Category: Opinion

The above statement made by Sir Winston Churchill, the legendary British Statesman in the House of Commons in November 11, 1947 highlighted the superiority of democratic form of government over other forms of government such as monarchy, oligarchy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Democracy as it is popularly defined as the government of the people by the people for the people implies that the people exercise their power through their elected representative who they elect through elections, and who in turn propose, develop and create laws for the citizens. The founding fathers of our country envisaged a country that would join the civilized world to practice democracy at independence, but this lofty dream was truncated in 1966 when the military started its long incursion into the governance of the country. Out of the 59 years of the country’s existence as an independent country, the country has only been able to practice participatory democracy off and on for a total of 30 years, and the longest stint started in 1999.

A good indicator of the stability, authenticity and viability of any participatory democracy in any country is the way and manner with which elections are conducted in such a country.  Elections in a vibrant democracy must be free, fair and credible and without any doubt they must reflect the wishes of the people. With the conclusions of the 2019 presidential and National Assembly elections which took place throughout the country on February 23, it is pertinent to reflect on how election which is universally acclaimed as the supporting pillar of democracy is conducted in Nigeria over the years. This would enable us to compare the standard of elections conducted in Nigeria with those conducted in other well established democracies. Without any hint of trying to be immodest, I can say that I have been privileged to watch the conduct of elections at close quarters in United Kingdom in 1973 and 1974, Australia in 1987 and in Canada in 1989.  Without any intention of deprecating Nigeria, my beloved country, I can say without any equivocation that when we compare the ways elections are conducted in those countries with the ways elections are conducted in our country, it is clear that we are still at primordial level. Apart from news and discussions about elections in those countries in the print and electronic media coupled with political meetings in designated halls, there is no tension and people go about their normal activities without any molestation. There is no public holiday on election days even in Australia where voting is compulsory, and there are usually little or no queues in the polling halls. These countries are never locked down because of elections and election day is usually like any other day.

Compared with the above situation, election periods in Nigeria had always been tension soaked, right from the period we started participatory democracy in 1954. We approach elections in Nigeria as if the country is preparing for an Armageddon. The different stages connected with the conduct of elections in Nigeria which include, conduct of primaries, election campaigns, actual voting at election day, counting of the votes and announcement of the results usually bring out the worst in our political gladiators and  their co- travellers because of their penchant for cheating and subversion of the wishes of the people. Certainly politics in Nigeria is not for the faint hearted.

The nation-wide elections held in the country before independence  in 1954 and 1959 were superintended by the colonial officers and were conducted with some civility, although there were low level cases of thuggery and subtle attempt by government parties to harass supporters of the opposition parties in the regions. However, by and large these elections reflected in the main the wishes of the people. Nigeria started to have unmitigated nightmare with elections right from the first election the country had after independence. The federal election of 1964 was a fiasco. The election was characterized by boycotts, uneven playing ground for opposition parties, destruction of ballot boxes and papers, disappearance and killings of political opponents, falsification of results and unbridled partisanship by the electoral umpires and security agencies especially the police. This federal election together with the 1965 Western Nigeria regional election which was a class on its own for unbridled electoral malpractices shook Nigeria to its very foundations. The chaos and crises generated by these elections led to the first incursion of the military into the governance of the country through the coup of January 15, 1966.

The introduction of presidential system of government in Nigeria did not lead to abatement in electoral malpractices in the country, instead it compounded them. The 1983 presidential election was also chaotic and brought back the military in January 1984 to rule the country for another period of 15 years. The presidential elections in the present  dispensation in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 were also characterized as usual by massive  electoral malpractices and we had damning reports on the elections from independent foreign and local observers. It is on record that the late Umaru Yar’Adua who won the 2007 presidential election was honest enough to tell the whole country that this election that brought him to power was full of malpractices. The just concluded one also brought out our old demons despite all the efforts of INEC to have a transparent election. There were election malpractices and killings especially in the southern part of the country where at the last count 36 people were reportedly killed with 323 people arrested for election offences.  The only election that could be adjudged to be free and fair in our political history was the one held on June 12, 1993 but unfortunately this landmark election was annulled by the then self-styled military President Ibrahim Babangida. The country is yet to get out of the trauma caused by this annulment.

Although elections in Nigeria are generally characterized by unbridled malpractices, which invariably deprive the people their democratic choices, Nigerians especially, those in the Southwest have been found to react violently to electoral malpractices designed to deprive them of their electoral choices. The country witnessed these violent reactions after the 1965 regional election in Western Nigeria and after the gubernatorial election of 1983 in the then Ondo State. In 1965, the people of the region voted massively to get rid of an unpopular government, but their wishes were truncated through falsification of election results which gave victory to the unpopular government party. The people then resorted to uncontainable riots all over the region popularly referred to as ‘we tie’.  There was mayhem as many people were killed and many houses and properties were destroyed. The people made the region ungovernable and the crisis generated by this bungled election hastened the first coup in the country. The 1965 political crisis in that region up till today still has a negative effect on the politics of the Yoruba people of that region. Even some houses destroyed during the crisis are yet to be rebuilt.  The same scenario occurred in Ondo State in 1983 when the electoral umpire tried to reverse the gubernatorial choice of the people of that state.

If Nigeria wants to command respect in the comity of nations, it must get its acts correct with regard to its electoral processes. Elections should not be regarded as ‘do or die’ affairs. The ‘do or die’ attitude of our political gladiators to politics is no doubt attributed to the lucrative nature of politics where lawmakers and executives have unbridled access to government money.  Our elections in this country would be free, fair, credible and transparent if the electoral umpires and the security agencies are above board and non-partisan. The politicians should also know that in any political contest, somebody must win and somebody must lose. They should know that one cannot win every time. The time has now come in this country when electoral offenders should be severely punished. At present they are treated with kid-gloves. They are miscreants who want to derail our nascent democracy; they do not deserve any pity. The last two presidential elections in 2015 and 2019 have shown glaringly that the use of card readers which is yet to be backed by law needs to be perfected. The situation where card readers work perfectly in one part of the country and malfunction in another part erodes the sanctity of our elections.

Finally, the last presidential election has shown clearly that the country does not need more than two political parties or in the extreme three political parties. The results of the election show that the two major parties got 97% of the total votes cast while the remaining 77 parties in the presidential race got a paltry 3%. This is a clear indication that we do not need 91 registered political parties. .

• Prof. Lucas writes from Old Bodija, Ibadan.

Last week, was the anniversary of the abduction of the saintly Leah Sharibu, the Dapchi school girl who was taken from her school with her colleagues by the dreaded Boko Haram in 2018. A sad anniversary for her and her loved ones, especially. Her parents had pleaded with the federal government not to allow her spend the anniversary in captivity, but the government could not do anything to return her home.

While Leah’s colleagues were released following a quick intervention by the Buhari-led government, she was held back for holding onto her faith and refusing to be converted from Christianity to Islam. That act of courage has been appreciated by people of both faith. I call her a saint, for her dogged determined to live her faith despite the deathly circumstance she finds herself. She also represents a lesson in courage, and if there is a Nobel Price for courage she deserves it.

Perhaps, she should be nominated by our National Assembly for the closest, which is the Nobel Peace prize. A prize set aside for those who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for holding and promotion of peace congresses.” If the National Assembly neglects, other qualified nominators should pick the gauntlet.

There is little doubt that by her courage Leah has raised new champions of religious tolerance in our world, particularly in Nigeria. By standing up to the criminals, she has also raised a new army of young people who would appreciate that courage is needed to confront the most fearful of circumstances. Indirectly, she has become a champion of courage in the midst of oppression, even by civil authorities.

And her style can be interpreted as passive resistance. Something akin to Martin Luther King’s style. King won the Nobel peace prize in 1964 and he was described as the “first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence.” Most persons in Leah’s shoe would have done violence to their faith by deceptively accepting the conversion, to gain freedom, only to turn violent against the process once freed.

Such an easy way would have done grave violence to her belief, and peoples of her faith. Of course, a later struggle to repudiate the forceful conversion would also do violence to those who would lay claim to her false conversion. Indeed, there is a chance that the sect would have held her after the false conversion, and made more demands on her, even including a forced marriage to one of them.

If Leah had taken the easy way, most likely the sect would have celebrated the forced conversion to further annoy Christians all over the world. Such annoyance would have added more strain to our national fault lines and divisions across the globe. Imagine what a picture of a forcefully converted Leah Sharibu, carrying an AK47 and ‘acting’ the dutiful wife of a Boko Haram could do the psyche of a large segment of Nigerians and Christians all over the world.

So Leah’s act of courage has taught the young generation that peaceful resistance could be as forceful as a physical force. By her defiance she has called both national and international governments to account. Her quiet struggle has promoted the cause of women, children and the vulnerable all over the world. This would not have happened if she had quietly acquiesced to the forceful conversion. Indeed, her action would have stoked hatred and tension, instead of the joining of forces between persons of different faiths to demand her release.

In a way, Leah Sharibu resembles the now famous Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, who was a co-winner of the peace prize with Kailash Satyarthi of India “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” Without doubt, Leah by her passive resistance, has promoted the right of all children and even adults to religion of their choice. The right to religion has become so important that many constitutions, including ours clearly protects it.

By her action Leah Sharibu has put her life on the line in defence of section 38 of the 1999 constitution (as amended). The section provides: “every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

By making such a huge sacrifice, to promote a fundamental requirement for peace in Nigeria, Leah has distinguished herself enough to warrant the nomination to the august assembly of Norwegian Nobel Committee, for consideration. While in culturally monolithic countries, freedom of religion is taken for granted, it is not so in Nigeria. In Nigeria, the absence or fear of the absence of freedom of religion is arguably the most potent mix for conflagration of the entire country.

That is why the federal government must do whatever it can to bring Leah home to her parents and loved ones. Calls for freedom was so stringent in the run-up to the recently concluded presidential election, whose result Nigerians are awaiting as this column went to bed. Whoever emerges as the next president, between Atiku and Buhari, must make the return of Leah a top priority. One year in the custody of the evil men of Boko Haram is a life time of nightmare for a teenage like Leah.

Of course, force cannot be contemplated in the effort to release her from their custody. Only a negotiated approach will save Nigeria the trauma a botched effort could result in. So the federal government should do all in her power to save our little angel, who did nothing to warrant the evil that befell her. The tragedy that has befallen her, and so many like her, would add to other reasons why many young people have little faith in their country.

Those recently elected to the National Assembly must join hands with the elected president to pull our country from the precipice. The political elites have already made a mess of leadership, and the earlier they have a change of heart the better for our nation. While the victorious are entitled to celebrate their victory, they must realise that our country is facing a challenge of existence. Unless we change our paradigm, there may be no country to celebrate in no distant time.

Getting Leah back, should be one of the ways of gifting our country a new beginning. Under no circumstance should her captivity be glossed over. Indeed, her anniversary in captivity is a sad commentary on the state of our nation.

Obi got a job at are a research institute at the beginning of July, a week after finishing his final year degree examinations, which he passed at a respectable class of Second Class ( Lower Division).  With this job, Obi had a tremendous transformation from a jean-wearing indigent undergraduate with uncertain future, to a  respectable civil servant, albeit in the lower wrung of the senior  service ladder, and he could then plan with confidence his future.  Within a week of getting this job, he was a given a furnished accommodation and other perquisites attached to his new post. He was given a loan to purchase a car and within three months after leaving the university,  he was a proud owner of a saloon car and he could be  counted among many of his mates who came in November to their graduation ceremony in their brand new saloon cars. Obi was just 24 years when he accomplished these feats.

To thousands and thousands of our unemployed graduates roaming our streets nowadays looking for jobs, the above narrative would appear to be a pure fiction, but it is not as it happened in the later part of the sixties. This was the situation in this our beleaguered country at a time that could be regarded as our golden past, before the inglorious era of economic structural adjustment ushered in by the inglorious regime of General Ibrahim Babaginda  in the early eighties. The country is yet to be out of this debilitating economic quagmire which has blighted our economic growth leading to massive unemployment of our youth irrespective of academic qualifications. The level of  youth unemployment in our country which is now in millions, is now at a frightening and dangerous level,  and as somebody who was involved in training manpower for the development of our country for over 40 years, I lament at the situation where millions of our youth in the productive age bracket of 20 and 40 years are wasting away for lack of meaningful jobs.

Many of  these virile and highly endowed youth, some of whom had left universities and other higher institutions more than 10 years ago, are now engaged in all sorts of devices to keep souls and bodies together. Some  of them are using rickety okada machines as taxis, some resort to nefarious means  like fraudulent  ‘yahoo yahoo’ system and ‘419’ to stay alive and some still depend on their parents at the age when they should  be tending their own  families.  Some have become deceitful ‘men of God’ using religion to deceive people. We also  have pathetic situations,  where those who want to contribute to the society through self employment  are assailed by lack of opportunities and enabling environment as a result of government ineptness. The tragedy of our nation, is that the few jobs available at both public and private sectors are shared  without due process and fear of God among the over-pampered children of the potentates of the land, who in many cases are not well qualified.  Sometimes ago, when the situation of youth unemployment was not as as acute as we have today, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who can correctly be referred as one of the builders of Nigeria and who  was in position to tame this virus eating at the foundation of the country when he was in power, said in his usual expansive and excited mood during one  of his pontificating speeches, that the country was sitting on a keg of gunpowder as a result of high youth unemployment.

Our national icon, the highly revered Professor Wole Soyinka sometimes ago described his generation as a wasted generation. The respected professor is not known to be frivolous and he must have had a cogent reason for making such a serious statement but presently in our country we have well trained young men and women with requisite skills necessary to lift Nigeria from squalor wasting away in anger and frustration.This generation of Nigeria will soon be another wasted generation if nothing drastic is done to stem the blight of youth unemployment now ravaging our country with its attendant social and economic dislocations. As it is written in the Holy Writ, there is nothing new under the heaven. Many countries in recent history had faced similar dismal economic situation  like the one we are facing now in this country, and with determination they overcame their travails. I will like to highlight in this piece two countries in which visionary approach of their leaders helped the country to combat the scourge of unemployment.

In the early thirties, the United States of America faced the great depression. The stock market collapsed and there was dire economic dislocation with massive unemployment. It was a terrible time in USA and the president of the country at that time Franklin D. Roosevelt rose up and launched the ‘New Deal’ between 1933 and 1936. The main thrusts of the ‘New Deal’ programmes were relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal and reform of the financial system to prevent the repeat of the depression. It involved series of programme of public work  projects, financial reform and regulations. The ‘New  Deal’ of the visionary Frank Roosevelt was so successful that it led to the present situation in the world where the United States of America is the economic power house of the whole world with the majority of the enjoying life more abundant.

The second example is that of the defeated West Germany after the second World War. This part of the defeated Germany embarked on what was termed ‘Wirtschaftswunder’ (German economic miracle) which was the rapid economic reconstruction and development of the economy of West Germany and Austria. This programme was overseen by the government led by West German Chancellor, Konard Adenaeur and his economic minister Ludwig Erhard who succeeded him in 1963. The miracle centered on great increase in productivity and growth which enabled the disciplined Germans to have significant increase in their living standard through availability of jobs. The Germans achieved this breakthrough at the time the United Kingdom, the country that won the war was facing economic stagnation which led to the defeat of Wintson Churchill, the war hero at the 1945 general election in UK.

I will be the first person to admit that wholesale implementation of the ‘New Deal’ programme and  ‘ German miracle’ in Nigeria is not possible because of the abysmally low level of discipline and pervasive humungous corruption in our country coupled with our unstable economic terrain. However, I think that our leaders past and present should have tasked their economic advisers to study these programmes critically so that they could pick out items that could be adopted to help us out of our present economic quagmire and acute youth unemployment. If people feel that the programmes that lifted  USA and Germany out of economic stagnation may difficult for us to implement in a third world country, why is that our leaders cannot study and adopt programmes that lifted Malaysia and Singapore out of poverty, after all  these countries were in the same poverty league with us at independence in 1960 and they have left us behind groping in economic blind with little hope of getting out.

It is not rocket science to know that the panacea for future sustainable employment for our teeming unemployed youth lies in the establishment of enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.  This sector has been stifled like public sector with our unbridled corrupt practices.  One  major problem to me that is preventing massive provision of jobs for our unemployed youth can be located in the huge and obscene amount we use in governance at all tiers of government in this country. I cannot imagine how our legislators, governors  both serving and retired can in good conscience feel comfortable with the obscene financial perquisites attached to their offices while millions of our youth, the future of the nation are roaming about the streets without jobs. If our leaders can live moderately like their counterparts in other climes especially in Europe, there will certainly be enough money to embark on projects that would generate jobs for people of all categories. Nigerians want to know in this period of goodwill if the politicians are comfortable going to their banks to cash their humongous salaries and allowances for their luxurious  living when virtually all the  governors are already complaining that they cannot pay a minimum wage of N30000. Our leaders should do something to stem this suffocating youth unemployment and prevent the creation of another wasted generation. They should remember that an unemployed youth in Tunisia triggered the  ‘Arab Spring’  which dislodged some of the oppressive regimes in the Arab world.

• Professor Lucas writes from Old Bodija, Ibadan.

Last Saturday turned a day of disappointment for Nigerians. If there were those not disappointed, they masked it. INEC was the fall guy, as everyone blamed it, for failing to organise the presidential and National Assembly elections it scheduled. Speaking on Channels Television that day, Orji Udemezue, a public affairs commentator warned that the nation may have lost about $1.5 billion dollars.

Orji calculated on a national GDP of $450 billion per annum. For a nation struggling to exit recession such a huge loss is a cause for worry. As expected, fingers are pointing at INEC, with some calling for the resignation of the chairman, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, for what they perceive as the gross incompetence of the organisation he heads. In his briefing, the INEC chair noted that the postponement arose principally from logistics nightmare.

He reported that because of limited transportation options, the commission had to rely on road transport once air transport was made impossible by bad weather. He also raised the problem of insecurity, which saw a number of election materials getting burnt by suspected arsonists few days to the election. The INEC chairman denied any political interference from any quarters, and stated that as far as resources for the preparation of the election are concerned, the commission is not complaining. Before the clarification, the social media was awash with dubious claims as to why the election was postponed to February 23.

Some claimed that the ruling party connived with INEC to postpone the election, so as to extend the day of their imminent defeat. Others claimed that INEC chairman frustrated APC’s plan to have a staggered election, while some made more outlandish claims that the ruling party organised the burning of materials and the logistical challenges with the ultimate plan to have a staggered election, or to frustrate INEC, so as to foist a new chairman on the commission. Those pushing these accusations did not bother to proffer any shred of evidence to buttress their wild claims.

But INEC has maintained that the postponement was not a result of any political interference. The presidency has also denied any plan to remove Prof Yakubu, citing its fidelity to S.157 of the 1999 constitution (as amended) on the procedure to remove an INEC chairman. Some others, fuelling the falsehood jumped to the conclusion that because former President Goodluck Jonathan postponed election in 2015 and still failed, President Muhammadu Buhari will fail even if he postpones the election multiple times.

They also claimed that since Jonathan postponed the election out of desperation in 2015, Buhari must also have acted out of desperation in 2019. Indeed, I saw some PDP supporters dancing and celebrating their differed victory. Despite the wild claims, it is now clear the twin evils that caused our dear country about $1.5 billion loss on Saturday, not to talk about unquantifiable emotional stress are logistics nightmare and insecurity.

While out of frustration we can vent our anger on INEC for disappointing and humiliating us before the international community, we must ask ourselves why INEC should need to make extra-ordinary logistics arrangement and provide special security to conduct an election. For this column such worries are more fundamental to our national question.

What played out last week is a further manifestation of the abuse our country has been subjected by the rapacious elite that have held her down over the decades. Had those who have been in power over the years built a modern railway with the monies they stole, INEC would have used the railways to innocuously transport election materials across the country at minimal cost to the exchequer.

If not for the evil effect of corruption, how can a country as vast as Nigeria rely on road transport as the alternate means of transportation, when a regular train services would have delivered the election materials at very cheap cost to the far flung ends of the country. Some have also blamed INEC for the burning of their materials, instead of focusing attention on poor policing architecture.  They easily forget that state governors have suffered worse humiliation from insecurity. Alas, what happened to the huge budget for security cameras across some metropolis, by the past regime?

Those who are berating INEC for security lapses have not pondered how the commission could be expected to organize private security to police all its materials across the country. They fail to link INEC’s challenge to the inefficient policing structure in the country, which has necessitated the use of military men in what should ordinarily be policing work. When thugs can stop vehicles conveying election materials, burn them and maim the occupants, we should be deeply worried about the state of insecurity.

While blaming INEC for failing to surmount the challenges, we should ask ourselves whence the rain started beating us. It is more intriguing when those who have freely helped themselves with our common resources, and have not fully discharged themselves of the accusation that they have stolen from our common patrimony, are now blaming those who are making some efforts to salvage the sinking ship for the mess they created.

We must come back to the under-funding of the police over the decades, and the security challenges it has created. We must also worry about the huge deficit in our infrastructure. Indeed, we must worry which of the contenders to the office of president has the prudence to begin the painful process of rebuilding our infrastructure.

While we may limp across the general elections on the new dates set by INEC, we must stop deceiving ourselves that the parlous state of our infrastructure and insecurity can support a modern state. Some of the urgent answers include the modernizing of our railways, the building of vast networks of roads, federalizing of the police amongst other urgent national assignment. Unless those entrusted with managing our common resources put them to proper use, our failing country will continue to wobble and fumble.

The Buhari government has shown some promise with the speed it delivered the Lagos-Abeokuta rail line, on its way to Ibadan and subsequently the northern part of the country. If it wins the February 23 elections, it must accelerate its plans. No doubt, the discontentment especially among the youths on the state of affairs in our country is of volcanic proportion. It will be foolhardy to underestimate it. The consequences of full scale youth restiveness could turn our country to another Somalia.

The hunger and anger in the country is exponentially seeking to overreach the base attachment to ethnic and religious cleavages, which our elites have used to divide and rule the country over the decades. The elites must be wary of such possibility, as a mass discontentment arising from that could bring them to their heels sooner than later.

One of the hit tunes of the music virtuoso, Sunny Okosun is titled: ‘Which way Nigeria’. The lyrics speaks to Nigeria as she faces an election that may determine her status as a sustainable democracy.The song also speaks to the people of southeast, as they face what looks like a Hobbesian choice next Saturday. Thanks to theirpolitical leaders,majority of the eastern folks have been sold a dummy as to where cometh their redeemer.

In blind rage for missed political opportunities, these leaders are pushing them towards a dangerous political praecipe. Will the people cut their own nose to spite the face of their perceived political enemy? Next Saturday will determine. Last week, a newspaper reported that PDP governors in the southeast have changed their minds about collaborating with President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC) duringthe forthcoming general elections.

According to the paper, the governors of Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu states, who are seeking re-election, made the decision after a meeting with the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),AlhajiAtiku Abubakar. The reason offered for accepting to shut out Buhari is because they are afraid President Buhari may behave like former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who allegedly reneged on aworking relationship with governors of southwest in 2003. They are afraid Buhari may throw the federal muscle against them after winning next Saturday.

In pushing the governors to jettison the agreement, Atikuallegedly relied on his famed reputation as Obasanjo’s powerful deputy when they orchestrated the routing of the states in the southwest save Lagos State, at the 2003 polls. Considering how the polls went in 2003,the governors reportedly fell to fear. In fairness to state governors, an unscrupulous president could use the control of security agencies to torpedo a free, fair and credible election in a state.

Butin this instance, if the report is true, an intriguing aspect of the new agreement is that they made a deal with ‘a self-confessed betrayer.’ While Buhari has not been tested on the use of incumbency to undermine free and fair election, his opposite (Atiku) has demonstrated with his former boss that all is fair in political battle. If Atiku joined forces to betray the southwest governors who worked for their re-election in 2003, what gives the southeast governors the assurance that any agreement reached with him will be kept?

Unless the reported meeting never held, I find it hard to appreciate how Atiku or his men could use the example of reneging on an earlier agreement, as a basis to convince the governors to enter into a fresh agreement, which will be kept.Or is it possible that the governors are blindly thrusting their faith to any of the presidential candidates without extracting political promises. If they extracted promises, then it is reasonably justifiable going by their respective trajectory to believe that Buhari may keep his word more than an Atiku with respect to political promises.

So, the governors must weigh their options wisely, so that they can make a haul when they cast their net, like Apostle Peter, following the gift of grace by Jesus. Moreover, there is no assurance that if they shoo southeast electorate to vote forAtiku he will defeat Buhari. Assuming after their best efforts in support of Atiku, Buhari still wins, would they have the temerity to demand for favours from President Buhari, if they are re-elected?

While any undemocratic interference in how the votes will swing in the southeast must be deprecated, I have argued previously that the political leaders in the southeast must allow festering of diverse political interests so as not to put the zone’s entire eggs in one basket. That is why I condemned Ohanaeze’s hasty endorsement of the PDP presidential candidate, an endorsement that has predictably thrust the organisation into deeper crisis.

My worry is that the southeast as a politically conscious group may fall into a deeper emotional crisis should they vote like they did in 2015 and still lose. Evidentially, save for missed appointment opportunities, which benefits mainly the elites, there is no factual reason to embrace the PDP which had all the chance to rebuild infrastructure in the zone, in the 16 years they were in power, but blew it. Yet majority of the educated and political elite are emotionally rooting PDP.

I must warm that should their preferred candidate lose the presidential election, they may fall into some kind of political depression, with all its consequences. But in fairness,there aresoutheast elites who are not staking their hope on political appointments or contracts ifAtiku wins. Theirs is a false reading of the political barometer that an Atiku presidency will gift the country an instant economic boom.I am afraid this group has relied on wrong measuring instruments, whichgives wrong results.

While as a private entrepreneur,Atiku has fared better than Buhari, the latter is miles ahead of the former when you are dealing with ethical entrepreneurship. Interestingly, apolitical contract which guides governance relationship is a social contract, not a commercial contract, and the watch word is ‘trust’. So, when those who promoteAtiku presidency give an example of his ‘success’ in private business to justify the promise of  imminent boom if he wins the presidency, they miss the point that the success principle in quality public service is different.

The cardinal question remains: ‘what will a Buhari or an Atiku do with public resources put in his care.’ This is key, because the powers of a president in developing democracy like ours,is so enormous that onlyethical consciousness can stop the president from turning to a leviathan.If a president has a dead or an unconscionable conscience, then the social contract presumably entered into with the people will be inconsequential since it is not binding like a duly executed commercial contract. So, it is untenable to equate private business success to public service success.

Moreover in Nigeria, with weak institutional checks and flagrant abuse of state power to earn unmerited medals, can all business success be equated to sagacious business acumen? I doubt.So, it is a misconception of the very essence of public power to equate it with how many bricks and mortar an aspirant has been able to acquire.While not detracting from the beauty of commercial entrepreneurship, the more potent force in public service is social entrepreneurship, which will engender the much needed public trust.

I therefore urge the electorate, especially people of the southeast to bear this in mind, as they match to polling booths next Saturday. They must weigh their options critically and eschew blinding emotion. In choosing who to vote, they must be pragmatic about the limitedness of their blockvote to make a president.