The 2023 presidential election is a few months away and the political clime may perhaps become too hot with melodrama as party supporters engage in colourful campaigns, social media banter, and rallies online and offline.

In the fray, Reno Omokri, a former media aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan has attained a repute for hitting hard and lashing the supporters of Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP).

His persistent social media posts criticising the Obidient movement have, so far, generated a lot of furore, especially amongst Obi’s supporters. While pundits believe Omokri has often been saying the truth, the sharp lance of his strong posers rests in Obi’s jugular.

Omokri, who had once suffered a barrage of attacks for being ‘dis-obidient’ lamented the incessant verbal abuse he receives from the supporters of Obi. Omokri even made more enemies for himself after he claimed to have independently discovered how a series of fictitious accounts on social media, and cloned identities have characterised the Obidient movement so far.

Evidently, Omokri is not alone, the likes of Pastor Poju Oyemade, Femi Otedola, Father Mbaka, Deji Adeyanju, and Femi Fani-Kayode once had their fair share of hateful comments, abusive and insulting words from Obi’s supporters.

Read Also: Kemi Badenoch: Rewarded with high office

Although Obi, had repeatedly made a show of admonishing his supporters to stop insulting or attacking his opponents and their supporters, the intolerance of opposing views by his supporters escalates in real-time thus truncating the beauty of democracy.

For Omokri, one of the many sins of the former Anambra governor and his ‘Obidient’ movement, is the religious compliance with the mandatory sit-at-home directive by the leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

He said: “IPOB had a sit at home yesterday (Tuesday) and Obidients who hold meetings every day decided to obey the order yesterday, Peter Obi complies with this order too. This shows that they are observing IPOB more than our constitution.“

Omokri’s arguments hinge on the fact that Obi’s supporters have in the past weeks, held million-marches in different states across the country especially in South-East states, on various days of the week, but they (Obi’s supporters) clearly avoid the sit-at-home days which negate the fierce and undaunted style of campaign that Obi’s supporters are known for.

Undoubtedly, several factors including ethnicity, religion, and other sentiments, will influence 2023 polls. But how Obi will attract sufficient electoral harvest from the South East still remains a mystery owing to his current jittery silenceto IPOB agitations.

Blaming Obi, Omokri argued that the LP candidate has ‘offended’ the sensibility of some Nigerians especially those who are displeased by his supporters’ offensive style of campaign whereby they attempt to paint him in glowing colours and demonise other candidates.

Amidst the bickering between the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) authorities, over the recruitment of police constables, the resignation of Musiliu Smith, Chairman of the Commission during the week, stirred more interest than usual. His resignation from service did not come without intrigue.

Smith, who was the 10th Inspector General of Police from May 29, 1999, to March 2002 had, until his resignation been at loggerheads with workers of the commission and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Usman Baba.

He took over leadership of the commission from former IGP, Mike Okiro. Smith’s administration was inaugurated on July 25, 2018, and is expected to exit on July 24, 2023, but his abrupt resignation has set many tongues wagging.

Over the years, the issue of public trust and confidence in the police has remained a huge concern. Also, recruitment into the Police force itself has been a subject of dispute for the past three or four years.

This recruitment dilemma also pitted the PSC under Smith against the office of the erstwhile IGP, Mohammed Adamu, in 2019.

One of the many disagreements centred on which body should be responsible for the recruitment, promotion, and appointment of constables and officers.

While both bickered over an issue that should have been settled long ago, there have been a series of interventions to resolve the whole situation but to no avail. The House of Representatives had to wash its hands off the power tussle, saying it was beyond its control.

This tussle started in 2018 after President Muhammadu Buhari gave a nod for the recruitment of over 40,000 police constables thus accentuating issues around the need to separate the police and security from politics in the recruitment process.

Read Also; Uju Anya’s tweet heard round the world

Following the directive of the president, the police and the commission laid claim to their constitutional powers to conduct recruitment for the police. These constitutional functions which appear interwoven and directed at achieving the common goal of effective policing have been subjected to a thorough dilemma.

Part 1 of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution (as amended) states that PSC “Shall be responsible for the appointment and promotion of persons to offices (other than the office of the Inspector-General of Police) in the Nigeria Police Force; dismiss and exercise disciplinary control over persons (other than the IG) and formulate policies and guidelines for the appointment, promotion, discipline and dismissal of officers of the Nigeria Police Force.”

On the other hand, Section 18(1) of the Nigeria Police Act 2020, which was assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, states: “The responsibility for the recruitment of recruit constables into the Nigeria Police Force and recruit cadets into the Nigeria Police Academy shall be the duty of the Inspector-General of Police.”

The commission under the leadership of Smith had filed a suit before a Federal High Court in Abuja which was dismissed in December 2019 for lack of merit.

Responding, the office of the Attorney General of the Federation pleaded with the court not to nullify the then-recruitment exercise because it had gone through significant stages with funds already spent in the process.

In the application filed by the Solicitor-General of the Federation and Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Justice, Dayo Apata (SAN), the AGF argued that recruitment was not stated by the Nigerian Constitution as one of the functions of the PSC.

He contended that by the provision of Section 153(1)(m), (2) and Section 215(1)(b) and Paragraph 3 Part 1 of the Third Schedule to the Nigerian Constitution 1999 as well as sections 6 and 24 of the Police Service Commission Act, “the Police Service Commission is sole statutory body exclusively empowered and responsible for the appointment, promotion, dismissal and exercise of disciplinary control over persons holding or aspiring to hold officers in the Nigeria Police Force except for the Inspector General of Police.”

Beyond the issues of the recruitment dilemma, Smith got enmeshed in a series of travails but rather than get consumed, he told the bold step of exiting the stage.

The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the refusal of workers in the agency to return to work 17 days after embarking on an indefinite strike.

The PSC workers, who held a protest in Abuja during the week, explained that the management of the commission had refused to attend to their demands since they started their strike.

They equally passed a vote of no confidence in Smith over his inability to address all issues raised.

Also, in August, the PSC had opened a portal on its official website for the recruitment of police constables, but in reaction, the NPF said the advert was not in tandem with the police recruitment process and should be disregarded.

This tussle which characterised the Smith administration as the PSC boss now requires the urgent need for the legal interpretation of constitutional duties from the Supreme Court on the matter and most importantly, the timely intervention of President Buhari.

Conventional wisdom holds that the death of a fellow human is always a sad event and not a suitable occasion for gloating or making unpleasant remarks.

Amid the torrents of tributes which poured in for 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, the unsparing comments made by Nigerian-born professor Uju Anya wishing the monarch an ‘excruciating’ death, pierced the hearts of well-wishers and became the talking point.

Elizabeth II died during the week, and was the longest-serving British monarch, and indeed there was outpouring of grief, mixed with some criticism of her empire. Generally, the reaction to her death was both global and emotional.

As if the don was waiting for the Queen’s last breath, she rushed out like a bolt out of the blues to give a cruel and blistering epitaph. It was as if she was determined to pursue the deceased to the grave and to continue the combat.

Queen Elizabeth was a steady presence in the lives of millions far beyond Britain. She related with many American presidents, as well as British prime ministers, and will be mostly remembered among many things for the leadership she provided even as a young lady.

But hours before the Queen’s death was announced, Anya, an associate professor at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, sparked outrage after calling the ailing Queen the head of a ‘thieving, raping, genocidal empire’.

“I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating,” Anya wrote on her Twitter page. The tweet has since been deleted for violating Twitter rules.

In another tweet, she referenced the rumoured role of the British government in supplying Nigeria’s federal government with arms and ammunition during the nation’s civil war which spanned 1967 to 1970.

Read Also; Uju Ohanenye: Breaking gender bias

The professor, did not explain the exact context of her comment regarding what she referred to as “sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family”.

But many perceived her tweets may not be unconnected to the Nigerian civil war which took place less than 10 years after Nigeria got its independence from Britain.

Following the announcement of the Queen’s death, she wrote: “If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star”

The tweets drew the attention of many including Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who quoted the post and wrote: “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.”

The Queen who married late Prince Philip, left behind a royal family comprising children – Prince Charles (73), Princess Anne (71), Prince Andrew (62), and Prince Edward (58) and grand-children. Did the academic consider feelings of these bereaved? Many wondered the reasons behind the post verbally desecrating the dead. Not a few insisted that it was not in Anya’s place to wield the cane.

Some have argued that don, chose to speak the truth in her remorseless message rather than give the usual sugarcoated message about the dead. They defended Anya for speaking out against the colonial legacy of the British Empire under the late Queen. But was her harsh and unforgiving message truly about the truth?

Down memory lane in August 1967, one commentator dug up a letter written by Ven. Dr Akanu Ibiam, a Christian missionary physician, erudite theologian and statesperson who had worked for 30 years in the Church of Scotland/Presbyterian Church, who wrote a 20-paragraph letter to Queen Elizabeth II.

In his letter, Ibiam denounced, unreservedly, the central role being played by Britain in the Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European) conquest Africa, which had then entered its second year of unremittingly ruthless slaughter. In protest to this role, Ibiam renounced and returned to the British head of state the three insignias of knighthood (OBE, KBE, KCMG) that both she and her father, King George VI, had earlier conferred on the esteemed missionary physician for services to church and state.

While people have raised discussions about the Queen’s legacy, her relationship with Africa has been highlighted but the way in which it has been reported isn’t sitting well with many across board. Many critics slammed her post-colonial legacy.

In this current dispensation, Britain’s relationships with its former African colonies are now those of trade, aid and diplomacy.

Against the backdrop of the controversies, Carnegie Mellon University, the American institution in which Anya lectures quickly released a statement distancing itself from the professor’s comments.

“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable message posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account. Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views views shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standard of discourse we seek to foster,” the statement read.

In sharp contrast to Anya’s controversial remarks, a South African political party the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said in a statement that it would not mourn the queen because “to us her death is a reminder of a very tragic period in this country and Africa’s history.”

During her long reign, it added, “she never once acknowledged the atrocities her family inflicted on native people that Britain invaded across the world.”

At the level of argument, the reason people do not say unkind things about dead people, is not because they hate the truth, it is because it is cowardly to accuse people who cannot respond or defend themselves. It is like beating and kicking an unconscious person or a corpse.

As world continues to mourn the Queen who remains highly respected, Anya’s controversial epitaph is one that would not be forgotten in a hurry.

In almost every measure of success in today’s world, the odds are disproportionately stacked against women. But every year, more women are rising up to take challenging leadership roles across the world. Women like Kemi Badenoch are rising and are opening more possibilities for others to rise too.

Kemi, a British politician of Nigerian descent, may have lost the keenly contested race to replace Boris Johnson as Britain’s Prime Minister, but her doggedness and resilience have both earned her another opportunity to relaunch her political career.

This time around, the 56th Prime Minister, Liz Truss, appointed her the new Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade.

Beyond the pride of seeing a compatriot getting appointed, this latest feat has elicited pride among Nigerians. The flurry of congratulations pouring in for Kemi clearly confirms the saying that “success has many relatives” and that “failure is an orphan”.

The 42-year-old had contested the prime minister position, and finished fourth in the race. Prior to resigning from Johnson’s cabinet in July along with some other government officials over the former prime minister’s handling of a series of scandals, Badenoch was the Equalities and Local government Minister.

Read Also; Badenoch’s British dream

Her political voyage has been characterised by different struggles, but like the historic Trojan fighter, she has remained a strong force in the face of her political travails. Also, she has garnered sufficient global and economic management experience to build on the achievements of her predecessor.

Kemi is not a name that suddenly leapt out of nowhere. Through sheer hard work and pristine service, she has risen to the ranks of her career. She studied computer system engineering at the University of Sussex, she then obtained a Master of Engineering (M.Eng) degree in 2003.

In 2006, while working as a software engineer she began a part time study of Law at Birbeck, University of London, she completed her degree in Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 2009.

In 2005 at age 25, Badenoch started her political career as a member of the Conservative party and in 2010 she contested for her first electoral position in her constituency but came third.

Badenoch married Hamish Badenoch, a banker and former Conservative Councillor in 2012 and they have three children.

Kemi has to brace up for the task ahead, especially as the country faces profound economic uncertainties, particularly in the face of rising cost of living crisis. She has affirmed her readiness to unleash Britain’s full potential so as to create more jobs, more growth and more opportunity across the UK. But it must be beyond mere words, and more actions.

Her latest feast underscores that breaking this glass ceiling is an achievement for all women. It means there is still hope, despite the barriers and unequal approach to governance which has brought about the underrepresentation of women and has placed them on the minority mantle in policy-making corridors.

Kaduna-based publisher, Tukur Mamu, who has been an advocate of negotiating with bandits, may have forgotten that he is not untouchable.

Mamu who is the publisher of Desert Herald Newspaper, may have thought he is enjoying immunity over all darts from the seat of power. Some observers strongly believe that something must be working for him because of how he has been interfacing with bandits. He ferries bandits opinions and terms to families of victims.

Mamu, who also doubles as spokesperson of the Kaduna-based cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, was arrested during the week at the Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, on his arrival from Egypt.

In the past months, he had been involved in the controversial negotiations that led to the release of several abducted passengers of the March 28 Abuja-Kaduna train attack, and this has infamously brought him to the limelight.

His troubles began while he was on his way to Saudi Arabia for lesser Hajj. He was travelling alongside his two wives; Fatima Bashir Mamu and Aisha Salisu Mamu as well as his eldest son, Faisal Tukur Mamu, and his brother-in-law Ibrahim Hassan Tinja.

Read Also; Sheikh Gumi’s curious love of bandits

Far more than just bystander, Mamu as a non-state actor was fast-becoming more successful than the security agencies in brokering deals to free hostages.

Hanging around the neck of the negotiator are many allegations – especially around the ransom paid to secure the release of the Abuja-Kaduna train passengers.

Last year, his principal was also in the eye of the storm when DSS quizzed him over remarks that some Nigerian soldiers might be aiding and abetting bandits.

Mamu had, several weeks ago, withdrawn as the lead negotiator in securing the release of the hostages of the Kaduna train abduction. He equally accused the federal government of threatening his life.

The DSS officers during the week, raided his residence, ransacked every nook and cranny of the house and reportedly carted away laptops, phones and documents.

Confirming the raid, the Spokesman for the DSS, Peter Afunanya, said: “So far, appropriate security agencies have executed valid search warrants on Mamu’s residence and office. During the processes, incriminating materials including military accoutrements were recovered.

“Other items include large amounts in different currencies and denominations as well as financial transaction instruments.”

The arrests have since extended to his father-in-law. But his company, Desert Herald, has since spoken out – warning the DSS against a media trial. Hopefully, the man would get his day in court.

At 70, Reverend Matthew Kukah becomes ritualized persona, a streamlined totem. As a revered clergyman, he is feted and celebrated by segments of Nigeria’s high society – and deservedly too.

The Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, is a respected figure and influential social critic who hardly shies from speaking truth to power.

Thus it was only fitting that he celebrated his 70th anniversary by launching his new book, “Broken Truths,” in Abuja. At the launch, he revealed his plan to build an N200 million Bishop Kukah Centre in Abuja, which among other things, will foster inter-faith dialogue and provide leadership training for people in power and a capacity for noble participation in politics.

“One is hoping that going forward, the right people will develop the right reflex for participating in politics in Nigeria,” he said.

The vision is consistent with his perceived role as a social crusader. It is a statement of his social responsibility.

Recall that Kukah stirred the hornet’s nest last year, when, in his Yuletide message, he accused President Muhammadu Buhari of alleged “nepotism” and its negative effect on “national cohesion and trust.”

Read Also: Kukah at 70

With a master’s degree in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford, United Kingdom (UK), in 1980, and a doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1990), Kukah parades striking insight and command on national issues, no doubt.

Mixed reactions to his oft controversial stance on national issues have, at one time or the other, established him as a fiery cleric cum activist on a defiant swerve against the principle of separating the church from the state.

As he celebrates his recent milestone, Kukah manifests as no pushover. Notwithstanding his previous engagement with the Nigerian State, he is first and foremost, a citizen of humanity.

As a faith leader and minister of the church, he is expected to be forbiddingly clean. There are hopes that he’d begin to view all things mortal and mundane with stricter discipline and a more prescient nuance – something close to visceral asceticism.

In his 70th year, Kukah parades inspiring spunk; his eyebrows may contract and retract with worldly furrow and frown – no thanks to social and political upheaval – but Kukah’s prescience would endure.

He is never simply human, after all. His clerical bust is as much a mascot as his spiritual, heartfelt politics.

If Iyorchia Ayu were a god, he would make the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) his ritual space, the varnishing altar of his caprices. But to be a god requires an exalted persona; something deterrent yet divine, provident and revered, traits that manifestly elude him.

If Ayu personifies such traits, he’d do himself and the PDP a lot of good by asserting them astride the prick of strife rocking the party from the base to the rafters.

This minute, the PDP on Ayu’s watch, careens from side to side, from one embittered faction to another, like a vessel of feral personae clashing in dramatic space.

His protracted spat with Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, has snowballed to worrisome proportions. It has become the party’s major albatross and likely own goal that could cost it the 2023 presidential elections.

Wike wants Ayu removed as the PDP’s national chairman. And Ayu fights to rebuff him. As the drama unfolds, their loyalists pirouette and pant in a storm of extreme poses, in solidarity with either man.

Wike’s loss to Atiku Abubakar at the party’s presidential primary has clearly set the party on the path to self-destruct; his grouse with Ayu stems from the latter’s alleged complicity in the 11th-hour horsetrading and conspiracy between Sokoto Governor Aminu Tambuwal, and Atiku, which cost him the presidential ticket.

From Ayu’s jubilant hurrah and acknowledgment of Tambuwal as the hero of the party’s primary to Atiku’s choice of Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as his running mate, Wike felt stabbed in the back and sorely demystified.

His subsequent bid to remove Ayu resonates at frightening decibels across the PDP’s mangled complex. And just recently, the Rivers governor described Ayu as an ingrate. He said this while reacting to a salvo by Ayu, who in an interview with BBC Hausa, described those calling for his resignation as children who didn’t know when the party was formed.

Read Also: 2023: Nyesom Wike as beautiful bride

“When we started PDP, these children were not around. They are children who do not know why we formed the party. We will not allow any individual to destabilise our party,” said Ayu.

Reacting to the comment, while speaking at the commissioning of a road project at Omerelu in Ikwerre Local government area of Rivers, Wike described Ayu as an ingrate and arrogant man.

“You can imagine what power can do. You can imagine the ingratitude; how people can be ingrates in their lives…Your business is not to show arrogance to your party. Yes, the children brought you to be chairman of the party. The children brought you from the gutter to make you chairman,” said Wike.

Ayu has reiterated his resolve not to resign but serve out his four-year tenure, adding that Atiku’s emergence as the presidential candidate does not affect his position as the party chairman.

However, Wike, backed by fellow governors, Samuel Ortom (Benue), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), and Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), among others, insists that Ayu must resign out of respect for the party’s provision on power rotation, arguing that since the presidential flagbearer, Atiku, like Ayu, is from the north, it was only fair that Ayu stepped down as party chairman for a southerner to take charge.

The 2023 general election was meant to offer the PDP its much-vaunted resurgence as the party to beat in Nigeria’s political space, immediate reality, however, asserts a resonant threnody in the party’s wake.

On Ayu’s watch, the PDP dissembles and dissolves through storms of internal conflict – leaving it a cold, bare monolith of contending wiles and confounded politics.

Ayu’s fate seems sealed in the wake of a fresh plot by PDP governors to sack him. The governors have started mobilising members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) against him and broker unity ahead of the 2023 poll.

At the height of its power, the PDP was in charge of Nigeria as the dominant political party for 16 years producing Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 -2007), Umaru Musa Yar’Ádua (2007 -2010), and Goodluck Jonathan (2010 -2015).

Internal wrangling eventually led to its costly factionalisation and the split that cost it the 2015 general elections. Ever since the party has fought to regain its foothold.

To avoid further ugliness, Ayu may need to recoil from his hard defensive; the grisly calculus of his fate establishes his impotence against Wike’s searing offensive.

The duo’s recalcitrant posturing as war idols has left the party in painful disarray. The eventual winner may be decided by his capacity to power the party with the pillar and capital essential to its victory in the 2023 elections.

If spurned, Wike threatens a cloudburst of devastating vengeance. But Ayu simply promises to remake the PDP into a colonnade of defiant whim.

In his downward spiral subsists the humbling anecdote of a deadbeat idol fast becoming a spent doll.

WITH no end in sight, the strike action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) under the leadership of Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke has left students, parents, and other stakeholders frustrated — especially those admitted for a four-year programme and prospective freshmen.

Osodeke, a Professor of Soil Science at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, consequently attracts criticism and admiration from separate quarters.

Ultimately because the strike which is now over six months has dragged on for too long, leaving many students helpless.

The union’s major demands include the adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement, a halt to the proliferation of universities, and the release of revitalisation fund, among others.

Osodeke’s uncompromising stance has equally exposed his weakness: his refusal to budge or meet the government halfway, on the flipside, portrays him as a hardliner whose intransigence may cost Nigerian students greater loss than was envisaged.

Osodeke has persistently dismissed government’s claim that it does not have enough funds to meet the union’s demands, saying the ongoing industrial action would not be called off until the government meets its key demands.

The university don has vehemently argued that the protracted strike is in the best interest of the students and the betterment of the university system, clarifying that only one of all of his union’s demands relates to the lecturers’ welfare.

How will the government and ASUU find a common ground and reopen universities?

A cursory look at the timeline of ASUU strikes revealed that the union started going on strike in 1988 during the military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida. Since the return of the civilian government in 1999, university lecturers have gone on strike on 16 occasions.

However, it appears there’s a growing disdain for the ongoing strike action, and the union is fast losing public support. What is at stake now is the no-work-no-pay pronouncement made by the federal government against striking union members.

A section of the Trade Disputes Act 2005 maintains that any time workers go on strike, particularly doctors who render essential services, their employers can withhold their pay. Capitalising on it, the federal government insisted that it won’t concede to the demand by the union members to be paid the backlog of salaries withheld during the ongoing strike.

Rather than bat an eyelid over the latest demand from ASUU, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, urged students to sue the union, shifting the blame that ASUU should be the one to compensate the students because they’ve been absent from work.

It is quite ironic that ASUU — a community of intellectuals — is yet to find a sustainable solution to the challenges bedevilling the education sector, especially its funding issues.