The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • Abia APGA’s onslaught against judiciary

    The judiciary is sacred. It is to democracy what the vestry is to the holy temple.  It is the sanctuary of democracy, the fulcrum of life of any civilized society.  I think that somebody, and this is not sarcastic, must volunteer to teach this freshman course to the leaders of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) party in Abia State.  We may have been committing a very fatal error to presume that they know or that they should have known. Ignorance could be a valid claim to innocence in these matters.  We forget that, as Amos Alcott noted, to be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

    Every civilized society and every civilized person or group respect the sanctity of the judiciary. The judiciary as one of the three arms of government is so crucial and critical to the social contract that its independence cannot be negotiated.  The ability to interpret the law and dispense justice accordingly remains the responsibility of the judiciary and that is why it is the last bastion of hope of the common man.  The judiciary exists not only to check the excesses of the executive arm and the legislature but to check and control the society. It exists to control and direct the activities of man and, in that spirit, we avoid acting in contempt of the court.

    It is from this premise that every well-meaning Nigerian must decry the campaign of calumny mounted by APGA against the chairman and members of the Abia State Election Petition Tribunal.  Since the judgment of the tribunal in the petitions of the National and House of Assembly elections and the verdict of the Owerri Appeal Court where APGA went to seek for extension of time to present more witnesses, the party literarily went gaga against the honourable jurists of the Abia tribunal. In a well-orchestrated campaign, both in the print, electronics and on other channels, the party has accused the jurists of having been bribed and compromised to divert justice in favour of the PDP.

    The height of this campaign of character assassination was the call by APGA for the jailing of the judges of the Abia Election Tribunal. It has been a sheer irony for a party which had earlier expressed an unflinching faith in the judiciary as a citadel of justice to turn around and launch such disparaging campaign not just against the jurists but against the institution of the judiciary, simply because their canvassed wheel of justice (which they have been waiting for) doesn’t seem to be swinging   in their favour.

    Let’s sample the aspersions of Abia APGA against the tribunal.  In a full page advertorial published on page 41 of The Nation of Friday, October 16, and personally signed by Reverend Ehiemere as the chairman of APGA, he declared as follows: “Huge sums of money in form of gratification have exchanged hands between the PDP leadership in the state and cronies of the justices. Consequently, some of the judges have been responding in line with the dictate of the lucre as evidenced in the current dismissing of all petitions filed by our party against the PDP candidates. The bribe funds, we understood, were delivered to the judges outside the country and through proxies in order to leave no traces”.

    In another full-page advertorial titled: Abia Election Petition Tribunals; The Height of Travesty of Justice, published on page 47 of The Nation of the same date, the party wrote: “There should be no space for corrupt judges in the present Nigeria. It is not enough to just retire them, they must be tried and if found guilty, jailed or even shot to death as the people of Ghana are asking their president to do”.

    On Sunday, October 18, in another full-page advertorial published on page 10 of The Nation APGA fired again: “In the last few weeks, suspicious but serious moves involving the officials of the Abia State Government have been made across the borders of Nigeria to seek a possible and highly secretive way of compromising the judges either in cash or through the purchase of very expensive property.”

    The party continued again on Wednesday October 21, on page 39 and 40 to denigrate and malign the character and integrity of the tribunal. Their language is uncouth, derogatory and abusive and only projects a picture of a desperate people. Considering that there is still a window for APGA to seek further redress in the Appeal Court,  if it thinks that its petition has not be judiciously addressed, one could only conclude that their action in the last couple of days is intentional   to ridicule the hallowed institution of the Nigerian judiciary. If the party is convinced that it still has some claim to make, the right action should have been to proceed to the higher court which has the jurisdiction to vacate the judgment of the lower court rather than resort to uncivil and barbaric actions of name-calling and mudslinging.

    It is clear that the whole aim in the scenario is to tarnish the coveted image and reputation of the honourable jurists and cast aspersion on the credibility of the Nigerian judiciary. This, precisely, amounts to taking election gangsterism too far. And this does not portray us positively before the civilized global community. The party would also add salt to injury by calling out paid touts and street urchins to attempt to orchestrate an unrest purporting it to be a reaction to the judgment of the tribunal, the aim being to create an atmosphere of pandemonium and thereby portray the state to be in crisis over the rulings that was indisputably fair to all concerned.  Politics should not be this dirty and filthy and politicians should play it with some conscience.

    There is need for members of the Nigerian judiciary both the bar and the bench to rise up in condemnation of the attack that has been unleashed on members of the Abia tribunal and the denigration that has come to the way of the judiciary, no thanks to  the Abia  branch of APGA. There is a sense in which this smear campaign has a spiral link to how every other tribunal should or should not be treated. And this statement must be made unequivocally as a lesson to the Abia APGA. The court is a hallowed entity that should not be treated with disdain or held in such contemptuous manner that cast a bad image on our total outlook as a country. Somebody must call the party to order and reverse this flagrant descent to indecency.

    The people of Abia respect the rule of law and the impartiality of the judiciary and do believe that the judgments so far delivered by the tribunal are fair to all concerned.  Abians see the attack on the tribunal as transcending the borders of decency and sanity.  Nigerians owe a duty to uphold the sanctity of the judiciary.

     

    • Adindu is the Chief Press Secretary to Abia governor

  • Which is Nigeria’s oldest school?

    Modern education in Nigeria dates back to 1842 when Christian missionary activity birthed in Nigeria. Among the students and alumni of the Lagos Baptist Academy and CMS Grammar School, there is healthy rivalry to determine which is the older school, and among the Methodists and Anglicans, which pioneered education. Whereas the Baptist Academy was established in 1855, CMS came into being four years later in 1859. But that is only a part of the answer. Whereas Baptist Academy started first as a primary school, graduating into a secondary school in 1885, CMS Grammar School has always been a secondary school. On this score the grammarians say their school is 26 years older than Baptacads.

    Since primary schooling preceded secondary schooling, it is more productive to examine where education began and what legacy it has bequeathed to Nigeria. At the heart of that question is a healthy rivalry that speaks to the heart of the pattern of growth and development of Western education in Nigeria and the place of legacy schools relative to others.  The occasion of the 160th anniversary of Baptist Academy this week affords a welcome opportunity to reflect on this subject. Professor of Mass Communication, Idowu Sobowale,  a 1964 alumnus of the school, will be examining the issue at the Baptist Academy160th Anniversary lecture, entitled “Challenges of Nigeria’s Secondary School Education Today: The role of legacy Schools” today, Thursday, October 29.

    So where did education begin? On this score, the Anglican Diocaese of Egba points to St. Peter’s Anglican School, Abeokuta as the first, having been established in 1846. In truth, there was an earlier effort at implanting education in Nigeria in Badagry, where the Methodist established the Nursery of the Infant Church, Badagry, in 1843 and the CMS founded a school later called St. Thomas Anglican Primary School in 1845. In 1853, the CMS-affiliated Hinderer family began a school in Ibadan as did the Baptists in Ijaye. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland set up another school in Creek town in 1854, whilst the Baptist in 1855 established the Lagos Baptist Academy. Christian missionaries established these schools as twin accompaniment to implanting Christianity in Nigeria.

    Over time, these early schools have fallen on different fortunes with the result that today, the most renowned of them is the Lagos Baptist Academy. Why it has endured for 160 years where others failed will require a more definitive research in future, but it is useful to examine its raison d’etre and the path it has trodden over the years. Established by the Southern Baptist Convention, Houston, Texas, USA, the overriding consideration was to operate a school that would provide a balanced education with Baptist Christian ethics for little children;  an academy “that guides her students in paths of coordinate studies, that influences right thought for acceptable and honourable conduct, teaches her students their own rights and the rights of others and makes her students have respect for law and order both of government and of God”.

    Located at 24, Broad Street on Lagos Island, it had the Rev. Joseph M. Harden, a black American, as its directing mind. A missionary of the SBC in Liberia, he transferred his services to Lagos in 1851 as an agent of the American Baptist Mission to provide logistic support for missionaries in their mission to penetrate the hinterland.

    Rev. Harden had first supervised the building of the First Baptist Church before embarking on the school as a worthy outpost to provide instruction to parishioners’ children. Support for the school and church dwindled in the American Civil War years, 1861-1865 when other missionaries returned to America, leaving Rev. Harden behind. To support mission work, Harden, assisted by his Sierra Leonean wife, Sarah, resorted to brick-making at Iddo on the shores of Lagos Island and Mainland. The pressure proved too much for him and he died in May 1864, leaving his wife, Sarah, with the responsibility of keeping the dream alive.  She received some help from young Moses Ladejo Stone who later became the first ordained Nigerian Baptist minister in 1880. As assistant pastor of First Baptist Church and a teacher at Baptist Academy, Stone was to wield a lot of influence which later led him into collision with the American pastor, Rev W. J. David. That feud was also to dramatically alter the pattern of church growth among the Baptists and signpost the pattern of Nigerianisation of the clergy in Nigeria in later years.

    Thirty years after Baptist Academy started as an elementary school, the secondary wing was opened in 1885 on Mission Compound, Broad Street, Lagos by Rev. William J. David – the missionary pastor of First Baptist Church, Lagos. Samuel Harden, the son of Rev. Joseph Harden, was named as the first principal. Like the elementary school, the secondary arm was also co-educational.

    Besides liberal arts, humanities, and sciences, the curriculum placed emphasis on English, Latin, Greek, phonetics, and the classical and charming American cursive writing. For almost all Baptist fathers of the early 20th century in Lagos, it was LBA or no school for their sons or, for the wealthy, one of the boarding schools in the United Kingdom.

    For almost a century, the LBA remained co-educational until Reagan Memorial Baptist Girls’ School was established in 1941. The school was named after Baptist Missionary Lucille Reagan whose nascent idea was a separate Baptist High School for girls. Unfortunately, before her dream materialized, Miss Reagan died of yellow fever in July 1937. As a memorial, the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board in the USA provided funds to build the school; and the Baptist Women of Texas donated its first building, the Chapel. The Reagan Memorial Primary School itself was followed by its high school version in 1952. In line with honouring the rich past, historic names in Baptist missionary activities such as Harden, David, Stone, Vaughan and later Adegbite rank among House names at Baptacads, today.

    For a century from its Lagos Island base, LBA produced many students who made great marks in academics, sports, administration and various spheres of life. As a result of increasing demands for the quality education received there, which emphasized scholarship and character; the school was moved from the island to the mainland in February 1957. Its new home, Mile 7, Ikorodu Road, Obanikoro was christened Shepherdhill in the quaint Baptist tradition of giving its schools’ campuses spiritually uplifting names.

    Records show the late Dr. Joseph Adejumobi Adegbite, the first African principal, as being the longest serving principal (1954-1975). He had been a member of staff for a decade before his appointment as principal. He was a father to students and staff; who drummed it into all, the lesson that scholarship without character is dangerous. In his days, Christian devotionals were imbibed early in school when the first period of every Friday was devoted to Baptist Training Union where students, supervised by prefects, examined such concepts as ‘courage’, ‘resilience’, ‘service’ and ‘truth’ in light of scriptural teachings and were encouraged to relate them to life’s examples. It was an early drilling in public speaking and analytical thinking. Under him, prominent Baptist ministers such as Dr. Ayorinde and Bernard T. Griffin who served on the Board of Governors and old students visited the school regularly to share life’s experiences with students.

    In 1979, the Lagos Baptist Academy was taken over by the Lateef Jakande administration as part of its policy to own schools in Lagos State. Part of the consequence was that its well tended facilities became overstretched as four more schools were planted in the compound. The strong Christian foundation was weakened, the rich school traditions compromised, and critical stakeholders, estranged from the schools. It was not until 2001 that the Bola Tinubu administration, realizing the error, courageously returned mission schools to their original owners.

    The process of rehabilitation is ongoing and in my view, the public can only be better for it as once again there is room for government-owned schools to coexist and compete with private ones in all positive spheres of endeavour under rich curriculum, clear and enforceable guidelines whether they are owned by individuals, government, voluntary agencies or religious missions. The resulting harvest should make the most important question about the place of our schools to be: What’s the defining quality of your school?

    • Idowu is CEO, Diamond Publications.

     

  • Birth of Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal

    The Code of Conduct Bureau and the Code of Conduct Tribunal are both military inventions. They are part of the military legacy imposed on this nation by four military regimes-Murtala Muhammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdusalam Abubakar.

    If you look at the 1966 constitution, there is no reference to such two bodies. The nearest reference on oath is in section 96 of the 1963 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. When the idea of the Code of Conduct was adopted in the Constitution Drafting Committee in 1975, Nigeria was following the footsteps of Tanzania and Zambia. For, apart from Tanzania and Zambia and of late Ghana, there are no other countries in the world where such bodies exist.

    In 1967, the Tanzania leadership code was part of the Arusha Declaration during the tenure of Dr. Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922-1999), the Mwalimu simply referred to as the ‘Teacher’. Originating therefore as a resolution, the Code of Conduct was adopted at a party meeting and became incorporated into the constitution and rules of the party binding on party members who are within the definition of a “leader”. To rest its binding force on a party resolution would have made it unenforceable against leaders who are not party officials or whose officers are not dependent on party membership. For this reason it was thought necessary to incorporate it into constitution of the country. This was done by means of a constitutional amendment. However the constitutional provisions have a limited application to persons; they apply only to members of the National Assembly, operating as a condition of eligibility for election or appointment to, and membership of, the assembly, subject however to certain exceptions and safeguards. For example, the consequences of breach of the code are not self-operating. They entail an action in the High Court instituted by the Attorney-General. Only if the court finds the allegation of breach established, does the sanction of disqualification or vacation of seat follow.

    The various regulations governing civil servants, councillors and officers of parastatal organizations were similarly amended to incorporate the code. Thus, the source of authority of the code differs for the various categories of leaders: for the M.Ps and ministers it is the constitution, for public servants the appropriate regulations, and for party officials the party resolution. The enforcement machinery is also different for each category of leaders.”

    In Zambia, on the other hand, the constitution is the source of the authority of the code for all categories of leaders. The constitution establishes a Leadership Committee, and authorizes it to draw up a code in the form of regulations which are to have effect as if enacted in the constitution. Compliance with the code is a condition for election, nomination, or appointment to offices specified therein, though the President may, if of the opinion that to do so would be necessary or desirable in the public interest, authorize the nomination or appointment of a person otherwise disqualified, on condition that he complies within three months. Breach of the code by the holder of a specified office (other than the office of the President, judge of the Supreme Court, judge of the High Court, investigator-general, director of public prosecutions and auditor-general) operates to vacate the office, if it is established either on a written admission or by the decision of a tribunal established by the constitution with a right of appeal to the Supreme Court. The tribunal consists of a chairman appointed by the Chief Justice and two other persons appointed by the President; the chairman must be a judge or a person qualified to be a judge of the High Court. (The exemption of the President, Judge, etc. from the sanctions of the code is because the constitution provides other machinery for their removal from office).

    In both Tanzania and Zambia the code applies only to leaders, defined so as to cover wide categories of persons: ministers, M.Ps, all party officials, senior officials of organization affiliated to the party and of parastatals bodies and the universities, councillors and civil servants in high and middle cadres.

    The purpose of the code is that a leader should not put himself in a position where his personal interest conflicts with his responsibility as leader, or which enables him to exploit others. With certain exceptions, the code therefore forbids a leader or his spouse to draw more than one salary, to employ workers in connection with any trade, business, profession or vocation, including the running of a hotel, boarding house or like establishment for gain or profit; to own a house let out on rent to others; to be shareholders or director in a privately-owned enterprise.”

    These were the prayers of the sub-committee on National Objectives and Public Accountability under Professor Ben Nwabueze in 1975. The committee also made provision for the Ombudsman. General Olusegun Obasanjo implanted the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Code of Conduct Tribunal into the 1979 constitution but jettisoned the creation of Ombudsman.

    If you look at the fifth schedule of the 1979 constitution from section 1 to section 21, they contain the recommendations of Professor Nwabueze. In 1980, President Shehu Shagari appointed Alhaji Isa Keita (1912-1994), the Waziri of Katsina as chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau but Alhaji Shagari did not appoint the members of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, hence the non-functioning of the bureau.

    In 1988, General Ibrahim Babangida appointed a 10-man Code of Conduct Bureau with Reverend Cannon Mohammed as its chairman and Dr. Rex Akpofure as its secretary. In 1998, a constitutional panel review under Justice Niki Tobi was appointed by General Abdusalam Abubakar.

    Justice Niki Tobi panel lifted word for word, line by line, the contents of the 1979 constitution on the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal to be part of 1999 constitution and they are contained in the fifth schedule of the constitution from section 1- section 19. The present members of the Code of Conduct Bureau are Sam Shaba as chairman. The tenure of the board of Shaba has expired since April this year. President Muhammadu Buhari is yet to reconstitute new members of the bureau. Other members are Dr. Christy Ekoja, Dr. Ademola Adebo, Alhaji Disha Muhammed, Alhaji Ibrahim Mazo, Okechukwu Nwadinobi, Chief Stephen Bekefala while Choo Tony Salle Kyanni is the secretary.

    The question now is, are the punishment contained in the Code of Conduct too wide or too narrow? Should public servants of the middle and lower cadres be included? Is the restriction on the individual freedom of enterprise and of acquisition too severe? What is to be the reasonable balance between the need for individual initiative and the prevention of exploitation? Is the loss to the nation resulting from the exclusion of “leaders” from entrepreneurial initiative a reasonable price to pay for the prevention of exploitation?

    In 2003, the Code of Conduct Tribunal and the Independent National Electoral Commission were put under the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in other to guarantee their independence. The tribunal was designed to function hence it was implanted in the constitution. It was not set up as a joke. The tribunal is not under the Supreme Court. It is totally independent. It can bark and bite. The earlier the tribunal makes a scapegoat, the more will it be taken seriously.

    • Teniola, a former director at the presidency, stays in Lagos.

  • Reducing Nigeria’s maternal and newborn mortality

    Sometimes the technical words we use to describe a problem mask its true nature.

    Such is the case for the tens of thousands of women who die during pregnancy or delivery each year in Nigeria. For them, the official cause of death may be recorded as postpartum hemorrhage or uterine rupture. Similarly, for the alarming number of newborns who perish, their mothers may be informed the cause was asphyxia or birth trauma.

    Yet in each of these cases, the underlying cause of death is actually something far more fundamental: lack of access to basic health care. The vast majority of the mothers and newborns who die in Nigeria are lost to preventable health problems. They would have survived had they lived in a wealthier community with more doctors, hospitals and resources.

    Unfortunately, this picture is representative of a much larger crisis in maternal and newborn health. According to UNICEF and the World Health Organization, 800 women worldwide die each day of preventable complications related to pregnancy and delivery. And every day, 7,400 newborns die, most also from avoidable causes.

    It is a gross injustice whenever the joyous occasion of birth instead is a preventable death. But there is reason for optimism. Over the past generation, global efforts have significantly reduced maternal mortality, and newborn deaths have declined as well.

    New data released this week confirm that Nigeria is making progress battling maternal and newborn mortality. Since 1990, Nigeria has reduced both under-five mortality and maternal mortality by approximately half.

    Progress comes at an important time. Last month, world leaders gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York to adopt an ambitious set of Sustainable Development Goals for eliminating extreme poverty and building a prosperous, healthy planet. These goals, which call specifically for further reductions in maternal and newborn deaths, have the potential to accelerate progress even further if we stay focused on what works to save lives.

    Simple interventions go a long way. These include exclusive breast-feeding, keeping a newborn’s umbilical cord wound clean and dry to prevent infection, and promoting skin-to-skin contact between newborns and their mothers to regulate the baby’s body temperature and breathing.

    Meeting women’s health needs is just as important, and a newborn’s well-being is closely tied to her mother’s. Providing women with greater access to family planning and other essential services, as well as nutritious food, can help to ensure that women and their children stay healthy and strong enough to contribute to the development of their families and communities.

    We also need to help countries strengthen their primary health care systems so that more women and newborns have access to quality services and vital medicines before, during and after delivery. Countries and international donors can do this by increasing funding levels for primary health care, collecting better data on where gaps in services are greatest and by training more front-line health workers to deliver basic education and care to people and places that have little or none.

    If we take these steps, I believe that we can end most preventable maternal and newborn deaths — as well as eliminate the health disparities within and among countries so that every child has the chance to prosper — within a single generation.

    This is the message I took with me to Mexico City this week, as experts from around the world came together to discuss how to align their efforts at the Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference.

    While in Mexico, I thought about young women like Sarah Briton, who I met recently in Malawi after she gave birth to her first child, a healthy baby boy.

    Late in her third trimester, Sarah made the five-hour journey to Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe, where she could stay in a home near a women’s clinic to ensure that she and her baby had access to lifesaving care when she went into labour.

    Sarah wasn’t willing to accept the idea that her and her baby’s lives could be cut short simply because they were born in extreme poverty. She knows that progress is possible, and she’s ready for it to begin with her and her family.

    Many women across Nigeria undoubtedly share Sarah’s story. If we’re willing to match their commitment with our own, we can help guarantee a healthier, brighter future for women and children everywhere.

     

    • Gates is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

  • Saraki, Marafa and the ethical question

    In the African society that we all sprouted from, it is a taboo for a child to disown his mother (or father). And Franz Fannon could well have this matter in mind when he espoused that “every onlooker is either a coward or a traitor.” Whereas what is trending at the moment, indeed since the beginning of last week, is the screening of ministerial nominees submitted to the Senate by President Muhammadu Buhari, there is the need to keep bringing some basic issues to the front burner, so that those making efforts to sweep them under the carpet will have a hell of a task doing so.

    And what are these basic issues? In the Senate, the nation’s highest legislative body, there is the fundamental matter of freedom of speech, which, though guaranteed all citizens by the Nigerian constitution that the Senate leadership swore to protect and defend,  is being denied some senators simply because they chose to toe the ruling party’s line. Watching the screening of ministerial nominees at the Senate, one sees how several of the senators that were allowed to speak express profound thanks to Senate President Bukola Saraki  for allowing them to speak – as if the latter was doing them a favour. So, being allowed to speak has now become such a big deal.

    In that hallowed chamber, there seems to be instituted a regime of fear. Unfortunately, many senators want to be appointed into so-called ‘juicy’ committees and enjoy other privileges. And the one person that has the final say over all that is Saraki, President of the Senate. So, even though they know most of those things are utterly reprehensible, they will rather wound their conscience by cooperating and  be “carried along.”. Little surprise that penultimate week, majority of the senators condescended to the needless level of passing a vote of confidence on their president, at a time he was answering grave charges directly bordering on high stake fraud and corruption.

    Would the so-called vote of confidence change anything? One doesn’t need a political scientist to decode that it is a completely worthless exercise that only – sadly – portrays the Senate as a place where anything goes – even if there are voices of reason, and of honour and integrity, that wisely tried to prevail on the senators not to do so. If it was done to persuade President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and ask the Code of Conduct Tribunal to drop the weighty charges against Saraki, that goal wasn’t achieved because gone are the days when a president would meddle in the affairs of the judiciary.  This is a regime of change from darkness to light, a compete departure from falsehood to truth.

    At the United Nations General Assembly lately, the President was categorical in insisting that the law must be allowed to take its full course in Saraki’s and all other cases before the courts. And would it sway the judiciary or intimidate the CCT?  Surely not because more than any other period in the life of the nation, the judiciary is enjoying a new lease of life where its independence is firmly assured. That’s why I indicated that the confidence vote was as needless as it was worthless.

    The infringement on freedom of speech resulted to a situation where one of the most principled members of the Eighth Senate, Engr. Senator Kabiru Marafa (Zamfara Central) had to stand his ground that he must be allowed to speak the truth. And because the truth was not what is needed by the powers that-be, he was resisted. And since then, there seems to be a deliberate, orchestrated effort to run the man down in the media and other fora.

    Nigerians must rise in unison to resist any attempt to foist dictatorship in the Senate and elsewhere. If people holding the high office of senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria cannot be allowed to contribute in plenary because they differ with the leadership on matters of principle, what becomes of us, lesser mortals? Nigerians cannot fight for this democracy with their blood, only to allow the personal interest and greed of one man to truncate it.

    For this democracy to prosper and get us to the Promised Land, Nigerians must learn to celebrate compatriots that make selflessness their trademark, especially in the foregoing era of unprecedented selfishness. And it is for this same reason – and in this light – that we must hail Senator Kabiru Marafa and the five other senators that were almost suspended by the Saraki lackeys for siding with the truth.

    It is rather shocking, if not outrightly shameful, that some senators would even consider suspending these great men just because they are believed to have petitioned the police when the Senate Standing Rules were tinkered with and forged. Even if a rule exists that prohibits senators from divulging in public acts of criminality in the hallowed chambers, that law should be expunged forthwith. It has no place in the prevailing regime of change which assiduously seeks to reintegrate Nigeria in the comity of responsible world nations and make the citizens proud of their fatherland, as the Americans and others do.

    Marafa and co could, if they had wanted, simply join the Saraki chorus-singers and sing his praises or even lead in passing the so-called ‘vote of confidence’ in the man. And they will by so doing be assured of limitless goodies, including chairing ‘juicy’ committees. Instead, they chose the narrow but straight path of honour. When the history of our struggle for democracy in this dispensation is written, their names would be written in gold.

    Just as nobody came to this world without a mother, nobody, at least in our presidential democracy, can win or even contest an elective office without the platform of a political party. In African culture where brotherhood is the way to go, it is wrong to classify the betrayal of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by Senator Saraki and his ilk as the party’s own problem.

    It is a big threat to democracy. And unless the senators representing all of us put aside party differences and punish the perpetrators of this evil, we shall be setting a dangerous precedent that would ultimately place the efforts of our heroes past (and present) in vain. And posterity will never forgive the present generation of Nigerians. Clearly, we don’t have the luxury of continuing as onlookers. Nor is it ethical to celebrate those that have disowned their mothers, especially when you rode on the back of the mother to become Nigeria’s Number Three Citizen.

    • Dr. Tanko is the Director-General of the U.S.-based Centre for Ethical Governance. 

  • Now that change has won!

    How that change has won, everybody expects change to come. Indeed it has come, without appearing to some to have come. It is amazing to note, for instance, the number, category, background and calibre of those who have bought into what everybody now calls the change mantra.  Hence one is reminded, without an attempt to be pedantic, of the famous Latin adage students of those days, our own secondary schooldays, liked quoting ad nauseam, especially at literary and debating society events: ‘Tempora mutantur  nos et  mutamur in illis: ‘Times are changing, and we with them.’

    Now that change has won, through and through, change must come at all levels of governance, in all its ramifications. We don’t need to have on our fingertips all the details of the different elements of the manifesto of the agents of change to know what Nigerians are yearning for:  adequate security, throughout the length and breadth of our country, a veritable anti-corruption crusade, without caring whose ox is gored, serious reduction of unemployment, creation of wealth, justice for all, discarding of the culture of impunity, restoration of discipline in an organized society. The agenda for change must demand that security and corruption be tackled headlong.

    The change mantra must be seen at work   in all spheres of national life including power, health, education, agriculture.  Now that change has won, a stop must be put to all forms of discrimination, religious, ethnic and gender, as well as the type suffered by all other sub-groups and sub-cultures such as the physically challenged, senior citizens, youths in certain situations and all types and categories of voiceless people. Change must come and fight to a standstill, if not completely at least substantially, corruption, indiscipline, the lack of the queue culture and all those factors that have continued to give our dear country a bad name. To talk of change is to take a   hard look at the issue of power, gas and electricity, and the vexing issue of oil subsidy in the petroleum sector. How will the new powers-that-be ensure that Nigerians will henceforth not have to queue for the refined form of a God-given natural resource: petrol?

    It is a moot question whether the marked improvement already being experienced in the power sector is due to the work of the gencos and discos put in place by the old administration or rather the direct intervention of the new men at the helm of affairs. Some continue to insist that since the Buhari administration failed to hit the ground running, the new men at the helm of affairs could not be given the credit for this recent positive development. But many others say that such improvement could not have come if the old regime had not yielded way to the new one. Whatever may be the case, I am of the view that the very fact that President Muhammadu Buhari has now replaced President Goodluck Jonathan was enough to make the   dramatis personae sit up. Who does not know that the fear of Buhari is the beginning of wisdom? The petroleum product marketers, the agents of subsidy, real or fictive, the oil pipeline vandals  and all sorts of dealers and middlemen  definitely now know that the honeymoon is over and that henceforth there will be no more free lunch, that it is not going to be business as usual.

    Talking about the men and women who are soon to join hands with PMB to effect the change everybody now looks forward to, many have stressed, rightly of course, the need to have round pegs in round holes. I shall limit myself to an area which I know best, the linguistic round pegs and round holes which the change mantra must not overlook or underestimate.  The new thrust of change would need to focus on an area where our country has always lagged behind:  putting forward the right persons for external representation, external relations, external negotiations, at international fora. Whereas we have often hit the nail on the head when it comes to having people with more or less the required academic and professional background and qualifications, technical know-how, and needed expertise, Nigerian candidates have been known to lose key international appointments for not knowing French.

    A cursory look at past appointments and representations shows that oftentimes we do not bother to ensure that officials with the right linguistic background represent the giant of Africa.  I do not know how often we have had a Nigerian Representative at the United Nations, or a Minister of Foreign Affairs, who knows adequately and can work in the language of Molière and Victor Hugo. If it is true that the French language is not the only language used at international fora it definitely comes close to English as a major language of commerce and diplomacy across the world.  For our new  round pegs to fit perfectly into the new dispensation’s round holes, knowledge of a language other than English where needed should be made a condition sine qua non. We are in no way suggesting or implying that there would be no more need for   translators and interpreters.  Far from it.

    There have of course been a few lucky dips, rare and far in-between. Within recent memory, the last Finance Minister, who also coordinated the Nigerian economy, was a very active user of French. We once saw her chair some high level conferences and meetings abroad and here in Nigeria using French with admirable fluency. She definitely made Nigeria and Nigerians proud. And we are all living witnesses to the recent election and assumption of office as president of the African Development Bank of the last minister of Agriculture, Akinwunmi Adesina. Apart from his outstanding credentials and track record, his bilingual background in English and French must have stood him in good stead for the high profile AfDB job. And indeed one of the current government’s minister-nominees, Audu Ogbe, who served as minister in President Obasanjo’s first cabinet after the return to civil rule in 1999, as well as chairman of the ruling PDP, has active French. And of course the highly visible, and media friendly publicity secretary of the APC, Lai Mohammed, who apart from being a lawyer, is also a French graduate with full mastery of the language of François Hollande and Laurent Fabius,   and should be, one of the new administration’s men with the type of linguistic background needed for some high profile future international assignments in the new dispensation, now that change has won.

     

    • Prof Simpson, past President Nigerian Institute of Translators and Interpreters (NITI), former Commissioner for Education, Lagos State writes from Abuja

  • Kogi’s political transcendentalism

    Fifteen years ago, I wrote my last features article on the impeachment plot against President Olusegun Obasanjo.  Since then, I had taken a bow from writing until the November 21 gubernatorial election in Kogi State forced me out of retirement.

    I have read intensely most of the thought-provoking articles, especially the intriguing but incorrect analysis of Idowu Akinlotan “Palladium” in The Nation newspaper.  I now wish to correct the equivocation and innuendoes in most of these articles as a major actor and player in the politics of Kwara and Kogi states, and even Nigeria during my spell as a honourable member, Kwara State House of Assembly; UPN Senator in the Second Republic and executive chairman, Sports Council in both Kwara and Kogi states.  Interestingly, Senator Ahmadu Ali, Alice Folayan, Alhaji Kokori Abdul, Chief P.W B. Bako, Chief Julius Elupko and my humble self authored the only official request for the creation of Kogi State in 1982.  The request was presented to the chairman of the Senate Committee on State Creation and his team, as well as to the Senate President, Joseph Wayas on October, 18, 1982.

    The forth-coming November 21 election in Kogi State between Igala sons and brothers, Capt Idris Ichalla Wada, the incumbent governor and his boisterous challenger, former two-term governor and political emperor of Kogi State, Prince Abubakar Audu, calls for careful scrutiny and painstaking analysis in order to ascertain the sincerity and suitability of the two contenders.

    Political transcendentalism?  Yes, Kogi State is facing political tsunami, re-alignment and transcendentalism right now.  Interestingly, The Nation newspaper, led by its exciting trio of Sam Omatseye, Uncle Olatunji Dare and the enigmatic Idowu Akinlotan “Palladium” column have been in the fore-front of daily reportage of the electoral preparations.

    It is crystal clear that Idowu Akinlotan’s “Palladium” has been carrying on the Herculean task of informing and even indoctrinating undiscerning Nigerians about the forth-coming election in Kogi State. I am aware of several efforts to correct the jaundiced write up, but nonetheless, there are acres of wilderness to be discussed, hence, this article.

    Twenty two years ago, on January 2, 1993, Governor Abubakar Audu, ordered the reduction, reversal and down-sizing of two Specialist Hospitals in Kabba and Obangede to ordinary General Hospitals.  The two wonderful world-class Specialist Hospitals, built with the assistance of the Danish Government were reverted in 1993 to ordinary hospitals because they were considered too “sophisticated” for the newly created one-year old Kogi State.

    Governor Audu did not stop at that.  He ordered that all the sophisticated equipments in the field of health, dentistry, psychiatric and theatre be dismantled and transferred to Ogbonicha Specialist Hospital.  Just six weeks ago, the incumbent Governor of Kogi State, Capt Wada, ordered the restoration of the specialist status of the two hospitals in Kabba and Obangede.  Not only this, he directed that all necessary consultants, doctors and health personnel and other paraphernalia that will make the two hospitals function optimally be immediately restored.

    In one era, Governor Audu removed equipment, infrastructure and personnel, only for another humane, considerate and painstaking and considerate governor, Capt Wada, to come on board and restore the facilities and paraphernalia.  This political master stroke and redressing of deep political wound the West and Central Senatorial Districts is political transcendentalism.  By the time Governor Wada’s directive are carried out to the letter, the November election must have been won convincingly in Kogi West and Central by the PDP Wada/Awoniyi ticket.

    On power rotation, both main contenders promised power rotation to Kogi West and Central Senatorial District in 2019.  There is, however, a great difference between the two promises.  Governor Wada’s promise is credible, while Prince Audu’s promise is highly incredible.  The fact to be considered is that Kogi East Senatorial District comprising Idah, Ankpa and Dekina Divisions have produced two-time Governors in Prince Abubakar Audu (Idah) and Ibrahim Idris (Ankpa).  The incumbent Governor, Capt Wada, is doing the first term for Dekina, and is running for the second term to complete two-term governorship for the three divisions in Igala land.  Power can then rotate to Kogi Central or Kogi West in 2019.  Abubakar Audu knows full well that his victory in the Governorship will give Idah division, three terms as against two terms for Ankpa and one for Dekina, causing a disequilibrium in the power rotation formula, as Ankpa would need one more term and Dekina two more terms.  This explains why there is a gale of defections in Kogi East by politicians who do not believe that power should rotate to either West or Central.  The defection of Hon. Isa Echocho, Senator Dangana Ocheja, Hon Mohammed Idris, Hon Simon Achuba, Hon David Apeh, etc can be encapsulated in the desire of the defectors to continue hanging on to power for Kogi East after 2019.

    It is pertinent to gloss over the gale of retrenchments by the Abubakar Audu regime in 1992-1993. Four thousand, nine hundred and ten civil servants from Kogi West and Kogi Central were retrenched in order to “down size” the work force.  After pleas, persuasions and prostrations from Obas, chiefs, political leaders and associates, 1,800 of the retrenched staff were recalled, leaving a balance of 3,110 to wallow and die in penury poverty and wanton servitude.  In some cases, an entire family of father, mother and their children were brutally retrenched.  It is debatable if the civil servants in both Kogi West and Centre can ever recover from the dehumanising retrenchment.

    The other great and unpardonable sins of Audu involve saying things he does not mean to the electorates.  This is equivocation.  Thus he promised Kogi West the State University, ab initio, only to site the same university in Anyigba.  After this, he fervently promised that the medical faculty and health sciences will be sited in Kogi West, while engineering and architecture will be sited in Kogi Central “because the university is funded by the three senatorial districts and the 21 Local Governments.”  These promises have proved to be cruel jokes as the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences as well as the Teaching Hospital have been irrevocably entrenched in Anyigba.  Interestingly, no Vice Chancellor of Kogi West or Central extraction has been appointed since the 16 years existence of the institution.

    It is, therefore, crystal clear that the salvation and edification of the people of Kogi Central and West, lies in the mass endorsement of PDP and its flag-bearers, Governor Wada and Yomi Awoniyi.  Kogi East will surely vote overwhelmingly for Captain Wada, a classical pilot, an unassuming and decent politician who has flown kogi state to the summit of agricultural, educational and infrastructural development in the most decent and prudent manner.

    • Senator Obasaju writes from Kabba, Kogi State.

  • CPC: How not to flex muscle

    For an agency suffering from a near-absence of public trust in its capacity to carry out its mandate of protecting the consumer against abuses, the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) must felt good about its raid, last Thursday, on the head office of pay-TV firm, MultiChoice Nigeria.

    The raid, which saw CPC officials, accompanied by policemen, resulted in the seizure of laptop computers and documents vital to the firm’s operations from its office in Lagos as well as harassment of its staff.

    It was an action that got the CPC plenty of media mentions, something that must have made its officials happy, given its potential to present the agency as one possessing the virility required to protect the consumer against abuses.

    It is yet unclear whether that has been achieved, but there is no doubt that the agency is giddy about what it did. On its website, the CPC claimed it carried out the raid to prevent the obstruction of investigation into alleged consumer rights violations by MultiChoice, which owns DStv. The CPC website quotes the agency’s Director of Legal Services, Emmanuel Ataugba as saying the raid was carried out in line with relevant sections of the agency’s enabling law.

    “CPC, in line with one of its mandates to provide redress for consumer abuse, commenced investigation into the operations of DStv based on a barrage of complaints of alleged consumer rights violations against the company,” Ataugba was quoted to have said.

    A brief background. The CPC began its investigation of MultiChoice in July, following its receipt of  “a barrage of consumer complaints alleging wide-range abuse of subscribers’ rights.”

    The alleged abuses, the CPC said, “include poor quality of service such as incessant disruption of service without compensation, wrongful disconnection of service during subsisting subscriptions, decoder swap irregularities and poor redress mechanism and customer service”.

    Valid grounds, if you ask me, on which to base an investigation. Admirably, MultiChoice responded with a promise to cooperate with the CPC with a view to improving its subscribers’ experience of its services and consumer satisfaction in general.

    The investigation has since taken in a series of meeting, the last of which held on Tuesday, between representatives of CPC and MultiChoice.

    Two days after the last meeting, CPC raided MultiChoice’s office, took away computers and documents, on the pretext that the company was obstructing its investigation.

    The claim requires scrutiny. It is already in the public domain that the CPC demanded, at the meeting, personal information about the company’s subscribers just as it did copy of the company’s exclusive contract in Nigeria. Both demands were turned down. MultiChoice had argued, validly in my view, that releasing subscribers’ personal information is a breach of the trust its customers reposed in it when they signed up as subscribers to its services. Doing otherwise will be both illegal and immoral.

    It also explained to the CPC that one of the ways it satisfies its customers (given that the CPC claims to be interested in consumer satisfaction) is by keeping protecting the privacy of subscribers as prescribed by their contract with the company. I am firmly in support of this and I think everyone should.

    Copy of exclusive contract in Nigeria? I cannot see how that  is  related to the issues the CPC claims to be investigating. I also fail to see how the seizure of computers and documents will make MultiChoice improve customer satisfaction in the short or long run because both are unrelated.

    What exactly does the CPC want to do with personal data? While there is no dispute about its status as a government agency, it is safe to say government agencies in the country have not earned the type of trust that would make the public feel at ease about their personal data being given out to an agency.

    This saga, to my mind, carries a strong whiff of the military era that the rule of law should have banished. A request for sensitive personal information from an entity like MultiChoice should have been made through the courts? The fact  that it was not is indicative of indifference to legal procedures. We should not forget that MultiChoice has both legal and moral obligations to keep its subscribers personal details confidential. It exclusive contract in Nigeria, most certainly, will have non-disclosure clauses.

    CPC’s conduct, at a time when the country desperately needs foreign investment, is unlikely to be considered inviting by would-be foreign investors. The agency, clearly, has not covered itself in glory.

    Acholonu, a public affairs analyst, lives in Abuja.

     

  • Screening: ‘If Saraki can preside, Amaechi should pass’

    The orchestrated delay by the Senate to confirm the ministerial nomination of Rotimi Amaechi is a brazen display of what happens when open and honest process is brushed aside so that the wiles of backroom and vengeful politics may take control of  a vital constitutional  function of the upper house of our National Assembly. The rule of fair law has been transformed into the rule of muddled evil.

    They claim there is a petition against Rotimi Amaechi, Immediate Past Governor of Rivers State and a ministerial nominee. A court order enjoining his nomination is also alleged but no one seems to have seen the court order and

    none can authoritatively state the name of the court that wrote the phantom order. Now, we have a phantom law  and visible injustice.

    This is but a slice of the  bitter meal Senator Saraki hopes to serve  Nigeria if he is allowed to continue to be the Chief Cook of the proceedings of the National Assembly. This ugly strategy against Amaechi shows the disregard the PDP and its allies have for constitutional and legal processes. To settle a local political score that resides only in Rivers state, they are willing to lay waste to the inner workings of the national government, particularly trashing the relationship between the Presidency and the National Assembly.

    While we do not know from what court the order comes from  but we fear with good reason that Saraki and company are turning the National Assembly into a court of kangaroos. There is a political gang-up against Amaechi by those who were his enemies in Rivers state.  They were unable to touch him while governor; now they seek their pound of flesh.

    We might expect this form of vindictiveness from the abrasive and embattled Governor Wike. Although, parading about with bombast and bluster as the governor, Wike knows his heavy skates are cutting into thin ice.  The selection process by which he came to office cannot justifiably be deemed an election.  If the electoral tribunal does as it ought, Wike’s tenure will be aborted. He will be removed from the Government House and put on the streets. This fall he can’t abide.  He has nursed his wicked ambition too long  to have it pulled from him after just as he is getting accustomed to it.

    Thus, he has set himself on a most selfish mission. He has raided the cupboard of his state to pull out some of its precious funds to buy those senators, who would be bought, so that he can distort the national process to satisfy his parochial mission. Wike seeks to hold Amaechi hostage as long as the electoral case against him is pending.  He hopes to trap Amaechi in among the worst of double traps.  He attempts to roadblock Amaechi.  Amaechi must somehow get the APC to abandon the tribunal case or Amaechi’s nomination shall remain in abeyance. However, to jettison the tribunal, Amaechi would have to beg the APC candidate as well as President Buhari and the party leadership.  Not only would this be shameful, it would be political suicide for it is such a toxic entreaty that it has no prospect of success. Wike seeks to make Amaechi so desperate as light himself aflame politically.

    Thus far, Amaechi has been smart and disciplined. He has not put his neck in the noose. While Wike’s scheme is cunning , it will enjoy a short shelf life. The rumor of court orders cannot stand. No federal court would dare issue such an order because federal jurists know that such an order would be an improper judicial encroachment into what is essentially a legislative function.  Any order from a state court is an automatic nullity because federal institutions have primacy over state organs. As a son should not dictate to his father, a state court has no business entertaining an issue concerning the procedures of the National Assembly processes and a state court is certainly not in the position to enjoin the National Assembly. Again, this not the rule of law; it is rule of the lawless and the law of disorder.

    While we should not be surprised at the craven behavior of Wike, we should be taken aback that the senate could allow itself to be brought so low, so swiftly.  It is as if a stiff wind came and blew the stony edifice down as if made of crumbled paper and old rag.

    Ironic that Senate President Saraki would allow this to happen.  Amaechi and Saraki were close allies as governors. That he would sell Amaechi down the river for so cheap a blandishment should give all other Saraki allies pause. The man is so loyal and concerned about self that he has no loyalty and concern to bestow to others, to advance his cause one inch, he will slice the political neck of a friend. To be his ally is to begin to count the moments when his self interest will make him turn against you.

    Yet, in all of this, there is an even greater irony. Saraki has climbed the summit of hypocrisy.  Amaechi has not been indicted much less convicted of any crime. One cannot be barred from high office merely by the shadow of rumor and the craft of those who monger them. In a chamber where the presiding officer is undergoing a court trial for corruption and where scores of other senators are under investigations by various graft agencies, they have no moral standing  to sidetrack  Amaechi’s nomination. Like the Senators, Amaechi is yet to be tried and found guilty by any court of law. Thus, he stands innocent until proven guilty. He should not be denied his rights and we, the people,  should be denied our right to the fair and honest operation of the National Assembly in the exercise of its constitutional duties.

    The change the people voted for was that our elected officials would abide the constitution and rule of law. What we did not vote for is that they would invent new, more odious ways to shackle democracy and undermine governance for all in pursuit of their narrowing agendas.

    If the Senate insists in not confirming Amaechi because of the allegations against him,  then the Senate should begin to purge itself  of members in like circumstances. The extraction should start at the very top. If the senators cannot treat Amaechi’s nomination due to the extra-judicial allegations against him,  then the Senate should suspend Senate President Saraki, who actually  has a formal corruption case against him. Also, the other senators who are subjects of official investigations should be relieved of their duties until their matters are resolved. Put another way, if the law protects Saraki and others by regarding them innocent until proven guilty, that same rule must also apply to Rotimi.

    The machinations surrounding the nomination of the former Governor of Rivers state show that an unfortunate segment of the political class still fails to realize that change has come to Nigeria. They still seek the bankrupt politics of old where money trumps right and affluence means more than the rule of law and decency. These people seek to keep us in the past.

    Therefore, we must demand that the Amaechi nomination is moved forward. We do this not for Amaechi. Whether he comes or goes is in some ways irrelevant. It just so happens that, once again, he finds himself in the midst of a constitutional and political maelstrom. Eight years ago, the Supreme Court had to save his governorship seat. They did so, not out of personal favor to him, but to insert the rule of law in place of the rule of naked power.

    We come again now to a moment where Amaechi is in the eye of the tempest but we recognize that the issue transcends him. The stakes are big.

    We fight those who still believe they can purchase our institutions because Nigerian governance and democracy remain for sale. We must say that they are wrong and that if they persist in this misconduct, they will be facing more than allegations. They shall face the rebuke of the people and the close scrutiny of our judicial system.

    Before they decry the speck on Amaechi’s shoes, they better clear the mud from their own.

     

    • Omolewa writes from Lagos

  • Kogi: Audu, thrice beaten…

    In a matter of weeks, the people of Kogi State will make an important decision about who to elect as their governor for the next four years. The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) has fixed the Kogi governorship election for November 21. Two weeks later on December 5, it will be the turn of Bayelsa to go to the polls. In both cases, the people will be faced with choices they have been faced with in the past as both races are between the incumbent governors and ex- governors.

    The frontline candidates in Kogi are the incumbent governor- Capt Idris Wada and ex-Governor Abubakar Audu while in Bayelsa- the race is between ex- Governor Timipre Sylva and incumbent Seriake Dickson.  In both cases, the electorate have the rare opportunity of making an informed choice based on verifiable scorecards of the candidates stint in office.

    In Kogi, Audu’s handlers are mindful of that fact and have had a head start of campaigning based on what they describe as ‘unparalleled achievements’ during his six years stint as governor between 1991-1993 and 1999-2003.  Many people have also assigned to Prince Audu the title of the Father of Modern Kogi.  The achievements they list out include the establishment of the Kogi State University, some housing estates in Lokoja, Kogi State Polytechnic, NTA Kogi, Confluence Beach Hotels and Graphics newspapers. They go further to ascribe establishment of Dangote Cement company, Obajana to the efforts of Audu.

    Audu’s opponents however are quick to point out that the ‘achievements’ were more of cosmetic achievements. One case they always refer to is the conversion of buildings of a World Bank agricultural project to university that could not offer one accredited course and renaming same after himself.  It took later PDP administrations for the university to reclaim the name Kogi State University and the category A accreditation it enjoys today.  They go further to assert that even Graphics newspapers that Audu claims to have established was just a newspaper house in name as all their publications were printed by Tribune publishing house. It was the Wada administration that established a printing press for the newspaper in Lokoja thus making Graphic a true newspaper house. They also wonder how Audu could lay claim to the establishment of Obajana Cement-when the state had no public private partnership law in place until the advent of the Wada administration. They go further to challenge Audu to mention the direct stake he negotiated for the state in Obajana cement- a fully private institution.

    Wada’s handlers are quick to state that in a little over three years, Wada has built a foundation for a truly modern Kogi despite the fact that he has had access to less than half of the resources at the disposal of Audu during his time. This is a fact that even Audu has attested to at different fora!  The achievements they point to are an unprecedented 200% leap  in Internally generated revenue; great improvement in peace and security as opposed to the climate of thuggery and violence that reigned during Audu’s time. They also point to the establishment of a modern transport plan that includes government subsidized transport system- the first of its kind in the nation, establishment of a modern transport mega terminal and the establishment of inter and intracity transport land and water transport schemes. Other achievements are the attraction of foreign investments like Allo Cement Company, Cargill USA and Nigeria-Korea Vocational Centre via an aggressive drive to attract investments. They posit that if Wada given six years that Audu had, Kogi would be massively transformed as all the ongoing projects like 250-bed teaching hospital, the phase  II Lokoja project which is being heralded with the 16km Otokiti Ganaja Bypass Road, the Lokoja water reticulation, the 11-Storey Kogi House etc would have been completed.

    Other political analysts are of the opinion that beyond performance, Wada And Audu are going to compete on the basis of character.  Audu’s supporters acknowledge their client’s weakness on this front but are quick to point that his arrogant tendencies are far surpassed by his penchant for what they term sterling performance.  A lot of people still recall that during Audu’s two previous adventures in power, he ruled like an emperor and saw the state as an extension of his fiefdom. As governor, lesser human beings including his commissioners and other top functionaries of government cringed in his presence. They dared not sit whenever the emperor was on the throne. People were expected to crawl before him and obey him without objection. Salaries and allowances were regularly withheld without explanation.  Civil servants  were routinely laid off without regard to extant rules.

    Has the former governor learnt his lessons? Not likely.  Happenings at the recent Eid prayer where muslim faithfuls had to delay their prayer for over five hours to wait for him. Two weeks ago, while returning from a trip abroad, a large number of supporters were mobilized to Jamaata bridge where they waited several hours for Audu. The long wait was said to have taken a toll on the health of an aged man who collapsed and was rushed to a near by hospital for revival. Recently, a reporter was reprimanded for having the effrontery to seat on the dining table in Audu’s Ogbonicha country home.

    In Audu’s time, people with genuine grievances could not air them freely without reprimand from the powers that be then. The former banker also carries a deep baggage from his earlier sojourn in Lugard House during which he was  alleged to have helped himself from the common till. He is still standing trial over an alleged stealing of about N12 billion from the state revenue.

    Given the fact that Kogites have experience of both Wada and Audu regimes, Will Kogites hand Audu the red card as they did on three previous occasions? The answer to this question and  to whether Kogites prefer to return to the hero worshipping days of Audu or will prefer to continue with the all inclusive governance style of the incumbent will be handed down on Nov 21.