The Nation Newspaper

Tag: democracy

  • Flaws of democracy

    Monday, May 29, Nigeria celebrated Democracy Day, but I have concerns about whether the democracy we practice is the best option for us. First, democracy allows everybody above the age of 18 to vote, irrespective of their education, knowledge or political awareness. This is one of the flaws of our democracy. Not everyone is informed of the requirement or competence for leadership; not everyone has the skills to interpret information presented by candidates, not everyone has the correct mind-set or upright ideology in making the right decision, and if everyone including the uninformed are handed over the ballot, we risk the chances of ignorant choices.

    Therefore, casting a vote is a skill that everyone must acquire, and if you do not have the skills, you will not be qualified to have a ballot. It is just like handing over guns to everyone. You risk giving the gun to an uninformed person, and he may end up shooting himself or shooting the good guys. Just like not everyone should lead, not everyone should vote too. If a child is denied the ballot because it was believed that a child may not be well informed or acquire the necessary knowledge to participate in the voting, likewise even among adults, there are those who are not informed or have the knowledge to guide their decisions.  So, there has to be clear requirements to qualify to vote in a democracy, especially in developing countries where there is mass illiteracy or unawareness, which reflects in the ballot and can cause the poor selection of leaders, resulting in bad governance.

    Uninformed citizens can easily be manipulated and used through bribery, bogus promises, or intimidation to make the wrong choices. The votes of uninformed citizens may not necessary reflect their own opinions, which is against the principles of democracy. So, some sections of society need to be stripped of the voting chance. However, highly informed and educated citizens will have fewer tendencies of being used or manipulated. In some elections, a leader can emerge even with a one percent margin, and it does not matter if that margin was as a result of a vote from an uninformed voter. That one percent will also make the other major 49% voiceless.  Uninformed voters can decide the course of the ship of our democracy. Giving uninformed citizens the ballot is like giving unprofessional the wheel of a ship at the middle of a sea during a storm; how would they steer the ship? Even in courts, we don’t allow every citizen to give verdicts, a select few competent judges are the ones we trust to give verdicts, because we believe they have the skills in making a sound and fair decision, and we accept their judgments.

    This also applies to candidates contesting elections. Once you have a lower educational qualification, irrespective of the quality of that education or the depth of your knowledge (especially political and economic affairs), you are free to contest. It is just like an aeroplane, not everyone deserves to fly the plane, if someone who is not an expert stepped up to fly the plane, no one will agree to that. So, why should we allow those who are not expert to steer a country’s direction? Candidates must have certain strict criteria to contest. We cannot risk allowing people with shallow knowledge of politics and economics or education to stand for elections. If we do that, we put ourselves at risk of voting incompetent leaders. If a private company wants to appoint a new MD/CEO, they will shortlist those with the best qualification in terms of knowledge and ability to meet the company’s targets. So, why can’t we shortlist the best candidates for leading our respective countries, why do we accommodate incompetence in our shortlists? That is why we have to raise the requirements for who we allow to contest in our elections.

    To achieve this, we have to change the system of nominations for elective positions; first, candidates must be allowed to stand for election independently without standing under a political party. Political parties must allow every member of their party to cast their votes in the selection of their party’s candidates, instead of few people, i.e. delegates. These delegates are targets of manipulation, bribery, and deception because there is no strict requirement for their selection, and once they are manipulated, the entire country is manipulated too. So, for immediate remedy, parties must open the selection of their candidates to every member of the party. Any party that does that will, for sure, have more appeal to the people.  Political parties must be forced to reduce the cost of nominations for political positions, to give room for competent candidates who may not be able to afford high nomination fees.

    Restricting candidacy to parties is what produces leaders without ideas. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua once said, “Our major problem as a country is that we elect people that we know are not competent, and leave out those that we know are competent”. One of our African orators, Harmon Okinyo once said, “the problem with Africa is that those that have ideas, have no power, and those with power, have no ideas. Once Africans are presented with the option to vote between those with ideas and those without, they will vote for those without the ideas”. So those who are the ‘good ones’ don’t get the chance. The good ones do not have the money to outcompete the bad ones, and the bad ones use illiteracy and an uninformed electorate to find their way, and that is why it is dangerous to give the ballot to the uninformed citizens.

    So, let us have an intellectual democracy and not democracy by birth right. Another issue with democracy is the frequent change of leaders, and giving them absolute powers to change the course of governance. Frequent change of governments and elections attracts huge costs, which short-change the citizens.

    To ensure informed choices and better selection of leaders, Islamic, traditional or new systems of democracy can be looked into. We can consider electing voting representatives in each district or ward, who are knowledgeable, respected, experienced and reputable. These voting representatives will cast their votes on behalf of their people, and will undertake by oath to be fair and just in their selections. They will be like judges, who will use facts and evidence to give a verdict without sentiment, fear or favour. All candidates must then present themselves and their visions to earn the votes of the voting representatives. This will give a chance to credible candidates from unpopular parties, marginalised ethnicities or sections of society, because it is about who is more competent. The voting representatives will vote according to their conscience and conviction, and they have to report back to their respective communities and explain the justification for their choices. So, they will be the judges, who make verdicts on our behalf. This kind of system is found in Islamic election processes, where few selected respected members of society are chosen to select a leader. It is also found in the traditional system of democracy, where few selected kingmakers choose the king on behalf of the people.

    Finally, the above system can be merged with direct democracy, where a proportion of the votes can be allocated to the citizens and the bigger proportion to the voting representatives. We can say, voting representatives have a 60% weighted proportion of the votes, and 40% goes to the citizens. If a candidate wins, the entire votes of the voting representatives can emerge. A candidate can still win if he has the majority of the overall votes, combining proportions from both voting representatives and the citizens.

     

    • Dr. Adamu, a petroleum economist and development expert, teaches at Umaru Musa Yar’adua University, Katsina.
  • Snowden says democracy under threat from attacks by politicians like Trump

    Snowden says democracy under threat from attacks by politicians like Trump

    Democracy and political legitimacy are increasingly under threat from attacks by politicians like U.S. President Donald Trump on “fake news” and free speech, former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden told a conference.

    “The costs of autocracy is illegitimacy, and though none of us have wished for this, it is increasingly near,” Snowden told the Estoril Conferences, a meeting held in Portugal on human rights and migration.

    Snowden was speaking through video link from Moscow, where he has been in asylum since 2013 after he revealed secret details of surveillance programs by U.S. intelligence agencies.

    Many civil rights activists see him as a hero, but at home in the U.S. he is wanted to stand trial for espionage.

    He said the world stood at the “crossroads of history”, warning that the direction it is heading now is “paved with fear, therein lies the world of walls, literal and figurative.”

    He said surveillance programmes by governments of their citizens, “the denunciation of inconvenient journalism as fake news and the prosecution of those who are speaking facts,” represents a world of fear and political illegitimacy.

    “A government willing to trade public awareness for political comfort may rule, but they do not lead,” he said.

    Snowden criticised the idea that militants represent the biggest threat to western countries, saying the loss of rights was a bigger concern.

    Elevating criminals like this is the laziest kind of rhetoric, terrorists for all their evil, are incapable of destroying our rights, or diminishing our societies.

    They lack the strength (to destroy rights), only we can do that, through unthinking, reflexive fear,” he said.

    “Rights are lost by cowardly laws that are passed in moments of panic, rights are lost to the cringing complicity of leaders who fear the loss of their office more than the loss of our liberty.”

  • Stand for this democracy

    If anyone wanted to gauge how much store Nigerians set by our nascent democracy – wonky as it gets, they had the answer: just let us be! Citizens would rather sail or sink with the emergent tides, and grow in the process, than have military interlopers return to hijack political power. In other words, while the present state of the Nigerian democracy is far from being the ideal, we would not trade an inch of it for even the most beneficent species of military rule. This is the clear message from diverse reactions to an alarm raised penultimate week that certain persons had been nudging the military to once again throw their hats in the ring of political governance in our country.

    No less a personality than Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lieutenant-General Tukur Buratai had red-flagged the threat. He said certain individuals were approaching some officers and soldiers for “undisclosed political reasons” – a phrase that was an apparent sugar pill for invitation to military intervention. Warning persons involved to desist from their venture, the Army chief also advised his members to shun the overtures and steer clear of politics or, if strongly attracted, resign their commission or apply for voluntary discharge. “Any officer or soldier of the Nigerian Army found to be hobnobbing with such elements or engaged in unprofessional conduct such as politicking would have himself or herself to blame,” a statement penultimate Tuesday on the COAS’s behalf by Director, Army Public Relations, Brigadier-Gen. Sani Usman, said. It added: “The Nigerian Army will remain apolitical and respect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

    Buratai is a soldier’s soldier and leading figure of the present constitutional order, and he isn’t exactly reputed for idle talk, so it must be he sounded the alarm based on authoritative background intelligence. The Army statement did not disclose at whose instance the overtures to the military were being made. But amidst prevailing uncertainty over President Muhammadu Buhari’s health, and with the presumptive and as well shamelessly primitive jostling for regional control of political power in the country, it is logical to assume a desperation to preserve the status quo in regional balance of power.

    The COAS’s alarm came against the backdrop of perhaps unconnected, but without doubt curious realignment in the Army’s command structure. Just a week before the statement, 147 officers, including 13 Generals among whom were five General Officers Commanding (GOCs), were redeployed by the high command. And beyond the Army, three former military heads of state namely President Olusegun Obasanjo, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar only recently held high profile consultations behind closed doors in Minna, the Niger State capital. Notably, even if inadvertent, those consultations excluded surviving former leaders who had no military roots.

    Such antecedents gave deep resonance to Buratai’s alarm, and the verdict came swift and sharp from the civil populace: Nigerians would no more spare even a quarter for military adventurists in political governance. Actually, there is perhaps no other issue in recent history on which there was uninfringed consensus in the polity across partisan, religious, ideological and socio-economic divides, among others; and you may never get it more sternly stated than that by All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who last week issued prospective military coupists a blunt warning: “Don’t try it!” That is not mentioning foreign interests, like Britain, that weighed in to dissuade potential interventionists. From all indications, the idea of the military foraying back to power in any guise simply failed to fly.

    Not that the idea was brooked within the military itself. Besides the Army chief who strictly warned potential deviants, other formations like the Air Force spoke up to declare loyalty to the constitutional order. But it was perhaps the intensity – and not saying unanimity – of the public’s rebuff that stirred the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) into damage containment exertions last week. The armed forces high command allayed the fears of any coup plot and declared its members “totally loyal” to the President. The warning by Buratai, DHQ explained, was routine caution to officers to maintain professional conduct.

    Addressing journalists last Wednesday, the Director, Defence Information, Major-Gen. John Enenche, was reported saying inter alia: “It is pertinent to state that if there are signs or actions that point to likely breaches of the military code of conduct as it were, cautions or warnings are issued, with investigations following. In the present situation, the armed forces, and the Army in particular, have employed due process to ensure that officers and men remain committed to performing their constitutional roles…All fears about a coup should be allayed, as the contemporary Nigerian military is abreast with the best international practices in governance, which is democracy. The armed forces are totally loyal to the Commander-In-Chief and are in complete subordination to civil authorities.”

    It was perfectly understood that Defence Headquarters needed to take charge of a hot-button security information as was headed up to the public by the Army hierarchy. But its intervention last week, to my mind, bordered on sophistry and somewhat missed the basic thrust of the Army chief’s alarm. For a professional soldier that he reputedly is, Buratai’s warning was anything but routine. He was definitive in saying he had information that certain individuals were reaching out to officers and soldiers for “undisclosed political reasons,” and that Army members must shun such characters or face the consequences of their chosen affiliation. And so, unless the general notion of ‘routine caution’ has changed, the Army chief’s warning went beyond casual admonition to professional conduct, and rather pointed at a substantive undercurrent in the military. DHQ would better help our collective security if it locks in with the formations under its oversight, especially the Army, to identify and isolate members potentiated for political instigation.

    Incidentally, there are sufficiently disturbing indications not to lightly wave off an alert as was volunteered by the Army. Besides orphan cash hauls serially unearthed in recent times by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), hooded trafficking in large caches of arms persists. Only last week, Customs intercepted a container-load of arms and ammunition imported from Turkey at the Tin Can Island port in Lagos. That container, according to the port command of Customs, contained “100 pieces of black tornado single barrel rifles, 75 pieces of silver magnum single barrel rifles, 50 pieces of altar pump action rifles, (and) 215 pieces of black single barrel rifles among other accessories.” And the latest haul came barely five months after 49 boxes containing 661 pump action rifles were intercepted on a Lagos highway.

    But, of course, the ultimate security of our democracy lies, not with the military, but in ready resistance of the civil populace against any military adventurist. And there is perhaps no better time to stress this point than the so-called ‘Democracy Day’ being observed today. Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price of liberty.

  • Democracy is best form of govt, says Dogara

    Democracy is best form of govt, says Dogara

    The place of democracy in stimulating development is central to the thoughts expressed by top government officials to mark today’s Democracy Day.

    House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara said lawmakers were committed to strengthening institutions in the fight against corruption.

    “We have a president who is determined and who has an uncompromising stance against corruption, and we are building strong institutions that will deal with the hydra-headed monster,” the speaker said in a statement.

    Calling for unity, he said “Nigeria represents the best hope of the Black man and that hope cannot be realised in a factionalised state with no unity and with every one trying to fight for self-determination.

    “If there’ll be any black nation that will fulfill the destiny of a black man, which is that of greatness, it’s going to come out of a unified Nigeria. I don’t think there’s anything each of these pockets will achieve that will be greater than what a unified Nigeria can achieve.”

    “I know there are challenges but these challenges are not peculiar to us. So many countries have had to face these kinds of challenges in their developmental strides.”

    He said the government had achieved a lot: “We know that within the two years of this administration, the government has achieved a lot in the area of security. In transportation, we are talking about railways, in agriculture and in diverse fields of our endeavours, a lot has been achieved and a lot need to be done, but we are committed to bringing succour to the common man.”

    Senate President Bukola Saraki called for concerted and united effort by all Nigerians to build a strong economy as a means of sustaining the nation’s democracy.

    In a statement, Saraki said the real challenge to the sustenance of democracy was the need for a solid economy that would ensure that the citizens enjoy high standard of living and that there was even development across the country.

    He urged Nigerians to support the government’s policies aimed at involving the private sector in key sectors of the economy, focusing on locally manufactured goods, encouraging small and medium scale entrepreneurs, developing alternative sources of foreign exchange other than oil, directing attention to commercial agriculture and mining of mineral resources, eliminating smuggling and other activities which can sabotage the economy.

    Saraki noted that if the people could rally behind government policies to develop the economy and create a vibrant private sector by eschewing all activities which threaten the stability of the country, then “many of the problems which bedevil the nation’s politics will be eliminated and our democracy will grow from strength to strength”.

    Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson challenged anti-democratic forces working to truncate democracy to have a rethink, because democracy had come to stay.

    According to him, it is no longer fashionable to have a non-democratic society, because democracy remains the best system of government.

    Dickson’s comments, according to a statement by Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, added that as a form of government, democracy had evolved to the point that it is checkmating some of the country’s  challenges.

    He urged critical stakeholders, such as members of the National Assembly, civil society organisations and the media not to abdicate their role of defending and promoting the noble ideals of democracy even in the face of threats.

    The Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Garba Abari, said: “This year’s Democracy Day is symbolic, based on the fact that young Nigerians who were only born when we returned to democratic governance have now turned 18 and have therefore come of age to participate fully in the democratic processes of our nation.

    “Therefore, our concern at this time should be to deepen such acceptable societal values and advance such principles of governance that will not only enable our great nation further assert itself as the leader of a free African continent where rights and freedoms are sacrosanct but also ensure that we bequeath to our future generations the best form of governance. Only democracy can guarantee that.”

    He urged Nigerians of 18 years and above who do not yet possess a Permanent Voters Card (PVC) to take advantage of the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration to register.

    Senator Solomon Adeola (Lagos West) urged Nigerians to continue to actively participate in our democratic practice to grow, nurture and strengthen all the institutions of government.

    In a message, he said: “We can only continue to grow our democracy to greater heights like other advanced democracies.”

    Adeola said the seeming frictions between the executive and the legislature “is not an aberration” but what is important is that “the two arms must work in the national interest and not for selfish gain”.

  • Plot to truncate democracy will fail, says Dickson

    The Bayelsa State Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, has said any plan to abort democracy in the country would fail and asked persons behind the move to have a rethink.

    Dickson, who said democracy had come to stay, insisted that it was no longer fashionable to have a non-democratic society because democracy remained the best system of government.

    The governor in his goodwill message to mark the 2017 Democracy Day signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, said the country’s democracy would continue to grow amidst various anti-democratic forces.

    The governor said democratic institutions were monitoring and checking some of the developmental challenges in the country.

    ‎He paid tributes to all those who had contributed immensely to the sustenance of democracy in the country, saying they had a confirmed place in the good books of history.

    He charged critical stakeholders such as members of the National Assembly, civil society organizations and the media not to abandon their roles to defend and promote the noble ideals of democracy even in the face of constant threats and intimidation.

    Dickson used the opportunity to congratulate Bayelsans and Nigerians generally on this year’s anniversary of Nigeria’s Democracy Day and prayed God to continue to guide and preserve democracy.

  • Democracy Day: NLC urges FG to announce c’ttee on minimum wage

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has urged the Federal Government to use the occasion of the Democracy Day celebration to announce the composition of the tripartite negotiation committee on the National Minimum Wage.

    The NLC President, Mr Ayuba Wabba, made the call in a statement he issued on Sunday in Abuja, ahead of the Democracy Day celebration on Monday.

    Wabba, who noted that the minimum wage was increased to N18,000 six years ago, added that the patience of workers had been tested due to the current inflation in the country.

    “We, therefore, urge the Federal Government to use the occasion of the Democracy Day to announce the composition of the tripartite negotiation committee as this is imperative for the government to review the National Minimum Wage, ‘’ he said.

    Wabba also condemned the recent coup rumour, saying labour was opposed to any move to truncate the current democratic dispensation

    “ The NLC wishes to state in the strongest possible tone that it is categorically opposed to any further military adventurism in the body politics of our nation.

    “The damage military rule caused our nation is not only in the realm of our political culture, it deepened and virtually institutionalised corruption in all segments of our national life,’’ he said.

    The NLC president urged the military leadership to identify individuals involved and prosecute them in the relevant courts.

    Wabba also called on elected public office holders at all levels of governance to rededicate themselves to the task of working for the people.

  • Who, what messed up Nigeria?

    Who, what messed up Nigeria?

    Who, or what messed up Nigeria? Was it the British, who colonised Nigeria, instituted discriminatory, rather than a uniform, mode of administration

    “Awolowo is, was and shall for a very long time be the central figure in the politics of Nigeria. He had answers to almost 95% of Nigeria’s problems and challenges. He  wrote about ALL.  All we need  do, as a country of nations,  what he called a geographical expression,  now that he is no longer  around to contest with anybody,  is to learn from all his books, all the rolling plans and budgets of the old Western Region and  we  would have the answer  to most of our country’s challenges. The Rolling Plans of the Old Western Region were made only as subsets of the  problems of Nigeria” –Quoted, mutatis mutandis,  from a thread on the Yorubapanupo Forum.

    I begin here, today, a discussion which  I hope will be enthusiastically  interactive, no holds- barred,  and  should, indeed,  take us  some quality  time to properly interrogate  as true patriots. We cannot all see things the same way, ethnic consciousness being one of our most potent problems,  but let us  try to be civil, in our language, and endeavour to add value to the subject.

    The question is: Who, or what messed up  Nigeria?

    Was it the  British, who colonised Nigeria, instituted discriminatory, rather than a uniform,  mode of administering  North and South  and,  rapaciously  sexed  up  not  only  the census and the elections it conducted  in  favour  of  the North,  but so wantonly  skewed  up  the military it has since  been  a tool in North hands? Was it our founding fathers who allegedly took no more than 10 per cent as bribe?  Was it  our post colonial, extremely rapacious, self  loving military which, though procured  most of our infrastructure to date,  ended up  destroying Nigeria when it re-integrated  itself  into our politics by outrageously  ensuring  Obasanjo’s  victory in 1999 after   which our elections  became the most rigged in the world  with all manner of  characters  getting ‘voted’ into  political office,  ending up in our having the most  outlandish  National Assembly in the 8th Assembly ( thanks to the suspended  Hon Jibrin)?Or  finally, is it we, the people, about the most docile citizenry, anywhere on earth?

    For starters this Sunday,   let me whet readers’ appetite with  a peep into the lives of  two of  the most  outstanding  politicians of Nigeria’s First Republic.

    CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO

    QUOTE

    “It was the British in their desire for continued control of Nigeria and  her  resources , which ensured  that Awolowo was never elected prime Minister , because of his sophisticated ideas whose execution would have accelerated, not only the West  but  Nigeria to a point of making the British very uncomfortable. The Coup of July 29, 1966 was related to Awo. The Supreme Military council under Major General Aguiyi Ironsi had ratified the release of Awo from  the Calabar prison as well as voided his 10 year imprisonment. After the meeting with the Obas in Ibadan , Ironsi was to announce the  release the  following morning, July 29, 1966 but he was  killed in the wee hours of that day. Lt Col Gowon, also a member of the SMC,  later took the credit for the release.  Ojukwu provided the airplane that flew Awo from Calabar to Lagos, just as Murtala Mohammed would personally drive him home on his arrival in Lagos..

    But Awo believed that had Fajuyi not been killed alongside Ironsi, he would, most probably, have been killed in Calabar in retaliation. That was why he would later say: “ Fajuyi died in my place “.

    Awo, as eloquently attested to by Gowon, was the reason Nigeria did not break up in 1967. Concerning this, Gowon  said he “needed Awo  more than he needed the Nigerian Army” because:

    1. The original rallying point of the Yoruba was Awolowo and if the Yoruba supported the break up, no Jupiter can stop it.
    2. Awo’s wisdom was unequalled, unparalleled and unrivalled and must therefore not be allowed to be on the side of Biafra; otherwise, Nigeria would not survive.

    Both Gowon and Ojukwu would later confirm this when Gowon claimed he was” the luckiest ruler of Nigeria because the best Nigerian asset, meaning Chief Awolowo, was his Vice Chairman and Finance Commissioner” and Ojukwu declared Chief Awolowo “the best President of Nigeria that never was”

    Awo devoted a lot of resources to building up investments for the West; investments from which he believed the  region’s progressive politics would be financed.  According to him, the region needed stable sources of funds because a poor West would stand no chance against a very unfriendly Central Government. No one knew this was his staying power until it was leaked to government and the West instantly became a target for destruction. He was fond of saying: “fight Awolowo from now till forever, if you do  not  succeed  in destroying Western Nigerian Investments, the region will always be  financially buoyant. Otherwise, they will fight you and destroy you”. Once that secret was blown, the  West became a target so much so that at a point during the military regime, all the region’s successive governors were non Yorubas and they made it a point of duty  to crush the  Odu’a Investment  Company; the region’s prime investment corporation..

    \SIR TAFAWA BALEWA

    “It was in the year 1963 and Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa took his annual leave and was off to his village to spend it. Then a British photojournalist came along asking for him but was told that  he was on vacation.

    The photojournalist then asked to which country he had gone and was shocked when told that the PM went to spend the vacation in his village. To satisfy his curiosity, he decided to go there. But on getting to the village, there was no sign that any big man was in town. Everyone went about his/her normal business and the village was peacefully quiet.

    Then he met a farmer along the way with his donkey carrying bales of sugarcane, from whom he asked the direction to the Prime Minister’s house. The photojournalist was again left speechless when the farmer told him that he had just left him and that if he gets to his house, which he described, he would meet him sitting on the bare floor with his kids, enjoying the sugarcane which he gave them. The British photojournalist was dazed when he  finally reached  Balewa’s  home. ( see in-boxed photo)

    Today, we have vagabonds and thieves in power. Those who disturb an entire city with sirens and their empty noises of vanity. Those who loot the treasury of an entire nation and insult our intelligence with their embarrassing incompetence. Nigeria has all it takes to be one of  the greatest nations on earth. All we need are visionary, dedicated and inspiring leaders; not the shameless rogues and incorrigibly kleptomaniac bandits who lie, rob, cheat, rig and kill their way to power”. ( End of quote)

    Now I ask:

    When exactly did the rain start to beat us in Nigeria?

    Where did we import these kangaroos from, these vagabonds in power who will personally set up gangs to steal our common resources like crude oil and ensure that those legally allocated are not paid for; or those who would  fraudulently get paid billions of naira in oil subsidy claiming that ships which never visited  the West African coast, delivered millions of litres of petroleum products in Lagos, Nigeria?

    How did we come about leaders who, in the middle of a ravaging terrorist war, ensured that funds  voted to equip the national army are stolen to the last penny just as they turned the country’s Central Bank to an Automatic Teller Machine(ATM)?

    How come we have in our public offices, persons who would think nothing of stealing funds meant for the upkeep of hapless millions of compatriots who, due to no fault  of theirs, have become internally displaced persons( IDPs)  in their own country?

    The questions are legion and would be asked as they become appropriate in this discussion.

    The time has come when we should talk truth, not only to power, but to ourselves. We must hold nothing back as we move towards another set of elections from which they will again hope to successfully banish us,  the electorate.

    We must say no and hand them, these sons and daughters of perdition,  over to God’s wrath, if they insist.

  • We’ll resist any attempt to break our democracy – Tinubu

    We’ll resist any attempt to break our democracy – Tinubu

    The National Leader of All Progressive Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on Monday warned those wooing the military to leave the barracks to desist from doing so, saying the people would resist any attempt to break the nation’s democracy.

    Tinubu, who spoke at a joint parliamentary session organised by the Lagos State House of Assembly to mark the state’s 50 years of existence, said the nation had gone too far to allow a military coup to happen again.

    He said such move would be resisted by Nigerians.

    “We have received warning that some people are trying to entice military to leave the barrack. But I want to caution here that those who think they can break our democracy for which many lives are lost are surely mistaken,” the former Lagos State governor said.

  • Democracy: How media has fared since 1999

    Democracy: How media has fared since 1999

    The inaugural lecture of the Oba Adetona Professorial Chair in Governance in the Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, was delivered last Wednesday at the Adeola Odutola Hall, Ijebu-Ode, by Prof. Ayo Olukotun. The professor of political communication spoke of the changing profile of the media and its role in promoting democracy since 1999. Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI was there.

    IN some of its finer and heroic moments since the return of civil rule in 1999, the Nigerian media have been playing an advocacy role to promote good governance, human rights and democratic values. For instance, one of the important battles fought by the media during the period was its vehement opposition to the attempt by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to secure a third term mandate, contrary to the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.

    That was how a professor of Political Communication, Ayodele Olukotun, described the contribution of the Nigerian media towards the advancement of democracy since 1999. Olukotun gave this assessment while delivering the inaugural lecture of the Oba Sikiru Adetona Professorial Chair in Governance of the Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State last Wednesday. The professor said at the lecture which was organized to coincide with the monarch’s 83rd birthday that the advocacy role of the media is even suggested in the titles of Nigerian newspapers, such as Vanguard, Guardian, Punch and Tribune.

    The pioneer occupant of the Professorial Chair said that role has a formal constitutional recognition in Section 22 of the constitution. Another heroic moment, he added, was the media’s magnificent opposition to military dictatorship in the 1990s, which featured publications that went underground to survive and a pirate radio station. He said the advocacy role of the media also led to the resignation of Hon. Salisu Buhari as the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the early days of the current political dispensation in 1999 over allegations of age falsification; the easing out of office of Ms Stella Oduah in 2014 for corruption-related charges; as well as the current ordeal of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), David Babachir Lawal over allegations of grass-cutting contract scandal. The above feats, he said, were achieved through advocacy journalism, in the form of reports and editorials.

    Olukotun said the advocacy and the reform-oriented role of the media came at a huge cost to practitioners and their organisations. Recalling that the State House correspondent of The Punch, Mr. Olalekan Adetayo, was recently expelled from the beat over a story on President Muhammadu Buhari’s health, he said journalists continue to suffer intimidation from state officials, even after the signing into law of the Freedom of Information Act on May 28, 2011.

    He added: “There are the peremptory arrests, prosecution and persecution of critical journalists, as well as seizure of copies of independent newspapers, such as occurred in June 2014 when the Nigerian army carried out searches leading to confiscation of copies of Leadership, The Nation, Daily Trust and The Punch. Although justified on security grounds, a typical opinion is that of Reporters Without Borders, which argued that the action obstructs the Nigeria’s public right of information. Such breaches of press freedom were replicated throughout the period under study.”

    However, Olukotun said a number of constraints or drawbacks inhibit the crusading role of journalists. For example, he said Nigerian journalists work under far from ideal conditions of employment. He said: “As Africa Media Barometer (2011:52) expressed it: Across the industry, working conditions for Nigerian journalists and other media professionals are poor. Salaries are low, irregular and in some cases, inexistent. This is not only true of private media organizations. Even journalists of state-owned media are underpaid and complain of lack of career prospects. Many workers in the state-media are also recruited as casual staff and work under even more pathetic conditions.”

    As a corollary to the above, he said corruption or the ‘brown envelope syndrome’ is rampant in the industry. His words: “Hence, the economic frying pan under which the media operated may have accentuated the ‘brown envelope’ syndrome whereby journalists are bribed to publish, mainstream, relegate or kill stories…”

    Somewhat related to the above, he said, is the use of beat associations to extort money from industry stakeholders. His words: “Other forms of questionable transactions prevalent in the media include the existence of beat associations, which are constituted by reporters covering specialized news desks. Arogundade (2015, p15), a senior journalist, provides insight into this practice: In 2012, the National Association of Energy Correspondents (NAEC) named Chevron Nigeria Limited as the best Community Development Company of the year. Same year, the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) conferred an award of excellence on the then Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah (later sacked from the cabinet over irregular purchase of bullet-proof cars) and decorated Dana Air, later involved in a crash, the most customer-friendly Airline in Nigeria.”

    Olukotun said the appointment of prominent journalists as Senior Special Advisers on Media and Communication by successive governments in both federal and state levels is one of the reasons why the media have lost their bite, by failing carry out investigative reporting.

    Besides, he said government is in the habit of influencing the editorial content of independent newspapers through advertising. He said: “The point being made here is that advertisers exercise indirect veto on editorial content by sanctioning independent private media, which set out to be fearless and daring. Considering that the state is the biggest advertiser, it has often used this power to skew the media playing field in favour of state-owned electronic media, as well as compliant and complacent private media.”

    The Oba Adetona Professorial Chair also added the escalating cost of newspaper production inputs as another reason for the high mortality rate in the industry. With the aid of a table, indicating the rising cost of several input such as newsprint, plates and black ink over the years, he said the development put pressure on publishers many of whose enterprises were undercapitalized in the first place. He added: “Another dimension of the problem is the fact that the lack of adequate infrastructure, power and security, brought additional pressure on businesses, including newspapers and electronic media.”

    Another table listed the titles that collapsed between 1999 and 2017. These are: Sketch (2000), Concord (2000), The Post Express (2003), Tempo (2003), National Interest (2006), The Comet (2007), New Age (2008), Spectator Weekly (2008), Westerner (2011), Newswatch (2011), Next (2011), New Nigeria (2012), Nigerian Compass (2012), PM News (2015) and Newswatch Daily (2016).

    He said the Nigerian media mirrors the ideological barrenness of the political class and that this is reflected in the ideological narrowness of media content, with the absence of fundamental debate on social and economic direction. He said: “As Sam Oyovbaire expressed it: The radicalism of the media as an anti-colonial and pro-independence vehicle; as anti-military rule and pro-democracy institution is really no more than being radicalism of the right or centre ideology. For obvious reasons, the same goes for the broadcast media. In the real sense, Nigeria has only establishment or status quo media.”

    Related to this lacuna, he added, is the urban centredness of the media and the failure to incorporate the majority of the populace who live in the rural areas. He said: “Overwhelmingly, we encounter the media – newspapers, television stations and blogs – as urban phenomenon, considering that most of them do not have reporters in the rural areas. One looks forward to the day when community newspapers, rural radios and blogs operating from the hinterland will widen the discursive umbrella beyond its currently narrow celebration of eminent persons, rich people, powerful people, all of whom are located in our cities.”

    The other aspect of Olukotun’s lecture centres on the changing profile of the Nigerian media. To begin with, he said the period between 1999 and 2017 witnessed phenomenal expansion in the industry. This he attributed to the liberalized political space, the exigencies of political competition warranting the replication of media outlets, as well as an economic boom, owing to the unprecedented increase in the price of oil in the world market for many years. The oil boom, he said, produced a new class of billionaires and economic players, several of whom invested in the media. He said: “The period consequently reinforced Nigeria’s position as the country with the largest and the most vibrant media industry in Africa, followed by South Africa and Kenya.

    Another positive development, he added, is the better engagement and participation of Nigerians in democratic discourse, through access to the internet. Quoting the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), he said the number of internet subscribers jumped from 2.3 million in 2002 to 86 million in 2016; with a large majority of them connecting to the internet with their mobile phones. This improved media access, because most newspapers have websites where they upload digital copies of their print edition.

    Olukotun said the situation has further improved with upsurge of online news publications, particularly with the arrival of platforms like Premium Times (October 2011) and The Cable (April 2014), as well as the mushrooming of social media platforms. In spite of their penchant for recycling rumours and peddling fake news, the professor of political communication said social media platforms constitute exciting spaces for civic participation and democratic discourse.

    Besides, he said considering that newspapers increasingly source their reports from online publications and social media platforms, a synergy has been created between both forms of media, “especially on anti-corruption and human rights issues”.

    Olukotun also spoke of the rebirth of northern (Arewa) media, with Abuja-based publications like Leadership, Daily Trust, People’s Daily and Abuja Inquirer becoming part of Nigeria’s discourse map. He said: “In this list, easily the most successful are Leadership, founded in 2004 by Sam Nda Isaiah…; as well as the Trust group of publications, which includes Weekly Trust, Daily Trust, Sunday Trust and Hausa language newspaper Aminiyah. These independent newspapers appear to have broken the jinx of frequent collapse of newspapers in that part of the country.”

    Also, the professor notes that the vacuum created by the eclipse of Champion newspapers has been filled to a large extent by the newspaper chain of former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzo Kalu. He said: “The chain includes: The Sun, New Telegraph and The Spectator. Although these are based in Lagos, they draw a substantial part of their sales and advertising revenue from the Southeast and the Southsouth.”

    Dignitaries at the event included the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu; former Governor Gbenga Daniel; former Deputy Governor Adegbenga Kaka; Afenifere chieftain, Chief Ayo Adebanjo; the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council, Leads City University, Ibadan, Prof. Jide Owoeye; the General Overseer of the Trinity House Ministries International, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, the Chairman, Troyka Holdings, Biodun Shobanjo, the acting Vice Chancellor, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Prof. Ganiyu Olatunde; and the host, Oba Sikiru Adetona and his wife, Kemi. The Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State was represented by his Director of Communications and Strategy, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon.

  • This Trump democracy!

    Over the years the world had looked to the United States as the most redoubtable fortress of human and civil rights, with default insulation of its justice administration against political interference. But today that country’s beacon appears dimmed – tragically so for the free world, and its liberal credentials no longer seem inviolate as reputed. Forget now the official policy of xenophobia and substantial rollback by Washington on global engagement. Under President Donald Trump, the dividing line from despotic pretenders to civil rulership in backwater democracies is getting blurred, and the age-long sanctimony grossly depreciated.

    The US president last week gave the boot to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey, who was at the head of a probe of suspected Russian links with the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Trump said he relied on a review by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of Comey’s handling of the FBI probe into former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails, and a recommendation by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire the FBI chief. He said he concurred with the judgment of the Department of Justice (DOJ) that Comey was not able to effectively lead the Bureau – in other words, Comey’s fate was the DOJ’s call – adding: “It is essential we find new leadership…that restores public trust and confidence.” Subsequent reports suggested though that the probe of Comey was at the president’s instance, and not the DOJ’s initiative as purported.

    Even though Mr. Trump stated that he was informed on “three separate occasions” by Comey that the president was not under investigation by the FBI, there is in fact an ongoing probe by the agency into suspected Russian interference to tip the 2016 election in his favour. Comey’s successor as Acting FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, confirmed the Russian inquiry at the weekend, telling a Senate committee in Washington that the firing of Comey had not affected the agency’s work. Despite the circumstances of his emergence in the FBI saddle, McCabe vowed to speak up if there were any political interference in future.

    Besides the Bureau, there are reports that Congress committees are pursuing separate inquiries into the Russia-Trump camp connection. At the last count, the Senate Intelligence Committee had issued a subpoena for documents from Mr. Trump’s former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign in February for allegedly misleading the White House about his contacts with the Russian envoy before Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January. Flynn’s links with Russia are being scrutinised by the FBI and the US House as well as Senate Intelligence Committees, as part of a wider probe of Moscow’s interference in the presidential poll.

    Trump’s red card for Comey last week was poetic justice of some sort. The ex-FBI chief made the headlines in July 2016 with a letter to Congress pulling the curtains over the agency’s probe of Clinton’s use of a private server for classified mails during her time as Secretary of State. He, however, returned in October – mere days before the presidential election – to say more Clinton emails would be further investigated. That intervention is widely seen to have knocked the bottom from under Clinton’s Democratic candidature for the election, and it was hailed at the time by Mr. Trump as the Republican candidate. But early this month in another testimony before Congress, Comey hinted at some regret over the October 2016 disclosure. He said knowing he had an impact on the US election because he spoke about the Clinton probe, and not about Russian ties to the Trump campaign, made him “nauseous.” Unfortunately, he also made some inaccurate statements to Congress that apparently hazarded his official standing.

    Democrats were swift to dub Mr. Trump’s firing of Comey “Nixonian,” referring to the famous ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ in 1973 when former President Richard Nixon dismissed Archibald Cox as special prosecutor of the Watergate scandal. Nixon’s attorney general and deputy attorney general immediately quit their jobs in protest against the sacking of Cox.

    It may not be “Nixonian” yet on this ‘Trump Day,’ but having been once delighted by Comey’s inquiry into the Clinton emails, many found it curious that it was on this same score Mr. Trump pulled the trigger last week on the ex-FBI chief. And so, there is a strong suspicion that Comey was pushed overboard – not for his handling of the Clinton mails probe really, but rather for his riling investigation of the ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

    What is our business here, you could ask, with all these? It is these: First, if the suspected motive for Comey’s firing has any semblance of truth, such presumptive exercise of presidential powers in the world’s most celebrated democracy should make lawless despots in democracy backwaters, especially in Africa, feel considerably saintly. Then, it is troubling that the reference points offered over the years by the American democracy appear to be thawing. Or, besides the suspected executive interference in justice administration in the Comey case, how do we understand emerging constraints on a vital democracy pillar like liberal press under the current dispensation?

    Trump’s White House birthed the notion of ‘alternative facts’ to counteract independent American media’s unfavourable but factual reportage of his inauguration in January. And following the announcement last week of Comey’s sacking, the president’s communication handlers were reportedly beleaguered by restive journalists for answers to obvious gaps in the official narrative. Those journalists, according to a report last Wednesday by The Washington Post, did not exactly get the answers they sought and had to make do with taciturn ripostes by White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

    But they were much luckier than another American journalist, Dan Heyman of the Public News Service, who was arrested on Tuesday night at the West Virginia Capitol for alleged “willful disruption of government processes” by shouting questions after two unresponsive Trump aides. Reports said Heyman had asked Health Secretary Tom Price and White House adviser Kellyanne Conway about coverage under the Republican healthcare plan, and had wanted to know if domestic violence would be covered as a pre-existing condition. When the presidency officials refused to respond to his questions, Heyman stuck to their entourage through the Capitol building, persistent in loudly asking. He was eventually apprehended by secret service agents and forced off the officials’ back.

    When journalists are now being apprehended and bounced off for persisting with unanswered questions in the world’s citadel of democracy, with what model do we rebuke overzealous Nigerian officials who expel reporters from Aso Rock for filing factual stories with their media organisations that they just happened not to fancy?