The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Gov Shettima’s apocalyptic warning

    Gov Shettima’s apocalyptic warning

    Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, is a very worried man. As governor of the state worst affected by the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency, he has had cause to repeatedly issue shrill warnings on the mindless killings going on in the Northeast. On Wednesday, while receiving the 32-member Senate Joint Committee on the April 16 Massacre in Baga, he once again made an impassioned plea to the federal government to re-examine its strategies for combating terrorism. The plea comes against the background of the horrendous waste of lives in Baga and Bama in Borno State, and in Alakyo Village, Nasarawa State, where about 30 policemen were reportedly ambushed and murdered by a cult militia group called the Ombatse Militia. Hundreds of lives were lost in Baga, and some 47, according to official estimates, were lost in Bama. The killings took place in the space of about three weeks, and they show no sign of letting up.

    Governor Shettima does not believe the root cause of the mayhem is being addressed. He thinks a revolutionary ferment is being engendered, with terrible consequences for the country. His prognosis is quite worrying. According to him, “Underneath the mayhem of Boko Haram, beneath the madness lies the underlying cause which is extreme poverty and destitution which have permeated all spectrums of our society.” He adds apocalyptically: “Only and until we address some of these issues, believe me, the future is very bleak for all of us as the current crisis is just an appetizer of things to come. Very soon the youths of this country will be chasing us away…The most important thing in Nigeria is all about the last election and the next election, that is the only thing that is agitating our minds. How we can perpetuate ourselves in power, how much we can steal, how many mansions we can buy in Florida, Dubai and London, these are the things agitating the minds of the elite of this country, including you and I.”

    Given the anomie in the Northeast, which is almost spiralling out of control, and both the unconvincing response from the presidency and the intensification of the insurgency by Boko Haram extremists, it is clear the governor is not being hysterical. The country, it seems, has reached a point where the extremists are not deterred by security agents’ heavy-handedness or reprisal attacks, nor, sadly, ready to yield to well-meaning appeals to lay down their weapons and enter into dialogue with the government. It is of course worrisome that for now the sect is simply not eager to negotiate or embrace amnesty. It is also true that it harbours in its ranks malcontents from neighbouring countries. And it is also probably true that the sect is motivated by a mixed cocktail of economic and sectarian causes, thereby complicating the crisis.

    But the real nightmare is that Nigeria has become eerily and retrogressively like Afghanistan. Nigeria is no longer dealing with a fairly discernible gang of misguided religious extremists like the Maitatsine sect, which banded together in enclaves and was susceptible to effective conventional and counterinsurgency warfare tactics. It is also not dealing with fighters who are squeamish about sacrificing their lives, or who have lofty views, any sensible view at all, of country and its democratic principles. Nigeria is in fact now dealing with bitter, vengeful and relentless fighters completely devoted to their causes, no matter how misguided the rest of the country think those causes are. The sect’s impenetrable stoicism and their absolute inurement to pain and death have made it harder to find a solution.

    Unfortunately, the administrative effort to tackle the restiveness in the Northeast, though it is frenzied, has not been matched by appreciable brilliance or deep thinking. This was what prompted Governor Shettima to make his apocalyptic predictions about the prospect of ending the conflict quickly. Yet, the longer the conflict continues, the more the danger of a revolution, as the governor warned. There is not much hope the amnesty panel will make clear headway, and there is little on the ground to indicate the government’s counterinsurgency tactics will yield fruit soon. The most practical option the government should consider is how to reorganise the security forces to make them both more effective and capable of regaining the confidence and respect of the local populace who find themselves between the devil and the blue sea. And to cap the rejuvenation and reorganisation of the security agencies, Nigeria’s political leaders, especially President Goodluck Jonathan, must imbibe the right attitude to the crisis and make the right utterances in order to rally the country behind them and behind the new initiatives required to deal with a menace threatening to consume everyone

  • It is not yet the End of History in Rivers (2)

    It is not yet the End of History in Rivers (2)

    Yesterday, Hardball suggested that the events of the past few days in the Rivers State legislature had prompted fear of impending impeachment of both the Speaker and the governor. He also argued that going by history, the fear of impeachment was not unfounded. Today, he continues the argument with references to similar situations in other states: In October 2006, eight out of 24 members of the Plateau State House of Assembly served impeachment notice on Governor Joshua Dariye. Many Nigerians laughed it off as a despicable and unrealistic plot that would misfire or implode. But a month later, Dariye was out of office. Though the Supreme Court reinstated him on April 27, 2007, less than two weeks to the expiration of his second term, the damage was done, and a horrible impression of the polity was created. It also became clear there was absolutely no altruism left in President Olusegun Obasanjo, notwithstanding his vaunted claim of maturity, balance and patriotism.

    A not-so-different crazy political mathematics was also employed in Oyo State in 2005 when 18 Lamidi Adedibu-inspired members of the House of Assembly out of a 32-strong legislature decided to impeach Governor Rashidi Ladoja. Since the 18 did not have the required two-thirds to impeach the governor, they devised the brazen formula of first arbitrarily suspending five of the 14 members still loyal to the governor, and then deriving the required two-thirds based on the remaining 27. If Oyo simplified mathematics beyond limits to impeach their governor in January 2006 (the courts reinstated Ladoja in December of the same year), Bayelsa State, which actually began the crude application of impeachment weapon, used a novel method in 2005. Like Rivers today, Bayelsa House of Assembly was first coerced to suspend Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha from the PDP, then an impeachment notice drafted in Lagos inside the EFCC pressure cooker was served on him, and by December 2005, 17 of 24 members had endorsed his impeachment.

    The auguries are not good at all for Rivers. The country must therefore brace up for very perilous times in the near future, not only in that beleaguered state, but all over the country, as the presidency embraces self-help in dealing with its enemies. Yet, no matter what the PDP does, the party will find it difficult to muster the number necessary to impeach the governor, except of course it opts for the Dariye method. In addition, as a direct consequence of the heavy-handedness of the president, the mutual suspicion between his home state of Bayelsa and Amaechi’s Rivers States over boundary adjustment and oil wells dispute will continue to foul the well of trust and engender more bitterness between the two neighbouring states. Moreover, that Obasanjo got away with murder during his tenure, when many Nigerians were willing to sacrifice anything to consolidate democracy, does not mean Jonathan can get away with the same provocations. And at a time when the country is convulsing with unrest, kidnappings and sectarian rebellions, it amounts to sailing near the wind for the president to stoke more rebellion close to home.

    Mr Amaechi has his faults, and has perhaps not shown enough restraint and prudence in some of his speeches and policies, but at least he was not elected to preside over the country. The PDP can misuse its powers and oppress its members as much as it wants, but it must not be allowed to flout the constitution by attempting to subordinate a state legislature to party whims or to destabilise the polity in order to advance narrow-minded party goals. The president, his party and Mr Amaechi can still pull back from the brink if they recognise that the country is greater than winning the next set of elections, and if they are smart enough to know that they are making, not ending, history. But perhaps, to them, this advice is unacceptable idealism.

     

    •Concluded

     

  • It is not yet the End of History in Rivers (1)

    It is not yet the End of History in Rivers (1)

    The fight for control of Rivers State is far from over; in fact, it is just beginning. But contrary to what many people think, perhaps even some of the combatants themselves, the war is not simply about the disagreements between the President Goodluck Jonathan government and Governor Rotimi Amaechi. Nor quite visibly is it about whether the governor harbours presidential ambition. Nor still is it about whether the president feels his pride has been injured by a governor who he believes will wilt before a withering display and application of raw state power. The war, which is getting nastier by the day, is simply about keeping Rivers safe for the president when he throws his hat into the ring for the 2015 contest.

    Much of the Northwest and Northeast is virtually lost to the president, and the North-central is a tossup. The Southwest is virulently anti-Jonathan, while the hitherto safe South-South is not only restive, it is seething with discord. For Jonathan, therefore, damn the niceties of democracy; damn federalism; and damn human rights and any talk of posterity. If his 2015 ambition is to be saved, he knows that Rivers must be kept secure in the pouch of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), indeed in the warm embrace of Jonathan himself, no matter what it takes. Therefore, any talk of restraint and civilised behaviour is likely to fall on deaf ears.

    To many non-Nigerians, it is disconcerting that an Abuja High Court had to be secured to sack Godspower Ake as chairman of the Rivers PDP. The attempt by a Rivers High Court to reverse the sack has met with little success because the powerful forces behind the turmoil in Rivers are too connected to be pushed aside. With the installation of Felix Obuah as the new chairman about three weeks ago, the Abuja power game has gone into overdrive. Using the pretext of the House of Assembly’s suspension of the Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government, Timothy Nsirim, his deputy, Solomon Eke, and 17 councillors since April 22, Mr Obuah has managed to rewrite the Nigerian constitution by equally suspending 27 members of the state House of Assembly, including the Speaker, Otelemaba Dan Amachree. A stalemate has thus been procured, and the state reels under dreadful unease.

    The Rivers House of Assembly has 32 members. With the party presumptuously suspending 27 members loyal to the governor, the Abuja mafia now ‘proudly’ musters just five members with which it hopes to unsettle and probably unhorse the governor. The five have proved powerful, considering how they were escorted into the premises of the Assembly two days ago by the police, while the pro-Amaechi lawmakers were compelled by circumstances to go into hiding for fear of attack. The events of the past few days in the legislature have prompted fear of impending impeachment of both the Speaker and the governor. Going by history, the fear of impeachment is not unfounded.

     

    To be concluded tomorrow

     

  • Jonathan and his ethnopolitical zanies

    Jonathan and his ethnopolitical zanies

    It is not known whether President Goodluck Jonathan appreciates the unusual and fanatical commitment of both Kingsley Kuku, Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, and Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), to his cause, especially his masqueraded interest in seeking re-election in 2015. But since he has not publicly denounced the two gentlemen’s remarks, it makes sense to say that he probably connived at their extreme, almost ethnocentric, and quite provocative remarks. The president could do with brilliant advisers. If he had a few around him, they would have counselled him to distance himself from the ethnopolitical zanies that surround him, men who specialise in waving red rag to a bull, and who are adept at instigating ethnic and political animosities.

    On April 25, Hon. Kuku aimed for the country’s jugular when he made a thoughtless and inflammable statement in the United States suggesting that Nigeria’s peace and security depended on Dr Jonathan continuing in office. With his characteristic speciousness and exaggeration he declared: “It is true that the Presidential Amnesty Programme has engendered peace, safety and security in the sensitive and strategic Niger Delta. Permit me to add that the peace that currently prevails in the zone is largely because Jonathan, who is from that same place, is the President of Nigeria. That is the truth. It is only a Jonathan presidency that can guarantee continued peace and energy security in the Niger Delta…I hope the US is aware that with peace and stability in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s economy will remain buoyant enough to empower the Federal Government to contend with terrorism and other forms of insecurity in other parts of the country. However, if we allow anything to hurt the peace in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s economy will be endangered and energy security in Nigeria and even America will not be guaranteed. The attention and interest of the US in Nigeria must remain the stability of the Niger Delta and the easiest way to ensure this is to encourage President Jonathan to complete an eight-year term.” Absolute, disgusting piffle.

    Hon Kuku made these ludicrous remarks at an interactive session with senior officials of the US State Department led by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (Bureau of African Affairs), Ambassador Donald Teitelbaum. It is of course not anybody’s fault that Hon Kuku’s befuddled mind elevates the Jonathan factor as a component of regional peace above the humongous and pacifying payouts to individuals in the name of pipeline security contracts and amnesty projects. Irrespective of what anybody thinks, the special adviser has made up his mind what to believe, and no one, no matter how sensible and logical, can dissuade him. But as he prated along like a schoolboy, he unwittingly gave his bewildered American hosts a disturbing impression of the hollowness and spuriousness of the Nigerian mind.

    It never rains but it pours. Just when commentators thought no one associated with Aso Villa could make a more nonsensical comment than it was the dishonour of Hon Kuku to make, another hysterical entertainer stepped out. Alhaji Asari-Dokubo, a security contractor for Jonathan’s government, boastfully threatened Nigeria with venomous statements suggesting that Nigeria could disintegrate if Dr Jonathan was not given a second term. Of course, the NDPVF leader does not set great store by performance or competence. Hear the grandiloquent closet militant: “Recently, the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Mr. Kingsely Kuku, made a statement in the United States of America that the peace being enjoyed in the Niger Delta would not be guaranteed if President Goodluck Jonathan was not returned in 2015… I want to go on to say that there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere if Goodluck Jonathan is not president again by 2015, except God takes his life, which we don’t pray for…We must have our uninterrupted eight years of two terms…For a very long time, our resources from the Niger Delta had been used to feed and fund Nigeria…”

    Hardball believes that the fulmination by Dr. Jonathan’s supporters does not represent the opinion of the Niger Delta, for there are many in the oil region who have their heads screwed on right. It must indeed be a misfortune of immense proportions that a region which produced eminent thinkers like Professors Tekena Tamuno and E.J. Alagoa also managed in the same breath to concoct human vacuums like Hon. Kuku and Alhaji Asari-Dokubo and inflict them upon the nation. Scientists explain this ‘miracle’ as genetic mutation, indicating that the sensible must ineluctably co-exist with the hallucinative. They are right.

     

     

  • Pointless single term controversy

    Neither the Senate nor its Constitution Review Committee has confirmed the veracity of the presidential and governorship tenure proposal reportedly under consideration. But since the speculated recommendation on tenure has not been refuted, it is fair to make a tentative comment on it. Last week, newspapers reported that the Senate committee was toying with the idea of recommending a six-year single term for the executive arm of government. The suggested tenure, the reports indicated, would take effect from 2015, and would bar the present set of executives from benefiting from it. By their interpretation of the Senate proposal, the media conclude neither the president nor governors whose term in office would expire in 2015 would be eligible for re-election.

    Though the Senate has not published the final details of its review proposals, the snippets published so far present a basis for animated discussions. Assuming the interpretations of the proposals are accurate, it is hard to see how the Senate can push the provision on tenure through the legislative process. Quite apart from the din it would raise among President Goodluck Jonathan’s supporters, and considering how severely it would abridge their plans for re-election or extended tenure, the proposal stands on very leprous legal legs. When the present set of executives vied for elective posts, it was on the legal and constitutional understanding that those entitled to a second term would exercise their rights to vie for the same office if they wish. No constitutional or legal provision could justify a change of goal post midway into their tenure. Nor is it likely a court could be found to sustain the Senate’s tenure proposal even if it were to be adopted.

    If newspaper reports are accurate, there are indications the president and his men may be rallying against the Senate’s tenure proposal. This is a waste of time and resources. They should understand that the proposal can only stand if it is not applicable to current office holders. Sitting president and governors took office under the 1999 constitution; they will, therefore, exercise their right to seek re-election if they have served only one term. Notwithstanding, the Senate proposal must be seen in the context of the feverish manoeuvres triggered by the president himself when, barely one year into his first term, he began to toy with the idea of a seven-year single term proposal. It was not clear why he embraced that astonishing idea, but many analysts believed it was a selfish ploy to help him navigate the maze around his completion of his predecessor’s unfinished first term.

    The country must, however, not be held to ransom by the president’s and Senate’s tenure intrigues. Proposing changes to the subsisting tenure provision is a misdirected effort and a gross misreading of the political problems of the country. The president’s argument that a seven-year single term provision would eliminate the problems associated with re-election battles and curb the huge cost of seeking a second mandate is as untenable as it is a needless distraction. Re-election battles are doubtless costly and sometimes destabilising, but the need to seek a fresh mandate generally restrains the executive’s dictatorial tendency and gives the public a fail-safe option to throw out an incompetent government before irreversible damage is done. A six-year or seven-year single term is as prone to mindless abuse as any other tenure system. Imagine, for instance, being stuck with an incompetent and dictatorial government for six or seven years instead of four.

    The problem with Nigeria is not its tenure system. While it is okay to review the constitution in some respects, it must not be forgotten that the past 14 years of the Fourth Republic witnessed unrestrained manipulation of the system by a few self-appointed kingmakers who have neither the moral compass nor the democratic credentials to make the constitution, as defective as it is in some aspects, to work. Even if the tenure system were to be reworked and eventually adopted, as long as the said manipulators still have free rein, the system would continue to be undermined.

  • Baga massacre: The ugly story is just beginning

    The Baga, Borno State killings of April 16 and 17 in which an estimated 185 people were allegedly killed extrajudicially and thousands of houses torched by soldiers of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) may yet be the defining moment in the mishandled war against the Islamist sect, Boko Haram. This is not because Nigerians sympathise with the violent sect, or because they fail to appreciate the sacrifice being made by security forces combating terrorism, or because they are unduly emotional about the scale of material and human losses sustained by the sect’s militants. The point sorely missed by the government is that Nigerians expect the country’s security forces to conduct military operations in a manner consistent with the high principles and ethical standards that set the rest of the society apart from the brutal and despicable methods of the militants. In Baga two weeks ago, there is no proof that the security forces acted with decorum.

    On Tuesday, the military top brass presented their preliminary report on the Baga debacle to President Goodluck Jonathan. Their findings were consistent with the account they tendered a few days after news of the firefight with Boko Haram militants reached the public. Though that account had been questioned in many quarters locally and internationally, and the casualty figures disputed, the military felt no need to alter their conclusions which indicated that fewer than 40 people died in the encounter and not more than 200 houses were burnt. But a rights group, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), on Wednesday released satellite images of Baga before and after the clash showing that more than 2,000 houses were torched or destroyed. Coming barely a day after the military high command and the National Emergency Management Agency (NAMA) presented their reports indicating that there were fewer than 1000 houses in Baga, this is a potentially devastating embarrassment.

    Responding to the military’s report, the president had inexplicably failed to distance himself from the controversy and uncertainties. He had suggested that there was a lot of misinformation being peddled about the clash, and added, without proof, that the high death toll released by community leaders could not be substantiated. He spoke too soon. Now, it is expected that the military will have to react to the HRW satellite images, for it is suspected that MJTF is engaged in an unwholesome cover-up of crimes against humanity. By refusing to dissociate themselves from the unlawful killings in Baga, the military top brass may be staking their own reputations and careers on the actions of their subordinates. If independent investigators discover that a massacre did in fact take place, it is hard to see the officers who presented the preliminary report to the president being exculpated. In addition, even the president may end up looking bad in the estimation of the people for appearing to back the report and for casting doubt on independent accounts of the killings. Dr Jonathan must be reminded that he is president of both the security forces and the murdered innocent civilians of Baga.

    If it is finally determined that crimes against humanity were actually committed in Baga, many careers will be flushed down the drain. The Jonathan government itself may not go unscathed for failing to appreciate the need to sustain civilised standards in the war against domestic terror. The point must be reiterated at all times that it is wholly unacceptable to sacrifice innocent lives in place of a few escaping terrorists. If more than 180 people were killed in Baga and thousands of houses burnt, that certainly goes beyond collateral damage. The killings would be callous and deliberate, and no amount of desperation in the war against terror could justify that mayhem. In fact, for many years, community leaders in the Northeast had alleged that security forces engaged in extra-judicial killings. Unfortunately, they were ignored and ridiculed. Now, they may have proof.

    But the country will wait for the National Assembly investigation, the president’s own inquiry, and any other panel set up to look into the Baga killings before drawing conclusions. Investigators must, therefore, be given unfettered access to the town to take a census of the destroyed buildings and interview witnesses. They must not be hindered. The HRW has presented its own scientific proof. Let that proof be undermined by more scientific proofs, if the military can generate any.

  • Rivers State PDP crisis and history’s lessons

    While this columnist was painting a picture of the political war ravaging the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State on Tuesday, 27 members of the state House of Assembly were on the same day obtaining a court injunction to restrain the Felix Obuah-led PDP state executive from acting on the suspension it slammed on the legislators loyal to the governor of the state. Mr Obuah had with the help of a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja supplanted Chief Godspower Ake as the state PDP chairman and got himself installed. Judging from some of his statements and immediate actions since his installation about two weeks ago, Obuah seems eager to do the bidding of President Goodluck Jonathan who has been at daggers drawn with Governor Rotimi Amaechi since 2010.

    Nigerian leaders, it is clear, rarely learn from history. No state governor could cross the path of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo when he was president without the full weight of the law and state power being brought down upon the intrepid upstart. Some of the out-of-favour governors dethroned in those giddy years were Joshua Dariye of Plateau State, Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo State, and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State. In the end, such ruthless use of state power did not profit Obasanjo, nor did it raise his status as a continental leader. If anything, it only underscored his pettiness and diminished him in the estimation of the world. Is Jonathan careful not to tread the same path? Is he allowing his anger to get the better of him?

    The sacking of Ake as chairman of the Rivers PDP was done by an Abuja court. Shortly after, however, the Amaechi faction got a Rivers State High Court of concurrent jurisdiction to reverse the decision. The stage for a crisis seems set. But this will not be the first time the judiciary would be drawn into controversial judicial interventions. To the dismay of many Nigerians, under Obasanjo, such controversial interventions were many, most of them recklessly and directly instigated by the government of the day, or at least bearing his imprimatur. Recall that in 2003, Justice Wilson Egbo-Egbo of the Federal High Court in Abuja also removed Dr Chris Ngige from office as Governor of Anambra through the instrumentality of an ex parte order. An Anambra High Court shortly after reversed that decision and precipitated a crisis leading to the abduction of the governor and a constitutional crisis that engulfed the police and the judiciary. Are we going down that chute again?

    Not only did such interventions lower the judiciary in the view of Nigerians, they also unsettled the polity and established a weak foundation for democracy. We still bear the scars of those reckless years.

    Now, much worse, it is also evident that Rivers State is being destabilised in the same way Ogun under Gbenga Daniel, Plateau under Dariye, Oyo under Ladoja, and Ekiti under Ayo Fayose were weakened and subverted. It does appear that Nigerian leaders are not too restrained in the use of power, nor intelligent in appreciating its limitations and ramifications. Indeed, for lacking the restraint and intelligence in the use of power, the Western Region was destabilised in the 1960s, leading to the collapse of the First Republic. Surely, of all the weaknesses Nigerian leaders exhibit, learning the lessons of history should not be among their fatal flaws, for at no cost history offers copious lessons to the discerning.

  • Jonathan/Amaechi: If this is not war…

    Jonathan/Amaechi: If this is not war…

    After the latest outbreak of cold war rhetoric between President Goodluck Jonathan’s government and the Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, the Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Mr Ahmed Gulak, declared that the governor was not above the law. But he added that in spite of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) grounding the Rivers State Bombadier private jet in which the governor flew into Akure last week, the presidency was not waging war against Amaechi. Really? Hardball may not be interested in who is to blame for provoking the pitched battles between the president and the governor, but to say that no war is being fought between the two combatants is to stretch credulity to breaking point. The grounding of the aircraft, which first took place at the Akure Airport, is now fully implemented, with the NCAA insisting the plane’s clearance had expired since April 2. It is all politics, say aides of the governor.

    If the grounded aircraft showed beyond doubt that the presidency has trained its guns on Amaechi, the sacking of the Rivers State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman, Godspower Ake, by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja about two weeks ago gave a concrete feel to a war that had up till then been fought clandestinely since 2010. Since Amaechi will not give the presidency any quarter, and because the 2015 elections are not too far away, the state machinery of the PDP had to be taken away from his camp and given to Chief Felix Obuah, even if it involved some juridical sleight of hand. The state PDP war may manifest in the shape of Godspower Ake fighting Chief Nyesom Wike, the Minister of State for Education, for the soul of the PDP, but in reality the combatants are Jonathan and Amaechi. Proceeding from taking control of the Rivers PDP from the Amaechi camp, the Jonathan group has gone ahead to announce the suspension of the Speaker of the House, Otelemaba Dan Amachree, and the other 26 pro-Amaechi PDP members in the House of Assembly.

    The Jonathan/Amaechi war, it will be recalled, began inauspiciously in August 2010 when the First Lady, Mrs Patience Jonathan, paid a two-day visit to Rivers State and had a public spat with Amaechi at her hometown, Okrika, while inspecting a project. The war, however, went up a notch when a major disagreement broke out between the president’s home state, Bayelsa, and Amaechi’s Rivers over boundary adjustment alleged to have been surreptitiously influenced by the president. The adjusted boundary, claimed Rivers, unlawfully transferred the rich Soku oil fields in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State to Oluasiri in Nembe Local Government of Bayelsa State, thereby opening a battle between the Kalabari and Nembe.

    While the ugly oil war was yet to abate, the presidency opened another front by throwing a wild cat among the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) pigeons. The target was, of course, Amaechi. Previously united, the NGF has become an emblem of disunity, with the Governor of Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio, proudly leading a coterie of PDP governors to form a breakaway faction of the governors’ forum. This guerilla war is set to become an open, conventional war soon, as the governors prepare to elect a chairman. It is indeed amazing how in a little over two years, the presidency has locked horns four times with Amaechi, while the latter has himself not shirked a fight. The presidency appears to have vowed it will not rest until the latter is humiliated, for the presidency in Nigeria is so powerful that few monarchies in history could project power as viciously as it does, or brook opposition without diminishing the splendour in which it basks. Luckily for patient and bemused spectators, it won’t be long before we know the winner.

     

     

  • Governors should respond to Jibril Aminu’s diatribe

    Senator Jibril Aminu, a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, is a man of unlimited candour. That candour has served him well over the years. Not minding his age, he is certain to go on speaking his mind candidly until his last breath. Last Saturday, according to the Vanguard newspaper, he took on the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, describing them as malevolent busybodies who were undermining Nigeria’s young democracy and attempting to extend their budding suzerainty to the presidency. Said he: “The governors are against all of us and the president. They have organised to stop the government from doing what is right for this country. You can see that they have organised to stop anything functioning in Nigeria without them…Governors are the ones imposing things on the rest of us. The problem with the governors is that they meet regularly and have their way by threatening the president that they would not support him for second term…Number one, they have stopped the local government from functioning. They decide what amount to give to the local governments under their control. They decide what the LGA chairmen should spend, up to the last kobo…”

    Even though in their campaign against the President Goodluck Jonathan government, the governors have received the support of a great majority of Nigerians, it is hard to ignore the senator’s salient views. But let us ignore his sweeping generalisation that the governors are against the president and the rest of us; and let us also dismiss his contention that the governors are imposing themselves on us and preventing the country from functioning. However, there is little doubt that his observation that the governors have virtually emasculated the local governments is unimpeachable, and the governors will be tongue-tied to gainsay him.

    But Aminu was not done. Hear him: “Unfortunately, there is nobody to call the governors to order because they have already swallowed the Houses of Assembly that would have served as a check on them. Today, nobody gets any job or appointment at the state level without the approval of the governors. Even election into the National Assembly is controlled by governors. So they have super powers and nothing gets to anybody except the governor approves same. Not satisfied with the powers they have already usurped, the governors now want to extend their power to the president.” Brilliantly put, but is the president, his great idol, not even more powerful and rapacious? Did Chief Olusgeun Obasanjo, for instance, not attempt to play more than God in enthroning and dethroning public officials, including governors? It would not be a bad idea if the governors were restrained, for they have sometimes acted so impetuously and imperiously that you begin to wonder whether we are in a democracy. After all, the Nigerian president has also nearly always acted like a monarch. If governors must be restrained for democracy to survive, it is even more necessary for the president to be bound with new and strong fetters if we are not to be ruined.

     

  • Discipline of judges: CJN must proceed with caution

    On the day the National Judicial Council (NJC) recommended Justice Charles Archibong of the Federal High Court, Lagos for sack, it also directed that Justice Abubakar Talba of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court be investigated for his widely criticised judgment on the police pension case involving an Assistant Director in the Police Pension Office, John Yusuf. Talba had, pursuant to the case presented by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), sentenced Mr. Yusuf to the maximum two years jail term provided by the law relevant to the case but gave him an option of fine on each of the three counts filed by the anti-graft agency. For a case involving the theft of about N32.8bn, a N750,000 fine was thought by many Nigerians to be unrealistic and provocative. Commentators also worried that the EFCC amended its initial case by substituting a 10-count charge with a maximum jail term of 14 years and a fine for a three-count charge carrying a maximum two years jail term or an option of fine.

    After an investigation that ran for about two months, the NJC has placed Talba on a 12-month suspension without pay for failing to exercise his discretion “judicially and judiciously” in passing the sentence on Mr. Yusuf. Hardball can himself not explain why Talba chose not to play safe by exercising his discretion to give Yusuf the two years maximum penalty provided in the law. But that is the problem with discretion; it is a subjective thing, and can be exercised one way or the other. More importantly, that is also the problem with the law; judges, especially, bend over backwards not to be influenced by popular feelings and emotions or even conventional wisdom and political correctness. How to balance the provisions of the law with the popular demands of the society is one of the eternal struggles they face.

    Perhaps in the near future it may be known why the EFCC amended the charge against Yusuf, which amendment obviously entrapped Talba. For if the first 10-count charge had been maintained, the provisions of the law would not have offered the leeway the trial judge embraced. Better than in the Archibong case, where a controversy is still raging on whether the NJC gave the sacked judge fair hearing or not, some fairness seems to have been allowed in the Talba case. However, that an opportunity was given to Talba to defend himself does not mean that justice was done. It still must be established that the NJC, under the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mariam Aloma-Mukhtar, was indeed juridically right to have suspended Talba.

    Notwithstanding popular feelings on the case, it is indeed difficult to rationalise the NJC’s action. To what extent can the judicial body punish judges for exercising their discretion within, not outside, the provisions of the law? There have been thousands of cases where judges exercised their discretion, but that discretion was overturned on appeal and stiffer penalties imposed. In the Yusuf case, the matter is still on appeal, and the appellate court was yet to determine one way or the other what it thinks of Talba’s judicial or judicious discretion. Not only was the case then sub judice, by suspending Talba, the NJC had effectively determined the outcome of the EFCC appeal. This is both hasty and contemptuous of the court. The Talba case could in effect endanger jurisprudence in these parts by bringing the exercise of judicial and judicious discretion under the influence, sometimes irrational, of popular opinion. It could also have subtle and deleterious effects on the independence of judges.

    It is doubtful whether this was the intended effect the NJC hoped to bring about. When she was sworn in last year as the CJN, Aloma-Mukhtar pledged to sanitise the judiciary. She deserves support. But she must recognise the extreme sensitivity of her office and therefore needs to proceed with even more caution. The Archibong sack is needlessly embroiled in controversy and appears to give the impression that petitions are encouraged against judges. Yet, judges themselves need protection. And, in fact, the CJN must reassure them that her perception of them would not be tied to popular emotions. Talba is suspended for 12 months without pay, though civil service rules indicate that suspensions should be with half pay. By all means the judiciary should be purged, but however that purge is done, it must never be to the detriment of the independence of judges in the exercise of discretion, or to the detriment of justice itself, for as a former Justice of the Supreme Court, Adolphus Karibi-Whyte, said, “…Where the exercise of discretion is vested, it follows that there is no absolute answer to the solution of the questions.”