moral character flaw manifesting as an impatience that makes everyone suffer longer and is a cruel, miscalculated mistake. Nobody wins!

  • 2023 Presidency: Early predictions and scenarios (3)

    2023 Presidency: Early predictions and scenarios (3)

    This electoral season may well turn out to be the most transformational in recent history. We’ve seen the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rip up the manual on power rotation, throwing up Atiku Abubakar as its presidential candidate, when conventional wisdom suggested it should have looked South.

    On Sunday, All Progressives Congress (APC) flagbearer Bola Ahmed Tinubu who, in 2015 sacrificed the chance to be Vice President because of agitation against the same-faith ticket within his party, named former Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, his running mate. Both men are Muslim.

    The announcement was at once bold and controversial. For years, it was taken as an article of faith that presidential tickets must be balanced not only along regional lines, but also by the faith of the nominees. That was until 1993 when the late M.K.O. Abiola broke tradition to run with Babagana Kingibe. Against all odds the supposedly taboo ticket cantered to comfortable victory.

    Almost 30 years to the day, Tinubu has gone down the same path – referencing that unusual moment in Nigerian history when he declared in his announcement that “the spirit of 1993 is upon us.”

    Driving these critical decisions in PDP and APC is calculation as to what best guarantees success at next year’s polls – even if those steps stir up the worst emotional reactions. In the main opposition party, the junking of zoning has left a deep scar and looming fear it would pay a costly price in February 2023.

    Atiku provoked further rage within his party with the handling of the process for selecting a running mate. Today, the fallout is rated more damaging for his electoral prospects than the fact that he’s a Northerner attempting to succeed a two-term Northern president.

    Although, the preceding debate indicated Tinubu was likely to pick a Muslim to counter PDP’s strategy, that hasn’t dampened reactions. Indeed, it has provoked extreme chatter both ways. So how much of a price would he and his main rival pay given the rage of those offended by their decisions? Would they sulk in silence given limited alternative options or would they embark on something more subversive?

    There’s no doubt that anger may be a factor at next year’s election: disaffection over the actions of presidential candidates, but also fury over the incumbent government’s record. What with an economy in dire straits and the seemingly intractable challenge of insecurity.

    Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, acknowledged this recently when he advised voters not to cast ballots angrily but thoughtfully.

    The anger factor is present at every election and influences voter behaviour to some extent. The 2023 exercise won’t be any different. But I believe rage is often overdone and its impact exaggerated. For one thing, elections aren’t holding tomorrow: they are not due for another six months. One month in politics is a lifetime, six months an eternity.

    Several weeks ago, people were fuming over zoning. But today many have made their peace with fact that Atiku is the PDP candidate and if he wins, he would succeed another Northerner and the heavens won’t fall. It’s the same thing with APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket. People would huff and puff, calm would prevail and negotiations begin. By election day it wouldn’t matter whether Shettima is Ayatollah Khomeini.

    You only need to look where the outrage is coming from to understand why this is so. The North isn’t complaining about abandonment of zoning. They certainly won’t be weeping and wailing if one of theirs is handed the keys to Aso Rock again. So, PDP only has to worry about its traditional strongholds in the Southeast and South-South.

    In these two zones the anger isn’t because zoning was discarded. After all, Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, host of that Southern Governors Meeting in Asaba which produced a grand resolution demanding the next president come from the South, was only too glad to grab the next best thing. Where there’s bitterness, it’s because the East and Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, were overlooked for number two.

    As for the APC, its same-faith ticket has been largely well received across the North. It would be illusory to expect 100% approval given substantial Christian populations in some areas. Still, the reception hasn’t exactly reached the doomsday day dimensions some predicted.

    In the Southwest people are not rioting in the streets over it. Even if we assume that there are those offended in the Southeast and South-South by Tinubu’s choice, I’m sure the ruling party would take what it can get from the two zones.

    And as Bishop Matthew Kukah has pointed out, there’s no guarantee all Christians would vote for Christian candidates and all Muslims for Muslim ones. What the agitators conveniently gloss over is that at the top of the APC and PDP tickets are two Muslims.

    There’s no assurance that the religious associations have such a grip on their members as to ultimately direct their voting behaviour. Despite such overt interventions on the part of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) on behalf of then President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, he lost.

    In reality, much of the noise is just political drama and gamesmanship. Whenever the Muslim-Muslim ticket is talked about the historical point of reference is June 12, 1993. But we forget that in 2011 the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) fielded former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, as its presidential candidate, with former Guaranty Trust Bank MD/CEO and founder, Fola Adeola, as running mate.

    There was zilch outrage over that pairing mainly because it was a small platform with little chance of defeating the then ruling PDP government. That suggests that much of the hits Tinubu is getting over his decision is affirmation that he’s the man to beat. In politics, the frontrunner is often the target of the most vitriolic attacks – especially if there’s a sense that he’s pulling clear of the field.

    Still talking of transformation, this is the cycle where the oft-discussed prospect of a third force to challenge the dominance of the APC and PDP looked like materialising with the brief courtship between former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso’s, New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) and Peter Obi’s Labour Party (LP).

    Even if their alliance had born fruit, it stood little chance of displacing the big two. On their own any hopes of winning the presidency are no better than pipe dreams. But try telling that to their boisterous supporters who believe that wishes are horses.

    Arising from their challenge – especially on the Obi side – is the false narrative that Nigerian youths have adopted him as standard bearer. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have argued that no demographic of any country’s population flows entirely in one direction politically. In the US you have youths who are Republicans just as you will find many who are sympathetic to the Democrats.

    In Nigeria, all major parties have robust youth wings and there’s no evidence they are falling over themselves to embrace some third party revolution. Any suggestion to the contrary is the fond wish of people comforting themselves on social media.

    This cycle age has become a hot button issue, not just because the incumbent is close to 80 and has battled health challenges, but due to the two main contenders being in their seventies. Even Obi who is supposedly the ‘youthful’ candidate would be 61 later this month, while Kwankwaso is 65.

    Many younger people frustrated with the condition of the country blame “all these old people” and argue that things would be better if someone closer to their age were elected president. The major flaw in their position is the assumption that the presidency is the only platform for governing and affecting lives.

    Truth is the vast majority of people who have held office as local government chairmen, commissioners, state assembly members, governors, members of the Federal House of Representatives and senators since 1999, fall within the 30 to 50 years age bracket. Goodluck Jonathan became governor at 48, succeeded the late Umaru Yar’Adua as president at 53. He was voted out office by voters unimpressed with his performance.

    There are more young people in office across the land than those in their sixties and seventies. How many states, or arms of government overseen by them are such shining examples?

    Nigerians remember past stellar performers as state governors – the likes of the late Lateef Jakande in Lagos and Sam Mbakwe in Imo – not because of their age but because of what they did in office.

    All over the world voters are electing people based on their vision and current challenges facing their countries, not the youthful good looks or physical strength of candidates. The US voted the seventy-something Donald Trump into office and replaced him four years later with the even older Joe Biden.

    Nigeria’s reality is that one of two septuagenarians would be its president next year. It would be more profitable to devote our energies to interrogating their vision for addressing the country’s challenges rather than spewing bile and hate on the internet.

  • Why collaboration with Cuba is important

    Why collaboration with Cuba is important

    For over two years on this column, I have been advocating collaboration with Cuba on technology transfer and vaccine production (see, for example, Cuba fights COVID-19 with homegrown vaccines, The Nation, June 30, 2021), and, for almost as long, the Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria, Clara Pulido-Escandell, has been negotiating the possibility with officials in the Ministry of Health as well as the Ministry of Science and Technology.

    A major step in that direction was taken recently when Nigeria and Cuba signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on contract manufacturing, technology transfer, local production of vaccines, and the sale of Cuban  biopharmaceutical products in Nigeria. In a well coordinated effort, the agreement was signed while a delegation of Nigerian officials, scientists, and businessmen were in Cuba from late April to early May, 2022.

    Some of the delegates went there to inspect Cuba’s biomedical facilities, while others went there to explore business potentials, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Yet others went there to attend the international conference on biotechnology, which held from April 25-29, 2022.

    The Cuban Ambassador organised a briefing at the Cuban Embassy last Wednesday, June 29, 2022, to provide an opportunity for the delegates to share ideas about their experiences in Cuba, focusing on what they found that could be beneficial to the Nigeria from partnership with Cuba.

    A summary of the key issues at the briefing was provided yesterday by Moses Emorinken, Health Correspondent for The Nation Newspaper, who attended the event along with other media representatives (see Nigeria, Cuba explore prospects of local vaccine production, The Nation, July 5, 2022).

    As Emorinken demonstrated in his account, the delegates provided interesting justification for a Nigeria-Cuba collaboration. Nevertheless, certain details are missing, which need to be emphasized. First, Cuba’s biotechnology industry, which developed in response to the US blockade in the early 1960s, is among the best in the world and a good model to follow. It is made up of more than 30 research institutions and manufacturers, under the supervision of the state-run conglomerate, BioCubaFarma. This development allowed Cuba to grow into one of the world’s leading manufacturers of biopharmaceutical products, especially vaccines. It was Cuba that developed the world’s first meningococcal B vaccine in the late 1980s. Today, Cuba produces as much as 80 percent of the vaccines used in the country, and sends hundreds of millions of doses abroad.

    Second, Cuba’s investment in medical training and biomedical research provides a global model, which allows the country to have one of the highest doctor to patient ratios in the world. As if in response to the famous America’s Youth Corps, Cuba established the Henry Reeve Brigade in 2005, which dispatches healthcare professionals all over the world to combat disasters and epidemics. They were in Haiti during the cholera outbreak in 2010; in West Africa during the Ebola crisis of 2013-2016; and in Italy when COVID-19 peaked in 2020.

    Cuba’s strengths in these areas are precisely what Nigeria needs in a partnership in order to develop necessary skills in the same areas. Although Cuba has assisted a number of African countries in the past, the Nigeria-Cuba partnership in technology transfer and vaccine production will be the first such partnership on the African continent.

    Fortunately, Cuba is not only willing to partner with Nigeria in these areas, it is actually anxious to do so, and the reason is not far-fetched. Cuba has deeper historical ties to Nigeria than to any other African nation. This was evident in eyewitness accounts by the Nigerian delegates to Cuba, some of whom were mesmerised by similarities between the two countries in observed cultural practices while they were in Cuba.

    For the Nigerian government, of course, It cannot be denied that the immediate motivation for this collaboration was the search for vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Wealthy Northern countries did not only hoard the vaccines they produced, they also engaged in proprietary hoarding of biotechnology. Moreover, they only sold among themselves, neglecting Southern countries even when they were prepared to pay. The result has been pathetic for Nigeria as the nation could only settle for donated vaccines, which has so far been administered on just about 10 percent of the population, one of the lowest in the world. It is as well, therefore, that the collaboration Nigeria is seeking now is not with a Northern country but will be a South-South collaboration.

    From what we know about Cuba’s preparedness and from my exchanges with the Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria, Cuba is prepared from Day 1. The question now is: Will Nigeria be able to fulfill its own part of the agreement? Now that the Federal Government has entered a lame-duck session in preparation for the 2023 elections, what chances are there that Nigeria will push forward beyond the expression of interest?

    But then, Nigeria will not be starting from scratch. There are research labs. There are scientists. All that is needed is take-off funding to revive moribund labs and incentivise scientists interested in the collaboration. In this regard, there are even Nigerian doctors and other scientists in Cuba, who could be attracted to come home to participate in the project.

    Finally, there is the need to light up that fire in the belly that is known as political will. Dedicated officials in relevant ministries are needed to ensure that the agreement signed in Havana bears fruits in Nigeria.

  • Modupe Omisore@90; Waterways; water; politics

    Papa Architect Chief Theophilus Amoo Modupeoreoluwa Omisore aka Pa TADO, and Uncle Dope turned 90 not out, last week in Ibadan. Looking not a day over 75 , straight-backed, soft spoken, jovial, generous with his time, talent and treasure, accommodating to the old and young, the quintessential master architect who has with his close partners and especially Arc Olusola  Bolarinwa, established the legacy of the master architect’s testimony of many fine masterpiece edifices across Nigeria reaching Port Harcourt university and  elsewhere but especially the BCOS Building in Ibadan, several buildings in universities of Ife and Ibadan including the International Conference Centre, UI.  As the Lord Bishop of Ibadan Anglican Diocese named him, he is Living Ancestor which probably makes Aunty Dayo an ancestress. We wish you ‘longer life’ a directed by the officiating clergy. Amen,

    Nigerians should loudly urge their lawmakers once again to reject the federalisation of the waterways in the reintroduced Water Resources Bill. Why should the federal government give the impression of being a ‘water and land grabbing bully’ when Nigerians are calling on the federal government to decentralise, restructure and reverse the unitary status of Nigeria and divest itself of powers wrongly acquired under military rule and revert to pre-coup plotting times?

    No member of the National Assembly, NASS should use public/government funds to visit anyone in jail abroad, wrongly or rightly. It is preposterous that NASS announced it was sending NASS members to visit London to see a colleague having trafficking and human rights legal problems. The disgraceful decline of the pauperised and decimated Nigerian currency and the hugely dollarized election have not escaped the angry analysis of the Nigerian citizen in the face of rampant inflation causing an unendurable increase in cost of living, huge public loan portfolios with no guarantee of pay back which will further plunge the naira into the abyss of nothingness. It is the cumulated effects of greed and corruption of politics which have destroyed our once proudly strong naira value.

    ‘Politics’ has been interpreted as ‘unchallenged corruption’ costing Nigeria too much and weakening every fibre of Nigeria’s existence. Political costs can no longer be endured by the ordinary Nigerian. Every student, patient, passenger, professional, worker, pensioner loses some personal progress to greedy Nigerian politics. The losses are a burden in the budget’s ‘Recurrent List’ and ever-increasing due to apparently silently sanctioned political CINS – Corruption, Incompetence, Selfishness and Negligence.

    The Nigerian giant, made to crawl by the cancer of greed and congenital corruption, has had a mountain of promises laughingly thrown at her face at every election and coup takeover time. But, no succeeding government can really boast of ‘Mission Accomplished’ when it comes to measuring performance against worldwide standards, using the most basic indices and particularly Sustainable Development Goals of living and dying. SDGs are ‘Sustainable Development’.

    If we do not meet the SDGs, we are country are ’Un-Sustainable’ and ‘Un-Developed. Is that the Legacy Project Nigerian politicians want to scar Nigeria with? Meanwhile other countries basic infrastructure are what wealthy and economically hungry and holiday Nigerians leave Nigeria to enjoy. Electricity UPS- Uninterrupted Power Supply, Education UES – Uninterrupted Education Services from kindergarten to post-graduate, Transport UPS – Uninterrupted Transport Services -road and rail and river, Water UWS -Uninterrupted Water Supply, water at point of need elimination environmentally polluting plastic bags and bottles. Nigeria creates the wrong opportunities by destroying the normal. Water keg sellers, water tankers, pure water sellers in millions and okada riders are providing jobs we should not need.

    Every single political appointment, the needless explosion of ‘jobs-without -work’ for politically faithful boys-and-girls and corruption-driven mostly never-to-be-completed contracts have driven up the cost of mis-governance. So we are in the grip of a misdirected politics, directed at satisfying only itself by taking funds meant for the citizen’s family. The politicians are telling us to go into entrepreneurship and employ ourselves and not expect government to employ our young graduates but they, the politicians, keep re-employing themselves in government and its agencies and as political advisors and recycled governors, senators and representatives and ministers accumulating huge multilayers salaries and pensions.

    We are told that the terminal gratuity of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, is N2.5billion in a court system which can hardly boast of being computerised and have adequate functioning toilet facilities. If true, it is a scandal  but far less than would be expected in line with what many governors and NASS members demanded for just four years of very highly paid well paid service.

    Does any Nigerian government hospital have adequate toilet facilities? If not, how can any ministry or school? A country which plays politics with its basic infrastructure is playing with its very existence.  The toilet is the social and medical need of every human 2-4 times a day. Though not often mentioned that it is the defining structure in the definition of civilisation. Yet it is the most neglected government facility in any government structure. When available it is often locked for VIPs. Try visiting a toilet in any school and ask where the teachers go. You will be sadly surprised to ‘discover’ that there is probably no water.

    Nigeria’s ‘No water’ is called ‘A government induced drought’. Is there tap water in your village, town, city, state or your street? Strictly a government failure to deliver life-sustaining water to the children. And now they want to control the waterways?

  • The welfare of Nigerian workers

    The welfare of Nigerian workers

    The recent brutal murder of a bus conductor in Lagos by irate herdsmen for accidentally running into and killing two cows that strayed onto the nation’s highway indicates the value placed on human life by a group of people in this country.

    By the same token, the failure of the police to protect the bus conductor who ran to their station for protection is also symbolic of how negligent the current officials of the Nigerian state are in upholding the constitution they swore to obey. According to the constitution, one of the “fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy” pointedly states that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government” (Section 14(2)(b)).

    As a result of the escalation of terrorist, banditry, and kidnapping activities in recent years, media attention has been devoted largely to the “security” component of this constitutional clause. Consequently, little or no attention has been paid to the “welfare” component.

    Even then, the media interpretation of security has focused almost exclusively on security from physical harm. This has led to the neglect of social security, which implies the welfare of citizens. True, advanced democracies develop strong armies and a formidable police force to ensure physical security, but they also invest heavily in social security, which begins with the provision of critical infrastructure and other shared political goods, such as education and healthcare, and then puts special emphasis on workers’ welfare and social safety nets for the young, the elderly, and the physically challenged.

    It is incontrovertible that the Nigerian state has failed woefully in all aspects of physical and social security. However, as indicated earlier, it is now time to turn the spotlight on some critical aspects of social security, particularly the welfare of workers. Three recent events heighten the urgency of this focus.

    One is the ongoing strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, which started on February 14, 2022. Very soon, the duration of the strike will beat the old record of 5 months and 15 days, recorded in 2013 (July 1 to December 17). Indeed, ASUU has embarked on as many as 16 strikes over the past two decades with debilitating effects particularly on university students. A critical bone of contention in these strikes is staff welfare, ranging from salaries to welfare packages.

    A second recent welfare crisis was highlighted by the strike of workers of the National Assembly and the National Assembly Service Commission. Again, their complaint is about salaries and allowances.

    The third and most recent welfare crisis was provided by the Justices of the Supreme Court, whose mind-boggling complaints rattled the whole nation and even international observers. Their grievances include decrepit vehicles; epileptic power supply at home and at the Supreme Court; lack of drug supply at the court’s clinic; a dearth of capacity building opportunities at home and abroad; failure to recruit qualified legal assistant; and lack of Internet facilities for the Justices.

    A recurrent feature of these three cases is the failure of the relevant authorities to do the right thing, including implementing agreements with relevant workers. In all cases, repeated complaints were also ignored.

    These federal cases attract attention because of their media visibility. Similar cases go on in state and private universities, state Houses of Assemblies, and state courts. Even more deplorable cases of welfare crisis go on across the 36 states of the federation, where basic entitlements, such as salaries, are not paid on time, if at all. Worse still, those who have devoted 30-35 years of their lives to public service are left in a limbo, without the payment of their pension.

    So critical has the payment of salaries become in some states that it has become a major campaign issue. In Osun state, for example, the regular payment of salaries has become a major achievement of the current All Progressives Congress administration in the state. Since the administration could not be faulted for this achievement, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party is campaigning on the inverse of the situation by deceiving votes into believing that the administration would revert to half salaries, if voted back into office. Of course, the administration has no such plans.

    It must be admitted, of course, that federal and state governments have launched various social protection programmes to provide succour for youths, the elderly, the physically challenged, and the poor. The problem with many of these programmes is their temporary and transient nature as well as their variation across administrations, especially when party lines are crossed.

    It is now time for this nation to develop an enduring welfare and social security policies and set up stable structures for their implementation. If there is any laudable function that central governments perform in advanced democracies, it is the smooth and effective implementation of such policies.

    In the United States, for example, two notable enduring programmes are Social Security for the elderly, which is the equivalent of our contributory pension, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, otherwise known as the WIC programme. The programme provides supplemental foods, healthcare, and nutrition education for low-income women and to infants and children up to age 5.

    The incoming administration can understudy these successful programmes for adaptation to the Nigerian situation. But, more importantly, the new administration should move from ad hoc to enduring social protection programmes. The implementation of these programmes cannot be domiciled in Abuja like the current school feeding programme. Decentralisation is needed to ensure effective implementation. This leads to the need for devolution of powers. But that is a subject for another day.

    In the meantime, the three federal welfare cases discussed above should be resolved as soon as possible in order to ensure the smooth functioning of the legislative houses, higher education, and the temple of justice.

  • Under-age voter registration, prosecutable child rights abuse

    Under-age voter registration, prosecutable child rights abuse

    It is not right to stop the Voter Registration PVC capture exercise for any reason at all, except corruption or imminent election, and definitely not so long before the election. Nigeria claims a questionable population figure of 200 million and the more realistic one of 160million taking into account a 20-40%, average 30% politicised and economic advantage ‘Ghost Citizens’ inflation of populations in LGAs and states.

    Statisticians can use the acceptable population statistics to answer the question: ‘How many Nigerian youth become 18 every day, every month and every year?’ This answer is essential, as it will arm INEC as to numbers of new young voter registration figures to expect when those youth who were 14/15/16/17 at the last election in 2019 are now 18/19/20/21 years old and qualified, entitled and actively encouraged to register to vote. We must remember that age is the only criterion. And this figure does not consider older apathetic and migrant Nigerians seeking to register, but it is a huge positive start. INEC’s deadline has certainly energised political parties, social and religious and even governments and private sector to encourage its young workforce, and its older politically-negligent class to register before the deadline. Great. The PVC is now weaponised; the right outcome for the wrong reason, PVC obtained because of fear of sanction, not patriotism and the necessity of ‘Citizen Participation’.

    Voter registration has been made a big deal by politicians and INEC. Instead, it should have been ingrained in the education system at secondary and tertiary level as a motivational means of separating age grades — ‘18 and above vs below 18 by election day’.

    Should PVC be introduced as the most valid form of ID at 18? Not everyone has the skill or opportunity to get driving licence and may not be in the type of employment which issues an ID Card. But every Nigerian 18 year old can and should own a PVC.  Yes, it is a big deal in countries where votes count legally and age and nationality disqualifications exist against under-aged and non-nationals being criminally registered.

    Everyone is shouting about the child rights and under-aged trafficking and organ trafficking abuse that seems to be apparent in the Ekweremadu matter. And so they should be shouting if the case is as first presented. But is it as it seems? There is a lot of conflicting information out at the moment? Several agencies face questions. Even if the child is not a child and was actually 18 or 21years, is he a fit person, knowledgeable, to make such a life-influencing decision as giving up a kidney? Were his family members involved, on board and fully informed? Did they have the right to make such a decision for a person aged whatever his age comes out as when interrogated?

    Some are asking if the poor girl suffering from the kidney disease has no siblings or closer blood relations willing to donate a kidney. We look forward to the time when the truth is sorted from the fiction and ‘faction’. Certainly, one child has been saved from having an unnecessary operation. He may ‘seek asylum’ and end up in the UK for life for the error, transgression, omission or commission of others. Some have pointed out that the Ekweremadus and Buharis of this Nigeria have been in power long enough to have had governments build not one but several first-class facilities capable of delivering the full range of first class medical care to Nigerian citizens nationwide without the recourse available to politicians earning government money and receiving government ‘perks’ which they can use to access and visit foreign institutions. The questioners add that those institutions abroad are sadly populated in most cases by a large cohort of ‘Economic Medical Migrant’ Nigerian medical experts, from doormen, porters, laboratory, nursing and medical and consultant staff all forced to leave Nigeria in order to feed and provide for their families adequately and provide life’s basic infrastructure. A shame!

    But coming back home, how many are shouting about the ongoing widespread child rights abuse and under-aged ‘Political Trafficking in and Deception of Under-aged Persons’ involving several political parties and INEC? Do the leaders sitting condemning others not know of the trafficking in children’s rights in their own ranks?  Child PVC registration and voting is a prosecutable ‘child abuse/human rights abuse’ crime and is as much a crime as child trafficking. It is an illegal corruption of youth morals and criminally, making them pretend they are ‘older than they are ‘and thus depriving them of their childhood. It exposes them to violence and other dangers of being present at polling booths during rowdy electoral processes.

    In Nigeria why do hardly no more than 35% of the existing voter card holders ever vote anywhere in the country? Voter apathy is the accusation but it questions the accuracy or authenticity of the voter card holder count. Where is the hidden voter card silent majority, about 50-60%, in Nigeria, which agreed to be captured but refuses to pick up or refused to vote if they picked up their Permanent Voter Cards, PVC.

    Yes, there are serious security fears from political parties behaving badly by using violence as weapon of politics. The other source of violence is the serious insecurity in the land.  Solutions please?

    Clearing the okada epidemic in Lagos requires repeating in neighbouring states to stem relocation violence.

  • Insecurity: Beyond the kneejerk solutions

    Insecurity: Beyond the kneejerk solutions

    Nigeria lies prostrate before homicidal maniacs sowing death from north to south. Every day, every week, brings some new outrage and we are becoming well-nigh unshockable.

    It’s hard to estimate the numbers of those consumed monthly by the wave of mindless killings, but suffice it to say they would be in the hundreds. It’s not just the statistics that are scary, but the sheer depravity and the brazen manner in which lives are taken by killers who have lost every claim to being called human.

    In spite of what we’ve witnessed in the last couple of years, it’s still hard to come to terms with how gunmen calmly walked into a church service in Owo, Ondo State and shot more than 30 worshippers over yet to be identified grievances. The perpetrators remain at large while a deeply traumatised community is left to deal with its grief.

    A weeping Governor Rotimi Akeredolu at the funeral service for the victims acknowledged official helplessness in protecting the populace. We failed our people, he declared.

    In the Southeast, an intersection between the activities of Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) militants and those conveniently christened “unknown gunmen” keeps producing a harvest of corpses and circumscribed freedom. These non-state actors ensure that in most states in the zone, residents remain indoors on Mondays.

    Now, there’s a darker dimension to the bloodletting. The killers aren’t just content with terminating life, they are now doing so in a statement-making way. In the last couple of months two prominent people were not just murdered, they were beheaded.

    Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, whose state has become epicentre of the killings has vowed to confront the gunmen. But his fighting talk is often followed by another mindboggling homicide. It’s almost as if the merchants of death are calling his bluff.

    The governor says that’s what they are – just merchants, not people driven by any sort of political agitation. At a recent briefing he spoke of how a security raid at one of the forests in his domain unearthed the accounting books of the killers, detailing revenues and expenditures of their gory business. Still, all he could offer the people was hope of deliverance down the road.

    Large parts of the Northwest have accepted that government as we know it – state or federal – isn’t about to rescue them any time soon. So, they’ve wisely surrendered to the reign of bandits who levy protection taxes on their communities.

    Everything that the government has thrown at them – from disruption of communications to targeted military operations – haven’t stopped the killers. It only seems to make them beat a strategic retreat, only to return for business as usual.

    Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, caused a stir a few days back when he called on his people to acquire arms to defend themselves. He wasn’t saying anything new. His colleague in Benue, Samuel Ortom, has made similar calls in the past after presiding over many funerals for victims of killings in his state.

    Matawalle’s statement has triggered criticism from some who pointed out he was standing on shaky legal grounds.

    His is only just the latest in a stream of kneejerk solutions that haven’t made a dent on the problem. Remember how after a particular mass killing President Muhammadu Buhari gathered his security chiefs and charged them to shoot on sight anyone found carrying an AK-47 in the bush. We know how many people have been shot arising from that order.

    Again, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, perhaps out of frustration, has called in the past for the security forces to bomb known locations of terrorists and bandits. This has been tried a couple of times. Again, the tactic may have caused them to scatter for a while, but they always regroup to carry on from where their activities were disrupted.

    No matter how seductive these kneejerk actions may appear; they can’t provide long term solutions that bring peace to communities. Indeed, some of the suggestions are not just problematic, they are downright impractical.

    The call for people to arm themselves appears attractive on the surface because it supposedly provides some sort of balance of terror. However, we’ve seen from societies like the United States that the constitutional right of citizens to own and openly carry guns hasn’t shielded them from the havoc of mass murderers.

    Hardly a month passes without news of some gunman going on a murderous rampage against unarmed people. The upshot is that a country with hundreds of years of laws permitting people to own arms, has just been dragged kicking and screaming into enacting a modest gun control legislation.

    Still, some want to believe that if we all have guns, life would be ever so peaceful. Not so! The easy part in a country whose people have developed a keen taste for lawlessness is liberalising the acquisition of weapons. The harder part would be ensuring their lawful use – such that minor disagreements between neighbours aren’t resolved by shootouts.

    Again, allowing people to acquire weapons isn’t going to make communities more secure, rather it would exacerbate the gulf between the rich and poor. While the former may be able to afford nuclear warheads to defend their islands of opulence, the lesser privileged would remain at the mercy of organised criminals who can muster the resources to buy the most sophisticated weapons in pursuit of their enterprise.

    The idea of citizens arming themselves is in reality just the latest example of the state abdicating its responsibilities to the people. It bears restating that it is the constitutional duty of governments to ensure the security of citizens. That is why in most jurisdictions it’s only law enforcement agencies and the armed forces that can legally carry weapons.

    In some instances, not every member of those agencies – depending on their assignment – is permitted to carry deadly weapons. Yes, people can apply to own guns for ‘good reason.’ But in the United Kingdom and Norway, for instance, self-defence is not accepted as a valid reason for obtaining a gun licence.

    Despite the high visibility of guns in the United States, its crime rate is far higher than countries like Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Japan and New Zealand. Yet, some of these countries have the most restrictive gun laws in the world. This shows that having more weapons isn’t necessarily the route to a more peaceful society.

    Rather, there would be a turnaround when we begin an honest national dialogue that interrogates what’s driving the killings and we understand how serious the insecurity problem is across the country.

    Motives are certainly not the same across zones. Take the Owo church massacre. Federal agencies were quick to blame ISWAP but the state government vehemently disagreed. Something just didn’t sit right. What would be the propaganda advantage to Islamic State of an attack on an anonymous Catholic Church in Owo?

    For the bandits in Zamfara and other parts of the Northwest, their motivation isn’t ideological but economic. It is the same for the kidnappers making killer profit across the South. But you cannot ascribe the same reasons to those who target security agents and police stations in the Southeast.

    The needed interventions may be political, military or economic – depending on the root causes. Measures that would wean those who have identified criminality as very profitable would take a long time to put in place. But there are more immediate steps that can be taken to reclaim territories which the criminals have made their haven.

    Akeredolu in his plaint spoke of how most forests in the country have been taken over by terrorists. His words echo those of Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, who last December spoke of how the Falgore forest in his domain had been overrun by armed robbers, rogue herdsmen and terrorists.

    There’s need for proper profiling of these killers wherever they operate to identify the best way to tackle them. But whatever is done our forests must be made uncomfortable for them. This will require coordinated action between federal and state governments as well as local communities.

    One short term solution is to mobilise as many of the nation’s security agencies to retake these wilds. This requires an increase in recruitment and investment in technology given the expanse of territory to be covered and the number of criminals to be confronted.

    Clearly, legislators playing political games don’t understand the gravity of the situation. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have dropped the state police idea from the recent constitutional amendment exercise. This is one sure way of boosting the number of security forces who can complement the federal police and other agencies to combat aggravated crimes across the land.

    Some of these measures the Buhari administration can initiate. But with its limited lifespan the responsibility lies more with those who will take over from him. That’s why major parties and their presidential candidates must be challenged to show Nigerians credible plans for restoring peace to the land in the shortest possible time.

  • Who wants to litigate Ekiti governorship election results?

    Who wants to litigate Ekiti governorship election results?

    The rush to the election tribunal by losers has become a staple of Nigerian governorship elections. However, litigation of election results need not be normalized as standard practice for various reasons.

    First, it makes a mockery of the electoral process when virtually every loser rushes to the tribunal to seek redress. To be sure, there are losers, who are clearly cheated. However, such losers will only need to go to court, if the margin of cheating was so thin that redress could lead to a reversal of the result in the loser’s favour of if a rerun election was ordered due to recognized malpractices that could lead to the disenfranchisement of certain voters. Such was the case in Osun state in 2018, where the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, led the All Progressives Congress candidate, Mr. Gboyega Oyetola, with less than 500 votes. The rerun led to the victory of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, which the PDP challenged in court but without success.

    It must be acknowledged, however, that some reversals had been based on technicalities, even when the purported loser did not even participate in the election. Such was the case of Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi in 2007. He won the governorship primary election but his party, the PDP, substituted another candidate for the election proper. The Supreme Court faulted the substitution and gave the victory to Amaechi. It was a resounding message to political parties not to unilaterally substitute candidates, who legitimately won primaries.

    It is very clear, however, that, based on available data, there is no way in which victory could be reversed in the governorship election held in Ekiti state last Saturday, June 18, 2022. The victory of the All Progressive Congress candidate, Abiodun Oyebanji, was so overwhelming that neither of the two candidates contemplating litigation ever came close. They are Engineer Segun Oni of the Social Democratic Party and Ms. Josephine Kemi Elebute-Halle of the ADP. Oyebanji of the APC polled 187,057 votes (53.16%), whereas  Oni of the SDP polled 82,211votes  (23.37%)  and Elebute-Halle polled a paltry 3,455 votes.

    Even Mr. Bisi Kolawole of the PDP, who came third by polling 67,457 (19.17%) of the votes, readily congratulated the winner of the election without delay. This is what incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi of the APC did to former Governor Ayo Fayose of the PDP, who defeated him roundly in 2014. That is how it should be, if our democracy were to be appropriately nurtured.

    Another implication of losers rushing to the tribunal is the dampening effect such action poses for the significant gains recorded by the Independent National in conducting elections.

    Besides, frivolous litigation poses serious problems for recognising legitimate winners of elections, thus making a mockery of the electoral process. Of what value is an election if it is automatically bastardised by litigation, which the courts would eventually throw out? Moreover, such litigation often ends up as an abuse of the court process, even now that the courts are complaining about poor welfare.

    To be sure, a candidate, such as Oni, who had expected to win, would be under the illusion that victory was snatched from him. The leadership of his party and his frontline supporters have a duty in ensuring that such illusion gives way to reality. Rather than spend more money on a case his is sure to lose, he should count his losses and disregard money-grabbing lawyers, who would assure him falsely that he has a good case.

    In the Ekiti case, losers should sit down to review the election and ask themselves why they lost. Simultaneously they also will be reviewing the factors that led to the victor’s emergence. Clearly, Oyebanji of the APC had several key factors going for him.

    One, he is a “home-grown boy”. He had his primary, secondary, and much of his tertiary education in the state. He had occupied various positions in the state, including Special Assistant on parliamentary affairs; Chief of Staff; Commissioner for Integration and Inter-governmental Affairs; Head of Ekiti’s Office of Transformation Strategy and Delivery; Commissioner for Budget, and Economic planning; and Secretary to the State Government. No one can deny that he knows Ekiti state and that the Ekiti people know him.

    True, Oni had been Governor of the State before (2003-2007) but he entered Ekiti politics from the top and, unlike Oyebanji, who served in the current government, Oni’s service had been relegated to history by many young voters, who might not have known him well.

    Second, Oyebanji has two prominent political godfathers in the state, former Governor Niyi Adebayo and current Governor, John Kayode Fayemi, who served the as Governor for a combined 12 years. They provide Oyebanji with a wealth of social and political capital that paid off during the election.

    Thus, third, days before the election, the godfathers participated the organisation of a mega rally in which leaders of the ruling party, including 14 serving Governors, participated. Central to this event was the participation of former Governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu and the APC National Leader participated as the flag bearer of the party. His presence and resounding victory in the presidential primaries energised the voters and led many of them to vote APC in the hope that Tinubu’s victory in 2023 might rob off on their state.

    Oni made yet another mistake by veering into the Social Democratic Party for the purpose of the election as a way of venting his anger against the APC. Perhaps except Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, formerly of the Labour Party, and the candidates of All Progressive Grand Alliance in the Southeast, no candidate of a minority party has won the governorship outside the two major political parties.

    There is yet another deterrent to litigation in the just concluded Ekiti governorship election. Local and international observers viewed the election as free, fair, and transparent. Of course, there were notable hiccups, such as vote-buying. However, voters confirmed that all four frontline political parties in the election, including Oni’s SDP, participated in the practice. To be sure, there were differences in scale and in the amount involved, but that does not exonerate the SDP. Besides, the culprits are being investigated. Hopefully, many would be charged and punished according to law.

    I know Segun Oni. He is a fine gentleman. I trust that he will allow reason to prevail.