The Nation Newspaper

Category: Letters

  • Kudos to Jega

    SIR: When three friends are eating from the same plate and one of the trio alleges haste in picking the morsels while another concurs with him, it is obvious that the silent partner is the culprit. The “abracadabra” in our political field in the last one week reminds one of the ill-fated Third Republic when Professor Humphrey Nwosu, chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission found himself between the devil and the deep blue sea. He had gone ahead to announce the results of June 12, 1993 Presidential election won by the Late MKO Abiola. He was allegedly humiliated and we have reasons to believe it; we have not heard from him ever since. He remains in his Ajali country home. The truth will, however, be out. The future comes one day at a time.

    The infamous Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) did the dirty job then. Today, it is the political bootlickers that are the harbingers of our journey back to Egypt. Nigerians want to know why the security advice came on the eve of the February 14 election. If our security operatives have been unable to crush Boko Haram menace in six years will they be able to accomplish same in six weeks? The arrow heads of the ensuing hullabaloo need to know that he who is patronising the market named after water and where only water is sold must not complain if beaten by rain.

    We have witnessed stage one of the odyssey to tyranny; tough times never last but tough people do. If the second stage is the tacit removal of Jega, INEC chairman then the sledge hammer would have been put on the Fourth Republic. Nigerians are solidly behind Jega. It is difficult for the establishment to deprogram him. Nigerians yawn for change; no matter how long the time of waiting, 20 years will become a tomorrow to arrive at. Should we allow the prediction of our disintegration come to pass by our commission and omission? When men build on false ground the more they build the greater the ruin.

     

    • Adelani Olawuyi

     Odo Oba – Ogbomoso, Oyo State

     

  • Goodluck and squandered goodwill

    SIR: President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ), according to Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, the Ondo State Governor, is the most abused and the most reviled President in Nigeria’s political history. This is true! Never before has a sitting president in Nigeria become so unpopular. When the late President Umaru Yar’Adua became incapacitated and could not discharge the responsibilities of the office of the President, majority of Nigerians rallied support for the President against a cabal. That support came from the North, East, South and West. That support came from Christians and Moslems. That support put pressure on the Senate and House of Representatives to come up with the Doctrine of Necessity that made him to become President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    Two years after, President Jonathan rode on that tremendous goodwill to get himself elected. The President must engage in sober reflections on how in six years he squandered the goodwill that made him president and got him elected in 2011. This is a lesson to leaders at all levels. Leaders must not take the people for granted. No matter how long their tenure appears to be, the day of reckoning is just around the corner.

    What is very worrisome is the descent to actions that are fracturing the nation along tribal and religious lines. The presidential election is not about religion, neither is it about tribe. It is about issues -good governance, corruption, the economy, infrastructural development and security.

    It is about Nigeria taking a dignified place in the comity of nations. Visits to Christian religious leaders and peddling of lies are signs of desperation that may divide the nation along religious lines. This is the time for religious leaders to comport themselves. The president has had his chance and blew it! The misdeeds of six years cannot be corrected overnight. Majority of Nigerians have made up their minds. However, he still has a chance to rise up to the position of a statesman by his conduct and utterances. The choice is GEJ’s.

     

    • Victor O. Adetimirin

    University of Ibadan, Ibadan

     

  • INEC and PDP: Playing with fire

    SIR: In the end, the ugly rumours proved spot on.  For one reason or the other, Jonathan and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are too jittery to go to the polls right now.  It appears that they were rattled, feared a likely loss to the All Progressive Alliance (APC) in the presidential election so they blinked first.  What we see now is the beginning of their Plan B.

    It is a low down dirty shame.  How can some people play with a whole country like this?  I watched Prof Jega deliver a press conference that looked like a man reciting his own eulogy.  But what is wrong with us in this country?  Why has everything got to be so benighted?  Why?

    Incompetence, perfidy and duplicity abound in government, abound at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and just about everywhere else.  I feel so sorry for Jonathan for being used like this; but I feel more sorry for Jega.  He seemed to have broken a large coconut on his own head and somehow, strangely expects to partake in the coconut’s consumption.

    I don’t think anyone, least of all Prof Jega, believes that the real reason for shifting the election dates is security.  It would appear Jega has been forced, possibly blackmailed into acquiescing to some evil scheme.  It’s either that, or Jega has been shifty and got caught in the act himself.  If not, why all this now?

    So we are going to wait six weeks for what exactly?  Ostensibly to flush out Boko Haram insurgents in Adamawa, Borno, Gombe and Yola states.   But what if after five weeks the government is still unable to accomplish this task?

    In my view, the previously canvassed case for an extension to enable people to collect their Permanent Voters’ Card is untenable as well.  You cannot force people to vote.  If anyone was serious about voting, they would have made efforts to collect their PVC by now.  And in any event, nowhere is a 100% voter participation or turn out feasible.

    I have to admit that I was surprised when Jega stated that one of the most Boko Haram-infested states has so far recorded an excess of 80% collection of PVCs.  Perhaps it is 80% of a very small overall number.

    Either way, it is IBB, Arthur Nzeribe and his Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), and Prof Humphrey Nwosu of NECON all over again.  This is an unnecessary body blow to our democracy and a mild breach of trust with the voters.  Some folks have travelled from outside the country to come and vote, and some people here have left their places of business or work to go to their hometown preparatory to the February 14 and 28 elections.  What are such folks expected to do now?

    My guess is that the PDP is hoping to use the six week period to toss Buhari out of the contest using the judiciary. However, the short term implication of all of this is doing Jonathan and the PDP no favours at all.  In my own little one-man’s calculation, I was convinced that Jonathan would squeak through but only by the skin of his teeth.  But now, I don’t know.  A lot of decent people are getting turned off.  A lot of hitherto hesitant would-be Jonathan voters and undecided voters are very upset by this latest development.  Its management is quite shabby.  The Chinese whispers that preceded the election rescheduling and the manner its postponement was dropped on us are coming across clearly as the PDP being up to no good, being up to their old tricks again.

    I swear; some people just live to create unnecessary crisis for selfish reasons and for sheer arrogant stupidity.  The PDP and INEC (wittingly or unwittingly) are playing dangerously with the country again.  And from what we are hearing now, Jega has truly let himself down.   Moreover, the thought of enduring another six weeks of electioneering campaigns with all those torturous ads and market-level speeches is just pure hell to me.

     

    • Michael Egbejumi-David

    demdem@hotmail.co.uk

  • On the postponement of elections

    SIR: Some weeks ago, rumors started flying that the earlier scheduled February, 14 and 18 elections might not hold after all. When I first learnt about it, I dismissed it outright because INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega had stated in several fora that the scheduled dates stand. On deep reflection, I said to myself: With President Jonathan, nothing is impossible! How apt I was?

    Just like any other unpopular policies of this government, it was first denied; a sudden Council of State meeting was later summonmed to give the postponement some face lift, and to the glory of God, after listening to Prof. Jega’s presentation, the Council overruled the President and came to a conclusion that President Jonathan was just crying more than the bereaved and right there and then, Jega was given the go ahead to continue with the election process as scheduled.

    Trust our President; he decided to use the military high command (with Boko Haram as an excuse) to push the proposal using the so-called National Security Adviser Col. Sambo Dasuki (who was the first to fly the kite in faraway London) as the coordinator. Jega held series of meetings with all the relevant election stakeholders including his 37 Resident Electoral Commissioners and the overwhelming majority of them rejected the call for the postponement. I believe that in a democratic society like ours, majority should have had their way. Unfortunately, the voice of the minority was upheld and the election was postponed by six weeks! I am not surprised, because in Jonathan’s administration, 16 is greater than 19 any way.

    My view on this issue is this: what has Jonathan got to do with fixing of elections date? Who should complain, INEC or the President? Do we even need military to conduct elections? Is Jonathan afraid of losing election? Was there no insurgency in Nigeria when the 2011 elections were conducted?

    These are pertinent questions that only the proponents of the postponement can answer. As for me and without sounding anarchical, I would conclude with a popular quote that “where peaceful change become impossible, violent change becomes inevitable”

     

    • Muhammad Adamu Auta

    muhammaduauta@gmail.com

  • PDP’s betrayal of Igbo presidency

    SIR: Nigeria’s political setting is in chaos at the moment because the PDP cut the principle of zoning which is needed for peace especially in a fickle country like Nigeria with a complex history. I wish they did not.

    More than a decade into the fourth republic, the social process for integration of all Nigerians into the polity is still abysmal, caused by leaders who have refused to see the big picture to follow nationalistic causes.

    Only credible patriotic leaders can help change this drift. In Nigeria we look at perfect or near perfect situations and advocate it for our peculiar circumstance. Rotational presidency is what we need right now to keep this nation at peace and united. The political class and the masses must first become like Moshood Abiola and disabuse their minds of ethnic and religious sentiments and then we shall be ready for ‘let the best man be.’

    Right now we are at, ‘let there be peace, cohesion and unity’ level, and we need to begin from where we are. I see the wisdom in rotational presidency from the point of our ethnic diversity; this would give everyone a sense of oneness and stakeholder-ship.

    Nigerians pray that the stoppage of rotational presidency by the PDP which was enshrined in their party in principle will not push this country on the brink of chaos, disaster and collapse of statehood.

    Recall the shooting pains that Yugoslavia suffered as a result of illogic propagated by inept and conflict-ridden leader like Slobodan Milosevic, even though that complex-country was united by Josip Broz Tito with his nationalistic ideas a moment earlier and it was to his credit that, that country witnessed peace throughout his reign until his death.

    One wishes that a ruling party for more than a decade would have taken Nigeria to a height beyond pointing the finger at the ‘other side’ for the travails of ‘this side’ which has turned our country into, ‘this side’ and ‘that side’.

    I expected that this party would have gone on a mission to negotiate with all Nigerians, to appeal to sense of right and wrong, but not on a war mission, to separate us. I anticipated that, after more than a decade of democracy, we would have been the pride of Africa. I thought at this time of our history that two of the majority tribes would have done terms as presidents and had looked forward to an Igbo Presidency in 2015 after which it would rotate to the other three geographical regions. At best we could have experimented with a single term of four years for all regions on principle championed by the PDP unmindful of the two terms per candidate as enshrined in our constitution.

    I believe that power struggle should not result to the ruin of Nigeria, it should not be a close-minded ‘do-or-die affair’ that has seen many a nation go down into a deep hole.

    The PDP has failed to look along the lines of reaching out to the ‘other side’ to win national goals and stop sponsoring hatred, bigotry, treacherous power tussle and lots more which counter-produces them in same measure in all regions? It has cuckolded the South-east into a holy matrimony with a president from the South-south instead of nuptials to the nation and discounted their importance as a majority political force in Nigeria. It remains to be seen if the East having burnt their bridges will get support from other majority tribes and other regions in the future should a candidate from that region seek the highest office in the land.

    It is hoped that when the majority tribe eventually takes back power from the minority that Nigeria will not become another Iraq where Saddam Hussein a Sunni minority Muslim and Iraqi maximum ruler refused all requests to engage with the Shia majorities. And as soon as the Shia majority had their chance with foreign backing, after consolidating their hold to power they consequently went on a war path with the Sunni and alienated them the way Saddam, did them.

    A terrible prospect.

     

    • Simon Abah

    Port Harcourt, Rivers State

  • INEC’s dramatic somersault

    SIR: Barely six days ago, as was reported by the media (including pro-Aso Rock media); Nigerian military chiefs and other law enforcement agencies at a meeting of the National Peace Committee for the 2015 elections, said they were ready for the elections. Less than five days later, they made a u-turn, and in apparent threats to the Nigerian people, signalled in writing to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that they would not be able to provide security for the General Election scheduled for February 14, and February 28. And their sociologically unsound and untenable reason is that they would be committing all of their personnel and resources into an offensive against the Islamist terrorists, Boko Haram. According to them, the kick off of the offensive is the same day of the crucial Presidential Election slated for February 14, and that the said operation against Boko Haram will last for six weeks. This absurd about-turn by the National Security Team and the military ultimately forced INEC that had hitherto maintained it was ready for the General Election to announce a six week shift to March 28, and April 11.

    The critical question here is: what happened between the time of the meeting of the National Peace Committee and when the security chiefs made a clear commitment to the General Election? Could it be that the administration and the ruling party actually wants to buy time to perfect their election rigging strategy as the opposition has alleged?

    Let there be no mistake: this about-face by the military couldn’t have come just out of the blues; it was a carefully orchestrated plan with the broad knowledge and backing of the Commander in Chief and his ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). It is nothing but a grand conspiracy against the people, pure and simple.

    The President and Commander in Chief must take full responsibility for this provocative, subversive and seditious shift of the General Election triggered by his National Security Team and the Military.

    In the final analysis, how would this administration contain in six weeks the Boko Haram insurgency and terrorism they haven’t been able to contain in five years? Who is fooling who here? The Commander-in-Chief and his team evidently have something up their sleeves, for these are clearly the antics of drowning men clutching desperately at anything to survive.

     

    • Eneruvie Enakoko,

    Conscience Reports, Lagos

  • The courage to begin

    SIR: I call on fellow Nigerians to begin from this year’s elections to set our country on the path to glory and fame, by not giving our mandate away and trade our future and that of our children for a morsel of meat like Esau, for just like him also, free flowing tears of regret will not recover a mortgaged destiny.

    Let us begin by buying the future with the present, knowing assuredly that the future is a collection of choices of the present and wrong and unwise choices of today will turn back to hurt us as pains and agonies in the future.

    Let us begin by learning from our past mistakes or the mistakes of our past leaders as well as followers and how it has cost us dearly thus far and determine not to repeat same. As the saying goes, he who fails to learn from his past mistakes stand the risk of repeating same in the future. God forbid that it should be our lot. The mistakes of ethno- religious, nepotistic, divisive politicking rather than solution-based politics, driven by accountability, political stability, effectiveness in governance, control of corruption, adequate regulation and rule of law should be corrected this once!

    Let us begin to build an egalitarian society, where the children of peasants can afford a decent life and education and go all the way to realize their lofty dreams without impediments imposed by a skewed, ‘only-the-rich’ economic policies and practices that has left us craving for the return of the good old days  our fathers told us of.

    I once told a friend that if all of us in Nigeria are relocated to the United States and Americans brought to Nigeria to settle here, in the next 50 years, this land Nigeria would have transformed for the better and will be like America and vice versa. So, what does that mean? Attitude.  Abundant natural resources profit little in the hands of people with a wrong attitude. Let us begin to change our attitude to our nation, to our neighbours and to ourselves. This degenerate attitude found in a vast many was not innate, but learned. So it can be unlearned. The good attitude can be learned too. Those ‘little little’ things we do or fail to do to ourselves, our neighbours and for our nation are the difference between the great nation and the gory. Therefore, as we match out to elect leaders to various offices, fellow country men and women, let us begin.

     

    •Pharm Oluleti Olalekan,

    Kubwa , Abuja.

     

  • Osun verdict: vox populi

    SIR: The verdict of Osun state election petition tribunal of February 6, has further reaffirmed the authenticity of the result of August 9, 2014 gubernatorial election held in the state.     But more than anything else we must commend members of the tribunal for their doggedness even at the risk of their lives. Feeble judicial minds world have crumbled.

    Also, the electorate, many of who were condemned to the narrow cells of emotional jail, deserve accolade for being civil in the build-up to the election and maintaining peace during the election in the face of intimidating security personnel as if that state was at war with the rest of the country. It is an antithesis that such red eyed security apparatus could not be deployed to Sambisa forest for the release of our Chibok 219 from the gnome called Boko Haram. We are still waiting for our government to reunite the girls with their families.

    Our leaders should, however, learn from the French phrase Noblesse Oblige; because he who is going to bury his senior brother alive must not take his junior brother along as a witness.       Now that the tussle is over, the governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola should see himself as father of all by distributing dividends of democracy evenly among the people of the state. It is noteworthy that he is known to act pro bono publica. To the people of the state we say congratulations. Vox populi, vox dei.

     

    •Adelani Olawuyi

    Odooba-Ogbomoso

  • Our state of chaos

    SIR: Why would a US secretary of state visit Nigeria just to advice us to have a peaceful election and not resort to violence before and after elections? Can Nigerian leaders ever manage our affairs without coaching from the West? How, we have – proved Lord Lugard and P.W Botha time and again that the black man is a burden to the west and that we can’t manage our affairs.

    Crops of leaders over time have taken Nigeria to the Hobbesian era when life supposedly was short, nasty and brutish.

    In Nigeria, some people who as a rule should be named as outlaws in saner climes – are feted and tolerated even when they preach ill will and, call for the break-up of the country.

    These are persons who profit more from unity than many others, but go on a crying jag, to play the script of their backers – by rapturously calling for secession.

    While some of these ones have openly, repudiated and renounced their Nigerian citizenship in their mission to heat up the polity, without evidence of dual citizenship or naturalization elsewhere –  as required by law, the Nigerian state never rises up to the occasion to register their open declaration of statelessness  and expatriate them to a country of their choice.

    In Nigeria it is easy for the civil populace to acquire bombs which they toss at office blocks and court premises but the benefactors and guilty parties are never captured because they are always in the wind.

    Citizens of Nigeria do not feel the impact of governance and have resorted to self help for almost everything. Communities of people these days make provision for security, water and road.

    In this country you hardly see a policeman patrolling our neighbourhoods (streets) daily, presence is always on the highway and major suburban locations, how then do they hope to dominate the environments, get information and burst up criminal gangs? Our security apparatus are yet to get past the ‘reactionary’ tactics for ‘preventive tactics to nip crime in the bud.

    Governments overtime have had to make the Nigerian so undisciplined – that they empty their bowels openly in public because there are no public toilets and bathrooms which should be provided by government as a matter of course: fast food and other eating places, have now seen the need to lock up their chamber pot and make it only accessible to customers.

    This is a country that takes delight in putting her citizens in darkness so good that little children shout ‘UP NEPA’ when there is power supply (which is so infrequent), and when the supply stays beyond particular hours before outage, same children say, “NEPA tried today.”

    This is a country that allows her citizens to be ill-treated by foreigners who should be grateful for our hospitality: some of these non-nationals are citizens of war torn regions where peace is elusive.

    In this country there are no welfare provisions for the masses like urban mass transit scheme to ease transportation and, in states where you once had such privilege, most of these vehicles have all broken down due to lack of experts to maintain the means of transportation procured. Our administrators never plan beyond a year: they love to revel in the ‘now.’

    In Nigeria, Fulani herdsmen whose daily fare is to go on nomadic expedition now know how to use fire power to kill innocent Nigerians. Where they get these trainings to use military capability, buy armaments without fore knowledge by the state remains a mystery.

    Even well-trained members of the armed forces still hone their craft by going to shooting range: but who train and inspire these Fulani and where?

    In Nigeria, some persons interpret the holy book above the constitution of the federal republic.  While countries like Egypt and India support an applied secular state, ours, is in words only.  I am left to wonder which country in the world liberates her citizens by tenaciously setting down religious precepts over constitution.

     

    •Simon Abah,

    Port Harcourt, Rivers State

  • A case for the use of temporary voter card

    As Nigerians are preparing for the 2015 general elections, the recurring problem of the inability of many voters to register and/ or obtain the necessary voter card for the elections should be addressed.

    The distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) has left many voters bewildered as many are yet to obtain theirs owing to a myriad of bottlenecks. According to the electoral body, of the over 68 million registered for the elections, only a little more than half (38 million) have so far collected their PVC, less than a week to the elections!

    Troubled by this reality, many Nigerians have called on INEC to allow the use of Temporary Voter Cards (TVCs) for the coming elections. The House of Representatives on January 13, 2015 passed a resolution requesting INEC to “include in its election guidelines for the 2015 general elections a provision(s) allowing registered voters with the temporary voters card whose names are on record to vote during the 20l5 general elections.” INEC, however, maintained its position that possession of PVCs is a “strict condition for anyone intending to vote in the 2015 elections.”

    The prospect of millions of eligible voters being disenfranchised therefore remains.

    The right to vote and be voted for is a constitutional one. The Electoral Act further makes elaborate provisions on the modalities for registration and the issuance of voter cards to eligible voters.

    Since it will be unlawful for INEC to deprive any registered voter the right to vote simply by its own inability to make available the PVC as replacements for the TVC, certain practical points deserve consideration.

    Firstly, half of registered voters have not been able to collect their PVCs due mainly to INEC’s unpreparedness, making the Nigerian electorate bear the brunt of its incompetence cannot be justified under any guise. That we are faced with this kind of conundrum with years of preparation speaks to INEC’s level of readiness, a matter that is totally out of the control of any voter.

    Secondly, although the argument has been made that the use of PVCs is to eliminate fraud in the system, one must quickly point out that TVCs were used in 2011 elections, adjudged largely credible, and in many recent gubernatorial elections with little or no concerns about their credibility. Additionally, INEC claimed to have eliminated all incidents of multiple registration and similar frauds from the register of voters, it should therefore have no problem allowing TVC holders whose names are in this register to vote. Most importantly, elimination of fraud in the electoral process cannot and should not follow a single path; INEC should exercise the flexibility afforded it by its own guidelines to use another method in voting, in this case, TVCs.

    While legislative resolutions are generally deemed advisory and therefore not binding on the executive or agencies of government, it will be callous for INEC to ignore it on a matter as weighty as this. A safer way of viewing it is to consider the resolution an aggregated request of Nigerians through their elected representatives in the National Assembly.

    Lastly, in the run-up to these elections, so much gloom and doom have been predicted; removing the complaints of disenfranchisement by the supposedly unbiased umpire gives us one less thing to worry about. After all, the credibility of results is largely founded on the participatory nature of elections. The current situation where about half of eligible voters will be unable to vote can hardly be considered reflective of popular will thus undermining the legitimacy of resultant victories.

    It is quite unfortunate that after years of preparation, a basic yet fundamental process like the issuance is threatening the smooth conduct of this year’s polls. While it may have reasons for its failings so far, this is no time for self-pity, INEC must therefore brace itself and accept the challenges to midwife credible and acceptable elections. On this point, the use of TVC will in no small measure free the electoral body from self-imposed constraints.

    •Ekundayo Adedeji-Alebiosu, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Treaties and Protocols.