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Author: Magnus Onyibe

  • Implications Of Revolt By Justices And Circus Show In Supreme Court – By Magnus Onyibe

    Implications Of Revolt By Justices And Circus Show In Supreme Court – By Magnus Onyibe

    Following the sack of Walter Onnoghen as Chief Justice of Nigeria , CJN in 2019 and particularly in the twilight of the first term of the outgoing administration, under circumstances that are still befuddling to the uninitiated, the judiciary stated convulsing. And it appears to have remained in the sick bay thereafter.

    In his first public statement after his ouster , the immediate past CJN said the following during a book launch in 2021  : “Prior to my suspension, I was confronted with no allegation. There were rumours that I met with Atiku in Dubai. As I am talking here today, I have never met Atiku one on one in my life.

    “As if that was not enough, I was also accused of setting free high-profile criminals, whereas I ceased to be a High Court Judge as far back as 1978.

    “In Supreme Court, I did not sit alone. We sat in panel. In all these rumours and outright accusations, I was not given opportunity to defend myself.

    “Let me make it clear that the office of the CJN was not for Onnoghen but for all Nigerians who had sworn to guide and protect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    “To say the least,the period of my ordeal was the darkest era in the history of the Nigerian judiciary.”

    Perhaps, as a fall out of the cold treatment meted to ex CJN Onoghen , the Supreme Court which is the apex judiciary institution in our country, appears to have been stricken by a debilitating disease that is manifesting the symptoms of cancer.

    And it might as well be a cancerous infection as being suspected because that strange disease that infected the system since 2019 seem not to be responding to treatment,positively.

    Instead ,the infirmity which by all intents and purposes is self inflicted,appear to have metastasized. Hence it has not only degenerated into an open revolt of fourteen (14) justices against the current Chief Justice of Nigeria,CJN , Tanko Mohammad via a petition letter written to him and leaked to the public about the deplorable welfare condition of the senior members of the Judiciary who are supposed to be crème de la crème and thus entitled to premium privileges, instead they are getting a raw deal via denial of most of the perks and appurtenances of which they are entitled.

    It is not only in the dirty internal fight which has spilled into streets that the rot in the judiciary is manifesting. But the toxic state of affairs in the third arm of government has also taken a dramatic turn in the literary and common sense of the word.

    While the dust was yet to settle on the  blithe created by the spat between the justices in the apex court , a parody of the recent Supreme Court judgement legalizing the wearing of hijab by Muslims to school and as they deem fit, a human rights lawyer, Malcom Omoirhobo whose religious faith is African traditional worship appeared in the hallowed chambers of the apex court decked out in Oluokun worshippers attire akin to a native doctor’s costume.

    It is needless stating that turning up in court in such an outlandish outfit did not only cause a stir, but it was a powerful unspoken statement against the mixing up of religion and politics which the Supreme Court has via the ruling put its imprimatur on, wittingly or unwittingly.

    In justification of the protesting lawyer’s action,he made the assertion below  :

    “I am very grateful to the Supreme Court. Just last week Friday, they made a very resounding decision that promotes Section 38 of the constitution.That is our right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

    “That we are free to express our way of worship in our schools and in our courts. That decision was reached on Friday and that has encouraged me.

    “Because I am a traditionalist and this is the way I worship.Based on the decision of the Supreme Court, this is how I will be dressing henceforth in court because I am a strong adherent to ‘Olokun’, the god of rivers.”

    Clearly, his statement is tongue in cheek and a sort of mockery of the somewhat convoluted and jaundiced justice system that has found a foothold in our country, and he got the attention that he desired via the drama .The wise crack:action speaks louder than voice rings true here.

    The embarrassing level of absurdity currently bedeviling the Supreme Court in particular and the judiciary in Nigeria, is disconcerting and unacceptable because it is the third arm in the political leadership triumvirate comprising of the executive, legislative and judiciary which is a typical feature in a democratic system of government that Nigeria is practicing.

    The incumbent CJN, Tanko Muhamad has denied any wrong doing and defended himself by stating that the judiciary arm like the other two arms of government, is suffering from paucity of funds to meet the expectations of the justices,despite the N110 billion reportedly allocated to the judiciary in budget 2022.

    But the offensive by the justices venting their spleen on the CJN exposes the level of decadence in the temple of justice where those who have the privilege of seating there,are supposed be in more ways than one,super humans.

    That is by virtue of the fact that they seat in judgement over the rest of the members of society who are considered lesser mortals. And that being the case,they are meant to be above board and do not have the luxury of descending into the arena of less mortals by washing their dirty linens in public which the highlighted absurdities besetting the judiciary evince.

    Apparently,l am not alone in worrying about the descent of the judiciary from the high pedestal where it deservedly seats to mingle with ordinary mortals in our country that have been reveling in everything vile. And it is the reason a former British prime minister, David Cameron at a cocktail on the sideline of a global anti corruption conference, with president Mohammadu Buhari of Nigeria in attendance,whispered into the ears of the Queen of England, Elizabeth ll ,that our president is the leader of a fantastically corrupt country.That is in-spite of president Buhari’s avowed intolerance for corruption.

    Professor Itse Sagay, a legal luminary and lately chairman of Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC , the committee on anti corruption set up by president Buhari to combat graft soon after he took over the reins of governance in 2015,in his autobiography launched on 12th May titled: All Will Be Well,dwelt on the pervading crisis of corruption that recently caused a ruckus in the judiciary to the extent that it triggered a hiatus in the top echelon of the court system, particularly concerning some Supreme Court justices who were arrested in gestapo style by men of the Directorate of State Security, DSS and arraigned largely for being in possession of huge sums of foreign currencies found in their homes.

    Just before the current crisis rocking the judiciary burst into the open,I had just scanned through the aforementioned book by the respected professor Sagay who dedicated a whole chapter titled, THE JUDICIARY AND JUSTICE IN A DEVELOPING SOCIETY LIKE NIGERIA to his concerns about the sordid state of affairs in his primary constituency-the legal profession.

    I was particularly drawn to the content of a topic in the book which he aptly subtitled “Corruption, Abhorrent to Judicial Culture”.

    Let us hear it directly from Sagay as he espouses and articulates his thoughts in the excerpt below which has a bearing on the despicable events now wracking the judiciary.

    “In a modern civilised state, members of the Legislative and Executive branches of government can afford to be corrupt without dangerously affecting the development and survival of the state, but not so, the judiciary. A modern state cannot survive large scale judicial corruption.That will bring chaos, confusion and anarchy.

    He argues further that “Even during the pristine, hallowed and much lamented First Republic, major political figures were accused and tried for corruption. A Commission of Enquiry was even set up to enquire into the alleged corrupt act of a major political figure. He resigned his high political position as head (Premier) of a Regional Government,parliament was dissolved, an election followed in which his Party was returned with a bigger majority in the relevant House of Assembly and that was that.”

    According to him “The point being made here is that the fabric of society was not shaken to its foundations amidst the political fervor, excitement and disagreement that followed this and other less earth-shaking developments. Why? Because the judiciary was intact, above the frenzy, noble, detached, unruffled, neutral, the epitome of integrity, nobility and honour.”

    He then backed up his assertions above with land mark cases in the annals of Nigerian jurisprudence which l could not resist sharing here.

    “As Justice Nnaemeka-Agu declared in Ezekiel Hart v. Ezekiel Hart20, the judiciary is the ultimate guarantor of state stability. They are the third arm of government considered by the makers of constitutions as also the third in importance. But is that true? Justice Kayode Eso, delivered a Convocation Lecture at the University of Benin on 31st January 1985, in which he claimed that the Judiciary was not only only the most important arm of government but was also in fact the grundnorm of the country. This assertion was met with some credulity and skepticism at that time. But with the passage of time and with hindsight,I have increasingly appreciated the point being made by the late legal colossus.

    Consider these facts:

    (i) The judiciary is the official oversight institution of the other two arms of government.

    (ii) Whenever there is a dispute between any of the other two arms of government, the judiciary precides and decides which of them is right or wrong. This applies to disputes between the federal government and any state, between states themselves, between governments (federal and state) and individuals, both corporate and natural.

    (iii) The judiciary can uphold the validity of any action or law or invalidate it with an order nullity.

    (iv) It is the judiciary that decides what is law and what is not law.

    (v) To my knowledge, the judiciary has once been asked to determine the sex of a party in a case before it. In Corbett v. Corbett [1971] p. 83, the petitioner was born a man but had undergone sex change operation to become a woman.

    Thereafter, she lived as a woman, worked successfully as a female model and was recognised as a female for passport and insurance purposes. She got married to a man, and later petitioned for the dissolution of her marriage. It was argued that since it was not a marriage between a man and a woman, it was void and should simply be annulled not dissolved. The judge had to decide whether to nullify the marriage as a void marriage or dissolve it as a valid one. This was before same sex marriages were allowed. It was held that the marriage was void because the petitioner was still biologically male by gonadal, genital and chromosomal tests. Therefore the petitioner remained a male person.

    (vi) It is only the judiciary that can order that life be taken by condemning a person to death.”

    As a man who does not take prisoners , as such  unafraid to call a spade what it is ,  professor Sagay unabashedly reminds readers of the elevated position of judges and courts in society.

    “The organisation and arrangement of a courtroom tells it all. The judge seats on a high-backed chair on a raised platform, high above the rest of the Court. Lawyers, clients, court officers – all look up at this embodiment of authority high above them.

    A judge is the indisputed master of his or her court. There is no pretense at democracy in any judicial proceedings. The lawyers apply, pray, urge, move and submit. The judge rules and decides in every case.”

    Not done with sharing his candid view about judges, courts and the rest of society, professor Sagay quipped.

    “Only one word strikes me when I enter the courtroom setting either as counsel or litigant – AWE! That is what the position of a judge is supposed to be – awe inspiring.

    And it is not empty awesomeness. The judge is equipped with power to assert his authority by sending anyone to prison, lawyers included. We are meant to respect judges and view their office as sacrosanct because they represent the source of society’s ultimate stability and as we also say they represent the last hope of the common man.”

    Lamenting the decadence currently wracking judiciary, the professor of law and octogenarian, who recently clocked 80 years of age , that has been both a teacher and practitioner of law, traveled down memory lane to recall the exploits of awe inspiring judges “Their power and authority arises, not from the Constitution or any law, but from their honour, integrity, detachment, the mystery surrounding a masquerade.

    The ultimate weapon of a judge is his high moral authority, more potent than any statutory power. This is the weapon wielded by our judges even as late as 1999. The advent of the fourth Republic has come with its own culture of debasement of our judiciary.

    When we look at the list of judges who graced our judicial benches in the First and Second Republics, we wonder whether they were colossuses from a distant world. Let me mention some names:

    Louis Mbanefo, J.I.C. Taylor, Adetokunbo Ademola, Dadi Onyeama, Baptist Coker, Udo Udoma. They ruled the waves of the judex. It was the era of when they spoke; it was done.

    After celebrating iconic legal luminaries of yore in the referenced topic in his revetting book,the very erudite legal authority continued in his treatise with his exaltation of fellow high legal minds by expounding his views in a manner that could be mistaken for pontification: “Even the second generation of Nigerian judges exercised this unquestioned authority and power. This groups includes Kayode Eso, Muhammed Bello, Chike Idigbe, Adetunji Adefarasin, Mason Begho, Andrews Otutu Obaseki, Michael Ajegbo, Chuba Ikpeazu, Anthony Anyiagolu, Chukwudifu Oputa, Atanda Fatayi-Williams, Chukwunweike Idigbe, Augustine Nnamani, Adolphus Karibi-Whyte, Philip Nnaemeka-Agu, Umaru Kalgo, Michael Oguntade, Pius Aderemi and such great names as those.”

    The learned professor Sagay then posed a poignant question “Could any renegade lawyer have had the temerity to carry a bag of dollars into the chambers of these men? Certainly not!

    Why, how and when did some of our judges so lower their guards that some miscreants in the legal profession have been able to approach them to tempt them into committing the original sin of their order?”

    While not relenting in his admonition of current members of the judiciary,the learned silk reminded them that “When a judge,who should be next to God in our hierarchy of authority, sanctity and awesomeness, accepts a bribe,the masquerade is disrobed,the myth is demystified; the small god steps down from his temple and joins the rest of us, rolling and roiling in the mud. The sanctity is lost, the aura is gone and they become subjected to the travails and humiliation suffered by ordinary men, as we saw on the night of November 20, 2016.”

    And he did not end without pointing out that “A god who descends from Mount Olympus to frolic with ordinary men should not be shocked if he is treated like an ordinary man. But this is a national tragedy that we should avoid at all costs.

    Some have said, after all judges are Nigerians and we should not expect judges to be different from the rest of society. That is blasphemy! They are different from the rest of society. Judges must not abandon their high pedestal to come and dwell with the rest of society. They are judges. They judge the rest of us. Society is doomed if judges behave like the rest of us. We would have reverted to the state of nature.”

    To underscore the exalted position of judges in society which professor Sagay argues is next to God, he referenced the holy Bible and buttressed his argument thus: “Of all the administrative inventions of man, the emergence of judges is the highest evidence of civilisation and the ascent of man. That is why in the bible, Moses the greatest prophet of the Old Testament was also the Chief Justice of the Israelites. He appointed more junior judges to man courts and tens and hundreds of litigants and sat at the final court of appeal over these cases”

    Continuing with his indignation which antagonists can characterize as being sanctimonious , the very outspoken legal icon who was literally thrown out of university of Benin ostensibly for his active involvement in activism, went into historical archives of religion to exhume records that show that political leaders were also judges  “You will all recall from the Book of Judges, that for a long time, the political leaders of Israel were also judges. Right up to the time of Jesus, the head of the temple was also the Chief Judge of the Jewish Society.

    Although judges have since shared off their political and executive powers, they are still the last resort of peace, order and good governance in any society.”

    Aside from drawing from biblical canons  , Sagay’s narrative also establishes that monarchs were also judges “Coming closer to our times, the Kings of England were for centuries also judges. The Court of the Chancellor, now Chancery developed from the King’s Palace. Equity which is superior to common law developed from the Chancellor’s Court.

    Wearing his anti corruption cap, of which he is the current Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Cor­ruption (PACAC), he did not mince words about his disdain for corrupt people.

    “The public servants and politicians who conspire to bribe and corrupt our judges deserve especially, harsh punishment.The worst culprits in this sad and sorry state of affairs are the lawyers,mainly senior advocates,who shamelessly approach judges to introduce them into this demeaning and shameful culture.These senior advocates deserve the harshest punishment of all.The EFCC, ICPC and the Police must monitor and investigate the activities of lawyers who receive a share of the proceeds of crime as their fees. They should be treated as accessories after the fact, because they share in the proceeds of the crimes of politically exposed persons and once paid from that stained loot, it becomes their life’s struggle to protect and shield the primary criminals from the consequence of their crime.”

    The duty to accept a brief does not exonerate a lawyer, who convinced or suspects his client’s guilt, urges him to enter a plea of “not guilty” which he the goes on to defend vigorously.

    Such a lawyer would be grossly in breach of the ethics of the legal profession.”

    The former Dean of the faculty of law in University of Ife, later Obafemi Awolowo university, who happen to have been a teacher to a legion of Nigerian lawyers , offered lawyers the following advise

    “Where a lawyer is convinced after studying the law and the facts, that his client is guilty of the crime for which he is charged, it is his duty in such a case to ask his client to plead guilty and to set out the extenuating factors, if any, and plead for mercy for his client. Any other course of conduct is gross misconduct and breach of ethics of the profession. In the worst cases, we now have complicity of lawyers in their client’s crimes”

    Although professor Sagay’s intervention is voluminous,l could not resist sharing the wisdom it contains by using it as linchpin for my intervention in the crisis of confidence unfurling in our highest temple of justice – Supreme Court.

    As the saying goes: a word is enough for the wise.

    Sadly, the mess threatening to wreck the judicial system in Nigeria is a reflection of the state of anomie that now reigns supreme in the entire gamut of government in Nigeria which could  ultimately lead our beloved country into more perditions and ruins than it is in, already.

    Does the current state of insecurity in our country not echo the days of the Vikings with its origin in the Scandinavian countries that ruled over most of Europe for centuries in a manner that promoted survival of the fittest as a doctrine ?

    Although, it took a long time,after the horrific rule by the Vikings,Europe is today a model of peace,harmony and progress and beckoning to Nigeria and the rest of Africa.So all hope for a better tomorrow for Nigerians is not lost,as we await a rescuer, who would mount the presidential throne in 2023 and reset our beloved country from top to bottom as the trouble with Nigeria seem to be with the leadership, not the follower-ship.

    When l drew the attention of a very senior professor of law from one of the best universities in the USA and indeed the world to the drama at the Supreme Court staged by the lawyer who attended the apex court in his native doctor regalia, here is how he responded:

    “Honestly, I don’t blame the attorney despite the unsightly optics. The SCN has been dancing naked in recent times, what with the ongoing open altercations between the CJ and his fellow Justices over office money. You would have also noticed that the court has been churning out rulings that are unfounded in logic, jurisprudence or due process lately especially disputes with political coloration. Corruption has found a berth there.  Sad”

    Putting all together,the shenanigans and chicanery that have been suffocatingly dogging the judiciary are not without implications and future consequences.

    The dimension and potential catastrophic effect of the revolt of the 14 justices and melodrama by the lawyer in the hallowed chambers of the supreme court may not be phantom-able , right now.

    But the fall out that may presently be latent,could be simmering like molten magma underneath an active volcano, that is likely to erupt without warning.

    So the National Assembly, NASS should take more than a passing interest in the matter as they are currently doing via the investigation being conducted on the conflict by the relevant committee.

    As the lawyers would say when concluding a matter before a judge : l rest my case.

     

    Magnus onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst ,author, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from lagos.

    To continue with this conversation, pls visit www.magnum.ng

  • Uncanny challenges on the path to presidency for APC and PDP – By Magnus Onyibe

    Uncanny challenges on the path to presidency for APC and PDP – By Magnus Onyibe

    By Magnus Onyibe

     

    Before delving into the nitty-gritty of the obviously rough road to Aso Rock Villa seat of presidential power, permit me to draw attention to the fact that l had predicted that becoming president of Nigeria in 2023 will be a straight fight between former president, Turaki Atiku Abubakar (1999-2007 and ex Lagos state governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (1999-2007).

    That is fully captured on pages 331 and 332 of my new and fast-selling book: “Becoming President of Nigeria. A Citizen’s Guide.”

    The opinion piece was first published as an article titled: “Becoming President Of Nigeria, 2023” by TheCable.ng on September 15, 2021 and other news platforms.

    Here is an excerpt:

    “Beyond the rotation of the presidency between the north and south arrangement, which seems to be taking up a huge chunk of media space as 2023 general elections loom large, other critical factors are nuanced but Germaine to the matter of who becomes the president of Nigeria in 2023. The word on the streets is that the fast-approaching 2023 presidential contest would as usual be a two-horse race between the ruling All Progressive Party, APC, and the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. It is also being predicted that the battle would be waged between former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of PDP and former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu of APC.

    The permutation that the ex-Vice President would fly the flag of the main opposition, PDP, and the ex-Lagos State governor is likely to be the flag bearer for the ruling party, APC may be based on the first mover’s advantage being enjoyed by the duo who happen to have been the most visible and active politicians that are angling for the presidency from both parties at this point. But the question of who would become the candidate for the presidency in 2023 still depends on if the ruling party, APC zones the presidency to the south as agreed when the coalition of opposition political parties against then ruling party – PDP, was in the making in 2013/14. In the event that the presidential power shift agreement is upheld, then Bola Tinubu who was instrumental to APC clinching the presidency in 2015 would be waiting in the wings to collect the flag.

    And in the case of the PDP, the possibility of the presidential candidate being Atiku Abubakar would become clearer, if the party accepts the Bala Mohammed led committee recommendations that the main opposition party jettisons her presidential power rotation policy and declare the ticket open to all interested parties. Should the foregoing proposition become manifest, the PDP may decide to rally once again behind Atiku Abubakar, her presidential candidate in 2019.”

    Allow me to also point out that both the ruling and main opposition parties, the platforms from which the president would undoubtedly emerge (despite the hype about the rising profile of the Labor Party, LP, and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi) are severely handicapped and therefore in quandary with regards to how to equitably share or distribute political positions amongst the multiple ethnic and religious groups that constitute our country.

    The dilemma of the ruling party at the center and the main opposition party is simply owed to the reality that they are both suffering similar debilities which l would like to drill down to reducing the options of political power sharing to just two-president and Vice President instead of creating multiple choices-Senate president, speaker of the House of Representatives, and their deputies, secretary to government of the federation, Chief Justice of the federation, etc to meet the expectations of the multifarious ethnic and religious interests of which our country is comprised . The crises that the presidential candidates are having in choosing their running mates is derived from the fact that political power sharing formula that is being applied is restricted to presidency rotation principles instead of applying other options such as putting all the powerful positions on the table for allocation, upfront.

    And l will dwell more on that very critical aspect of the political miasma that is currently suffocating the two presidential flag bearers of the two main political parties, shortly.

    It is important to remember that the political parties have 17th June (this Friday) deadline to submit the names of their running mates to lndependent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
    Hence the current mad rush to conclude that task.

    Before delving further into the religious and ethnic oddities that would make or mar the chances of Atiku Abubakar or Bola Tinubu becoming president of Nigeria in 2023, first of all, l would like to focus on the issues that arose and culminated in the events that shaped the just concluded presidential primaries for the ruling party, All Progressive Congress, APC, where Tinubu emerged as its flag bearer.

    It was no surprise to me and l guess most pundits, that the APC special convention, which is a precursor to the 2023 general elections would be in a dead heat soon after it commenced. That was already palpable on the eve of the event held at eagle square, Abuja, 6th-7th June.

    It all started with president Mohamadu Buhari’s high-wire consultations with major stakeholders of the party, ranging from members of the powerful governors’ forum, National Working Committee , NWC members to the already screened/vetted presidential candidates and northern governors elected on the party platform.

    And it is only the undiscerning that did not already figure out that beyond the jostle for the presidency of Nigeria in 2023, it was a power tussle between the very powerful governors forum on one hand,versus the legislature on the other hand with the presidency or cabal around it as biased umpire with self enlightened interest.

    And the supremacy battle had been ongoing from as far back as when the yet to be reformed electoral act 2010 was being considered for review to reflect current sociopolitical dynamics in our beloved country.

    To put things in context, it is important that we take a few steps back to 2018 when the bill was first reformed and sent to the president for assent and he declined on the ground that it was too close to 2019 general elections. At that point in time, although the senate presidency was with Bukola Saraki, the Cold War had begun, but it was subterranean. The battle of wits between the National Assembly, NASS, and governors burst into the fore and continued in 2020, before spilling over into 2021. It reached a crescendo in the first quarter of this year as the bill finally became a statute with president Buhari’s signature appended to it.

    Stunningly, each time the bill was passed by the legislature and sent to President Buhari for his signature to convert it into a new law, the governors quickly whispered their group interests (disguised as national interests) into president Buhari’s ears. Thereafter, it would appear as if he would withhold his assent and demand the addition or removal of some clauses. Then the legislators would go back to the trenches again and tweak the law in such a manner that their interests would be protected, then send it back to the president. Again the governors’ world return to corrupt the president with their own version of ‘national interest’ and the ‘undemocratic’ content of the bill would the subject of heated debates, sometimes with the general public getting involved. Take for instance the electronic transmission of election results from the polling booths to Independent Electoral Commission, INEC database/server which after public outcry against its expungement, and was restored.

    At some point, the bill had been so much bounced back and forth between the legislature and presidency about five (5) times, that it was like a yo-yo.

    And that is what inspired an article titled : Electoral Act Amendment Bill: Interrogating the Ogbanje/Abiku Element which l wrote and published on both traditional and new media platforms on December 25, 2021.

    Here is a snippet:

    “For the benefit of those not familiar with the African mythology, it is about a child born but with predestination to die each time she is birthed. So, tagging the electoral act amendment bill Ogbanje or Abiku was owed to the fact that NASS had conceived and given birth to the bill and sent it five times to President Buhari who had equally killed it by sending it back to the sender five times.”

    The criticality of a reformed electoral act to the future of democracy in Nigeria can not be overemphasized. But suffice it to say that it is the value of its reformation that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu just profited from during the just concluded APC presidential primaries.

    Because without clause 84(9 a, b, c) in the electoral act 2022, Tinubu’s on going journey to Aso Rock Villa could have been truncated on the altar of consensus even before it started, and without restraint or compunction as APC chairman Adamu’s decision in the afternoon of 6th June would have been sacrosanct.

    It is welcoming that Tinubu’s doggedness and proactiveness paid off in ensuring that all the loopholes hitherto exploited by unscrupulous politicians to impose candidates were closed ahead of time.

    We will return to how the eventual winner of APC primaries was able to sneak the iron-clad clauses into the reformed electoral act 2022.

    But first, I crave your indulgence to take a deep dive into what happened in Aso Rock Villa a week before the convention and on the D-Day at the Eagle Square, Abuja.

    Even though in a meeting with APC stalwarts (NWC members and governors), president Buhari tried to remind them that they got to their positions via consensus and drew attention of the governors to the fact that he has been looking the other way while they have been imposing their preferred candidates as successors in their respective states. But he did not, or could not push through with his demand for the acceptance of his preferred candidate, perhaps due to his ambivalence or his last minute decision to provide a level playing field for all to prove their mettle. And I suspect it is more of the latter than the former.

    It may be recalled that Mr president had in a television interview, way back in January this year stated that he had a candidate that he would like to take over from him as president in 2023. And he also stated in that same interview that he would like to keep the identity of that preferred candidate close to his chest so that the blue ‘eyed prince’ would not be eliminated-it was not clear if he meant physical or political elimination.
    Apparently, since president Buhari could not or did not sell his candidate to the stakeholders, that is probably why the task was outsourced to the ruling party chairman, Abdullahi Adamu.

    That is the reason that on day one (1) of the convention, he called a meeting with the party’s National Working Committee, NWC members, and announced the person of the senate president, Ahmad Lawan as the consensus and anointed candidate.

    That decision hit a brick wall, as it resulted in a revolt by the party executives that were in attendance. The NWC members then alerted the governors, (whom in any case, they are fronting for) since it is the governors that nominated them as their preferred candidates for the party executive positions.

    Having been alerted, the all-powerful governors swung into action and demanded a meeting with the party chairman, Adamu, who tried to avoid it as he was trying to escape having the difficult conversation with the highly powerful and incensed governors.

    But inevitably, a meeting was forcefully held, and there was a walk-out from the meeting (featuring the national chairman of the party) by northern governors who had earlier recommended to President Buhari that the presidency should shift to the south. That demand that is seemingly altruistic in motive, is actually tainted with the selfish interests of the governors.

    The selfish angle lies in the fact that if senator Ahmed Lawan, a dark horse, was to become president, then it would take a minimum of sixteen years for any of the current governors to get a chance of becoming president of Nigeria.

    Obviously, in sixteen years, most of the present crop of governors would not only have lost steam, momentum, and control of the party structure; they would have also become geriatrics and likely too infirm to mount the saddle of leadership in Aso Rock Villa by the time the presidency pendulum swings back to the north.

    That is simply because hypothetically, after Lawan’s eight (8) years presidency, willy nilly, the presidency pendulum would swing back to the south for another eight (8)years making it a total of sixteen (16) years. And northern governors could not phantom or stomach why they would be in the political wilderness or lurch for that length of time. Hence they pulled the plugs on Ahmed Lawan’s opportunity of becoming president of Nigeria which had attained an apogee level before it became a casualty of the power play between governors and legislators.

    In a nutshell, the ability and capacity of governors in cahoots with members of the NWC of APC to launch a comprehensive rejection of the consensus process proposed by the party chairman, Adamu, ostensibly at the behest of President Buhari, is a product of the safety nets embedded in electoral act 2022.

    It is amazing how a consensus option that had earlier been applied in March which is barely three months ago in recruiting the party executives, got vehemently opposed by its beneficiaries. The rebellion was unanticipated by the proponents of consensus candidacy who had, had their way the last time. Owing to the swiftness of the pushback that was akin to a firestorm , the consensus exponents had no option than to beat a hasty retreat.

    The surrender by the so-called cabal driving the consensus initiative seemed like the best option at that point in time because the internal revolt of the critical stakeholders in the party against a consensus candidate process had all the trappings of a crisis that could have exploded in the manner that it would have appeared as if implosion of the party was a fait accompli.

    It was indeed a moment of truth type of experience for APC as a party and for their leaders with the intent to impose candidates without first of all getting the buy-in of co-contestants or concerned parties.

    For those that may be wondering why governors and legislators are always trying to outwit each other in the political universe, allow me to offer you a peek into the cloak and dagger relationship between them.

    First of all, most legislators are ex-governors as the senate has become a sort of retirement home for them.
    Having been governors that controlled the political apparatus within their respective states, the senators find it difficult to yield control of the political structures in their states to their successors who are indeed entitled to be the holders of the control button by virtue of the fact they are the leaders of the parties in the respective states that they preside over.

    With governors being in that pole position, during local government and ward congresses they often monopolize the power of incumbency by ensuring that it is mainly their candidates that emerge as the chairmen of councils, councilors and party executives to the consternation of legislators who once wielded such powers.

    It is such face-offs between the legislators and governors at the sub-national and grassroots levels that later snowball into crisis that emerge at the center as storms and which thereafter would evolve into the type of political war that has just been lost and won during the party primaries, from the state house of assembly, house of representatives, gubernatorial , senate and presidency stages for both the APC and PDP.

    Although it was less fractious, PDP also experienced the governors’ and legislators’ supremacy battle during its primaries as revealed by governor Nyesom Wike who has been lamenting how the governors who had formed an alliance to push one of their own and particularly, a southerner got betrayed by some of them that worked against the team spirit. Little wonder that long after the end of the exercise held nearly two weeks ago, PDP is still busy mending fences.

    Such patching up of torn fabric of the party is critical to enable it forge ahead with a common front to engage the opponents in the general elections.And l urge the stakeholders to do same at states and local government levels to enable them go into the general elections in unity.

    But after the initial scare that APC was about to be unhinged and get disintegrated during its presidential primaries, the ruling party once again pulled through, particularly as the ambition of the winner, Bola Tinubu blended with the interest of the northern governors. It is that synergistic force that enabled both to fend off the onslaught from a combination of the so called cabal and the legislature, presumably tele-guided by the presidency and prosecuted by party chairman, Adamu.

    The forgoing is a short narrative of how the ruling party, APC once again wobbled and fumbled its way through another difficult exercise in picking its presidential candidate in the manner that it had under similar challenges elected its party executives via consensus process earlier in March.

    At this juncture, it merits underscoring the fact that during the party convention where the NWC was picked, the eventual winner of the primaries, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was checkmated as the consensus option was applied. But during the special convention to elect the presidential candidate, the game changed, largely due to Tinubu’s political savviness reflected by the brinksmanship deployed in one breath, and rough and the gruff approach applied , in another breath. That perhaps validates the ex-Lagos state governor’s reputation as one of the greatest political tacticians of our time as evidenced by the fact that it was he who midwifed the birth of the APC resulting in the first of defeat of an incumbent president for the first time in the annals of Nigeria, if not Africa. And he has also been able to continue to dictate and have a leash on who becomes governor of lagos state since 1999 when he first served as the governor till date.

    To be clear, things did not pan out in favor of APC’s national leader, Tinubu only due to the selfish interest of northern governors who are waiting in the wings to contest for the office of the president in the next election circle in 8 years, as opposed to waiting for 16 years, if consensus option had been adopted and Lawan became president.

    But Tinubu’s Presidential quest gelled or overlapped with the governor’s motive as it also enabled them to present their push for the return of the presidency to the south coated with the veneer of equity, fairness, justice and for the sustenance of national unity which made them look like saints and statesmen.

    An equally significant and final arbiter is the clause 84(9 a, b, c) of the electoral act 22 which makes it compulsory for all the contestants to consent to a consensus process before it can be legitimately applied. Otherwise it would be a nullity. That is what tied the hands of those who wanted to literally do Tinubu in, the second time by attempting to adopt the consensus process in the primaries, where a candidate would have been imposed irrespective of the popularity of Tinubu, the eventual winner.

    Remarkably, that significant and critical clause was a last-minute addition to the electoral act 2022 by the House of Representatives reportedly with the speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila’s sleight of hand. And it was done after President Buhari refused to assent to the initial bill which had only direct primaries option and he was insisting on adding indirect and consensus options to party primaries process to give it a more democratic outlook of freedom of choice .

    As the lower parliament was doing that to satisfy the president’s precondition to signing off on the bill, it also had the foresight to insert the clause which would metaphorically enable those who were loathsome of the consensus option, to take back with the left hand, what they had given with the right hand.
    It might interest readers to know that it is due to the fear of the abuse of the consensus option by leaders that it was originally not included in the electoral act 2022. And as anticipated and feared, that less democratic consensus option could have been activated, if the game-changing clause 84(9 a. b. c) had not been cleverly inserted.
    Back to matters arising from the APC convention and how Tinubu emerged as the flag bearer.

    The main highlight is that in the course of the night on day two (2), a whopping seven (7) gentlemen and women who had purchased the nomination forms, submitted same to the party , and passed through all the rigorous processes stepped down for the eventual winner, Tinubu.

    These are senator Godswill Akpabio, Dr Kayode Fayemi, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, Senator Ajayi Boroffice, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, and Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa, and Mrs. Uju Ohanenye. The gentlemen and lady that purchased APC presidential nomination forms at a whooping N100m each, gave up their ambition for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose life ambition by his own admission is to rule Nigeria.

    That is unprecedented.

    And it is not out of order to wonder if there is an undertaking by the beneficiary to refund their N100m apiece plus the cost of their electioneering campaigns before they gave up their ambitions. But that is a subject of discussion another day.

    More striking and more relevant to the issue of loyalty is the fact that most of the seven (7) candidates who stepped down for Tinubu, except Akpabio, Badaru, and Ohanenye are Yorubas.

    It is evidence of the oft-vaunted Yoruba ‘Parapo’ (translated as Yoruba solidarity).
    It should be noted that as evidence of its Republicanism , the lgbos could not consolidate their votes for a particular aspirant as the Yorubas have done.

    And contrary to the apparent perception that the ex Lagos state governor’s influence in Yoruba land had waned as his erstwhile foot soldiers-Yemi Osinbajo, Babatunde Fashola, Rauf Aregbesola, Ibikunle Amosun etal -were believed to have carved out their own political fiefdoms in Yoruba land, as such Tinubu’s sphere of influence had been whittled, proved to be unfounded.

    That is because going by the positive outcome of the APC primaries for Tinubu, he has by all standards of measure waxed stronger in stature and influence even far beyond Yoruba land to the heartland of Hausa/Fulani in Kebbi state and lbibio enclave in Akwa lbom state which are far flung places from where some of the aspirants that stepped down for him,hail .

    So, effectively, while the dream of Tinubu, ex governor of Lagos state to rule Nigeria has grown wings, the dream of 22 others who obtained the APC expression of interest and nomination forms to become president of Nigerians in 2023 and pursued it to the end,died that fateful night of Tuesday, June 7, 2022.
    One remarkable and unique aspect of the exercise is that the names of the states of the delegates were not affixed on the ballot boxes. Instead, they were assigned numerical numbers. That way the candidates were unable to tell the states of the delegates that voted for or did not vote for them. Otherwise, those that lost out might have been able to determine the states that didn’t vote for them and perhaps demand that the delegates from such states that collected financial inducements from them, but failed to keep to their promise, must make a refund of the inducement.

    The dust is yet to settle on how some disappointed aspirants had to resort to the use of thugs (since the transaction is illegal) to enforce the refund of the monetary inducements offered to delegates during other party primaries held earlier.

    Video footages depicting such rather outrageous and obscene events have been trending in the social media space in this season of politics.

    Does anyone remember the infamous police mantra : “If you don’t like the police, call a thug”?

    Indeed, Nigerians appear to have heeded the message in that slogan by resorting to engaging thugs to help them resolve matters that used to be in the purview of the police force. Who could have thought that such proposition of abnormality and absurdity would become a reality in 21st-century Nigeria?

    Nothing demonstrates the bizarre truism that our country has descended into chaotic levels of Wild, Wild, West of the hue that was experienced during the gold rush in the 17th century in 1912 in the USA, than the resort to the use of outlaws/bandits for debt collection by political actors.

    With the counting of the votes done and dusted in the early hours of Wednesday, June 8, an autopsy of the dead ambitions of APC politicians is in order.

    Before then, it is proper that we also reflect on what transpired during the party primaries for recruiting the presidential candidate of the main opposition party, PDP, that was held and concluded since 28-29 May.

    As has been widely reported, Turaki Atiku Abubakar, a veteran of several presidential elections, that has chalked up about five (5) attempts at becoming president of Nigeria in the past thirty (30) years or so, has won the PDP presidential primary contest fair and square.

    He has since been congratulated by his very formidable co-contestants, particularly Nyesom Wike, governor of rivers state and Bukola Saraki, former senate president who are the first and second runners-up.

    Like his counterpart in the APC, Tinubu, whenever Abubakar had the opportunity to contest elections fairly and openly, he always prevailed. Even when the north set up a process to produce a consensus candidate to square up against then president Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, Atiku Abubakar prevailed over the others including ex-finance minister, Adamu Ciroma of blessed memory and former head of state Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, amongst others.

    The only occasions that Abubakar who is a political maverick failed to win , there were conspiracies to hobble him.

    Be it when former president Olusegun Obasanjo whom he served under as Vice President in 2007, applied both overt and covert means to scuttle his presidential ambition , to when president Buhari was declared the winner of his 2019 re-election bid and which Abubakar believes that he won.

    In light of the intimidating political pedigrees of both the APC and PDP presidential candidates, 2023 presidential election promises to be a Battle Royal, and this is even more so with the Peter Obi driven youth revolution in politics that promises to significantly increase the numbers of voters turn out as he is about to convert youth bulge into a voting machine and reason that bookmakers are already placing high bets.

    Again, to put things in perspective, it is proper to cast our minds back to the onset of the jostle for the presidency of Nigeria when over 40 political actors threw their hats into the ring.

    That is specifically 17 from the PDP stable and more or less 29 from the APC platform bought the expression of interest and nomination forms. For the APC, while about 29 indicated interest, 25 aspirants returned the forms, and 23 made it past the screening stage. Although only 14 were given the final go-ahead after the screening and pruning down processes, 22 of them pitched themselves to the delegates on the night of Tuesday, June 7, 2022 with one of them, Emeka Nwajuiba absenting himself based on principle and dissatisfaction with the party for not toeing the path of a consensus candidate as allegedly agreed.

    Below is a list of APC presidential aspirants who completed the race and their scores at a glance:

    Pastor Tunde Bakare – 0,
    Hon Emeka Nwajiuba – 1,
    Gov. Dave Umahi – 38,
    Senator Ahmed Sani – 4,
    Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi – 316,
    Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu – 1,Gov. Yahaya Bello – 47,
    Senator Rochas Okorocha – 0,
    Prof. Yemi Osinbajo – 235,
    Senator Ahmad Lawan – 152,
    Gov. Ben Ayade – 37,
    Tein Jack Rich – 0,
    Chief Ikeobasi Nwaokelu – 0,
    Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu – 1271

    The list of presidential aspirants of the PDP who stayed in the game till the end is also detailed below:

    The winner of the contest, former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar- 371 votes,
    Governor of Rivers state Nyesom Wike 237 votes,
    Former Senate President, Bukola Saraki-70 votes
    Akwa Ibom State Governor, Emmanuel Udom -38 votes,
    Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed -20 votes
    Former Senate President/SSG, Pius Anyim- 14 votes,
    Pharmacist, Sam Ohabunwa – 1 vote,
    only Female aspirant, Olivia Tariela – 1 vote,
    Media entrepreneur,Dele Momodu -0,
    Former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose -0,
    Lawyer, Charles Okwudili – 0.

    Aminu Tambuwal,Sokoto state governor stepped down for Atiku Abubakar in the manner that seven (7) aspirants also stepped down for APC’s flag bearer, Tinubu.

    Of course, the PDP presidential primary election was less tumultuous compared to the APC’s which was filled with tension.

    Conscious of limited space and time, l will only do a post-mortem on the dead ambition of the top three (3) highest scoring aspirants for the office of the president of Nigeria from both the APC and PDP.

    Having profiled Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar both of who are the winners of their respective parties’ primaries and who are currently preparing for the general elections on February 25 that promises to be a clash of the titans, allow me focus on Rotimi Amaechi, who is the next highest scorer after Tinubu followed by Yemi Osinbajo in the APC stable.

    That will dovetail into a cursory look at Nyesom Wike, then Bukola Saraki who respectively scored the second and third highest votes on the PDP platform.

    So much has already been written and said about Amaechi who some have even labeled a betrayer for pandering towards the north to the detriment of his southern kit and kins. He may be particularly hurting because apart from being a two time director-general of Buhari’s campaign organization, he made strident efforts to court the north. He even became a titled chief in Daura, Katsina state, president Buhari’s homestead. All in the bid to be accepted as one of them.

    l guess Amaechi was counting on a sort of quid pro quo from president Buhari by perhaps assuming that he was the mystical preferred candidate that Mr president alluded to in that famous January television interview. But he spectacularly lost to the man that his admirers refer to as the Jagaban , Bola Ahmed Tinubu by a very wide margin of votes.

    As for Vice President Osinbajo whose pretty best was to garner the third highest votes, it had long been settled in my mind that he was not going to become president of Nigeria in 2023 as his friends who failed to conduct a thorough research that could have enabled them offer him sound advise against the misadventure, would have loved.
    Perhaps, what gave him the Dutch courage is that he also nursed the erroneous impression that he is the preferred candidate that president Buhari had penciled down as his successor or because he is just a heart bit away, and he thought he would simply be coronated in a similar easy manner that he attained Vice Presidentship.

    I was emphatic about the impossibility of his scaling up from no 2 to 1, due to the odds stacked against him as highlighted in my article titled: Becoming President Of Nigeria, 2023 And It’s Surprises that was published on both traditional and online media platforms on 17 May , 2022. An excerpt is reproduced below:
    “Having analyzed the chances of most of the other serious aspirants, folks may be wondering why l am not reckoning with the interest being expressed by the current Vice President, Yemi osinbajo to step into the shoes of his boss, President Buhari.

    While I recognize his right to aspire to become president of Nigeria in 2023 which is only a step away from his president position, it must be recognized that there is a limit to which happenstance can carry a man. And my pragmatic prognosis which those in Osinbajo’s camp may deem as pessimistic and an affront is not meant to eviscerate him as it is derived from both trend analysis and reality check.

    With respect to historical trend analysis, Nigerian leaders, (be they presidents or governors) are hardly keen on passing on batons of political power to their deputies.

    Perhaps, it has to do with the reality that the second- in-command position (which is what a Vice President or deputy governor really is) often is deliberately and diligently selected from a pool of the politically weak. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo at the presidency level and Ex-lagos state governor, Bola Tinubu, at the governorship stage are the franchisers of that formula after learning the hard way that their deputies were more politically sagacious than them. Since, as the saying goes: ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, a counter-strategy was formulated as an antidote.

    As it has been efficacious, it is unsurprising that it is now a sort of holy grail for presidents and governors alike.”

    After his colossal loss of the contest to his former boss and the man who drafted him into politics , Osinbajo will also bear the indelible scar of being tagged a betrayer for the rest of his life.

    With respect to the losers in PDP, While Rivers state governor, Wike is loved in the south for standing up for southern interests while engaging with his northern counterparts, he is despised in the north for his perceived aggression against them. He is known to complain about northern hegemony and even went to court to seek resolution on whether north is entitled to value added tax money generated from the sale of alcohol and other items forbidden in the north owing to their Islamic faith. Such aggressiveness is being counted against him.

    But make no mistake about it, Wike is loved at home and around the south-south side of our vast country.
    As for Bukola Saraki, the scion of senator ,Olusola Saraki of blessed memory, (himself a veteran of many battles) , he has always proven that he is a true son of his father.

    That is evidenced in his triumphing in the multiple battles that he has engaged in throughout his checkered political career which spans when he first got appointed as an aid to president Obasanjo in 1999 to becoming two terms governor of Kwara state and eventually a senator, then president of the senate before eying the presidency in 2019 of which he lost to Turaki Atiku Abubakar, during primaries, to whom he has succumbed to , a second time in the primaries held last month end.

    In my reckoning , these monumental disappointments are severe enough to traumatize these political actors profiled above. If not them directly, their family members such as their offsprings and wives who are often drawn into the political arena .

    But because some politicians are thick-skinned,nothing fazes them. Hence the key participants in the last party primaries appear unperturbed as they have been getting on with their daily chores as if they were triumphant in their last endeavors that went awry.

    Now, the uncanny challenges on the path to presidency for both APC and PDP have been narrowed down to the choice of Vice President candidates for the duo of Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu who are the presidential candidates of both parties respectively.

    And the odds are against both of them because of the reduction of the pie to just two when it can be multiple pies out on the table for equitable sharing .
    Here is the deal:

    Apart from the office of the president and Vice President, how about senate president, speaker of the House of Representatives and deputy senate president and deputy speaker , secretary to the government of the federation, Chief Justice of the federation, which are equally significant offices that can be put on the table from the get-go for assignment to the various ethnic and religous interest groups that are jostling to be included in the leadership of government. It is critical in order to create a balance or semblance of inclusiveness in the equation or calculus of who gets what in the comity of multiple ethnic nationalities and faiths.It is important that all significant offices are added to the package upfront so that there would be assurance to all the ethnic and religious groups that there is enough political offices to spread equitably across board in order to give all partners in the union a sense of belonging.

    As a trained negotiator, l learnt that the hallmark of a satisfactory agreement is the creation of multiple options that would be laid on the table so that there would be a variety of choices for all the parties in the negotiation. Frankly, limiting the sharing of offices to only president and the Vice President positions is too constricting and myopic, in my view.

    It echoes zero-sum instead of multi-sum political outcomes as l had posited in my last media intervention of last Tuesday 6th June 2023 titled: Would The Result of 2023 Election Return Nigeria To Multi-Sum Politics?

    We must demonstrate and convince Nigerians that even if Atiku Abubakar does not choose an lgbo Vice Presidential candidate, it does not amount to an end of the road for the lgbo nation in the political power equation . In like manner, Christians and Muslims must be assured that Bola Tinubu who is not a northerner, but a Muslim and May or May not be picking a northern Christian as running mate or pairing with a Muslim as Vice President. And even if he takes any of those options, it would not do grievous harm to adherents of both faiths as they too would be duly offered other options .

    Without the aforementioned assurances, the already brittle and sensitive religious and ethnic fault lines currently in tenterhooks may snap such that things may go haywire as Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, leaders have been admonishing the presidential candidates of both the ruling and opposition parties to be sensitive to those sensibilities and sentiments .

    Finally, it is about time that our political leaders started thinking out of the box,as opposed to doing things in the same old fashion ways that have imperiled our beloved country, instead of putting her on the much sought trajectory of growth thereby saving her from stagnation or tipping over.

    Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from Lagos

  • Delta State Next Governor, Commitments And Betrayals – By Magnus Onyibe

    Delta State Next Governor, Commitments And Betrayals – By Magnus Onyibe

    As politicians ramp up activities towards the materialization of the yielding of political power to a new crop of leaders through a toss up of the baton currently being held by APC as the ruling party at the centre, adherence to commitments made by political actors and betrayals of the trust arising from the promises made at the commencement of the political season presently in its twilight zone are the highest trending events fouling the political atmosphere.

    Whereas the scenario described above is a national malaise, it is particularly so and more pronounced in delta state which by its very nature, is a microcosm of Nigeria. The tagging of the state as mini Nigeria is derived from the fact that delta state is comprised of a multiplicity of ethnic groups in the manner that our country is peopled by over 250 tribes and tongues.

    Unlike the situation at the national level where presidency rotation agreement between the north and south introduced and implemented since 1999 is on the verge of being jettisoned,rotation of governorship position between the three senatorial districts of central , south and north of delta state has remained sacrosanct.

    But there is a snag. And it is that the standing political agreement introduced by the 1999 political class ,(also known as lbori political family) lead by chief James Onanefe lbori , governor of the state , (1999-2007) is beset with what l would like to term political chicanery.

    I will dwell more on that unfortunate situation shortly. But in the interim, it is apropos that l apprise readers of the back story behind the rotation of governorship position between the three political zones of delta state.

    Even when majority carries the vote is the mantra and indeed the fulcrum of democracy , chief lbori as the pioneer governor of the state when multi party democracy returned to our country in 1999, undoubtedly demonstrated a true spirit of statesmanship by adopting the concept of rotation of governorship power between the three senatorial zones in the state.

    Ideally , the Urhobos who are the largest ethnic group in the state could have continued to produce the governor in perpetuity by leveraging its dominant population size.

    But it is the lbori driven concept of plurality of political power characterized by a sort of revolving door leadership style that has facilitated the governorship of the state between and around the three zones that has neutralized the tension that perhaps might have escalated into ethnic conflicts that could have degenerated into severe crises as witnessed in other states.

    Allowing discontentment amongst members of the marginalized zones to fester in a state that is already a tinderbox of sorts could have had disastrous consequences.

    Therefore, the initiative of rotating the governorship position in a power sharing equation promoted by Ibori in 1999 that has been sustained till date, is quite noble.

    It is useful pointing out that a situation whereby the majority tribe is dominating in governance by always producing the governor of the state persists in River state. And it is reflected in the political arrangement whereby the so called ‘Upland People‘ have been monopolizing the governorship to the consternation of the ‘Riverine People’ does not augur well for harmonious co-existence. Hence, the Riverine people of the state have been vociferous in their denunciation of the prevailing jeopardy that they have been contending with. Now, the unsavory challenge in Rivers state could have been replicated in Delta state.

    But thanks to lbori, such a tension point has been absent since 1999 in the state.

    The Rivers state experience is not different from the atmosphere in Benue state where the Tiv ethnic group which is the majority tribe has been the source of the governor of the state since 1999 till date. The ldoma ethnic group that is the second largest in Benue state, has only been allowed the opportunity of having their son take the number two position as deputy governor. And they have been doing so grudgingly.

    The governorship circumstances outlined above are the political environment that abound in other states nationwide.

    It is worth recalling that the governorship pendulum started swinging from delta central with chief James lbori as governor to delta south in 2007 with Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan becoming governor. Incidentally , there was contention for the governorship position by senator James manager, the pioneer chairman of the party in 1999 who is of ijaw ethnic stock and which together with itsekiris and lsokos , make up delta south senatorial zone. But following a dexterous management of the situation by chief lbori via political horse trading, a damning schism was averted.

    In like manner , in 2015, another conflict ensued between governor Uduaghan and then commissioner for health , lfeanyi Okowa when the governorship mantle was due to be shifted from the south to north.

    Again, governor lbori intervened and along with other stake holders ensured that the throne was mounted by the incumbent governor, senator Ifeanyi Okowa. As the governorship rotation is coming to a full circle, having started from central , been anchored in the south and north zones and now about to return to where rotation commenced, the contest for the governorship of the state has been tossed up once again.

    Going by the construct of the rotation calculus ,the candidate that would be supported to emerge from delta central zone that the governorship pendulum is about to swing, is usually known ahead of time,based on prior understanding by the leadership of the party.

    Thus, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan who took over from chief lbori was known ahead of time , even though other aspirants like senator James manager made a bid for it and then chief Ifeanyi Okowa , another stake holder also contested against him.

    A similar situation arose in 2015 when Dr Uduaghan who was via a similar pre arrangement supposed to pass the baton to the next governor from the zone whose turn it is to produce the next governor. He initially demurred, leading to a major spat of which lbori political forces prevailed and Okowa mounted the throne.

    As is typical of political games , the nasty battle that had ensured involved several stake holders including olorogun David Edevbie, pioneer member of the class of 1999 (lbori political family) and ex commissioner for finance 1999-2006, as well as ex principal private secretary to ex president Umaru Yar’adua of blessed memory, who contested for the office of governor against the incumbent.

    In the manner that Uduaghan and Okowa Slugged it out in 2007 and the latter , Okowa became the secretary to state government (2007 2011) even as the , former, Uduaghan assumed the governorship position , Edevbie has also served as commissioner for finance and later as chief of staff under governor Okowa’s watch.

    Following that established pattern of governorship position succession ,which is based on gentleman agreement, Edevbie is supposed to be the candidate with the backing of the political class of 1999, of which all the three governors, lbori (1999-2007) Uduaghan (2007-2015) and Okowa (2015 till date belong and which governor Okowa has recently referred to as a lbori political family.

    As things currently stand, something is fundamentally amiss within the 1999 political class, because the governorship calculus has gone askew. And in Delta state political space hitherto known for its political tranquility and a national role model for its equitable power sharing matrix, there is a sort of bedlam which has been escalated by the cacophony of voices that are conjuring the biblical narrative of Tower of Babel.

    With the governorship succession structure unhinged in delta state, which is the reality that we all must accept in this 11th hour , would the continued dominance of political leadership in the state since 1999 by the PDP not be in jeopardy as the motley crowd of contenders and their backers fight dirty?

    The incumbent governor of delta state, that prides itself as ‘The Big Heart’ senator lfeanyi Okowa has, in trying to allay the palpable fears of party stakeholders and faithfuls, declared that there is no crisis in lbori political family. Given the commitments in 2015 and betrayals of trust currently polluting the political atmosphere, can the governors assurances be worthy of its weight or taken with a pinch of salt?

    Another nagging question is: if indeed the ongoing shenanigans are part of playing politics as governor Okowa had assured party faithfuls, (who have been in quandary as to what is really going on) is it not politricks that has been dubiously unfurled? One more question that deserve to be answered urgently is: after the horse trading that have actually taken a massive toll, having degenerated into a political blood letting exercise with consequential casualties , would PDP still be robust and sturdy enough to sustain its control of political leadership in delta state?

    Those are the critical questions that delegates must ponder as they prepare to cast their votes for the best man for the job of next governor of Delta state in 2023 of which the profile of David Edevbie fits perfectly.

    And he is not being smug about it hence he is working assiduously to earn the votes of delegates.

     

    Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst ,author, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from lagos.

    To continue with this conversation, please visit www.magnum.ng

  • Becoming President of Nigeria in 2023, and its surprises – By Magnus Onyibe

    Becoming President of Nigeria in 2023, and its surprises – By Magnus Onyibe

    As a development strategist, I like to indulge in scenario building. And against the current run of play in the highly fluid Nigerian political atmosphere awash with candidates in excess of 40 aiming at becoming president of Nigeria in 2023, the surprise scenario that l have imagined is:

    Atiku Abubakar or Bukola Saraki paring with an Igbo man as a vice-presidential candidate. Let us say someone like Anyim Pius Anyim, ex senate president and secretary to the government of the federation or Peter Obi, ex-governor of Anambra state and even Nyesom Wike as well as Udom Emmanuel of Rivers and Akwa Ibom States respectively.

    That is with respect to the PDP stable.

    From the APC flank, Godwin Emefiele, (current Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN governor) or Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transport can turn out to be the running mate to a presidential candidate from the north who would be a dark horse. Gauging the mood of the APC leadership,particularly the body language of its Chairman, Abdulahi Adamu and National Assembly members, senator Ahmad Lawan, the current senate president readily comes to mind as the likely person that would emerge as a wild card after the hurly-burly expected during the much-anticipated party primaries scheduled for this month end is over.

    Before, anyone makes the decision to start ‘beating up on me’ literarily, let us keep in mind that, it is not me, but the leaders of both the main opposition political party, PDP, lyorcha Ayu (in concert with the 37 wisemen) and APC’s Abdulahi Adamu, who irrespective of the mood of the nation which originally is to give the Igbos a chance to be president of Nigeria, that decided to throw the 2023 presidential contest open to both northern and southern aspirants.

    Intriguingly, the dramatic swing from the dominant sentiments of conceding the presidency in 2023 to the Igbos, to the current mood of throwing it open to all nationalities, actually happened only in the past couple of weeks.

    And the sea change validates, the observation by Harold Wilson, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, UK, that one week is a long time in politics.

    Although baffling, there are several conspiracy theories for the impending paradigm shift from the presidency rotating from the north to the south to throwing it open. And the most prominent is that if the main opposition party, PDP presents a northern candidate as it is likely to do, the ruling party, APC would be doomed not to win the presidential contest, if it does not also present a northern candidate.

    That narrative is simply predicated on the prevailing notion that the average northern voter (the biggest voting block) would always vote for a northerner against any southern candidate presented, irrespective of the political platform . And it simply confirms the concept of a monolithic northern Nigeria. Assuming that is truly the case, then it validates the belief that there still exists a voting bias of northerners for only northern candidates, no matter the party that the candidate is flying their flag . And the import of that is that after over six (6) decades of independence from colonial rule and more than a millennium post amalgamation of southern and northern protectorates of the British empire, disunity persists like the sword of Damocles hanging over Nigeria and disharmony has remained like an albatross.

    That is in spite of the mantra of one time Nigerian ruling party, National Party of Nigerians, NPN “one nation, one destiny” and a stanza in the old national anthem “though tribe and tongue may differ, in unity we stand.” lt is appalling that both referenced ideals have remained a mirage.

    And equally disturbing is that our beloved country has rather than improve on its multi-ethnic relationships for harmonious co-existence of the estimated 250 tribes and tongues that make up the union,the situation has calamitously degenerated with ethnic and religious divide expanding from a mere crack about a decade ago, into a huge gulf. This is evidenced by the voting patterns in the north fueling the decision to jettison rotation of presidency principle for emphasis on how best to position the party to win elections.

    And the abysmally low level of education in the north particularly amongst the female that is worsened by the current religious Insurgency which has seen about 18 million Nigerian school children (mainly in the north) out of school, according to a survey conducted by UNICEF, is a culprit for the anomaly of northern voters casting their votes only for a presidential candidate of northern origin.
    The conventional wisdom, “educate a woman , educate a nation…” rings true here.
    It is trite to state that the low level of Western education of the masses in the north is largely responsible for the herd mentality or lack of voting independence of our northern brothers/sisters, who only vote for northern candidates and which is the reason being advanced as justification for both the APC and PDP intention to feature northerners as their presidential candidates. And without taking into cognizance the feelings of other ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria, a highly destructive crisis of monumental proportions could be in the horizon. That is simply because some of our conscienceless politicians seem about to move our beloved country from frying pan to fire by jettisoning rotation of presidency principle which is a lesser evil.

    By now it should be clear to all that not narrowing the 2023 Presidential contest to a political zone, (particularly the south) as has been the practice in the past , and in tune with the spirit and letter of rotation of presidency principle, (practiced since the return of multi-party democracy in 1999) is the culprit for the present mad rush by every Tom, Dick and Harry to join the presidential race.

    Were the presidency to have been zoned to the south and perhaps to Igbos in particular, as had been envisaged and anticipated, the fleet of swans from the northern axis of our country currently strutting the presidential runway, would have at this stage been like spectators waiting in the wings to impress whoever emerges from the south as Presidential candidates of the two main parties with a view to becoming their running mates as was the case for the Yorubas in 1999 when Olusegun Obasanjo emerged as president and for the Hausa/Fulani in 2019 with president Buhari being re-elected.
    In compliance or in tandem
    with the rotation calculus , the north and south east in 1999 stood down their interest in the presidency and allowed Olusegun Obasanjo and Olu Falae to become the exclusive presidential candidates of the two main political parties.
    And a similar gesture was extended to our northern brothers and sisters in 2019 when both the APC and PDP presidential candidates were president Mohammadu Buhari and ex Vice President,Atiku Abubakar.
    Contrarily,in the run up to 2023 general elections , the door into Aso Rock Villa that could have been opened exclusively for the lgbos, has been left ajar to welcome any and all that care to throw their hats into the ring.

    Hence, rather than being a contest exclusive to the lgbos , at best , and the south ,at least,the presidential election in 2023 is currently a national binge.

    With aspirants numbering over 40, and the primaries scheduled to hold this month end, the contest for the presidency in 2023 is practically on the wire.
    And it seems to me that the motivating factor for the motley crowd can be captured in a popular colloquial parlance ‘monkey see, monkey do’ ; agam ni ibe aga’ in Igbo dialect and ‘mo gbo, mo ya’ in Yoruba dialect as well as ‘Yen abi yerima a sha kida’ with a similar meaning in Hausa dialect.

    Aside from the WaZoBia elements in the jostle for the presidency, not even the hefty expression of interest and nomination fees of a hundred (N100) million naira demanded by the ruling party, APC, or the N40m for the main opposition party, PDP has discouraged or deterred monied politicians and deep-pocketed businesses men and women alike from joining in the jamboree of which becoming president of Nigeria in 2023 has descended .

    It also has not helped that president Mohammadu Buhari in a recent television interview stated that he was keeping to his heart, the preferred candidate that he would like to hand over the keys to Aso Rock Villa, as the next occupant.

    What that presidential pronouncement has done, is throw the whole gamut of political actors and even nonpoliticians into a frenzy.

    Hence it is not surprising to me that becoming president of Nigeria in 2023, has assumed the dimension of a bazaar whereby Nigerians of all characters- including those challenged intellectually, morally and integrity wise are now staking their claim to becoming the next president of Nigeria which has practically debased the exalted office of president of Nigeria.

    One can bet that more than ever, most of the politicians and indeed most Nigerians with deep pockets who covet political power must be consulting prophets and marabouts who would be telling them that they are the anointed candidate that president Buhari was alluding to in the most recent ,rare and now famous television interview.

    So, in this period of rising irrationality being exhibited by the demagogues, even as our president is keeping to his chest, who becomes president of Nigeria in 2023 like a JOKER in a game of cards, some governors are also attributing their choice of a successor to God, which is somehow blasphemous.

    In light of the above, it is not unexpected that all shades of characters would show up to participate in what can best be described as the epic auctioning of the Nigerian presidency to the highest bidder.

    Auctioning, not just in terms of money, but also in the sense of the ability, capacity, and who is better positioned to win the presidency between candidates from the two major political parties and with ethnic origins from the north or south as the major deciding factors, not equity and fairness that were previously the drivers of the rotation of presidency calculus. It is incredible how the rotation agreement that has hitherto balanced the precarious multi ethnic composition of our country is being stepped down, while prioritizing the ability and capacity to win the presidency in 2023. My fear is that the road to nationhood which has been topsy turvy over 62 years after independence may become more turbulent, if our leaders take the short term view pf neglecting the long term of power rotation that has so far been an efficacious panacea to the existential fear of disharmony.
    Although rotation of presidency is an imperfect solution provided by our forbears, by now ,we are supposed to have improved upon it by restructuring our political system via devolution of power from the center to the states and creation of state police to tackle insecurity.

    Remarkably, the PDP and APC which have been playing alternating roles as ruling and main opposition parties in the leadership of our great country since 1999 till date, appear ready to engage in a another tug of war to outwit each other for the hearts and souls of Nigerians, hence two northerners may be fielded to become president of Nigeria in 2023.

    The observation above is derived from the fact that both parties have been equivocating and prevaricating about the zoning of the presidency or throwing it open, and a process that has made becoming president of Nigeria in 2023, a very risky gamble as never witnessed before.

    It is striking that,not until President Muhammadu Buhari last Wednesday 11 May held a valedictory session for ten (10) of the 28 members of his cabinet and party who had initially signified interest in becoming president of Nigeria, did a few of them chicken out of the race before the Monday 16 May deadline expired.

    Hopefully, before the May 23, exercise of screening the candidates, preceding the May 30-31 and June 1 scheduled for the conduct of the primaries for the ruling party, APC, and the May 28-29 date for the PDP primaries, many more would have chickened out.

    The pulling out from the race by some of the presidential candidates when the threat of retaining their current jobs became the opportunity cost, simply indicates that most of those who had thrown their hats into the ring for the presidential contest, for lack of a better term, are as Americans would say, ‘wannabe’.

    It also implies that most of those that pretended to be intending to become the first citizen of our country actually had no plans to really become president of Nigeria.

    But they only jumped into the fray due to the band wagon effect engendered by the fact that it is not zoned and the expectations of miracles to happen such that they may be the president Buhari anointed candidate . It is also significant to note that they may also be aiming to settle for some consolatory prizes like ministerial appointments or chairmanship positions on lucrative boards of corporations belonging to government.

    That is coupled with the fact of being in the exclusive club of those who doled out N100m and N40m for the acquisition of both APC and PDP, could also enable the so-called presidential aspirants have national name recognition to position them for future presidential contests and even the opportunity of strategic positioning as future gubernatorial candidates.

    By and large ,most of the presidential aspirants were only engaged in what can best be described as a ‘joy ride’.

    The chaotic situation particularly applies to the politicians from the ruling party at the center, APC whose members angling to replace President Muhammadu Buhari as the commander in chief of the armed forces of Nigeria and the prime occupant of Aso Rock Villa, (the seat of presidential power) in 2023, have presently been pruned to less than 25 in number.

    The assertion above is validated by the fact that labour minister, Chris Ngige, for instance, apparently had no plans to really contest for the exalted office. But he only joined the bonanza for the fun of it. Hence he withdrew his candidacy after president Buhari issued an ultimatum for public officials keen on contesting for public office to resign, latest on Monday, May 16.

    Before him, senator Orji Uzor Kalu who is the Senate minority whip and governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi state had also dropped out of the presidential race. Paulin Tallen, Minister of women affairs has also rescinded her decision to quit the cabinet in order to contest for a senatorial seat in plateau state , just as petroleum minister Timipre Silva is also said to have shelved his initial plan to seek election into the office of the president of Nigeria.

    In the list of those that have stepped down their ambition both as governorship and presidential contenders are also attorney general, and minister of justice,Abubakar Malami, who was gunning for the governorship of Kebbi state, as well as Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele, (Governor of the CBN) who was rumored to have been angling to become president of Nigeria.

    But Emefiele was sending mixed messages by pussy footing until the recent revelation that he did not fill out or return the expression of interest and nomination forms purportedly procured for him by farmers who are enamored by his interventions in the agricultural sector, especially rice farmers who aver that their lives have been impacted positively by Emefiele.

    Meanwhile, were the CBN governor, Emefiele to have pursued his rumored ambition to its logical conclusion, he would have been mirroring or mimicking Mario Dragi, the current prime minister of Italy who had previously served as president of the European Central Bank.

    In any case, dropping out of critical political races is not peculiar to Nigeria. It may be recalled that in the UK, Chuka Umunna, a Nigerian born parliamentarian had opted out of the race of being the leader of the labor party when the lot had more or less fallen on his lap, following Labour Party’s defeat in a critical UK election and the resignation of Ed Miliband as leader. Umunna was identified as one of the potential candidates to take over as new leader of the party.

    But he demurred in the 11th hour, citing family issues.

    Beyond extraordinary political circumstances for withdrawing interest in political contests, there is another angle to the apparent all-comers affairs that the 2023 presidential contest has become .

    And it is that the latter-day ‘wannabe’ presidential aspirants are spoilers, pure and simple. That point of view is predicated on the belief that those that fall into that category are the crop of aspirants that are just craving the title: ex-presidential candidate.

    Indeed , their real desire is the prefix to be attached to their names like the traditional title of a chief or an academic with a doctoral degree or a medical doctor. In other words, they are only interested in the title of ‘ex-presidential candidate’ for the sake of it.

    So , if it takes N100m to obtain, or more appropriately procure the title, (in the case of those aspiring under the APC platform) so be it. Likewise for the presidential aspirants (leveraging the PDP forum) who are doling out N40m for nomination and expression of interest forms.

    After all, as we are well aware, some Nigerians spend similar huge sums of money acquiring chieftaincy titles.
    So what the heck!

    It should also not be lost on us that for the academically inclined, the school fees for a Doctor of Philosophy, Ph.D. degree from an Ivy League university such as Harvard is about one hundred thousand ($100,000) dollars.

    Convert the dollar value to figure out the equivalent in our local currency-the naira,exchanging at about $1-N600=N60m and you can see why N40m or N100m cost of expression of interest and nomination forms are not such a big deal.

    It is worthy to note that, whereas the politicians that desire the ex-presidential candidate title would get it by merely paying N100m or N40m as the case may be, the academically inclined, would not only pay the huge sum of money as fees to acquire the knowledge, he/ she would also be required to invest time and energy in pursuit of the intellectual laurel.

    Needless to stress that the exercise can, by its very nature, be highly rigorous and exacting as opposed to acquiring the title of an ex-presidential candidate which can be as easy as breeze.

    The scenarios described above simply validate the aphorism ‘different folks for different folks’.

    And the category of presidential aspirants cataloged above are quite unlike and therefore not on the same genre with former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, Waziri Adamawa, who is a five (5) time veteran of presidential contests, and currently vying for the presidency on the platform of PDP for the 6th time.

    It does also not apply to former Lagos state governor, Bola Tinubu, Asiwaju of Lagos and one-time senator who has stated that it has been his lifetime ambition to become president of Nigeria. Ditto for Senator Bukola Saraki, a former governor of Kwara state and ex-president of the Nigerian senate who had also contested for the office of the president of Nigeria in 2019. Also not included is Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra state and running mate to Atiku Abubakar in the 2019 presidential contest and a social media sensation ,who is another candidate that has the potentials to become president of Nigeria .

    The aforementioned aspirants and a couple of governors like Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, Nyesom Wike of Rivers state, and perhaps Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom state, who have the financial wherewithal to pursue their ambition, are by every measure or stretch of imagination prepared for the race.

    That is underscored by the fact that most of them ,except a couple, have established nationwide structures to support their mission.

    But as the situation in the United States of America, USA where the billionaire ex-major of New York, Mike Bloomberg, tried and dropped out of the race for the presidency in 2020 under the platform of the Democratic Party has proven, money alone can not guarantee success for candidates without real Politicking.

    Not in the USA and not in Nigeria.

    Nevertheless, money matters in politics as poignantly exposed by the fact that the incumbent president Buhari, relying on his cult figure alone (legendary 12 million voters in the north) had tried and failed three times to become president without adequate funding.

    It was not until oil-rich Rivers state resources and Lagos state industrial and economic powerhouse were put behind his ambition in 2015, that his presidential ship that had set sail since 2003, could navigate through Nigeria’s stormy political waters to berth in Aso Rock Villa.

    Against the backdrop of the foregoing narrative, the rest of the aspirants in my humble opinion are simply being opportunistic and positioning for other benefits.

    That is because they are largely unprepared as they lack what it takes to become president of Nigeria in terms of the fact that they do not posses the national clout, which is evidenced by their lack of household name recognition.

    Even when they are widely known, they also suffer the handicap of inability to put their money where their mouth is. That is reflected by the fact that they are most likely bereft of the capacity to deploy as much as one hundred (100) billion naira that may be required to get the mission of becoming president of Nigeria accomplished.

    And the scenarios laid out above are assuming all things are equal and also baring the imposition of candidates by the leadership of the political parties. It is worth pointing out that imposition of candidates in political leadership recruitment has been a malaise that has been afflicting our body polity, and which hopefully the new electoral act 2022 has addressed via section 84 (9) that makes it a tad more difficult to happen.

    Having analyzed the chances of most of the other serious aspirants, folks may be wondering why l am not reckoning with the interest being expressed by the current Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo to step into the shoes of his boss, President Buhari.

    While l recognize his right to aspire to become president of Nigeria in 2023 which is only a step away from his president position, it must be recognized that there is a limit to which happenstance can carry a man.

    And my pragmatic prognosis which those in Osinbajo’s camp may deem as pessimistic and an affront is not meant to eviscerate him as it is derived from both trend analysis and reality check.

    With respect to historical trend analysis, Nigerian leaders, (be they presidents or governors) are hardly keen on passing on batons of political power to their deputies.

    Perhaps, it has to do with the reality that the second-in-command position (which is what a Vice President or deputy governor really is) often is deliberately and diligently selected from a pool of the politically weak. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo at the presidency level and Ex-Lagos state governor, Bola Tinubu, at the governorship stage are the franchisers of that formula after learning the hard way that their deputies were more politically sagacious than them.

    Since, as the saying goes: ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, a counter-strategy was formulated as an antidote. Having been efficacious over the past two decades , it is unsurprising that it is now a sort of holy grail for presidents and governors alike when choosing their running mates .

    For Obasanjo, the challenge from then Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, who was poised to contest the presidency of Nigeria against his boss who was seeking a second term, rankled him.

    After Atiku Abubakar, an astute politician by every measure demurred or withdrew his interest in contesting for the office of the president in 2003, it would appear that Obasanjo never forgave his second in command as he considered the challenge as an affront.

    More so as it was rumored that Obasanjo actually went on his knees begging Vice President Atiku to lend him the critical support that he needed to realize his second-term ambition.

    So, it was unsurprising that in 2007 it was payback time from president Obasanjo to Vice President Abubakar who was effectively blocked from stepping into the shoes of his boss, Obasanjo, even if he was only a heartbeat away from becoming no 1 citizen from his no 2 position.

    Although a spirited legal battle superlatively staged by then Vice President to ensure that he becomes president followed, it was futile.

    Before the Obasanjo and Abubakar epic succession battle at the state government level, Bola Tinubu had found himself in a similar political bind.

    And he learnt the hard way that choosing a politically powerful deputy could be lethal. It may be recalled that Mrs Kofoworaola Bucknor, his deputy during his first term as governor of Lagos state gave him a bloody nose and almost prematurely ended his career following a university of Chicago certificate scandal reportedly instigated from the camp of his deputy.

    To avoid what l would like to term the ‘Atiku Abubakar and Kofoworola Bucknor Effect’, most presidents and governors have since then been picking weak politicians as Vice President or deputy governor. Which is why l am not optimistic about the chances of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo becoming APC candidate in the looming 2023 presidential contest.

    In fact, finding a president or governor in Nigeria that worked towards the Vice President or Deputy Governor replacing him is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack.

    Applying the analogy of a football team, Vice Presidents and deputy governors are not considered the first eleven that usually start the game. But good only for the reserve bench and only invited into the field of play in the event that a member of the first eleven, gets exhausted or sustains injury.

    Thus, while Umar Yar’adua, former governor of Katsina state was preferred by Obasanjo to replace him in 2007 ,Tinubu choose Babatunde , his chief of staff to take over from him as governor, same year.

    There are myriads of other instances, but suffice it to say that for the reasons outlined above, presidents and governors rarely consider their second-in-command as presidential or governorship ‘material’.

    From the prism of a reality check, the unvarnished truth is that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is a Christian and a pastor of the Pentecostal denomination, specifically of the Redeem church.

    In Nigeria of today, where religious fanaticism has taken such an ugly turn, to the extent that religious intolerance as evidenced by the gale of killings of fellow citizens in the name of religion, has become the norm in the land of our birth, the prospect of a Pentecostal church pastor becoming president of Nigeria, appears to me to be very remote in our highly ‘religionized’ country.

    We only need to recall the outrage that followed the discovery that the minister of communications and digital economy, Isa Patami is a Muslim cleric to get the photo of how Nigerians desire separation of state (government) from religion.
    In fact , it is president Buhari’s low appetite in responding to public outcry that has kept Patami on the job. Otherwise, by now he would an ex minister. And after the storm, Patami too has been lying low.

    Owing to the outlined prevailing political dynamics in our country at this present time, although l believe in miracles, l can not muster the faith to buy into an Osinbajo presidency in 2023.

    As such, l would like to advise readers to discountenance the polls which have been putting Osinbajo and Peter Obi (ex two times Anambra state governor also Vice Presidential candidate to Atiku Abubakar) ahead of the pack of all the presidential aspirants in 2023.

    That is because given the current realities, such ratings based on established parameters of rationality are simply, bunkum. Those in doubt of my analogy would have the scales drop from their eyes by 28-31 May and 30 May to 1st June, when the two leading political party’s primaries would have been concluded.

    The true and rather sad reality is that winning the presidency, as opposed to rotation of the presidency is currently the overriding and overarching interest of the leadership of both the ruling and main opposition parties, the APC and PDP respectively. That was not the case about 30 days ago. But it is the reality today.

    Which is why the presidential aspirants from the south must wake up to the reality that the rotation of the presidency between the north and south that was the dominant agenda of political actors since the return of multi party democracy , has been Overtaken By Events, OBE-as civil servants like to term such unforeseen circumstances .

    In light of the ongoing shadowing of each other by both the APC and PDP to see where each party would zone their presidential candidates; and the evolving sentiment that it would remain in the north for some expedient reasons hinged on its claim of being the biggest voting block; what has become of the postulations and grandstanding by southern governors forum under the leadership of Ondo state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, that the presidency must return to the south?

    When l noted in my article titled: Southern Governors Friendly Rebellion And The Perils Of Indifference By The Presidency, published widely on 23 May 2021 (about a year ago) which is to the effect that the posturing by southern governors forum, as opposed to negotiation with their northern counterparts, would only heat up the polity; l was thinking ahead. But l never envisaged that it would manifest in the shape and manner that it has unfurled so fast .

    And it may also be recalled that l had also observed in four chapters of my twelve chapters book titled : “Becoming President of Nigeria.A Citizen’s Guide”, launched in Abuja on 10th May, that the Igbos should be given the chance to produce the president of Nigeria in 2023. In the book l had also expressed heartbreak that the southeast does not have any presidential ‘materials’, that can step up to the plate. So the prospect of an Igbo presidency in 2023, may just be a mirage.

    Although my analysis angered some Igbo nationalists, I was only being pragmatic and gazing into the future. All things being equal, l am almost certain that l will be vindicated after the primaries of the two major parties are held by month end . Applying their recent actions as barometer , Orji Uzor Kalu and Anyim Pius Anyim, apparently recognize the existential reality of no clear pathway to lgbo presidency in 2023, because my prognosis since last year is manifesting right now under our very eyes.

    Guided by my assessment that there is little or no chance of the emergence of an Igbo as our next president, l had advised that an lgbo should be prepared to be under the apprenticeship of, say an Atiku Abubakar from the PDP family as president in 2023 as it was assumed that APC would field a southern candidate for president in 2023.

    After serving as Vice President for a single term, he/she would be ready to contest for the number one position,leveraging the power of incumbency and having gained household name recognition. If that becomes a reality, it would mark the first time that a Vice President would step into the shoes of his principal via election and not due to death simply because it was from the get-go, designed to have that outcome.

    But those who prefer to live in a bubble and only see things in black and white, rather than thinking out of the box which the prevailing political situation demands, denounced and discountenanced my formula for the lgbos to finally gain a foothold in Aso Rock Villa by becoming Vice President of Nigeria in 2023 and finally president in 2027. It is worth restating the fact that the last time an lgbo occupied the position of head of state of Nigeria was from January 1966 to July of the same year. Subsequently, only Alex Ekwueme of blessed memory had the good fortune of becoming Vice President with Shehu Shagari as president in 1979.
    And l hate to state the not so obvious and inconvenient truth which is that the drought of lgbos in the apogee of leadership in Aso Rock Villa would continue in 2023.

    Anchoring their hope on equity and morality which are hardly valuable qualities in politics, has rendered the lgbos politically naive and vulnerable to manipulation.
    It can be likened to a football team that plans to defeat the opposing team only through a penalty shoot-out at the end of the game.

    It would also appear to me that the Igbos do not seem to have figured out that the political arena is neither like church or mosque atmosphere where equity and morality matter the most, hence they have been banking on turn-by-turn equation.

    Going beyond the Igbo dilemma, being that only one person can become president of Nigeria in 2023, all those that doled out N100m and N40m respectively for APC and PDP forms, have automatically become elite members of the parties.

    Thus, they would not be casualties or liabilities, but Very Important Personality, VIP in their respective parties.

    As such, they would be prime assets, since it is from amongst them that the vacancies that would become available after the 29 May 2023 inauguration of the next president of Nigeria and the Vice President, would be filled.

    Against the the backdrop of foregoing , a fitting analogy would be that those who invested the hefty sums of money to acquire expression of interest and nomination forms, but fail to become president, as only one person can become president of Nigeria at any point in time: they can be likened to people who decided to jump up very high to touch the sky.

    In the event that they are unable to attain their vaulting ambition of touching the sky, they would be content with walking away with a handful of cloud. So rather than being losers, as the uninitiated members of the public are wont to believe, in an uncanny manner , the wannabe presidents would ultimately be winners, even if they fail to clinch the coveted prize of becoming president of Nigeria, in 2023.

     

    Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from Lagos.

  • More dialogue, not guns to end insecurity in Nigeria – By Magnus Onyibe

    More dialogue, not guns to end insecurity in Nigeria – By Magnus Onyibe

    President Muhammadu Buhari has made a categorical statement in his Eid-Efitri message that the battle against terrorism will be over soon.

    But the haunting image of the innocent little baby born while the mother is in captivity following the terrorists’ invasion of Kaduna bound passengers trains on 28th March 2022, that was strewn on the front pages of major newspapers a few days ago (approximately one month after the mother was taken into captivity on April 28, 2022) is expected to have sent a chill down the spines of many Nigerians.

    It was a surprise to some Nigerians that the picture did not really elicit the type of umbrage and disgust that it ought to ordinarily evince.

    Perhaps it sent some chills down the spines of some Nigerians , but being too shell-shocked by the unceasing terrorist onslaughts, (as no day passes without reports of killing or kidnapping of fellow citizens) they may be too sapped of the milk of human kindness, and as such compelled to become less of their brother’s keepers.

    If my haunch serves me right, then that is the extent to which the incredibly frightening level of insecurity has dehumanized Nigerians.

    Without a doubt, the release of the photo was calculated to ignite umbrage by Nigerians such that it would compel relevant authorities to redouble efforts at engaging with the abductors of the train passengers with a view to negotiating the release of the captives.

    Prior to the release of the infant’s photo, another picture of the train passengers being held hostage in the forest in excess of 30 days and nights had also been circulated. Perhaps, the release on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, of the pictures of women, men, and children (as they were manifesting various stages of despondency) while awaiting rescue from the dungeon by their governments, did not generate the public outrage against the government as anticipated by the hostage-takers; that is probably why they had to follow up with the newly born baby’s image, with the expectation that it would finally jolt Nigerians into anger.

    But as l stated earlier, it would appear that Nigerians have lost their humanity hence the photo has not triggered the sort of indignation that the stealing of Chibok schoolgirls from their school dormitories, in Chibok town in Borno state in 2014 generated.

    As far back as 1953, religious and ethnic crises leading to loss of lives in a heinous manner, have been besetting our country. Hence the apparent insensitivity of Nigerians to the human carnage or suffering of their compatriots perhaps stems from the high degree of degradation of lives via extreme violent acts that have been witnessed over the past half a century in the country.

    To understand how Nigeria got to the current sorry state of insecurity, a bit of background will help put things in context for those unfamiliar with the saga.

    When the Maitasine uprising in the Chad Basin area of Borno state and environ happened in 1980, it was the leader of the set, Mohammed Marwa, a controversial preacher of Cameroonian origin based in Nigeria that set off the riots with his fiery preaching. And he also died alongside the 4,000 – 5,000 estimated to have lost their lives in that tragedy, including his cohorts known as Yan Tasine.

    But the sect leader’s death did not mark the end of religious extremism in the north. Rather, it might have facilitated its metamorphosis into variants that have more or less rendered our country prostrate in terms of productivity as farmers , fishermen and others who depend on the soil and other natural environments in the hinterland, now dread plying their trade for fear of untimely death in the hands of violent non state actors who through their reign of terror are about to render our country , comatose and of the ilk of Afghanistan, Libya etc.

    The word Maitatsine, translated from the Hausa language is: “the one who damns”. The nickname is reflective of the curse-laden public speeches that (Mohamed Marwa, the sect leader) kept making against the Nigerian state.

    Whereas it is the 1980 Maitatsine uprising that signposted the beginning of serious religious extremism in northern Nigeria as we know it today, it is Boko haram that has made religious Insurgency synonymous with Nigeria.

    It is after the transformation of Ansaru, a variant of religious extremists into Boko Haram (Western education is taboo) in about 2009, that religious Insurgency in Nigeria acquired notoriety. In fact , it marked the escalation of active terrorism via vicious attacks launched against soft targets, in the hinterland, and a high-value one like the United Nations, UN office in Abuja.

    Most people believe that religious extremists in Nigeria were emboldened by the introduction of the sharia principle governance system in some northern states during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo. And Sharia’s origin as governance policy was first introduced in Zamfara state, when the then-governor, now a serving senator, declared Zamfara, a sharia-compliant sub-national entity in the Nigerian federation.

    In the past decade, especially in the last seven (7) years, terrorism has remarkably blossomed and become unhinged within our country, so much so that Nigeria has degenerated into a hotbed for cruelty and savagery consistent with the description of the Hobbesian state of nature. That is particularly so because it is the period that issues of religion started being mixed with politics by some politicians who were intent on playing to the gallery with the aim of reaping the benefits that are realizable from the mass appeal that aligning with religious extremists such as populism could generate. And it fits the thesis of the social scientist, Karl Marx who had in his revolutionary teachings, referred to religion as the opium of the masses . What those who elected to literally dine with religious extremists failed to take into cognizance, is that subscribing to extremism in religion is very dangerous. Simply because it is like a knife with two edges that cuts both ways.

    Another characterization would be the allegory of someone riding on the back of a tiger. While riding it could be easy, the disembarkation is where the trouble lies as the rider may be consumed by the tiger when he/she alights, because by nature the tiger is ferocious. It would appear that in Nigeria after some politicians acted hand in gloves with religious extremists to gain some political advantage, the larger society is now paying the price as it is being consumed by the tiger (religious extremists) that some politicians rode on its back to ascend the throne of power.

    And there are grisly images of human beings savaged by religious extremists and exponents of its multiple variants as testimonies to the assertion above.

    They include humans being literarily cremated in the vehicle in which they were traveling, with the perpetrators watching the victims burned to death as it happened in Goni Usmanti Nzanai Local Government Area of Borno state on June 13, 2020. Another horrific sight that is bound to keep haunting Nigerians is the beheading of 43 rice farmers in Koshobe and Zabarmairi in Jere local government area also in Borno state on November 28, 2020. And the ripping open of guts/bowels of pregnant women by their assailants in some villages around the Benue-Plateau trough.

    Are all of the above not acts of savagery capable of stripping Nigerians of human feelings?

    Perhaps with the emotions of most Nigerians becoming used to being consistently violated with the gory sights of the beastly crimes earlier described, a sort of natural immunity might have taken hold of our countrymen and women such that nothing shocks them anymore.

    Hence the picture of a baby born in the den of outlaws did not strike the emotional cord that could have stirred up emotions amongst Nigerians such that they could have been driven to mount pressure not only on the government to take action , but also on faith-based organizations like churches and mosques, who need to intervene by applying a soft strategy of trying to persuade the anti-social elements to halt the bedlam in our beloved nation.

    In the light of the escalating human carnage and lack of encouraging signs that the end of the catastrophe is in sight, l have been advocating via media interventions, a negotiated pathway to ending the crisis. In a piece titled: Let’s Fight Insecurity Same Way We Fought Terrorism” published widely in both traditional and online media platforms including Daily Independent on December 28, 2021, l took the position that a negotiated end of insecurity in our country is imperative.

    Here is how l made the case:

    “At this juncture, it is worth pointing out that escalation of violence in the north via Boko Haram, mimics the trajectory of the Niger delta militancy which degenerated after authorities failed to invite for negotiations, the intellectual and genuine environmental rights agitators such as Ken Saro-Wiwa. Rather than dialogue, he was executed alongside other Ogoni leaders as felons.

    Similarly, instead of having a conversation with the leader of Boko Haram whose members reportedly refused to comply with the state government’s directive to wear helmets for their own safety while riding motorbikes, he was allegedly murdered by the authorities, setting off an armed revolution threatening to overwhelm not only the north but the entire country. And the current resort to the use of force instead of negotiating with the nation of Biafra agitators like Nnamdi Kanu, and Oduduwa nation proponent, Sunday Igboho; the current occupants of Aso Rock Villa seat of power seem to be treading the same path of perdition trodden by past leaders through resort to brute military force as their preferred crisis management tool, as opposed to applying the instrumentality of negotiated settlement.”

    I have good reasons for counseling our leading authorities to also try embracing dialogue as a crisis resolution strategy. The chief of which is that since it has tried and failed over the past twenty years (20) years to resolve the insecurity challenges bedeviling our country with military force, dialoguing with the aggrieved members of our society who are products, and if you like, victims of our society’s shortcomings, is a viable alternative worth considering.

    The seeds of discord were likely sown in our houses of worship from where they germinated as religious extremists disagreed with or imbibed some doctrines or in political leadership styles and structures, where some members of the union allege inequities bordering on marginalization.

    The analogy above implies that, in more ways than one, we are all collectively guilty of the mayhem being unleashed by the malcontents that have gone through the metamorphosis of not only becoming misfits but have gone to the extreme extent of picking up arms against constituted authorities and their compatriots, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. It is not a case of Hausa/Fulani against Igbos, Yorubas, or vice versa. But a manifestation of hatred of the discontents against society as a whole.

    Relying on the oft vaunted mantra by government authorities that security is not for the military alone, l have had cause to recommend the adoption of the multi-sector and public, private partnership, PPP approach adopted for the successful prosecution of the war against COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, 2020-21.

    This was prosecuted with the CA-COVID Initiative that saw the private sector and government pulling forces together to provide funds and strategies for combating Covid-19 pandemic.
    It beggars the issuer to stare that the negative impact of the menace of insecurity is far worse than Covid-19 on society.

    And private sector involvement in security is not novel in our country. Apart from the scandal-ridden Police Equipment Trust Fund promoted under president Obasanjo’s watch, a state like Lagos has leveraged the formula to guarantee the security of residents via its Security Trust Fund. And the vigilante organizations recently set up by a collection of state governments contiguous to one another for regional security have also provided some respite. Given the reasonable level of success achieved by the states and regional vigilante scheme which have actually filled in the gap created by the absence of state police, (another neglected panacea) traditional rulers and faith leaders should be similarly co-opted into the proposed negotiated settlement with amenable non state actors with a view to finding mutually beneficial resolution of the conflict with the aggrieved members of society that are clearly hell-bent on destroying our cherished country through a systematic and vicious dismemberment of its human constituents and destruction of its infrastructures including the train service, that they recently distrusted its services .

    It is a no brainer to figure out that continuing with the policy or ideology of meeting force with force leads to the debasing of lives as the outlaws often launch counterattacks by venting their spleen with more cruelty being visited on defenseless folks in the hinterland where the presence of the military is hardly present to protect them. Of course , the end result is the shedding of more blood of innocent victims which has been flowing ceaselessly for no fault of theirs.

    Little wonder those who survive the vicious attacks are mostly highly traumatized to the extent that when other dastardly crimes are committed against their fellow humans, their blood does not get curdled anymore, despite the extremity of the cruelty.

    And it is probably the reason the sight of the baby born by a mother in the den of the outlaws failed to stir up emotions as it should have under normal circumstances.

    Now, Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA led by Buba Marwa had recently proposed that our politicians should be subjected to psychological evaluation as part of the screening exercise for those preparing to run for public office.

    As preposterous as the proposition appeared, given the traumatic experience that Nigerians have been exposed to and are still enduring , it seems to me that all of us resident in Nigeria, (currently a hippodrome of dastardly acts) not so much far from the situation in Ukraine, need a psychological evaluation.

    That is simply because from the leadership to the follower-ship, we all appear to have become numbed by the horrendous level of savagery reminiscent of the atrocities committed by the Vikings who were raiders and plunderers of Europe from about the 7th century up to the 9th century, and whose origin is linked to modern-day Scandinavian countries.
    In the manner that the mention of Vikings instilled fear into Europeans in the 6-9th century, that is how Nigerians get gripped by morbid fear any time they hear that boko haram, ISWAP, Herdsmen militia, unknown gun men are lurking in the shadows or forests around them.

    The despoiling of Nigeria by the outlaws (Boko haram, ISWAP, herdsmen militia, unknown gun men etc) especially in the northern part and southeast, as currently being witnessed in the 21st century, in my view, are reminiscent of how the Vikings raided Europe, particularly England, France and Belgium from the 6th to the 9th century until they were finally defeated by King Alfred, The Great around.
    So, that validates the aphorism, there is nothing new under the sun and what goes up must come down. Simply because the type of insecurity being suffered in our clime has blighted Europe and present day UK back in the days.
    Irrespective of that reality , we must be dexterous in plotting for an early end of insecurity in our beloved country so that we can have a nation to bequeath to our offsprings.

    It is jarring that, in the 21st century and in Nigeria, a close scrutiny of records would reveal that rather than the rate of death arising from insecurity ebbing, it has grown exponentially.

    Must we wait for as long as it took the Europeans,(6th to 9th century) through the efforts of King Alfred, The Great, to get rid of the Vikings before peace and stability can return to our country?

    Apart from the barometer of deaths arising from terrorism, banditry, and herdsmen militias/farmers conflicts set up by governor Nasir El-Rufai in Kaduna state, whereby the trend is a rising statistics of those killed monthly since the tracking of the numbers commenced, a recent study conducted independently by Enough-is-Enough, a civil society organization and by Bismarck Rewane’s Financial Derivatives Company, FDC recently published in the mass media revealed that in just three months -January/March, over 1,884 souls were lost and in a period of ten years, lives in excess of 10,000 Nigerians have been consumed by the spree of violence that has engulfed our country.

    That suggests that against public expectations that the reign of terror in our country would soon be over, the society’s malcontents in the form of religious insurgents, and outlaws generally, are actually having the upper hand against our armed forces.

    And our society is worse for it.

    To be fair , not winning the battle may not necessarily be due to incompetence on the part of the armed forces of Nigeria. But owing largely to their inexperience in prosecuting the type of warfare that the outlaws engage in, which is asymmetrical. For instance, how can the Nigerian military successfully repel the marauders that are often not gathered in large numbers in a location, that they are trained to wage war against? With the insurgents and bandits constantly moving their den or base around the forests, the armed forces are often running, as it were, from pillar to post. And in a country as vast as Nigeria,how the military always effectively engage the criminal elements in every space, how much more occupy the vast land to stave off the outlaws?

    Also, how can the military guarantee that there would not be severe collateral damage via the hostages being used as shields by the enemies of the state that also hide within the society when they want to strike and retreat to the forests after they have struck?

    Would there not be a backlash from Nigerians if our military forces become as reckless as the Russian military in Ukraine where civilians- from the oldest to the youngest are not being spared in their killing spree via the attacks on non military targets such as hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings which the Russian authorities are claiming are being struck because Ukrainian radicals are hiding in those complexes?

    Although our country’s armed forces are not engaged in a war, which is the case in Ukraine, ( although a low tension war is afoot here ) the high risk of hitting the wrong targets is one of the multiplicity of dilemmas being contended with by our armed forces. Hence not many positive results have been recorded so far in the war against terrorism in which the actors are often ensconced within the law-abiding members of society.

    Invariably, by relying too much on deadly force against the religious insurgents and outlaws, inadvertently, it appears as if our armed forces are literally chasing the bull into the China shop, with avoidable consequences.

    So, how much longer must our country endure the endless gut-wrenching blood-shedding that has become the norm rather than the exception?

    Clearly, given the momentum gained by the rebelling members of society that are now operating in the shadows and waxing stronger, despite the possession and deployment of some of the most lethal weapons against them by the Nigerian military, it is evident that terrorism, religious Insurgency and ethnic nationalism or secessionism can not be exterminated by sheer brute force.

    The experience from Afghanistan to Libya, where multinational military forces led by the United States of America, USA were deployed and failed to stabilize the countries or end the crises, bear eloquent testimonies to the fact that seeking peace through the barrels of the guns has proven not to be as efficacious as the authorities are ready to openly admit. In the case of Libya, the US hurriedly exited after three (3) security service members were killed in the aftermath of the invasion of its diplomatic facility in Benghazi. And with respect to Afghanistan, thirteen members of its security personnel lost their lives in Kabul, as the US hastily retreated, having realized that trying to obtain peace by force was akin to trying to extract water from Rock.

    As the US has realized, (better late than never ) the futility of the pursuit of peace with force, I am hoping that it would also dawn on Nigerian authorities, sooner than later, that winning the war against terrorists, bandits and other outlaws in Nigeria may not be achieved through the barrels of guns alone.

    Rather the carrot and stick approach applied by president Umaru Yar’adua (2007-10) of blessed memory in quelling the militancy- manifesting in hostage-taking of oil/gas workers and destruction of the oil/gas gathering infrastructure in the Niger Delta, lends its self for adoption.

    From available records, dialogue is a veritable mechanism that has hardly been explored as a solution to the rising tide of insecurity driven by religious fanaticism that has driven our country to the precipice.

    If the almighty United States, US did not exercise the option of negotiating with the Taliban to exit Afghanistan where they had been an occupation force for 20 years, by now, many more lives of both Afghanistan and Americans, might have been lost.

    But it got to the point that what was paramount to the Americans was to end the 20 years of US military operations in the Taliban country which came with a humongous financial burden estimated to have gulped two (2) trillion dollars at nearly three (3) hundred million dollars per day. That is not discountenancing the human cost of about 2,400 lives of members of the coalition forces, particularly the thirteen (13) members of the US military contingent that got killed when the Taliban detonated a bomb while they were making the hasty pullout from Kabul on August 30, 2021.

    As part of the requirements for my master’s degree program , l wrote a thesis at the Fletcher school of law and diplomacy, Boston, USA. In it, I made a case that if the US had invested the huge sums of funds that it applied in purchasing deadly armaments for prosecuting the war against terrorism in the so-called AXlS of Evil, ( as former US president George W Bush once described Afghanistan, Syria , Yemen etc ) on food, medicines, infrastructure, and other live sustaining necessities to help those suffering extreme poverty in the region that had become the breeding ground for extremists/terrorists: perhaps the malcontents that are basically haters of Western world’s civilization , opulence, and ideology, perhaps owing to their own condition of extreme poverty, they would not have been driven to taking the extreme measure of suicide bombing, just to awaken the world to their plight via the terrorist attacks on strategic infrastructures in the Western world, by hijacking and slamming passenger airplanes into the World Trade Center towers in New York, and targeting mass gatherings of people for elimination with Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD.

    Then again, just as social scientists aver that there are no guarantees that humans would behave rationally all the time, curing potential terrorists of hunger and diseases may simply not necessarily be an efficacious panacea to religious extremism. Also, how would the defense industry of the industrialized world thrive in the absence of wars?
    Clearly, fighting insecurity is a complicated matter , and often complicated issues are resolved with simple ideas.
    It is noteworthy that the official reason given for pulling the US military out of Afghanistan by president Joe Biden is that it was obvious that it could not transform Afghanistan into a stable modern democracy.

    Similarly, in Nigeria, after a humongous sum of funds had been invested in the war against terrorism by both the immediate past regime led by Goodluck Jonathan, and the present regime under the watch of Mohammadu Buhari, the leaders in the defense space, seem to be at their wit’s end that the mission to extricate society from the yoke of outlaws have been unaccomplished . This assessment is based on the comments attributed to both the minister of defense, general Magashi (rtd) that insecurity in Nigeria can only end via divine intervention and NSA, General Babagana Mongonu (rtd) who conveyed president Buhari’s feeling of frustration that commensurate progress has not been made despite the huge investments in the acquisition of armaments to combat the scourge of insecurity.

    The weariness being expressed in Nigeria by the security apparatchiks may not be dissimilar to the conclusion reached by president Biden of the US about the war against terrorism in Afghanistan.

    In fact, it is reflective and mirrors the US experience .

    Apart from the statistics from Enough-is-Enough, a civil society organization indicating that about 140 men and women in uniform have been killed by the outlaws who are enemies of the state, between January to March this year, we do not have access to the records of the number of the casualty suffered by the armed forces in the course of combating terrorism and other criminalities in past ten years. Applying the principle of extrapolation, the prognosis is that the fatality figures would not be insignificant.

    Also, let us keep in mind that $2.1 billion was reportedly set aside to fight Boko haram by the previous regime. But it was claimed to have been misappropriated by the former National Security Adviser, NSA, Sambo Dasuki.

    When that sum is added to the approximately half a billion dollars that the National Assembly, NASS under the watch of the incumbent government, approved a couple of years ago for the acquisition of super Tucano helicopter gunships from the US, then the picture of the huge amount that our country has staked so far in the war against terrorism would come to greater relief.

    It is worthy to note that the two referenced cost items are exclusive of other acquisitions of military hardwares by the Nigerian armed forces in the past twelve (12) years (combination of Jonathan and Buhari regimes) to sustain the efforts to reverse the wave of insecurity which has defied solution, 20 years and counting .

    In my rough estimation, a sizable financial investment of over five (5) billion dollars might have been disbursed towards shoring up the capacity of the military to blow away the cloud of insecurity in the country which bodes no good to anyone.

    In a country with an acute shortage of basic infrastructures such as roads, sea and airports, schools, hospitals, and even affordable homes, just imagine the type of infrastructure that the $5 billion expended on fighting terrorism could have provided for Nigerians in the past decade and a half?

    In light of the scenario described above, in my humble opinion, it is time for our government to change its tact from pure military strategy to a multi-prong approach of carrots and sticks.

    The proposition is justified by the current cul-de-sac evidenced by the frame of mind of hopelessness which our political leaders seem to be exhibiting and thd experience of the US military in Afghanistan and Libya.

    Is it not time to involve our leaders in the mosques in the Muslim north and Christian leaders in churches in the south in seeking an end to the mayhem being unleashed in the name of religion via the siege being laid with the aim to annihilate as many Nigerians as possible ,and make our dear country ungovernable?

    Believe it or not, it is leaders in both the traditional and religious sectors that have been neglected in the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, that may be capable of making a positive impact in stabilizing the polity, if co-opted into the governance calculus. My gut feeling is that it is this class of leaders, hitherto excluded from the leadership equation, that may possess the ability to bring to an end the ugly phenomenon of insecurity in our land.

    In fact, the traditional institution and faith based organizations may be the missing link since they are actually the closest to the grassroots.

    By virtue of their elaborate access to the critical mass of our countrymen and women, they appear to me as the best bet for rooting out the apparently intractable debacle of insecurity that by every measure has defiled military solutions.

    In Rwanda, the traditional legal system, Gachacha, played a strategic role in the peace and progress being enjoyed by that country that less than two decades ago experienced one of the most horrific violence- ethnic cleansing as the two main ethnic nationalities Hutus and Tutsis engaged in the insanity of using machetes to literally butcher fellow compatriots .

    Too often, we make references to how the country descended into a dark and ugly valley of nihilistic behavior . But we hardly talk about tailoring solutions to the debilitating crisis threatening to wreck our country, after the Rwandan peace model which is indigenous to Africa.

    Although it might have been best if it was done earlier, it is now very auspicious to get our traditional rulers and religious leaders involved in returning peace to our beloved country. That is because that role can be assigned to them in the course of the ongoing review of the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria by the National Assembly, NASS.

    It is fortuitous that although the request by the traditional rulers for a role constitutionally recognized is one of the 20 proposals that got jettisoned from the 68 items that were tabled for debate, of which only 48 in number were approved by NASS; the need for the traditional institution and the clergy to be assigned roles in the constitution can be brought back to the table for a second look.

    It is even timely since the 48 items approved are currently awaiting the concurrence of 2/3rd of the houses of assembly of the 36 states in the federation, which is a constitutional requirement. Now, it behoves the executive arm of government to nudge the legislative arm to revisit the request by the traditional institution and the clergy to be assigned roles in the constitution. That viewpoint was canvased in my article of 9th March 2022 titled: 1999 constitution review: Are lawmakers taking women and kings for granted? that was published widely in traditional and online media platforms including the CableNewsOnline.

    Back in the days of our forebears, before conflicts appeared at the magistrate courts level, there must have been attempts to resolve them in the courts of the traditional rulers or leaders of churches/mosques.

    That role positioned traditional institutions and places of worship currently neglected as the frontier for driving the inculcation of good characters into citizens and instilling good values in society.

    Rather than place so much emphasis on Western-style solutions with huge financial and human costs, since we have to commit so many scarce funds into acquiring expensive military armaments which ultimately has the outcome of blood-shedding and boosting of the industrialized world’s defense industries, l can’t help but wonder why would our leaders are not seeking indigenous solutions to our peculiar predicaments, by looking inwards at how our forbears managed their society before the advent of Western civilization?

  • Is parallel government of terrorists manifesting in Nigeria? – By Magnus Onyibe

    Is parallel government of terrorists manifesting in Nigeria? – By Magnus Onyibe

    It would appear that president Mohammadu Buhari has had enough of the impunity of terrorist activities in Nigeria, hence he gave the most recent ultimatum to the security agencies to rescue the victims of the recent train attack currently in the custody of terrorists and all others still being held against their will by criminals- be it of the hue of religious insurgents, bandits, violent herdsmen or known and unknown gun men.

    And as if admitting the allegations from multiple quarters that the commander-in -chief of Nigerian armed forces has hitherto handled terrorism with kid gloves , he has also vowed that going forward, he will become more ruthless with the merchants of death that appear hell bent on actualizing their devilish quest to make Nigeria ungovernable.

    The resolve to take the war to the outlaws was made by president Buhari during the national security council meeting with the top brass in the security architecture held in abuja last Thursday.
    For too long , the outlaws have had the agenda of turning our country into a gangster paradise.

    That is why from the original base of the bandits that is in the Sambisa forest which became a sanctuary for the criminals to be planing and executing their devilish enterprise, terrorists enclaves have spread beyond the forests of Yobe , Zamfara , kebbi, katsina to Kaduna states.

    Over a decade after religious insurgency gained notoriety in Nigeria , it is not abating. Rather , it has escalated exponentially, rendering many Nigerians dead and others either in Internally Displaced Persons , IDPs or without livelihood.

    Its spread beyond the aforementioned states has been so rapid that it is currently threatening to add Niger state and the federal capital territory, FCT to its sphere of putrid influence.
    And it is rather embarrassing that the criminal enterprise of maiming and killing Nigerians recklessly that was birthed owing to poor management of the multi religion and multi ethnic composition of our country has not spared our security operatives. They too have been bearing the brunt via violent invasion of their formations-stations and barracks to kill them and steal their weapons .

    That is according to the mind blowing set of statistics about the sociopolitical and economic activities in our society, including the number of deaths arising from violent conflicts contained in a study conducted by Enough-Is~Enough (E-i-E , an NGO) which has revealed that our country has been a sort of cauldron of death for a huge number of Nigerians in the first quarter of this year.

    It is astonishing that in a period of three months -from January to March this year , 1,884 lives have been lost in violent crimes , just as a total of 140 men and women in uniform charged with protecting Nigerians were also killed within the same period under review. That is according to Enough-Is-Enough.

    In another survey conducted by Financial Derivatives Company , FDC, it was revealed that in the course of the past 10 years , 87,903 Nigerian souls, are estimated to have been lost due to violent armed conflicts.
    In the light of the acceleration of the human carnage caused by the bandits/terrorists, herdsmen militia or whatever other name they go by , there is a surfeit of reasons to assume that it is the escalating state of anomie engulfing our country and rapidly degenerating into a pandemic dimension, that has apparently jolted president Buhari into taking the action that appears like a last ditch effort to salvage our beloved country from the clutches of the devil incarnates that take pleasure in sending children , women and men to their early graves in the manner that locusts ravage an abandoned cotton crop plantation, recklessly.

    Given the forgoing reality, in my reckoning, the threat to president Buhari’s presidency is no longer the fear of, or the possibility of his impeachment by the National Assembly, NASS for a breach of the constitution or the risk of a vote of no confidence by his cabinet for dereliction of his constitutional duties.
    But the existential threat of terrorists forming a parallel government is the real and present danger to president Buhari’s barely one year remaining period of his tenure of office or his stewardship in Aso Rock Villa .

    As such, if the type of drastic measures that he directed the security chiefs to take during the referenced security council meeting a few days ago are not urgently implemented , his plan of finishing well may be far fetched.
    Allow me quickly lay out the underlying reasons for the rather surreal and ominous prognosis that l am making .
    Without equivocation ,while the aforementioned danger is lurking , it is clear to all that the sole intention of our current leaders in Aso Rock Villa and in the 36 governors mansions across the country as well as those waiting in the wings to take over from the present occupants, is to restrict public discussion in this season of politics to the adoption of direct , indirect or consensus processes for producing candidates for the 2022/23 general elections.

    The only other hot button topic that some politicians are currently passionate about is the rotation of presidency between the north and south of Nigeria that has been in practice since 1999, but which is being considered for replacement with meritocracy, going forward .

    While all eyes are fixated on 2023 general elections from the selfish and narrow prisms of politicians as earlier catalogued, which is to the detriment of the welfare of Nigerians, particularly because they are not talking about how to ramp up security to save lives and find a panacea to the hunger wreaking havoc on vulnerable members of the society; the unthinkable, which is a more aggressive incursion and possibly usurpation and seizure of power by the outlaws in more ungoverned spaces, is possible.

    As the Financial Derivatives Company , FDC , report earlier cited pointed out , our country is suffering from a youth bulge. That phenomenon could be a blessing, if the opportunity is harnessed as was the case in China when their youth population of 269 million was empowered with jobs by providing the funding for self employment of youths .

    Conversely, the same youth bulge could become a curse if , the youths are unproductively occupied and close attention is not paid to their plight .

    That is apparently the case in Nigeria where unemployment rate is very high at 15% and youths who constitute about 60% of our population are idle.

    The unfortunate incident of #EndSARS nationwide protests by our youths that degenerated into street riots,is a veritable indicator of the potential damage that any unmanaged or mismanaged youth bulge could cost our country.

    Drawing from the conventional wisdom: an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, susceptibility of our youths to being recruited by Boko haram religious insurgents-pushing for the introduction of sharia system in the north; and resort to joining unknown gun men in the south east trying to make that region ungovernable; or getting sucked into the struggle for Independent People of Biafra, IPOB-aiming to form the state of Biafra due to allegations of being marginalized, can not be discountenanced.

    That is not ignoring the ability of herdsmen militia currently rampaging all over Nigerian forests like locust worms ,leading to herders-farmers armed conflicts , to also attract the youths.
    By the same token, it is easy for our youths to be equally attracted to the activities of armed robbery and kidnap for ransom gangs-in light of the handsome gratification receivable from robbing banks and receiving ransom payments that are proving to be more lucrative than engaging in mere cattle grazing or being idle and unemployed.

    The truth is that in a political system , operated by politicians with altruistic intentions and less cavalier motives , degrading the capacity of the identified criminal elements in order to stabilize the polity and forestall the perceived risks that the recent brazen display of bravado and disdain for constituted authorities by terrorists portend; should have been occupying the front and center of public discuss and engaging the attention of the managers of our security, who by now should have a laser focus on preventing anything untoward in this very critical period of political transition from one regime to another .

    But the highlighted ideal deliverables that could guarantee the continued existence of our dear country up to and beyond 2023 general elections, are presently in abeyance.

    The folly of the current situation whereby everything else , apart from politics is standing still, and not even security is being paid priority attention that it deserves , poses a risk to our country security-wise. That is simply because it is the easiest moment for the outlaws to possibly strike a potentially devastatingly catastrophic blow .
    As such,instead of our nation’s and citizen’s security to be relegated to the back burner, our security forces should be more vigilant until the elections for 2023 general elections have been lost and won.

    Lessons from the hijack of two passenger aircrafts by terrorists which they slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and Pentagon in the USA, September, 2011 are instructive to our security apparatchiks to learn from .
    It is therefore recommended that while politiking is going on , policy actions about the protection of the lives of Nigerians and ways and means of reducing hunger should also be occupying the minds of our political leaders pari-pasu.

    In broad terms ,governance is about organizing society for progress and prosperity of its members in an orderly manner with law and order as underlying principles.
    Given the foregoing definition of governance, if Nigeria as it is presently constituted were to be properly assessed,no matter how hard spin doctors try to airbrush the situation, governance in Nigeria, especially in the security space is currently comatose or has nearly collapsed.

    As such , it is safe to conclude that leadership in the security and economic spheres are currently in shambles in our country .
    That is simply because how to restructure the political system so that all members of the Nigerian union would have a sense of belonging and also the introduction of state police to enhance the protection of Nigerians from being wantonly killed by terrorists, which should be in the dashboard of our leaders as priority, have been neglected in the past seven (7) years .

    Without a scintilla of doubt, l am convinced that those in the corridors of power are fully apprised of the fact that the security and safety of lives and properties of citizens are right now on tenterhooks, while hunger is wrecking the lives of vulnerable Nigerians .

    And l am dismayed that our leaders are unwilling to take drastic actions to stem the growing tide of insecurity and hunger in the land which have seen our country racing to the bottom of human existence, conjuring a Hobbesian state of nature in our country .

    How worse can it get when practically everybody in Nigeria knows someone that was killed , maimed , kidnapped, raped , or whose homes have been destroyed, farms burnt down, as well as unable to eek out a livelihood either via farming or engage in other artisanal endeavors, courtesy of the low tensity war ravaging our country.

    It is heartbreaking that despite all of the crisis situation outlined above , politicians are butting their heads against each other in the contest of how to perpetrate another state capture via 2023 general elections. That is even as the ungoverned spaces in Nigeria are enlarging in geometric progression, while government capacity to steer the ship of state safely to shore from the troubled water, is waning.

    Even more stunning is that the heads of some of the arms of government charged with protecting lives and properties as well as enforcing and sustaining law and order are increasingly appearing to no longer have the capacity or ability to guarantee the protection of all Nigerians from terrorists, kidnappers and unknown gun men who now rule the roost, and which is a clear case of abdication of duty.

    That apparently lack of confidence being exhibited by our leaders in the security space , which Nigerians can discern, is not only evidenced by the frightening socioeconomic indices which l had earlier highlighted, but it is reinforced by the statement credited to the minister of defense , Major general Bashir Magashi (rtd) who reportedly stated that ending insecurity of the lives and properties of Nigerians requires divine intervention.
    If that statement attributed to the defense minister is true , then l would like to plead with readers to allow me indulge in a bit of cynicism by stating (in a tongue- in-cheek manner) that Nigeria does not need an army general as her minister of defense, if divine intervention is the main identified panacea to insecurity in our country .

    Instead of a retired senior army officer, our defense ministry requires the leadership of a man like Dr Daniel Olukoya, general overseer of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, MFM who is a renown prayer warrior that can confidently lead Nigeria in prayers for rapid divine intervention, if that is only what is required.
    Even the very daring sheik Ahmad Gumi, a Muslim cleric in the north who was once reaching out to the terrorists in their forest abodes, could also be a perfect fit for the job of our defense minister as he too has demonstrated confidence by venturing into the forests to dialogue with Boko haram insurgents, and as a cleric, he has the ability to invoke divine intervention to extricate our country from the clutches of the nefarious ambassadors holding us in the jugular.

    That fantastic recommendation is in response to the ridiculous excuse by those at the helm of affairs in the security space who have decreed that divine intervention is what it would take to restore peace in our nation.
    While we are still on the predilection of the defense minister who has reportedly abdicated the constitutionally assigned responsibilities of protecting citizens of Nigeria from harm, and instead, outsourcing the duty of protecting Nigerians, instance he is shifting the task to ‘divine intervention’ , it should not be forgotten that war time head of state, general Yakubu Gowon has in the past decade or so , been backing up with prayers, the work of our men and women in the armed forces charged with protecting us , through his Nigeria Prays movement -a multi denominational group.

    That means that a combination of prayers and bravery are required to emancipate our country from the stranglehold of the marauding gangsters.
    And when the hopelessness of the presumed utterance of the minister of defense is taken beyond its comical relief value , the most incorrigible optimists amongst us would realize that we have been hoping against hope that an early redemption of our country from the chaos that currently defines it, is in the horizon.

    So , it is such a shame that in the territories under siege by the terrorists, stretching from Zamfara , Yobe , Kebbi , Gombe and Bauchi states in the northern region , to Benue and Plateau states in the Middle belt as well as Oyo ,Ekiti , Ondo , Edo and Delta states in southern Nigeria, our security and law enforcement agencies armed with some of the most sophisticated weapons in the world , formerly not available to Nigeria due to US policies that made it impossible to sell such armaments to us (based on The Leahy laws ) are now in our arsenal, yet our military has been unable to root out the animals in human skin (apologies to Obasanjo) that have been tormenting our compatriots and putting our country in a perpetual mourning mood.

    With respect to unknown gun men saga in the south east, of which Anambra, Ebonyi and lmo states are the ground zero for the human carnage taking place there , as government institutions and security personnel are being burnt down and killed, as the case may be; what would it take apart from military force to stabilize the region? It is no comfort that efforts to restore peace in that region by the newly minted governor of Anambra state, Chukwuma Soludo has been rebuffed with more violence.

    And owing to the horrifying level of violence being unleashed nationwide in our country, it currently ranks second only to Afghanistan in the survey of the countries in the world where innocent civilians are being killed wantonly by the devil incarnates that rule the underworld.

    An intriguing phenomenon that l have observed is that the more government tries to assure Nigerians that it is in control of the security situation , the more brazen the outlaws become by invading military and police formations in order to kidnap military and law enforcement officers who are supposed to be protecting law abiding people of Nigeria.

    Against the backdrop of the latest marching order from the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, president Buhari to the military service chiefs, and the Inspector General of Police, IGP, my fingers are crossed as to whether or not the terrorists would do something extra ordinary in the coming days to counteract the C – in -C’s latest order.

    Having totally overwhelmed the hinterland by crippling farming in most parts of Nigeria, particularly in the northern region , and after converting expressways across the country into highways to the early graves of commuters as scores of innocent Nigerian travelers are killed on a daily basis in cold blood; and with the enforcement of stay-at-home order by unknown gun men in the eastern parts of our country in place ; the outlaws that are acting as a de-facto government, have now extended their violent attacks to railway passengers. Since they have twice struck the Abuja- Kaduna lines with success in their evil enterprise that is further exacerbating the state of insecurity in our beloved nation , are now more emboldened.

    Buoyed by their recent success in inflicting severe damage on the railway system , coupled with their increasing act of terrorism around airports , ( Kaduna and airports was recently breached) is that not a situation that should be worrying our security operatives?

    That is especially, if per adventure, the nihilistic minds of terrorists are getting fertilized by the thought of bringing down a passenger airliner to validate their impunity.

    Would it not be regrettable if we should be caught napping like the unfortunate Kaduna bound train tragedy?
    In light of the projectiles or rockets that they recently fired into Gujba local government area office in Yobe state , setting ablaze a column of vehicles in the complex , the obnoxious act of trying to bring down an airliner is not beyond the terrorists whose deranged minds appear to be nothing, but the devil’s workshop.

    The pernicious state of insecurity is so scary that the aphorism: the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom , is fast being replaced by the faint hearted, with a new conventional wisdom ‘the fear of terrorists is the beginning of personal safety.’

    Evidently, it is not even debatable whether Nigerians fear terrorists more than their government.
    That is an indisputable reality.
    And Nigerians also do not doubt the reality that the outlaws tormenting them do not fear God.
    They rationalize that belief with the notion that if the criminal elements were God fearing , they would not engage in the orgy of killing of harmless children , defenseless women and even ripping open the bowels of the pregnant ones, as we have been witnessing.

    It is in the context of the foregoing chilling and horrific narrative about the dastardly activities of terrorists/members of the underworld including religious insurgents, bandits,herdsmen militia , unknown gun men etc, that it can be concluded that they have succeeded in the imposition of a parallel government on Nigerians.

    I will dwell further on that reality later .

    But in the meantime, l would like to emphasize that the Abuja-Kaduna rail line that has been wantonly attacked twice resulting in the loss of about 8 lives with legions still in captivity, even as ransom is being demanded and paid,should be a serious cause of concern to our leaders.

    Due to my precarious nature, l am led to wonder if the ransom money being collected would not be invested in anti aircraft armaments sooner than later ? And if that becomes the case, would air travel which is the current safest mode of transportation in our dear country, (so far not disrupted by terrorists) not also be in jeopardy ?

    Given the sheer number of casualties that an attack on a passenger airplane could result in, are those charged with securing our country thinking ahead of the terrorists and are they demonstrating that they are equal to the task ?

    Yes, President Buhari has given a marching order to the security agencies to rescue the innocent Nigerians kidnapped during the train attack. Is that enough?

    It may be recalled that a similar order was issued by the same commander-in-chief of the armed forces to the same security agencies to rescue the Chibok school girls stolen over seven years ago by terrorists from their dormitories. As if in defiance of Nigerian authorities , and as if even mocking our government , Chibok girls have not only remained in captivity, more school boys and girls have been seized by the same members of the underworld .

    What does that tell us?
    And governance is not only in shambles in the security space, but a similar scenario has taken hold in the economic environment that is also in a state of disarray.

    Check out the economic indices: inflation is hovering around 33%, unemployment rate is about 15% and naira exchange rate to the US dollar is in the region of N590-N600-$1.

    On top of all of this , economists are warning government about the danger of spending about 92% of the entire income generated annually in servicing debts.

    Yet, our current leaders are adamantly budgeting four (4) trillion naira for petrol subsidy in budget 2022 and a mere two trillion more for than the amount set aside for fuel subsidy is provided for capital projects in budget 2023.

    The irony of it all is that petrol , that is being subsidized up to the tune of N4 trillion in the current budget circle is a commodity that we import into Nigeria with hard currency. And it is being smuggled across our borders to practically all the countries in West Africa. Does that not imply that Nigeria is subsidizing the cost of petrol for the entire west African sub region? What could be the reasoning behind this apparent economic suicide ?

    Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez under the influence of Fidel Castro of Cuba engaged in subsidizing petrol for some socialist countries in South America and Caribbean countries,and the policy proved to be a disaster as it crashed Venezuelan economy.

    While one is still trying to wrap his head around the incomprehensible policies and programs highlighted above , our production and export of crude oil that is responsible for about 80% of our foreign exchange income, and which could have been our saving grace , is also facing headwinds.

    That is a result of our country’s inability to meet its OPEC allocated quota of crude Oil production of 1.7 million barrels per day. So we are losing the opportunity of earning more foreign exchange income to patch up our budget deficit.

    Although , we are able to produce more crude oil , we are unable to export it.
    And that is because of the absurdity that even gets worse with the knowledge that over 80% of the crude oil produced in our country is stolen along the pipelines before it gets to the tanks where it is supposed to be stored for refining or export.

    Although finance minister Mrs Zainab Aliyu has assured the world via a Bloomberg television interview on the sidelines of the ongoing IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington DC USA , that Nigeria would meet its OPEC quota in the coming days, or weeks , the path way to such a sea change is not immediately clear to industry watchers, even as security agencies are claiming to have made progress in reining in crude oil thieves.

    The fall out of all of these grim statistics and dismal socioeconomic outlook is that Nigerians are hungry and desperate. With the growing inability of government to introduce effective policies and enforce rules/ regulations to ensure that law and order prevail to guide members of the public in their daily activities of pursuing their objectives of earning their livelihood in a stable atmosphere , (which are conditions that are currently absent in some parts of our beloved nation) how can we honestly say that we have a government in the hinterland ?

    That is a question that l have been pondering .

    Perhaps we have two governments . One being led by those we elected and are in the cities , and the other driven by men of the under world imposing their will on hapless citizens in the hinterland through brute force.
    And the assertion above is validated by the brutish state of life that has been foisted by members of the underworld on our compatriots in the hinterland, especially the northern end of our dear country, where the victims of terrorism are not feeling the deserved impact of government that should have protected them from the mayhem that they are faced with on a daily basis in the hands of terror mongers.

    It is common knowledge that the reign of terror which has been disrupting life and decimating lives mainly in the rural areas, is slowly but surely encircling cities like Maiduguri, katsina , Kaduna in the north to the south east cities in Awka, Nnewi , owerri , Aba etc.

    It could have been less worrisome, if I am talking about the threat posed by the formation of the proscribed Republic of Biafra or Oduduwa Republic promoted respectively by Nnamdi Kanu , currently in incarceration for allegedly committing treasonable felony and Sunday lgboho, also recently released from the custody of Benin Republic prison authorities at the behest of Nigerian government for an alleged offense similar to that of Kanu .
    These discontented and outspoken Nigerians , are well known to the authorities, therefore, lesser evil .

    But the alternative government that l am referring to is the Government Of Terrorists being operated by members of the underworld in the manner that black market operators in foreign exchange trade , control naira/dollar exchange rate, which prompted the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele to proscribe the ubiquitous Aboki .com, (an online forex trading platform) that he accused of arbitrarily fixing the naira /dollar foreign exchange rate .

    It is also in the manner that the activities of smugglers of rice , petroleum products and other essential commodities in and out of our porous borders from neighboring countries that are distorting local prices and triggering the rise of inflation in our country, until CBN governor , Emefiele, once again influenced the closure of Nigerian borders to enable farmers and producers of the items being smuggled to develop competitive advantage locally .

    The border closure which is also aimed at preventing the influx of small arms and ammunitions aiding the reign of violence in our country, has also inflicted collateral damages on the economy and by extension exacerbated the poverty situation of Nigerians as it has inhibited intra African trade.
    Nevertheless, those drastic measures instituted to tame the monster of destruction that had been unhinged have had a mixture of good and bad outcomes.

    With all of the above activities happening outside the control of the incumbent government, it is not out of place to imagine that there may be another government in our country riding roughshod with Nigerians.
    That is the optics with which the government in power must view the terrorists of all shades and colors intent on destroying our country. The whole idea is to galvanize our legitimate government into the action of dealing with insecurity with more vigor and the dexterity that it deserves.

    For instance , if you consider the zeal with which the ruling party at the center , APC is fighting to return to power in 2023 and imagine, if similar energy were to be invested in the war against insecurity, perhaps it might have been won by now. This underscores the push that new thinking and execution of plans must be invested in our collective security by all the stakeholders in our country , (not just the military) in the effort to restore law and order in our beloved country?

    Of course , there are other reasons for the assertion or presumption that there may be a parallel government by terrorists different from the one that we voted into office in 2015 and 2019 respectively.

    For instance, in a situation where terrorists, bandits and unknown gun men, who are all gangsters are collecting taxes from Nigerians ,like federal inland revenue services, FIRS; and they are holding thousands in captivity until ransom money is paid , like Nigerian Prison(Correctional)Service , NPS and they are also determining the dates that Nigerians can stay at home or go to work, like the ministry of eternal affairs that issues notice for public holidays; what else is left for the members of the Terrorist Government(imagined) to do to prove that they are operating a parallel government in Nigeria ?

    Against the backdrop of the aforementioned circumstances, it is stomach churning to think that all these are a fall out or the consequences of our politicians being derelict in providing effective governance, hence our country’s descent to the current state of anomie.

    While members of the political class are immersed in their plot for the next state capture in the name of elections, which comes up every four years, and based on INEC time table, has commenced since last February, and would end in February next year, God forbids that the underworld, which now appears to be acting like a de-facto government deals our country a blow that is capable of throwing the nation into national mourning?

    That is a sense of trepidation that must be paramount in the minds of those in the corridors of power, Aso Rock Villa, to the extent of keeping them awake at night , while most of us less mortals are asleep.
    In essence this piece is a wake up call for all Nigerians to become more vigilant in these perilous times .