The Nation Newspaper

Tag: much

  • Much ado about nothing

    IT IS NOT a matter to lose sleep over, but to the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC), it is a big deal. The order in which the 2019 elections should be held is assuming a life and death dimension among the party’s stalwarts. Ordinarily, the party caucus should have ironed out the matter, but from the look of things, the falcon can no longer hear the falconer. The party leadership and its members who dominate the National Assembly have been working at cross purposes since 2015.

    In all honesty, a simple matter like this should not cause a rift between the executive and the legislature considering that APC is the party in power. As the majority in the National Assembly, the party should be using its number to get its way. Unfortunately, it is not doing that. Rather than work as a team, the executive and the legislature have been at each other’s throat. Since the party came to power in 2015, it has been one problem or the other between both arms of government.

    No one can really pinpoint the cause of the problem, but some suggest that it has its root in those who emerged as principal officers of the National Assembly contrary to the wish of the party. It has been about three years since then. So, isn’t that enough time for the party to forget the past and move forward? President Muhammadu Buhari was so concerned with the problem that he raised a panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to see how the relationship between the two arms of government could become smooth. One year after the panel came into being, nothing seems to have changed.

    Did the panel achieve results? It didn’t. If it did, the President won’t have complained last month that the frosty relationship between the executive and the legislature was slowing down government. If care is not taking, it may affect next year’s elections. In the not too distant past, the order of elections was nothing to worry about. Until a few years ago, the presidential election had always been held last, without anybody raising an eyebrow. Constitutionally, the electoral umpire fixes the dates of the elections and decides in which order they would come.

    But because of the cold relationship between  the National Assembly and the Presidency, the lawmakers have changed the order of elections by amending Section 25 (i) of the Electoral Act. Under the amendment, the National Assembly poll is billed to come first in the new sequence. Before the amendment, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had fixed dates for the 2019 polls, with the Presidential and National Assembly coming up on February 16 and  the Governorship and Houses of Assembly,  March 2.

    Is the National Assembly right to have altered the order of elections? Has it not overreached itself in taking this action? The National Assembly, without doubt, can amend the electoral law, but it cannot fix dates for, nor organise,  elections. These are jobs within the purview of INEC. Having said this, then why the noise over the amendment of Section 25 (i) of the electoral law? It is all because of fear and suspicion that some people may want to stop some National Assembly members  from contesting the 2019 elections. And where those who are not favoured manage to get their party’s ticket, it is believed, everything will be done to make them lose the election. Who loses in that situation? The party or the contestant?

    Ever before the amended bill got to the President, some had said he would not assent to it. Truly, he has vetoed the bill. Giving the reasons for his action in a letter to Senate President Bukola Saraki and House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, Buhari said the lawmakers might have infringed on the “constitutionally guaranteed discretion of INEC to organise, undertake and supervise all elections provided for in Section 15 (a) of the Third Schedule to the Constitution’’. ‘’The amendment to Section 138 of the principal act to delete two crucial grounds upon which an election may be challenged by candidates unduly limits the rights of candidates in elections to a free and fair electoral review process’’, the President added.

    He went on : ‘’The amendments to Section 152 (3 – 5) of the principal act may raise constitutional issue over the competence of the National Assembly to legislate over local government elections’’. The National Assembly has not formally reacted to the President’s veto, but it is certain that it will pay him back in kind. The President took his action under Section 58 (4) of the Constitution,which states: Where a bill is presented to the President for assent, he shall within 30 days thereof signify that he assents or he withholds assent. The lawmakers have shown that they feel strongly about this matter, with the way the Senate, especially, has dealt with those against the bill.  It is therefore as sure as daylight that they will not allow this matter to end like this. I see them overriding the President’s veto, coming under Section 58 (5) of the Constitution, which stipulates :

    Where the President withholds his assent and the bill is again passed by each House by two-third majority, the bill shall become law and the assent of the President shall not be required. It is just a matter of time before the National Assembly uses its power under the Constitution to get its way on this matter. At a time like this, we do not need this kind of feud. There are many governance issues contending for the attention of the executive and the legislature. The nation does not need this fight over the order of elections, which is borne out of the fear that there are plans to stop some people from returning to the National Assembly in 2019.

    Is their personal interest more important than the national interest? They should put themselves in the position of the people they say they represent. How will they feel if the shoe was on the other foot? Governance is not about one’s self but the ability to do the people’s will. If it is true they represent us,  they should show it in their deed.

  • Much ado about ‘Buhari’

    There is sensational and hair-splitting news in town: that a gentleman,  Joe Chinakwe, of Ketere in Sango-Ota, Ogun State, had provocatively named his dog ‘Buhari’; and was, on account of that, arrested and detained by the police.

    The provocativeness, the initial claim went, was because ‘Buhari’ insolently referred to Muhammadu Buhari, president of the Federal Republic.  Because of that, media reports sensationally hinted, the security agencies over-zealously arrested the citizen, thus curtailing his right to name his dog any name he so desires.

    Mr. Chinakwe too played it all by the ear.  He reportedly claimed the president was his hero; and that long before he became president, when about no one gave him a chance, he had been a long-standing admirer of the man.

    Since he had similar affection for his dog, he claimed, he just made his pet the symbol of his presidential love.  He, an Igbo man, allegedly scribbled “Alhaji Buhari” on both sides of the dog, and rather provocatively paraded it at Sabo, the local town with overwhelming northern population.

    The offended northern folk, media report claimed, allegedly used their connection with the police to rein in the man, for his temerity to insult their kin — and president; thus further spewing  the old wives’ tale of Buhari, the northern hegemonist.

    But the police have come out with another version, suggesting the Buhari presidential link was nothing but pure fable.

    True, the Ogun State Police Command said, a Buhari was involved in the near-fracas that could have claimed lives and limbs, had the Police not timely acted. But that Buhari was the father of Halilu Umar, a local citizen, who had reported Chinakwe’s alleged act of provocation.

    According to Umar, Chinakwe had named his dog Buhari, contemptuously after Umar’s father; and was tauntingly calling the dog that name, even as he paraded it in the Sabo neighbourhood.  In anger, Umar lodged a complaint, leading to Chinakwe’s arrest.

    The police, according to their account, tried in vain to broker peace but all to no avail.  They, thereafter, charged Chinakwe to court for acts likely to lead to a breach of the peace, after which he was granted bail.

    Just as well the police have cleared the air: that Chinakwe was not arrested for naming his dog Buhari. Muhammadu Buhari may have been president; and by his honourable, honest and transparent conduct, should have earned everyone’s respect.

    Still, a little irreverence is part of republicanism, in the best tradition of democracy and free speech. That means that every citizen reserves the right to name his pet any name, so long as he acts in good faith. Besides, the president is no god to be worshipped; but a co-citizen the law lifted above others, to perform his onerous task of service to the state.

    Still, one’s citizen’s rights stop where others’ begin.  Besides, bad faith would appear the very antidote of free speech. From all objective accounts, therefore, Chinakwe would appear not to have acted in good faith.

    The police official release claimed he admitted to naming his dog “Alhaji Buhari”, Umar’s father, provocation be damned! But the same Chinakwe would appear to have woven another yarn (if the police account is correct), claiming President Buhari was his hero and all that. Chinakwe should really have been more tactful.

    You don’t, out of malice, dub another man’s father a dog, and expect to live in peace. If it is true that poor dog was killed, Chinakwe should assume full responsibility, even if people should strive not to take the law into their own hands.

    But the greatest blame here goes to the media, who, at the drop of every fib or rumour, are ready to fly — no thanks to the skewed mindset of many practising journalists, who infect unsuspecting readers with their prejudice and bigotry. That is execrable and condemnable.

    A little routine check would have established that Buhari had nothing to do with the president. A nation is doomed, when its media glory in rumours as news.

  • Is this much ado about nothing?

    Among the legacies of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its 16 inglorious years as the country’s ruling party, there is this curious matter of the profile of Professor Wale Oladipo who emerged as the party’s national secretary at some point.

    A high-profile columnist on June 21 focused on this curiosity in a piece titled “A nuclear scientist at the crossroads”.  It was a curious piece about a curious issue.

    The columnist asked: “Who is he, really, and where is he coming from?  What positions has he held in the nuclear science establishment?  What books or scientific papers has he published?  Does he by any chance hold a patent?  If so, for what product or process?”

    He went on to say: “His formal designation is professor of Nuclear Analytical Techniques, and his last known workplace address is the Centre for Energy Research and Development (CERD), at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife. CERD would therefore seem to be the appropriate starting point for learning more about Professor Oladipo.”

    It is interesting that this columnist’s efforts to learn more about the man resulted in further unclarity. He said: “At this writing, he does not figure on CERD’s web site.  I sent an email to CERD asking for information about him.  No luck.  I followed up with a phone call; no luck.  Perhaps it is CERD’s policy not to give out any information about their faculty and staff, for security reasons.  And CERD is nothing if not a national security facility.”

    The search continued: “My Internet search turned out more information about Oladipo as PDP national secretary than about his scholarship in the arcane field of particle physics.  It also yielded more information about his time in prison custody with Iyiola Omisore in the investigation of the murder of the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, than about his scientific work.”

    The curious columnist went further: “Even his home page, such as it is, says nothing about his education and the universities he attended.  There is no picture showing him at a nuclear facility, or at his study surrounded by books and scientific papers; no picture showing him with colleagues at a conference; none showing him in any scientific context whatsoever.”

    This cannot be a dead end. Could this be a failure of research or the failure of a researcher? Curious observers want more information, and more information should be made available, considering the public’s high impression of the man’s impressive designation. Or is this much ado about nothing?

  • Mubi massacre: Just how much more can the nation take?

    Mubi massacre: Just how much more can the nation take?

    The full scale of the Mubi, Adamawa State, killings will not sink in until inconsolable parents who lost loved ones begin to grieve openly. Some 40 youths, most of them students of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, were reportedly murdered by unknown gunmen who stole in on them while they slept in their off-campus hostels, and in spite of curfew. Preliminary reports indicate the students were shot only after their identities were ascertained. The motives are unclear. But it is feared the killings were probably a spinoff from the recently concluded students’ union elections in that school, a theory some students have dismissed as farcical. It may, however, be too early to dismiss any theory, including the sectarian motive insinuated by a few students. In the coming days, as the identities of the victims become known, the nation should be able to make sense of what happened on that bitter and rainy Monday night.

    As if anyone needed additional proof of Nigeria’s descent into bestiality, the sheer scale of the killings and the numbing fact that students were the principal victims have sealed the country’s notoriety as a modern-day killing fields. Inexplicable emotions follow the killing of students anywhere, almost akin to the strange emotions that follow the death of passengers in a plane crash, as if one type of death was less shocking or less honourable than the other. The Mubi horror will, therefore, probably assume more frightening dimensions in the days ahead. Though the country may have become inured to terror-related killings, it will nonetheless find out that the Mubi slaughter will be difficult to live down. Worse, the massacre may even begin to raise fears that terror killings, if they continue, could yet trigger something much more catastrophic for the nation, probably something even apocalyptic.

    Nigerians are predictably deeply outraged. That outrage will loom larger in the coming days as wrenching stories of family losses reach the media. The Senate was in fact so incensed by the barbarous display in Mubi that they began calling for sterner measures against the murderers. But in the din, it will be forgotten that terror killings and the outrage that follow have become a national pirouette from which the country is unlikely to extricate itself soon, particularly given the government’s desultory and sanguinary anti-terror measures. It will also be forgotten that by killing scores of students in one fell swoop, the perpetrators might in fact be modifying their tactics by shifting from attacking churches to attacking students. If the attacks on churches could not bring about the apocalypse they desired, then perhaps attacks on students might.

    What is clear in all this is not that Nigerians fail to show enough fortitude in the face of extreme provocations, or refuse to bear their periodic losses with dignified resignation. The main problem is that the government has not inspired much confidence, either by its methods or by its attitude. Yet, the people must nurse hope that there is light at the end of the dark terror tunnel. After all, it is one of the cardinal responsibilities of any government that in times of great crisis it must ensure the people see that reassuring light if they are not to yield to despair or, worse, engineer the fragmentation of their country.