The Nation Newspaper

Tag: sense

  • 2017: Scattered sense of hope and floods of failure

    SIR: So the year 2017 is almost at its terminal end. For us as Nigerians, it will be difficult to say it has not been the same difference. Like the weather forecast, scattered showers here and floods here, sunny there and cold with strange winds there.

    It was the year of operations…from python dance to crocodile smile. For the young secessionist Nnamdi Kanu who referred to us as animals in the zoo he may not be wrong, except that he equally ran away from the zoo.

    Budgets when not padded went missing in action; let us not even discuss the percentage of execution, which was a near miserable 10%.

    In between, the likes of Owelle Rochas Anayo of Imo State was on an, ‘erectus happilus’; erecting happiness all over his domain while salaries were left in voicemail for civil servants and pensioners groaned. His records in owing only bested by Governor Yahaya Bello, the lad in charge of Kogi State. It was strange that these kind of men were those Nigerians were accursed with as governors who reduced governance to comedy and comic relief with their utterances and actions.

    We were continually treated to the politics of rice production but in truth Nigerians barely could put a plate of rice on their tables, at least there were tomatoes yet money was unavailable to have a rich pot of stew.

    It was a year of drama; one recalls the DSS versus judges and lately EFCC versus DSS. The whole anti-graft war was largely media fought and with loads of mysterious recoveries, from Ikoyi to Kaduna the discoveries kept us busy while the economy bit hard. Not one conviction of the high and mighty thieves was gotten.

    Agitations grew, from fiscal federalism, to resource control, regionalism and then we had the war of words led by the General without rank Nnamdi Kanu and some jobless corporals on the other side.

    As usual NNPC wasn’t an establishment that would be left behind, whatever the figure or currency there was bound to be a billion attached to it as they regaled is with their usual jumbo scandals. The latest being the TSA-less N55bn.

    At home herdsmen, farmers, pastoralists or any nomenclature we used, were engaged in a seemingly one-sided war of cleansing. That raised questions with each attack than answers. No culprit was arrested and prosecuted and convicted. Counter accusations, allegations and counters. The economy and Nigerians suffered all the imbroglio of phantom Fulanis and indigenous AK47 wielding criminals.

    There were talks of billions everywhere, whether it was the River Niger Bridge or the various express roads we heard the figures we saw no new roads. Both bad roads and criminal entities fought for right to kill and maim citizenry. As the year ends, we are talking another billion to fight the Boko Haram ideology. Remember we took some billions for Chinese trains and tracks. Anyway without being an unrepentant pessimist we spent billions on a few repairs at the Nnamdi Azikwe airport; in essence big men things. And it was successful!

    We were engrossed with politics and religion, at different time frames, it was either we fought over which faith was in the school’s curriculum and one faith or the other cries wolf in terms of employment and sectionalism in appointment neither of which translated to progress for the group.

    The educational sector was not left out…strikes everywhere, from ASUU to NASU; we did the same thing over again and expected a different result. Kaduna State then exposed the shame of a nation with their illiterate teachers and as usual we debated for and against and where are we now?

    Political masquerades everywhere. As PDP attempted rebranding, Atiku sought to articulate, and President Buhari’s body language pointed towards 2019.  In a nation where we are hardly in agreement on any one issue other than maybe soccer, it remains difficult a task to get us to agree whether we made snail speed progress or we still remained stagnant or we have retrogressed.

     

    • Prince Charles Dickson,

    pcdbooks@outlook.com

  • Sense of no history

    •Office of Nigeria’s first Prime Minister long razed, lay waste

    It could be said that this wasted edifice acutely symbolises the nature of Nigeria’s national ethos, values, politics and governance. It also speaks volumes about our sense of history, monuments and collective national legacies. There are also questions of national pride and patriotism at play here.

    And the questions that would naturally resonate from the ruins of once number one seat of power in the land but now abandoned, if not forgotten is: does Nigeria as a nation have some cherished sets of national props, identities, legacies and monuments? Or put plainly, is the country possessed of an organic body, soul, springs and founts from which her citizenry derive some nourishing patriotic essence?

    These questions become germane following from a story that the office of the first post- independent leader of Nigeria lay disgracefully in ruins somewhere in the heart of Lagos. Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister of Nigeria from October 1, 1960 to January 15, 1966 worked from the Cabinet Office located at Nos. 1 – 6, Strachan Street, Onikan, Lagos.

    Around its precincts were: the Parliament Building and the sprawling Tafawa Balewa Square (formerly Race Course), the old Ministry of Works and Housing complex, the National Museum, the Onikan Love Garden, the official residences facing the Marina, the National Arcade, the 25-storey Defence Building, the equally high-rise Western House and the Federal Prisons nearby. Also in the same vicinity are King’s College, the courts, the Post and Telecommunications (P&T) and the Police Headquarters at the Moloney, Obalende end of the layout.

    These formed the hub of old British colonial administration and bureaucracy inherited by Nigeria’s officials from October, 1960.Today, it is bad enough that this entire physical infrastructure and history of Nigeria’s civil evolution has been obliterated or left to decay, the very seat of the colonial and immediate post-colonial governments lay in utter ruins.

    According to a report in Sunday Telegraph (August 6, 2017), “…the three-storey building which once served as cabinet office is now overtaken by giant weeds and dangerous reptiles.

    “A colony of trees is now seen growing wild through the blown off roof of the dilapidated building…”

    The report noted further that one dawn in 2008, residents woke up to find a billowing fire gutting the old cabinet office where Prime Minister Balewa once held court. Since then, the building had been abandoned and left to the wiles of stragglers, miscreants and reptiles. A thick bush and a semi-burnt crumbling roof complete the horrific picture of ruination.

    This may well represent the true picture of the state of Federal Government buildings, facilities and infrastructure across the country. Apart from structures like the TBS which had been concessioned to private managers, most of the other national monuments like the Defence Building, the Works and Housing yard, among others, have been left unused and decrepit.

    The National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, the expansive Federal Secretariat in Ikoyi and numerous other Federal Government offices across the country have been lying waste for years. With the relocation of the seat of power from Lagos to Abuja in 1992, many government property at this former seat of power were virtually jettisoned.

    It is particularly tragic that the first seat of power in the land was in the first place abandoned, vandalised and left to such vagaries as fire. Today, what ought to be a national monument, a major tourists highpoint of Lagos and a symbol of pride for the country is a sorry sight and a place of shame.

    That Nigeria seemed to have lost her sense of self-worth and history may have been responsible for the banishment of the study of history from her secondary school curriculum for years. We admonish that no country that brutishly severs the umbilical cord of her past can properly connect with the future.

    The Federal Government must move to reclaim Nigeria’s national monuments and legacies.

  • Making sense out of Kogi: The Audu/Faleke history

    Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters,” so said Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists that ever lived.

    Saturday the 21st November 2015, like June 12th 1993 has symbolically become an important day in the history of our democracy. There is no denying the fact that the biggest puzzle that remains unsolved by our current electoral body is the one that will remain a point of reference for so long in the land. Unfortunately, the puzzle was created by same electoral body that is saddled with the responsibility to untie the electoral bottleneck that characterised our electoral system before the advent of Attahiru Jega.

    Where is justice? What becomes of a nation if the Rule of Law is carelessly sacrificed for selfish political interests whereby the electoral body is involved as a party in the rape of justice? What precedence is the current scenario laying for our political future?

    The people of Kogi woke up on the fateful day hoping for liberation by sunset from misrule of Idris Wada of the Peoples’ Democratic Party. That wish was expressed widely via Abubakar Audu/Abiodun Faleke ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress. The people of Kogi saw freedom coming, but the ancient North Central state was openly gagged by the declaration of an already won and lost election inconclusive, following the death that struck the bearer of the hope, Prince Abubakar Audu.

    But all was not lost for Kogi people because the bearer of the torch of hope passed the baton silently to the heir apparent of the mandate (moral and constitutional successor), James Abiodun Faleke.  Silently while passing on, the Prince of Igala Land whispered for justice, handed a trust to Faleke and departed.

    It soon became a funny escapade that INEC suddenly declared that election inconclusive, to submit to a cabal who would produce their anointed candidate to conclude a process he was never part of. We should have passed this indecency. Robbing a dead man is un-African; robbing off the popular wishes of the people is inhumane; and robbing peace and conscience of people that were thirsty of good governance is ungodly.

    Various schools of thoughts have argued for and against INEC’s decision but none of the arguments have defeated the underlying truth of the matter – that a Faleke under the law remains the most senior bearer of APC’s flag in the race, and as long as he is alive, he was supposed to step into Audu’s position for completion of the exercise.

    For justice to prevail, according to Edmund Burke, good men must act otherwise the evil will prevail.

    For many years, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, dominated with cabals, toyed with internal democracy; they rob Peter to pay Paul many times, daring peoples’ feelings and grievance. In the end, the people spoke and opted for a CHANGE. As the ruling party in her 6th month, can we allow interests of masked few to dominate peoples’ strong desire and throw caution into the winds? Can we pass the integrity test as model for building a new Nigeria we envisaged? Can we dare to just do it right by doing the right thing even in the face of a political temptation?

    In words of wisdom, Faleke subtly reminded the party against setting it on a path of destruction through impunity and injustice, adding that APC should learn from what happened to the PDP. He said further that the present struggle was a complex one and beyond him as he was not willing to betray the trust late Abubakar Audu bestowed on him concerning the emancipation of the people and the future of the state.

    Obviously, after said and done, the total number of votes recorded in the supplementary election was a pointer to a mischievous plan which has been daringly executed through political instruments and agents in the system. In the end, I hope the court will excavate justice wherever it might have been buried.

    Abubakar Audu had responsibility to enable power change in Kogi politics which he upheld until his death. For anyone who does not understand the moral right referred to by James Abiosun Faleke in the public address that followed INEC’s decision, a view of the bond between German spies in the 2nd World War in a film titled ‘Operation Daybreak’ tells it all. Trust is never a trust until it was upheld by its custodian after demise of the bond partner.

    There is a great lesson to be learnt from Audu/Faleke scenario though the entire message cannot unfold immediately. The road that leads to justice is laden with difficulties and trial of patience. According to Martin Luther King Jr., human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle; the tireless exertion and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

    For Faleke, I think the walk to justice can be long and rough like the great Mandela once said, but the truth is that in the end, victory is foreseen not just for Faleke but the people of Kogi who are first victims in this circumstance.

    “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe”,  so said Frederick Douglas.

    The rest is left for our Judiciary, the last hope of common man, to do justice to this anomaly and blatant miscarriage of justice. If we must make sense out of our democracy, the Judiciary has a role to play in this trying moment!

    – Hon SegunOlulade is a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, representing Epe Constituency II

  • Subtraction makes sense

    This is the greatly expected month of political determination in Nigeria and a month of great political expectations. But so was last month, with the general elections originally slated for February 14 and 28. It is unsurprising that the controversial six-week rescheduling of the polls has generated further controversy about the developing story of democratic continuity and the possibility of discontinuity.

    It is a measure of the pregnant atmosphere that President Goodluck Jonathan, for whatever it was worth, made an attempt to clarify his intentions at the February 22 opening mass for the plenary Assembly of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria at Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Pro-Cathedral, Garki, Abuja. Jonathan declared: “There is no way Goodluck Jonathan, elected by the people with clear mandate, will now go and head an Interim Government. The only interim government anybody can constitute is that of the military government which, of course, will not be accepted.” He added: “ECOWAS, AU, UN won’t accept it. And Nigeria will not be a pariah state. Clearly, the insinuation of interim government to me is treasonable.”

    However, it is illuminating that when he also said, “Elections will be conducted as scheduled by INEC,” referring to the new dates of March 28 and April 11, he went on to paint a picture that suggested that the rearrangement might not be inviolable. He said: “Look at what happened in Gombe on February 14…If the elections had been held, the casualty figure after that attack in Gombe would have been great.”

    In other words, security or insecurity is likely to remain a determining factor regarding even the fresh election timetable. Jonathan highlighted this reality at the February 19 launch of four ships at the Naval Dockyard, Victoria Island, Lagos. He said: “We must conduct elections as scheduled by INEC because within this period, we are convinced that we will return the North to the level where the activities of extremists will not affect our elections. We are working night and day and I have directed that Nigerians be briefed regularly.” Jonathan further said: “We will rout Boko Haram. Our capacity has increased sufficiently and officers and men are doing wonderfully well. The ongoing activities to contain the sect will also provide conducive atmosphere for elections to hold in the region.”

    It is food for thought that Jonathan appears to be led by a one-track mind in this delicate matter. There is a critical and commonsensical question which exposes his cunning: What will happen if the atmosphere in the affected areas remains electorally unconducive?

    To properly grasp the significance of this question, it is useful to reflect on the February 7 statement by the  Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, on why the elections were postponed a week to the first vote. According to Jega, “Last Wednesday, which was a day before the Council of State meeting, the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) wrote a letter to the Commission, drawing attention to recent developments in four Northeast states of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Gombe currently experiencing the challenge of insurgency. The letter stated that security could not be guaranteed during the proposed period in February for the general elections.”

    Jega continued: “This advisory was reinforced at the Council of State meeting on Thursday where the NSA and all the Armed Services and Intelligence Chiefs unanimously reiterated that the safety and security of our operations cannot be guaranteed, and that the Security Services needed at least six weeks within which to conclude a major military operation against the insurgency in the Northeast; and that during this operation, the military will be concentrating its attention in the theatre of operations such that they may not be able to provide the traditional support they render to the Police and other agencies during elections.”

    There must be something magical, not to say illogical, about the six-week time frame set for the conquest of insurgents who have carried out terroristic activities since 2009. Optimism won’t win the terror war, no matter how well dressed.  The naked pessimism of the people is unmistakable.

    It is puzzling, even disturbing, that there is little or no evidence of the possibility of success regarding the publicised six-week target. On the contrary, there is evidence to suggest that it might be a mission impossible. The magical realism is underscored by ongoing efforts by Nigeria and four neighbouring nations, Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, to tackle the Islamist guerrilla force by creating a regional force. Reports said the contributions to the multi-national force total 8, 700 individuals and its objective is to “foster a safe and secure environment in the impacted regions.”

    Interestingly, Colonel Mahamane Laminu Sani, Director of Documentation and Military Intelligence of Niger’s armed forces was quoted as saying, “There are initiatives by our countries to make sure Boko Haram doesn’t get out of control, but we have a deadline of end-March to put the joint force into practice.”  If the activation of the joint force is expected at the end of March, and Nigeria’s presidential poll is scheduled for March 28, what is the sense in the confidence of the Jonathan administration that Boko Haram would have been crushed before that particular election?  The government wants the people to suspend disbelief and believe that the local troops would have cut the militants down to size before the vote, but is this realistic?

    Not much is ever realistic in the theatre of the absurd, and even the seemingly realistic is often consumed by the unrealistic. This may explain why the political and electoral authorities appear to be fixated on what is perhaps an unreasonable idea, which is, holding the elections in abeyance until things hopefully get better in the troubled areas. How long will the country have to wait for normalcy in these places before elections can hold generally?

    The concept of electoral subtraction is worth consideration, meaning that the elections can be conducted excluding the unsafe areas, if it comes to the crunch. This is no time for the puristic argument that such electoral reasonableness would amount to the disenfranchisement of the circumstantially disenfranchised.

  • A sense of legacy

    A sense of legacy

    Not long ago, the nation witnessed a case of self-accounting. Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi sought the permission of the state House of Assembly to draw on the state’s savings. The state had reeled in the past year. The Federal Government had cut its monthly allocation by several billions, and its oil-rich fable had faded away.

    Civil servants, teachers, and ambitious projects creaked desperately from neglect. He had to do something. Banks no longer obliged, so the road was shut to loans. Even the Federal Government had given a directive that banks should clear any state loans with the finance minister. The banks, run by timid souls, know the directive as illegal but they bow. They know it defiles banking independence and federalist principles, but they bow.

    Amaechi’s vision had, however, bought his independence. He did not need to go to Jonathan with a beggar’s bowl. He did not need to cajole the cowardly consciences of the bank chief executives. When he became governor, the state rustled with money. He admitted that palmy days were not forever. He had a balmy thought – to prepare for the rainy day. He did not expect misery to howl in the now, in his era as governor. He looked at a generation away. In his lens, he saw an era looming with empty oil wells and emaciated purses, when oil would no longer be the queen of resources.

    He had enough to work with, and so he chastened the spendthrift temptation of the day and kept at least a billion a month in the bank.

    Well, the rainy day came sooner than anticipated. His vision marked the difference between he who sees and he who looks. Amaechi saw, even when the Federal Government had turned the nation’s reserve into a bleeding mule, thinning from $68 billion to $37 billion. Rivers State can chew its cud while others cuddle with anxiety.

    What Governor Amaechi has done is the difference between a great leader and the routine man in the saddle. The Amaechi story is important because he is the chief shepherd of Rivers State, and that state is one of the pivotal entities in our federation. It is the beacon of the East, while Lagos holds the West and Kano the North. For a nation that relies on oil, Port Harcourt is the capital of oil. So, Rivers State is one of the states in the federation to watch as the present governor takes a back seat and a new one emerges.

    We need a governor with the same – if not better – sort of energy and organisational acumen as well as vision to pilot the state.

    Much has happened under the watch of the man who was once deprived of his right to the saddle. The Owu chief had a lifetime ago described with scorn his claim to the governor chair. He said his case had “K leg.” The cripple now walks with swagger. But the Rivers State he took over comes to memory, among others, as a state no one wanted to visit. I remember walking the street once and everyone in Port Harcourt had to raise their hands to indicate they had no guns. The air bristled with martial portent. Expatriates no longer loved the Garden City. Oil money became crude because safety was better.

    Amaechi became governor without access even to the rudiment of a governor’s safety. He reached to his colleague, the ebullient Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, to help him with security vehicles. Yet, it was Amaechi that drove the militants out of town and anyone can walk the entrails of the Garden City with hands in the pocket.

    The job of any government is to eliminate poverty. In this society, the urban centres reflect the ugliness of class divide. The rich mock the poor with their extravagant decadence of cars, palaces, parties, private jets and boats. To bring the society into a place of fairness, we have often wanted governments to take infrastructure development and education seriously.

    None of our literary lights has in the picturesque skill of the realist painted the Nigerian poverty. Not Achebe, not Soyinka, not Clark. When Dickens wrote his Bleak House, David Copperfield, especially Oliver Twist, the Prime Minister was worried and asked him if his characters really lived in London. The graphic tales of inequality permeate the narratives of Jane Austen, and Balzac told tales of the depredations of the post-Napoleon and the new industrial societies on the ordinary folks. No one can forget Balzac’s Old Goriot. We have not seen the tragi-comic spectacle of the disabled embarking on a parade known as the feast of fools as graphically set in Victor Hugo’s The Hunch Back of Notre Dame.

    If our literature focuses generally on post-colonial anomie, it is probably time to tell specific stories of beggary and inequality. Right now it is newspaper reporters who bear that heroic task. But a great novel or play can immortalise this chasm between rich and poor. Festus Iyayi’s stories work as themes but not as artifice.

    Rivers State is one of such states where the governor has made efforts to address the inequalities. We know that governance is a continuum. His education programme, for instance, in which secondary schools look like some of our universities in ambience, facilities, teachers and architecture, require sustenance. It is not enough to have them. It is important to see them as a way of life, not privilege for a time. My former teacher, Prof. Biodun Jeyifo, wrote in his column how he visited the model schools and one of the teachers made a darkly funny observation. She said although the children in the schools were from poor parents, their parents were not interested in their education.

    An oil-rich state with so much inequality where the lazy and criminal live in plenty while industrious persons beg from them. The result is cynicism about education, which is a slow grind to light. Why wait for a nine-month pregnancy if you can induce the baby in nine days? That is the warped logic of oil in today’s Nigeria.

    So while Amaechi has built a solid foundation in education and infrastructure and health care, the state ought not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. If his successor does not understand the dynamics of governance and only eyes the opportunity to be a fat-cat chief executive presiding over thin and miserable citizens, it will be tragic. It is very easy to reverse the work of a visionary. As they say, a good success depends on a good successor.

    It is going to be a slugfest between the urbane Peterside Dakuku and the PDP nominee to be decided Monday. Rivers State voters must guard jealously the legacy of Amaechi. If they vote the wrong person, they will see before their eyes the loss of what they have taken for granted. Rivers State is not only important to the people of Rivers State, just as Lagos State is not only important to Lagosians. Whoever takes charge of Lagos, Rivers or Kano holds a huge chunk of our patrimony in trust. But it begins with the people and their votes.

  • Obama/Romney: The sense and nonsense of polemics

    Obama/Romney: The sense and nonsense of polemics

    By popular acclamation, President Barack Obama of the United States lost the first round of the presidential debate to his Republican Party challenger, Mitt Romney. Two more rounds of the debate are outstanding before the November polls. In that first round, Obama was said to have debated like a bored university lecturer, while Romney went in like an aggressive bull ready to do battle. Both incumbent and challenger stretched their stories exceedingly tall and ladled out inaccuracies like confetti, but Romney disrespected facts and figures much more, in fact far worse than our own President Goodluck Jonathan did with the Transparency International (TI) figures. Democratic Party faithful expect Obama to be ruthless in the next two rounds of the debate, that is, assuming his genial nature will permit him to bite in the clinches.

    Romney’s performance has predictably revived his chances in the November poll, and he will seek to press home the advantage. If Obama is not to be buried alive, he must bring his talents as a law professor to bear, for now more than ever he needs them. But that precisely is where the problem lies. Polemics is by no means an easy art, as indeed many victims of unsparing polemical pugilism can testify. Victory in polemics does not always go to the most astute, most intelligent, most oratorical, for polemics consists of dangerous chemical and metaphysical elements with unpredictable properties. Even if it were listed on the periodic table, anyone who succumbs to polemical defeat would still be unable to fathom what hit him or what the properties of the elements are.

    The inimitable Mark Twain captures for posterity one such polemical disaster as contained in the story of Abelard and Heloise in Chapter XV of his book, Innocents Abroad. It is a love story between a cold-hearted and ungrateful priest, Abelard, and a trusting, warm and innocent nun, Heloise, whose passionate love was unrequited. In the end Abelard betrayed Heloise, and he in turn was vanquished by a skilful debater called St.Bernard at the debating ground – fittingly, said Mark Twain. Hear Twain: “Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking as the first debater of his time, became timid, irresolute, and distrustful of his powers. He only needed a great misfortune to topple him from the high position he held in the world of intellectual excellence, and it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet the subtle St. Bernard in debate and crush him, he stood up in the presence of a royal and illustrious assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished he looked about him and stammered a commencement; but his courage failed him, the cunning of his tongue was gone: with his speech unspoken, he trembled and sat down, a disgraced and vanquished champion.”

    The effect polemical defeat has on the vanquished is akin to a crushing defeat suffered by a politician at the polls: both would rather die than live, for such defeats, having been publicly delivered, are impossible to live down. Obama probably did not experience a crushing blow to the medulla, but there is no doubt he knew he was thrashed, a fact that two-thirds of the 58 million people who watched the debate conceded. Too many people have had their reputations ruined on the debating ground. The sensible thing to do, therefore, is to avoid being pinned down to a formal debate. Nigerian politicians are adept at doing this. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo avoided the Yale-educated Chief Olu Falae of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the aborted 1999 presidential debate; Umaru Yar’Adua scorned Abubakar Atiku in 2007; and both Muhammadu Buhari and Dr Goodluck Jonathan simply ignored the Young Turks of the opposition in the 2011 debate.

    Romney may have outperformed Obama last week, but America would be the poorer with him as president, as indeed the country was under George W. Bush. And as many women whose chastity and reputations have been ruined by smooth-talking men can attest, the most oratorical is often the most avidly libertine. If Obama does not turn the table against Romney in the next rounds, he must pray that Americans become as sturdy as Nigerians who in the First and Second Republics relished the oratory of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe on the stump but still went ahead remorselessly to vote for their candidates and champions.