TheNewsGuru

Tag: Democracy

  • Democracy in a Crime Scene – By Chidi Amuta

    Nigeria’s much anticipated presidential election has yielded an outcome, leaving behind a thick smoke trail of disquiet and global infamy. Mr. Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has since been announced winner of the February 23rd election. At home, the emotions are unevenly mixed between the minority whose partisanship has triumphed and the opposing majority who are understandably disappointed. Internationally, the consensus among independent observers is that the conduct and outcome of the election fell short of the expectations of the majority of Nigerians.

    The high expectation was palpable among Nigerians in the run up to the polls. The optimism among an army of youth most of whom were voting for the first time signaled a more than usual level of optimism in the promise of democracy to heal the multiple wounds of a country that has been badly injured in the last eight years. For the first time, majority of Nigerians believed that the imminent elections would assuage their collective hurt from eight years of easily the most rudderless administration in the history of the country.

    Early on election day, the atmosphere in most parts of the country was almost that of a carnival. Polling stations were over filled and the enthusiasm of young voters was readable on the faces of throngs. They had come to believe that the ballot held the key to a better country. Strangers at polling stations became friends united by a common aspiration, a shared hope and confidence in the power of democracy. Perhaps at last democracy had found hope and home in the largest black nation on earth.

    People at polling units shared food, drinks and hope. Somewhere in Kogi state, a man was arrested by the mob after he snatched a ballot box. The mob descended on him. At the point of lynching, he was rescued by youth, INEC and the police, all intent on having a peaceful election. At the slightest suspicion of INEC staff trying to play outside the rule book, a uniform cry rent the air: “We no go ‘gree o! We no go ‘gree!” That became a universal national outcry by crowds, mostly of youth, protesting slip ups and attempts by INEC and officialdom to deviate from the rules.

    At other times, when it seemed that people would not have an opportunity to vote, a different, more militant outcry erupted: ‘We must vote o!! We must vote o!! We must vote!!!’ That was another nationwide battle cry of youth armies at different polling stations either when INEC officials were late in coming or voting material were lacking or INEC’s efficiency was lagging. In one place, women with bare hands fought off hoodlums with clubs and machetes who had come to disrupt voting.

    At another polling station, people waited all through the day and well into the night just to cast a vote. A female voter from the neighborhood excused herself to go a make food for the multitude. She returned with a hot basin of Jollof rice to feed the crowd of voters. As night fell and the voting was yet to be completed or even start in some stations, the sloppy preparedness of INEC began to show. The batteries of the BVACS appliances began to run down and fail. But voters freely volunteered the power banks of their cell phones to help. Where there was no electricity, voters eagerly lit up the voting points with the torch lights from their cell phones; hundreds of points of light by so many hopeful people seeking to free their nation from dark rule and the powers of darkness.

    But as the voting got underway and the day began to wane, the optimism of those who had not yet voted turned into anger. Camaraderie turned into open frustration. Worse still, news came that in a number of places, thugs had invaded polling units and were disrupting the process. In other parts of Lagos in particular, some people had been injured, ballot boxes snatched, ballot strips burnt. Hoodlums had taken over parts of the city and were roaming free. Many could not vote.

    Others waited in endless queues for the entire day. In some places, those who went out to vote returned home in bandages from wounds inflicted by hordes of thugs and hoodlums unleashed by political vampires. A day that began with the optimism of millions of democracy enthusiasts was ending with a national disquiet and a realization that the darker side of Nigeria had overwhelmed the promise of hope and the prospect of unfettered freedom. The results began to trickle in. Most people could not believe what they were seeing and hearing even from the very polling units where they had cast their votes earlier in the day and left for home.

    As it turned out, the commitment by INEC that the new technology of the BVACS would ensure instant faithful uploads of results from polling units to INEC’s IREV central servers had failed or been compromised. In its place, INEC was relying largely on manual reportage of results from assorted sources. Where uploads were taking place, what was being uploaded was at wide variance from the actual results that people witnessed at polling stations.

    Uploading of results was slow in starting and has continued to be slow. At the time of this writing, only 83% of results have been uploading though final results were announced two days earlier. In a number of places, results from states far away were uploaded in the name of other states. In a few reported cases, fictitious results were allocated and uploaded to INEC. For instance, on INEC’s online results portal, results were uploaded for polling units in Okigwe where no election took place at all. In a rural place in Rivers state, villagers found a heap of signed and stamped INEC result sheets in a nearby bush bearing a different set of results from what was on display on INEC’s online site being beamed to the world!

    Through it all, a result has been announced. A president-elect has emerged. Mr. Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) is the president-elect. This outcome has not in any way doused the embers of anger and disquiet among Nigerians. Grave fears still abound that disappointment could spiral into mass protests even as the opposition candidates that lost the election have vowed to head to court to challenge the outcome.

    The picture that has emerged still speaks of a closely contested election with interesting figures. All three leading candidates won outright in 12 each of our 36 states. The votes scored by the three are interspaced by a margin of about one million votes. Yet in spite of the reportedly large turnout of voters, only 25% of registered voters were recorded. This is against 35% in the 2019 election which had a lower voter turnout.

    The overall result is still a close call. Bola Tinubu scored 37% of total votes cast. Atiku Abubakar scored 29% while Peter Obi brought the rear of the three with 24%. In the attainment of the margin of 25% in two thirds of the total  number of states , Tinubu scored a razor edge margin of in Bayelsa and Adamawa states. Mr. Tinubu scored 25.01% in Adamawa and 25.8% in Bayelsa respectively.

    In spite of the catalogue of anomalies and failings recorded in this election, it is only fair to acknowledge the overall political significance of the results we have so far seen. There are changing patterns in the nation’s political landscape. For instance, in spite of his incumbency and famed cultic followership, President Buhari’s APC was defeated in his home state of Katsina by Mr. Atiku’s Peoples Democratic Party(PDP). Mr. Bola Tinubu, famed juggernaut of Lagos politics, was roundly trounced  in Lagos state by Mr. Peter Obi, a fledgling third party newcomer in national politics. Similarly, Mr. Peter Obi swept the polls in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja while making significant inroads into the Northern hemisphere with substantial wins in Nasarawa, Kaduna, Plateau.

    Since the three leading candidates reflected the tripod of dominant ethnic nationalities in our political layout, the results also indicated a throwback to identity politics of the past. Outside Lagos, Bola Tinubu swept the South West. Peter Obi chased the PDP from most of the South East and most of the South South. Atiku Abubakar shared the high grounds of the demographically huge political north with Tinubu of the APC.

    At the national level, the emergence of Mr. Obi and the Labour Party indicates the emergence of a viable Third Force in the nation’s political architecture, thus supplanting what has always been largely a bipartisan picture. Peter Obi effectively banished the binary option of “either or” from our political thought process by proving that a third force can offer voters an alternative to the two ageing older parties.  Largely, Bola Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket made no significant impact in the outcomes as his running mate, Mr. Shettima, merely delivered his Borno state and can hardly be credited with the wins of his party in either the north east of the rest of the Muslim north.

    There are two very significant outcomes in the political landscape. The emergence of Mr. Obi who ran on a national message of a new Nigeria predicated on a new politics and dominated by developmental issues addressed to the youth indicates a future politics of ideas and issues. Similarly, Obi’s massive win in the south east sends a message to advocates of an Igbo presidency that what is urgently needed is not necessarily an Igbo president but a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction who embraces and embodies the essence of Nigeria’s broad questions and unites the nation under a common banner of progress, enlightenment and modernization. Peter Obi may have effectively ended the political isolation of the Igbo by expanding his reach beyond the homeland to the rest of the nation.

    Perhaps the days of ethnic bigotry as a political creed are coming to an end at last. We see the beginnings of a polity gradually growing out of traditional political loyalties compelled by a national youth bulge and urban national consciousness.

    Most international observers of the election have questioned the performance of INEC and therefore the overall integrity of the polls. Even the United States department of State in its congratulatory message to Mr.Tinubu has urged INEC to clean up its act from the untidiness of the presidential election. They all concluded that the election fell short of the expectations of most Nigerians.

    That evaluation is essentially a moral judgment and indictment. It however ails to take into consideration Nigeria’s emerging national character and long standing reputation as a crime scene merely pretending to use democracy to earn respectability among nations.

    Nigeria’s institutions of nationhood are essentially administered more like criminal cartels than as tools of collective sovereignty in any enlightened sense. At best, Nigeria under Mr. Buhari has degenerated into a sovereign crime scene. A crime scene with flag, anthem and the insignia and paraphernalia of sovereign nationhood is itself a dangerous proposition. It is made even more dangerous when it is a nation state presided over by a revolving conclave of gangster collectives. It exports crude oil but insists on importing refined petroleum products to line the pockets of a handful of oligarchs. It runs on multiple exchange rates so that patronage can feed unfettered on the commonwealth. It arms a security force to supervise the routine stealing of half of its crude oil production. It buys arms and ammunition to fight an insurgency funded and created by known political figures so that a “security industry” of corrupt officers can thrive. Who needs a more elaborate crime scene than this?

    In such a crime scene state, it is foolish to judge the actions of any state institution by rational moral parameters. Politics is ordinarily said to be amoral. Worse still, the politics of a sovereign crime scene cannot but reflect the essential morality of a jungle ruled by the ethics of gangsters. In such a place, the quest for political preeminence can only be a battle among captains of a pirate ship, a stampede among treasure raiders. The rules of engagement in that battle can at best only be a code of dishonour drawn up by thieves in a jungle retreat.

    Democracy in such a place cannot escape the organized riot that took place on 23rd of February. The common people were put through a ritual whose outcome may have been pre-arranged. INEC administered the fatal hypnosis through a pretension to technological savvy. A technology that delivered unquestionably credible elections in Anambra, Edo, Ekiti and Osun governorship elections decided to flutter and fail when it came to an election to choose the president of the crime scene!

    Understandably, therefore, the voices of protest by parties that lost this election have been greeted by a unified cry by both the APC and INEC. ‘Go to court!’ has been the constant refrain. The only line they cannot add publicly is this: ‘Our judges are waiting for you there!’ Yes, indeed, there is nothing in the record of recent judgments by the Nigerian Supreme Court on political cases that should fuel anyone’s hope that recourse to judicial remedy holds any promise of justice in the cases that have been evoked by this election.

    There is an even more worrisome question from this electoral outcome. A ruling party that has presided over eight years of harrowing suffering for the people has literally arranged for itself a contentious succession in spite of a reign of infamy and monumental ineptitude. Two conclusions are possible: the voting mob is irrational and basically foolish or the ruling party as a cartel of political gangsters has hoodwinked and conned the people.

    Whichever we choose, Mr. Buhari will return to Daura as the ultimate carrier of the moral burden of this hour. His de-mythification is complete. A man who swore to bequeath a legacy of free and fair elections is going home after delivering a dubious self -adulating referendum. A man who came to power vowing to drain the swamp of corruption in Abuja may have ended up placing a presidential seal of approval on the triumph of industrial scale corruption. A man who was hailed into the town square as the hero that will chase away the ogre of insecurity is leaving us in the pool of the blood of friends and family needlessly killed. For Buhari, then, this outcome is the ultimate inversion of a deceptive mythology. We may have witnessed the greatest political heist of the century.

    Somehow though, Mr. Bola Tinubu is an apt and inevitable outcome. Perhaps a crime scene state needs none other than someone who fully understands the mechanics of the game to lead it. Perhaps the president -elect’s long and elaborate resume eminently qualifies him as the most apt leader of this kind of state at this moment in time.

  • Armed forces will never be part of plot to truncate democracy – DHQ

    Armed forces will never be part of plot to truncate democracy – DHQ

    The Defence Headquarters has dismissed as malicious propaganda, the report peddled by some unscrupulous elements of plot by some military officers to disrupt the forthcoming general elections.

    The Acting Director of Defence Information, Brig.-Gen. Tukur Gusau, said this in a statement on Saturday in Abuja.

    The defence spokesman added that the Armed Forces of Nigeria was dismayed that even politically exposed persons had denigrated themselves into joining the agents of destabilisation.

    He said that the unscrupulous elements claimed that some military officers met with a Presidential candidate with the aim of disrupting the general elections and setting the country on fire.

    According to him, the purveyors of the wicked and very malicious propaganda also indicated that a so-called Thursday meeting is plotting a Coup d’etat to establish unconstitutional order.

    The Defence spokesman said those who made the false claims were agents of destabilisation and violence seeking to heighten tension in the polity and would be made to face the wrath of the law.

    “It needs to be stated that the Armed Forces of Nigeria is a professional military that is loyal to the constitution of the Federal Republic and will never be part of any evil plot against our democracy.

    “Besides, the Military remains apolitical and neutral in the current political process and will not engage in the alleged shenanigans.

    “The Armed Forces of Nigeria will never be part of any ignoble plot to truncate our hard-earned democracy,” he said.

    Gusau said the military high command would ensure that those who fabricated and spread the unfounded report were invited by appropriate law enforcement agencies to substantiate their claims.

    “The general public is advised to disregard such information and go about their normal activities,” he added.

  • Democracy without democrats, leadership without honour – By Owei Lakemfa

    Democracy without democrats, leadership without honour – By Owei Lakemfa

    IN Geneva, Switzerland, an acquaintance once apologised that he was some minutes late for our appointment because he went to vote that morning. Everywhere and everything appeared normal. There was no indication of voting going on. I reflected that back home, elections even at state level are emergencies in which curfew is imposed, movement restricted and the army, police, intelligence and other security services turned out on the streets.

    In November, 2021, I was an observer at the elections in Venezuela. It was a Sunday because the Venezuelans would not allow a disruption of their normal activities, including on Saturdays when a lot of trading goes on. Sundays are their rest days, so they can afford an hour or two.

    A Catholic country, I watched people returning from church with their children and making a detour to the polling station. Back home in Nigeria, it would be unwise for people to carry their children to the polling station. First, voting can be disrupted and violence breaks up. Secondly is the endless queue.

    Nigerian voters were by the last elections, forced to go to the polling station twice in a day for the same election; first to be accredited and later to cast their ballot.

    All the noise of ‘modern’ electoral system such as being issued temporary and Permanent Voter’s Card, PVC, the so-called revolutions of using card readers, and the newest contraption called the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, which is supposed to read PVCs and authenticate a voter’s finger print, are eliminated in Venezuela’s hotly contested elections.

    The very cheap, fast and non-controversial voting system in Venezuela simply requires the voter to come to the polling station with his national identity card, which we call NIN. This is checked against the electronic national register. The voter is then given a sheet which he goes to a covered table to tick and drop in a carton, yes, packet carton in the centre of the room, and off he goes. The number of persons who show up with their identity cards and the votes in the carton must tally. Within four hours, the election results nationwide, were out.

    I use the example of Venezuela because like Nigeria, it is a Third World country and due to unilateral American-imposed sanctions, it is poorer than Nigeria.

    So, voting is not rocket science. Elections do not need to be commoditised and generally turned into a feast of vultures where most politicians, their hangers-on, thugs, public relations and media sorcerers, professional election observers, security personnel, some lawyers and judges feed. In fact, the cut for the police in the 2023 elections is officially N64 billion.

    Our democracy which is without dividends for the electorate, is quite contentious because to hold high political office, is to hold a key to the public treasury, have immunity and act with impunity. This is why some characterise Nigerian politics as a criminal enterprise.

    It is a democracy in which the President and the Governor are in god-like positions, presiding over the affairs of ordinary mortals; legislators earn insane allowances, annually pad the national budget and award contracts to themselves, and judges many times, make controversial pronouncements. In fact, the Supreme Court has been caught selecting a governor for the people.

    Elections are quite contentious partly because we run a unitary system in which to have political power is to be so strong as to disregard constitutional provisions. This, President Muhammadu Buhari, has done a number of times, including disregarding the Federal Character provision which is at odds with his preference for prebendal politics.

    There is also the problem that while the Constitution announces the country as a federation, its provisions are unitary.

    A trending post in the internet last week asked Nigerians: “Which queue are you joining today? Queue for fuel? Queue for PVC? Queue for new Naira notes?” This, sadly, summarised the state of the country. Nigerians are in long queues for petrol in a country so blessed with oil and gas reserves.

    Our leaders in the last three decades have been so good that the country cannot refine petroleum products for local consumption. They are so efficient that they are incapable of distributing even the imported petrol. They have also become so modernist that rather than motorists buying petrol at the fuel stations, many buy from street urchins who ply their trade on side streets and residential homes.

    Just as our political leaders succeeded in dislodging foreign exchange transactions from the air-conditioned bank halls to the non-bankers under the trees in street corners, so are they dislodging petrol from the fuel stations to the Jerry cans of street urchins, some of who have now learnt the technology of adulterating fuel.

    Another point in the post is about queuing for PVCs which, of course, will be useless in the allocation of votes from the ungoverned spaces in the country.

    Then, there is the challenge of a change of currency notes in which millions are guaranteed to lose their hard earned money simply because they do not have the opportunity to change their old notes. A simple, straight forward exercise of exchanging new notes for the old becomes so complex that as at Saturday, even in Abuja, the country’s capital, almost all the

    ATM machines had run out of cash or had been shut down by commercial banks. The issue is not who is to be blamed, it is that the new notes are not available on demand at least across many bank counters, ATMs and Point of Sale, POS, outlets. To put it mildly, the country is not at peace.

    In the last few weeks, I have lost count of how many times President Buhari has declared that all is well with the country and that he has fulfilled all the electoral promises he made to Nigerians. On such occasions, he would reel off his achievements and paint pictures of the El dorado to which he has transformed Nigeria.

    He repeats these like a man with a pricking conscience. President Buhari is like a man who sets examination questions for himself, supervises the examination, answers the questions, marks the script, awards himself high grades and wonders why he is not being applauded for his excellent performance.

    In spite of the creeping darkness, I see rays of light in the horizon. Part of my optimism is my belief in the ability of the Nigerian people to turn their situation around. Also, in my analysis, none of the leading Presidential candidates is suffering from the neo-military complex. This is a debilitating complex that sees alternative views as a challenge, if not treason. It is a condition, like a Gambian saying goes, which sees every issue as a nail and every solution as a hammer.

  • Why Nigeria is not making progress – Obasanjo

    Why Nigeria is not making progress – Obasanjo

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the failure of Nigeria to make progress “on several, if not all fronts”, can be attributed to “impatient with democracy and democratic practice”.

    Obasanjo said the impatience has taken an element of greed, selfishness and lack of patriotism with it.

    Obasanjo made this known on Thursday during the 2023 Port Harcourt City International Conference in Port Harcourt.

    Obasanjo who delivered the Keynote address titled: ”Respecting the Principles of Democracy”, noted that Nigeria had gone through twists, dives and turns since its political independence.

    Obasanjo commended the organisers of the conference for choosing the theme: ”Deepening Democratic Culture and Institutions for Sustainable Development and Security in Nigeria”.

    He also commended Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers for putting his weight behind the intellectual discourse of the conference.

    Obasanjo averred that the country is not making progress despite being ruled by leaders from various intellectual and professional fields.

    He said the leaders need to start making efforts to correct past errors rather than acting like Nigeria is a new country.

    The former president said a nation that fails to “engage in conversations, self-analysis, self-criticism, and regular reading and interaction cannot make meaningful and sustainable progress”.

    “It is probably best to state right from the beginning that no two democracies are exactly alike. Democratic practice and institutions are shaped by the specificity of history, socio-political struggles, culture, nature of production and exchange, orientation, social balances and the character of the government and ruling elites,” he said.

    “However, citizens that live in democracies share common perspectives, expectations and commitments to the basic tenets of democratic practice. And they may turn out to be beneficiaries or victims depending on the course of the process and practice of democracy.

    “Therefore, in this our brief conversation today, my goal is to redirect our minds to where we missed the bus. If we are patient, humble, reflective, and willing, another bus is just around the corner: are we ready to be active passengers?

    “Our democracy has gone through twists, dives and turns since political independence and we are all living witnesses to our achievements and failures. The best of our history has been the sustenance of democracy since the transfer of power to an elected government in 1999.

    “There is reason to appreciate this part of our history because we have thus far kept the military out of the full and formal control and domination of political power.

    “However, there may be reasons to doubt how much lessons the leaders and followers have drawn from our past and how far they are willing.

    “We fail to understand that democracy is not a one shot game. It is evolutionary and it takes time to ground the practice. It is not for quick change and indeed, if we play by the rules, we would all realise that regimes or governments can change but the tenets remain constant.”

    The former president said it is important for leaders to rebuild their commitment to democracy, adding that they can still adopt lessons from the few good democratic practices of past administrations.

    “Our failure on several, if not all fronts, is because we are impatient with democracy and democratic practice. That impatience takes an element of greed, selfishness and lack of patriotism with it,” he added.

    “Yet, if you look at our pre-colonial history, you will find countless strong practices that were genuinely democratic including checks and balances to prevent dictatorship and bad governance in whatever form.

    “When a new King/Queen is installed, he/she does not proceed to behave as if the community is new. He/she does not immediately proceed to build a new palace and destroy the legacies of the predecessor.

    “Rather, the focus is to correct past errors, build on inherited legacies, cultivate support from all quarters, enhance inclusion and respect existing governance and leadership structures and institutions.”

    Obasanjo said in Nigeria, each new government behaves as if the country is a “newly found”, noting that during campaigns, “some leaders sound as if they plan to reinvent Nigeria and create new Nigerians overnight”.

    “That is because they miss the aspect of democracy that emphasizes continuity, stability and predictability. One regime can lay the foundation but it requires many regimes to continue to build positively and constructively on the foundation. It is largely because we overlook and often disregard the basic principles of democracy,” he said.

    “Everyone in this room, whether we admit it or not, is an expert in Nigerian politics. We all have opinions and we have prescriptions for all the problems of Nigeria. Yet, the country is not making progress. Most of us are experts in what we know little or nothing about and ignoramus in what is our duty and responsibility.

    “We have tried all sorts of regimes, ideologies, planning strategies and personalities in power: the so-called new breed did not show that they were different. Equally, states run by professors, retired military officers and other professionals including teachers did not experience visible and substantial improvements. True, there have been some outstanding leaders at various levels of power but no tree has ever made a forest; the good ones are few and far in between and did not form critical mass.

    “If after six decades of political independence, our leaders are not showing clear capacities to provide a transformative leadership that unites Nigerians and contains ethnic, religious, regional and clannish, selfish, even class proclivities, then, there is a problem.

    “In fact, it is possible to declare that the ways in which we have practised our democracy have deepened contradictions, negative coalitions, distrust, disloyalty and unpatriotic tendencies within and between communities and constituencies all over the country.

    “Again, this means that there is a deep structural and philosophical problem that we must deal with. We have tended so far to pursue the symptoms of the contradiction rather than focus on the causes and the disease remains stubbornly endemic.”

    Obasanjo added that unless Nigeria generates the courage and commitment “to change course and do things better and differently, we may be heading for more trouble ahead”.

  • Why we love expensive rituals – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Why we love expensive rituals – By Azu Ishiekwene

    In over two decades since Nigeria’s return to constitutional democracy, this is the longest politicians have had to campaign before a general election. And that is a good and bad thing.

    It’s good because it is giving politicians a longer runway to meet more citizens and also for citizens to have more time to engage them on what they plan to do if elected. But as a number of politicians – especially those of the Nigerian variety will tell you – it’s also a bad thing because it will make them spend more and leave them near exhaustion at the finish line.

    But that’s not all. As far as electoral politics go, there’s no guarantee that longer time spent campaigning equals promises kept in the end. I have said it before that the only promises made by politicians are those they often do not intend to keep. 

    But Tim Marshall said it even more eloquently in his book, Divided: Why We’re Living In An Age Of Walls. “In politics”, he said, “the present is often more important than the future, especially when you want to be elected.”

    Put squarely, campaign promises are made to be broken, with barely any leftover pieces for voters the morning after. Ask the British what happened the morning after Brexit. Yet, in our love of rituals, we hardly remember that campaign promises and manifestos are produced and packaged in gloss and rendered in poetry. 

    Since campaigns for Nigeria’s general elections officially began in September, we have seen candidates of the 18 political parties flitting across the country, holding rallies, attending town halls and debates and meeting different groups and communities. 

    Three of the presidential flag bearers – candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Labour Party, Peter Obi; and the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso – have even gone beyond Nigeria, taking their campaigns to Britain’s Chatham House, a private political think tank.

    Virtually all candidates contesting at national, state or local levels have been promising to turn our night into day and retrieve the paradise lost. 

    Well, if you have been living in Nigeria or have known it in the last eight years at least, this is what the promises look like: taming widespread banditry and kidnapping which have made major roads and highways in some parts of the country unsafe, with rail lines as the new targets; curbing inflation which is currently over 20 percent and unemployment at over 30 percent; reversing the new “japa” wave draining the country of some of its best professionals and young people; tackling systemic corruption; and fixing a political system which increasingly serves fewer and fewer people.

    It’s a basketful. But politicians on the hustings all insist they have the magic wand. Does anyone really take them seriously? Do campaigns, manifestos and election promises affect electoral outcomes? An answer from a young member of the audience at a recent public lecture on campaign tracking hosted in Abuja by an online platform, NPO Reports, got me thinking.

    Campaign manifestos are fancy election tools, but in the end, they are irrelevant to the electoral outcomes. The young man didn’t use these exact words but gave a parable from the odyssey of the first term of former Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State to illustrate his point. 

    Even though Fayemi kept faith, delivering significantly on his election promises, he lost to Ayo Fayose who ran against him when he contested for a consecutive second term. Fayemi was accused of “speaking grammar” and dispensing “big, big English”, in comparison to Fayose whose prioritised “stomach infrastructure”, euphemism for distributive politics and hanging out to eat roast plantain by the roadside.

    In the end, it didn’t seem to matter what Fayemi’s election manifesto was or how far he actually went to keep it in his first term as governor. What mattered, it seemed, was that a perverse demand side (amply exploited by security agents working hand-in-gloves with vested interests) had yielded to the psychology of voter exploitation.  

    It’s not a peculiarly Nigerian thing. Whether it is Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or Jair Bolsonaro, we have seen political demagogues getting elected on what appears to be the most preposterous electoral promises, only for voters to bite their nails later.

    But we have also seen those who meant well come to grief, when the tyre of political campaigns meets the road of governance. Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo, for example, made lofty promises before election, including creating a “Ghana-beyond-aid”. He was the poster-boy, not only of Ghana’s politics, but also of a continent that appeared bereft of role models.

    But as a result of a combination of COVID-19 and the aftershocks, including wild swings in the commodity prices, Akufo-Addo is hanging by the skin of his teeth today, with the same voters who praised him to high heavens now pouring out onto the streets to demand his crucifixion. He is leaving Ghana worse off for aid and foreign loans!

    Yet, that is not a reason not to track campaigns and manifestos. Since the MIT media laboratory developed the Promise Tracker in 2014, there has been an increasing use of tools to track politicians in many parts of the world. The evolution of these apps, hardly able to tame politicians’ shenanigans or even voter complicity, which I’m sure were present even from ancient Greece, has also raised interest in whether campaign documents should be justiciable or not.

    That is, if APC candidate, Tinubu says he will rebuild our national security infrastructure, create jobs for youths and make Nigeria an exporting country; PDP flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar, is promising qualitative education, restructuring and prosperity; and LP candidate Obi is promising an industrial revolution and seven thematic areas of security; shouldn’t we be able to take them to court if any of them fails to keep their promises? 

    And why, in any case, are we so obsessed with the presidential candidates that we easily forget that candidates at the state and local council levels ought to come within the radar?

    Asking politicians to legislate campaign manifesto is like proposing to prosecute the goat for the yam kept in its care. It’s never going to work. The good news though, is that as a result of improved demand on service delivery by citizens and other stakeholders, governments in a few states are making conscious efforts to create self-tracking mechanisms, which include monitoring and evaluation units. 

    It’s good to blame politicians for not keeping campaign promises and I think we should keep beating them over the head until they learn that it’s not just the rituals of campaigns and the poetry of campaigns that interest us. 

    But if politicians are ever going to take their promises seriously, then voters will have to do better on the demand side. Voters cannot accept to be paid off during campaigns and then turn around to complain that politicians are not keeping their promises after they have been elected. The payoff is the promise kept. 

    And it’s not only about the money. Perhaps if voters focus less on the drama and aso-ebi of campaigns and spend a bit more time to reflect on the “why” and, especially, “how”, of promises made, a lot of post-election misery can be avoided. 

    How many times have we heard politicians promise to deliver the moon on a stick only to say after elections that they never really knew that the predecessor made such a mess of things? And that excuse becomes the trope for another few years before the incompetence shows up for what it really is!

    However well intended promises made, extenuating circumstances, like COVID-19, can upend even the best of intentions. Yet, even in such circumstances, there is always bandwidth for a turnaround. And we have seen, even from COVID-19 examples, that the choice of leaders that voters made was not only vital to recovery, but could also be an insurance against calamity.

     

    Ishiekwene is Editor-in-Chief LEADERSHIP

  • Democracy and its Discontents – By Chidi Amuta

    Democracy and its Discontents – By Chidi Amuta

    In his most recent book, Liberalism and its Discontents, leading American political philosopher, Francis Fukuyama, throws light on the imminent crisis of democracy.  The historical logic of democracy’s development is leading liberal democracy in particular towards a disastrous unraveling worldwide. But the unfolding catastrophe of democracy will impact nations according to the stage at which they are in their individual democratic development.

    The advanced Western democracies have since coupled democratic freedom with individual rights of choice in order to qualify as liberal democracies. “I choose for myself, therefore, I am” seems to be the cardinal axiom of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy is therefore the highest form in the development of democracy. In a liberal democracy, citizens are first recognized as free agents entitled to the fullest expressions of democratic choice and rights. But in addition, those rights are rooted in the individual’s freedom of choice as an individual that is different from all other individuals. In liberal democracy, the individual’s choice is not encumbered by tribe, tongue, faith, ethnicity, region and skin colour. It is that free entitlement to subscribe to democracy as an animal of choice in a liberal context that distinguishes liberal democracy from other stages of democratic development. 

    However, significant parts of the world like Nigeria and the new democracies of the developing world remain stuck at the level of just nominal democracy. They merely swell the number of nation states that are adjudged democratic simply because they choose or change their political leadership through periodic elections. By counting nations that hold elections, the percentage of the world population living under democracy is swollen. Triumphal advocates of the victory of the liberal international order can order a beer and be happy!

    These nominally democratic countries restrict themselves to the right of citizens to troop out in periodic electoral rituals to select new leaderships or renew the mandate of old leaders. The rights of individuals living in the society are hardly recognized let alone respected by the state. In such nominal democracies, the observance of the full freedoms and rights of individual citizens living in society is left for another day, an indeterminate future that no one can fathom. 

    A third version of ‘democracy’ has recently established itself as an instrument of leadership legitimation. It is a tool for the domestication of authoritarianism  to make it acceptable in the more distinguished company of free societies. This is illiberal democracy which is a version of  nominal democracy sustained with the tools of authoritarianism: suppression of free speech, police brutality, controlled judges and a frightened populace fed official propaganda by the state. In recent times, illiberal democracy has come to shunt itself into the broad ranks of ‘democracy’. Autocrats in disguise use a rough combination of sham elections and jackboot pretensions to law and order to gain and maintain legitimacy. The claim is usually that each society adopts a form of democracy that is ‘appropriate’ to its circumstances! 

    Countries as far flung as Russia, Hungary, Iran, Syria, Rwanda and Uganda are in this sense also democracies because their leaderships are selected or renewed through periodic elections. Like in the other nominally democratic countries, individual rights and freedoms are kept in the back burner. Literally, freedom is not predicated on the individual’s right to choose but rather on the freedom to vote because everyone else is trooping out to vote. Otherwise, the state decides and enforces what is ‘good’ for the individual. The institutions of a free society are securely tucked in the back pockets of the state and its managers.

    The thrust of Fukuyama’s argument in the new book is that liberal democracy is the highest form of the democratic enterprise because it combines freedom of individual choice with respect for the rights of individuals as citizens to decide and choose for themselves in matters of politics and other aspects of life. But in its full liberal manifestation, democracy has evolved to enable  forces that now threaten its very foundation and survival. 

    New forces such as right wing extremism, left wing identity radicalism, micro nationalism and outright militant challenges to the state have emerged. Hidden under the canopy of the multiple individual rights allowed by liberal democracy, these forces are the new threats ravaging the state in many places. Before our every eyes, even the most hallowed traditions and institutions of democracy are being assaulted and desecrated. All manner of fringe groups with wild conspiracy theories are creeping out of the wood work. Some of the extremist groups are armed with dangerous weapons to do harm to fellow citizens, assault the institution of the state and challenge its supremacy of force and  authorized violence. From the right, Trump’s QAnon and Proud Boys and other White Supremacist groups are out on the prowl. From the left, Black Lives Matter and sundry militia factions have erupted.

    Recently, Donald Trump, the enfant terrible of America’s democratic deviance has called for an abrogation or total scrapping of the US constitution in order to allow for the kind of lawlessness that will allow for his revalidation as the winner of the 2021 presidential election. Unsurprisingly, his followers have echoed his anarchic advocacy even as mainstream American democracy forges ahead with maintaining the dictates of democratic decorum and order. 

    Only last week, the world was shocked when Germany witnessed a real coup attempt.  At least 25 Right Wing extremists representing a broad spectrum of professions, occupations and callings have so far been arrested for planning a coup to overthrow the German government.  Among those so far arrested include a judge, some soldiers, an aristocrat, medical doctors, some far right anti-establishment militants and theorists. It was a real attempt to breach the parliament, arrest and handcuff key legislators, declare themselves as the new government of Germany with the aristocrat as leader. The plan was so elaborate and grotesque that the coup planners even had one of them being responsible for ‘spiritual’ affairs. Another was the group psychic, responsible for psychic vetting  of prospective members of the group to determine their suitability for group membership. Clearly, the last has not been heard of such attempts in the advanced liberal democracies. 

    Even nominal democracies are not immune to the prevailing discontent with democracy around the world. Electorates are becoming bored and frustrated with repeated cycles of electioneering that re-cycle the same set of leaders. More worrisome is the fact that the citizens are getting frustrated with periodic elections that do not bring about tangible changes in their lives. Elections take place every four years but the percentage of poor people keeps increasing. Living conditions worsen. Hopes dim and expectations are dashed. The rituals and institutions of democratic reality become fixtures in a ritual landscape. Nothing changes for the better. Everything remains the same or changes for the  worse.

    Legislatures frustrate executives. Judges mangle justice and rule in favour of the rich. In the process, citizens are overwhelmed by a sense of stasis and despair. In general, there is increasing frustration with democracy as a means of bringing about the changes that citizens are urgently demanding. As a consequence, nominal democracies are witnessing shock waves hitherto unknown. The nation state in such fragile places has come under the pressure of sundry forces and threats. Militancy, banditry, terrorism, cartels, rackets, organized crime  syndicates masquerading as govedrnment, monumental corruption etc.  Those elected through the rituals of nominal democracy occasionally try self -help in desperate search of  solutions to urgent social and economic problems plaguing those who elected them into office. Yet, no one has quite found a replacememnt for democracy as a system of government.

    In Peru, a democratically elected president has just overthrown himself in a foolish constitutional coup. Pedro Castillo, a monumentally incompetent  president on December 7th announced the dissolution of parliament and the convening of a new one with powers to write a new constitution and hand down a new code for judges. The coup attempt failed as parliament ousted him with a vote of 107 to 6.  The police moved in to arrest the errant fleeing president for rebelling against the state. He is under house arrest , replaced with his deputy. Street mobs on both sides have overwhelmed the capital in protest on both sides. 

    Castillo was only staging an amateurish version of the 1992 episode in which  the elected president, Alberto Fujimori, rolled out military tanks to stage a coup that sacked parliament. He succeeded in securing himself 8 years if unperturbed rule as an autocrat. Fujimori was a competent and astute politician. Castillo was a political idiot!

    In fragile nominal democracies like Nigeria, the greatest danger to democracy is the assumption that the fever of an election season reflects the popularity of democracy or its universal acceptance by competing elites. In a place where democracy has not yet permeated the cultural fabric of society, it is futile to assume that every faction of the elite is anxiously awaiting the next election and its outcome. Far from it. Partisan divisions are merely intra elite schisms dressed up as democratic options. There are no options. There is only a feverish  scramble for access to the keys of the presidential lodge. This may be the situation in Nigeria as the nation preps for the 2023 elections.

    In today’s pre election Nigeria, the major current of public expectation is that the 2023 elections will go according to plan. The logic of this optimism is the hope that the presidential election will be peaceful and a peaceful transition of power will proceed therefrom and culminate in the swearing in of the next president on 29th May, 2023. 

    But listening closely in recent weeks, there is a hint in the utterances of significant public voices, we have reasons to worry about the fate of the elections and the future of the nation. Chief of Defense Staff, Mr. Lucky Irabor, is an eloquent soldier of not too many unnecessary words. Speaking to journalists at the State House in Abuja on Thursday, he made an inconvenient disclosure. The Nigerian military is under pressure from unnamed quarters to compromise the 2023 elections. Soldiers are being tempted with inducements to possibly compromise the democracy train by unnamed forces. The alarm is not strange in Nigeria’s political history. 

    Yet, it was a convenient  opportunity for the Defense Chief to reiterate the extant fact of the subordination of the armed forces to the primacy of civil authority as a cardinal guardrail of democracy. It was also an opportunity to emphasize the imperative for security forces to remain loyal to and obey President Buhari’s  injunction for the armed and security forces to remain neutral in the prevailing season of partisan political frenzy.

    Less than a fortnight ago, President Buhari himself had cause to reiterate the obvious fact that he will hand over power to a successor administration come 29th May, 2023. On the surface, this reassurance looked unnecessary and superfluous. It is a restatement of the obvious that was coming from nowhere. But the president is the ultimate receptacle of all high intelligence. Taken together with Mr. Irabor’s alarming warning, there is reason to suspect that the high expectations about the outcome of the 2023 elections may have come under greater scrutiny. The president has himself readjusted his political rhetoric from a rabid “APC by all means” to “Nigerians are free to vote for any party or candidate of their choice” earlier this week. 

    There has been a more consequential expression of concern about the 2023 elections and their outcome. At a public lecture in Abuja recently, former INEC Chairman Atahiru Jega, had cause to sound a note of concern and dire warning. Jega was deeply concerned about the undercurrents of the election and the possible outcome. Given his experience in managing what would have been Nigeria’s most catastrophic election back in 2015. 

    The spate of violent attacks on INEC facilities in the South East especially does not make things any better for our nominal democracy. Other separatist factions and their militias are no less dangerous. INEC has itself  warned about the consequences of these episodes of violence for orderly polls. 

    In fractious states like Nigeria, the risk sto nominal democracy are magnified if nothing binds political contestants with the electorate and general citizenry. The survival of democracy is often underwritten by an elite consensus on the urgent indices of national survival. Election campaigns become a means of securing citizens’ buy -in into that consensus.  Elections have meaning for as long as they will guarantee the survival of the nation and a minimum level of security, peace and orderly life. 

    Brazil’s last presidential election illustrated this poignantly. The tenure of Jair Bolsonaro tilted Brazil in the direction of catastrophic illiberal democracy. Bolsonaro  was deriving his model from the Donald Trump anarchy in the United States. But a national consensus on Brazil’s dire economic situation and the worsening climate change consequences of the destruction of the Amazon created a national nostalgia for a return to the social welfare strides of former Lula da Silva. Brazil voted for national survival and returned Lula to power to save the country.

    Nigeria’s survival as a nation state has become tied to whether it survives as a democracy. The 2023 presidential election is in many ways a referendum on whether Nigeria survives as the imperfect union that we have come to know. Therefore, all those covertly scheming to subvert the election must come to terms with the existential imperative that if 2023 fails, Nigeria falls into pieces.

  • 2023: Presidential candidate, Prof Imumolen protests against media blackout

    2023: Presidential candidate, Prof Imumolen protests against media blackout

    Accord Party’s presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, Professor Christopher Imumolen has accused the Nigerian media of bias in its coverage of presidential candidates and their activities ahead the general election.

    The 2023 presidential elections’s youngest candidate is not happy that the media is deliberately creating the impression that only 4 out of the 18 aspirants vying for the office of Nigeria’s president should be promoted and given maximum exposure ahead the elections in February 2023.

    He condemns a situation where media organisations and groups have in recent months given undue recognition to a few handpicked parties and their candidates to the detriment of the larger majority in the area of fair coverage, saying that it was a trend that portends grave danger for the growth of democracy in the country.

    The academic and business man does not agree that the country’s future will be better served if the scope of choices is narrowed to just the candidates from the APC, PDP, Labour and NNPP on the grounds that they are bigger and more popular.

    “From what I have observed lately, it appears that the Nigerian media has formally decided to adopt only 4 candidates out of the 18 that have applied for the job of Nigeria’s president come 2023.

    “I need to be proved wrong on this, but the facts on ground suggests otherwise. The media does not give as much coverage to the other 14 presidential candidates as it does APC, PDP, Labour and NNPP, be it in their reports, news, analysis or debates.

    “Now, this is wrong. It is a trend that has been going on unabated since the campaigns started. It happened during the last NBA conference, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) conference, and recently, at the Arewa House summit in Kaduna.

    “I’m not just crying wolf where none exists. It appears that there is a deliberate attempt to sideline other political parties while preference is given to just a few under the misguided assumption that they are the major political parties. Who made them the major parties or candidates?

    “The media cannot decide who to present to Nigerians to vote for. It is the people’s inalienable rights to do that. Their job as the fourth estate of the realm is to allow a level playing field through unbiased reporting of all the candidates and their activities as enshrined in both the constitution and the electoral law.

    “But by limiting the choices of Nigerians by focusing on only the aforementioned political parties and their candidates, they inadvertently create the notion that only those 4 parties are eligible and worthy to be voted for in 2023.

    “The danger of this is that the media would have succeeded in denying Nigerians the choice of selecting fresh set of leaders to take them to the next level in a fast changing world.

    “Let me also make this clear. No one presidential candidate is bigger than the other. So long as we have all been passed fit to contest the elections, we are all equal and should be given equal representations at platforms where we can adequately reach out to the electorate and sell our manifestos.

    “I think it’s high time we stopped this myopic mindset of just believing that those who have led us before in one capacity or the other are the only ones who can lead us again,” Prof. Imumolen said.

  • Jonathan says teamwork between public office holders critical to democracy and good governance

    Jonathan says teamwork between public office holders critical to democracy and good governance

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan says a good working relationship between a Deputy Governor, Governor, President and Vice- President is critical to democracy and good governance.

    Jonathan made this known on Tuesday in Abuja at the launch of a book titled:” Deputising and Governance in Nigeria” written by Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State.

    The former president said this is critical to avoid issues that usually crop up after either the candidate or the party might have selected the running mate.

    “To address the issue of presidential and governorship running mates both candidates should contest the party’s ticket at primary.

    “For you to qualify to run for the primaries as a governorship candidate, you should run with your deputy, same thing at the federal level,

    “For you to run as a president, you need to run with a deputy, if the political parties think that the pair is okay for them and when they vote for that pair, nobody will raise issues after the primaries.

    “But here, we are in a situation where issues are being raised after primaries because selection of a Vice-President is becoming a problem.

    “I believe, maybe at the state level the selection of the running mate to the governor is also becoming a problem,” the former president said.

    He explained that every country amends their laws based on the challenges they were faced with, saying that this was one area that Ganduje raised in his book which should be discussed by Nigerians.

    He, however, noted that a good working relationship and understanding between a deputy governor and the governor and the president and Vice-President was critical to a functional democracy and good governance.

    Jonathan, who was the chairman of the occasion, said he was pleased to be invited, adding that public office holders had a lot to learn from the book, drawing from Ganduje’s experiences.

    “Ganduje did so much detailing the qualities a deputy governor should possess to gain the trust of his principal and the roles the chief executive should play to be able to cultivate a good working relationship in political leadership.

    “I believe public office owners have so much to learn from the narratives in the book, especially drawing from Ganduje’s personal experience,” Jonathan said.

    The former president also said that the rampant impeachment of Deputy Governors was another grey area that needed to be looked into not just by the National Assembly, but by Nigerians generally.

    “I must admit that the issue of the book resonates clearly with experience of Ganduje and myself.
    “With both of us sharing a similar political trajectory of having serve as deputy governors at the same time, and eventually taking over from our principals.

    “In fact, I got the better of Dr Ganduje in this regard, because I moved on also to become the Vice- President and later become a president,” he said.

    He said he was glad that Ganduje had been able to document his experience for the benefits of all.

    This, he said, was especially in climes where the relationship between elected political leaders and their deputies had not always been very cordial and where such deputies hardly succeeded their principals.

    Jonathan said having worn both shoes, he was in a better position to identify the pressure and friction points and advise on the way forward for harmonious relationship between the principals and their deputies.

    This, he said, was critical to to improving our democracy and the lives of citizens.

    “The issue of deputy governors and governors is actually something we all need to ponder.

    “I remember when we were elected in 1999, in some states the relationship between the Governor-elect and Deputy Governor-elect became frosty even before the inauguration.

    “To me, I’m thinking that the National Assembly should look at it,” Jonathan said.

    He also said the rampant impeachment of deputy governors who do not appear to agree with their governors on some issues was another grey area that must be looked into by the National Assembly.

    Earlier, Ganduje said the publication which chronicled his years of experience in the Nigeria project, was one of the defining moments of his life in public service.

    This, he said, was principally as two-term Deputy Governor and presently serving his second and last tenure in office as a governor of Kano State.

    “My decision to embark on this imperatively and auspicious project is to share my first-hand experience in this thought provoking, fascinating and worthwhile journey

    “The book tells numerous experiences relating to principal and deputy relations in the Nigerian political system, reflecting the successful and evil times,”Ganduje said.

    Ganduje said proceeds from the book launch would be invested in his foundation: Ganduje Foundation to positively impact on the lives of the less privileged.

  • The Rise of Tyrant Governors – By Chidi Amuta

    The Rise of Tyrant Governors – By Chidi Amuta

    An urgent threat hovers over Nigeria’s democracy. It is not just the spectre of bad elections or the predominance of atrocious politicians. It is instead the rise and increasing numbers of authoritarian governors all over the country. Though enthroned by our often murky democratic process, an increasing number of state governors now carry on more like banana republic tin gods than elected representatives of the people. This is perhaps the most visible flagrant subversion of Nigeria’s democratic pretensions at the present moment. Ironically, however, not much of our media focus has been interested in drawing attention to the long term danger of this trend. Instead, people are clapping for these fledgling autocrats seeing them more as entertainers on social media rather than condemning them for the danger they pose to our future culture of freedom and democracy. While we watch and hail the authoritarian content creators, the Nigerian democratic shell now houses islands of the equivalents of the vile autocrats that we see in places that we are too ashamed to be associated with. Let us take a random look at recent trends.

    The governor of Zamfara State, Mr. Bello Matawalle recently ordered the shutdown of a number of media houses in the state on account of their coverage of political activities in the state. The affected media houses include the Nigeria Television Authority, Gamji Television, Al-Umma Television and Pride FM Radio in Gusau, the state Capital. Their crime ostensibly is that they covered and reported the campaign rally of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), the opposition to the governor’s ruling All Progressive Congress (APC). The government statement on the matter claimed that the state government had suspended political activities in the state while the PDP went ahead and held its rally which was covered by the offending media. By the wordings of the order of closure, the offending media houses are, in the governor’s judgment, in breach of “the rules of journalism”. Reportedly, some journalists from the affected media houses were arrested for entering their respective work premises to perform their legitimate functions.

    Predictably, outcries and condemnations by international and national media organisations as well as civil society groups have followed but none of that has impressed the authoritarian despot in the Gusau Governor’s Lodge.

    By the illogic of this action, the governor has placed his partisan interests above the fundamental freedom of expression of the media which is a cornerstone of all democracies. Above all, the governor has usurped the regulatory powers of the relevant authorities on media practice and arrogated those powers to his executive fiat. If indeed he felt that the affected media houses had flouted any state laws, he should have reported them to the relevant regulatory bodies like the National Broad Commission(NBC) instead of taking recourse to a line of action which even a military regime would be reluctant to undertake.

    Mr. Bello Matawalle is not new to authoritarian flirtations and reckless pronouncements. Earlier, he had unilaterally announced that citizens of the state were free to acquire whatever arms they thought fit to secure themselves against the menace of bandits in the state. Of course, in the absence of a federal law granting citizens authority to bear arms, this declaration was in flagrant violation of all existing laws and the constitution of the country. The leadership of all national security agencies were unanimous in condemning the governor’s directive as an open invitation to anarchy.

    It would be recalled that Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina state had previously advocated the same self- help approach to citizens’ personal security, encouraging his people to take measures to protect themselves including the acquisition and possession of weapons. Masari’s pronouncement was consequential since he is the governor of the President’s home state.

    But nothing compares to Bello Matawalle’s record in terms of recklessness and flagrant disregard for democratic order. This is a governor who had previously entered into all manner of agreements with bandit leaders in the state, sometimes allowing them to roam free in certain areas only to scream aloud each time his agreement with them appeared to be foundering. Meanwhile, he has ceded the state to terrorists to the extent that his state is arguably the epicentre of banditry and rural terrorism in the nation. Most ungoverned spaces in Zamfara are effectively under bandit control even now. Local farmers pay levies to bandits and war lords in order to plant or harvest their crops.

    Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi state typifies a different dimension in the descent into low levels of authoritarianism. His contribution is In the area of the conscious cultivation of a political personality cult. A recent viral video in the social media showed Governor Umahi gleefully ‘overseeing’ the open flogging of innocent public servants by soldiers and policemen because they arrived after him during a visit to a government facility. It is uncertain whether the governor ordered the floggings. But it remains doubtful that such an act of open abuse of citizens rights can take place in the presence of the governor without his authorisation.

    What is common knowledge is that Mr. Umahi has been consistently intolerant of dissenting views. He has embarked on the use of rough tactics to mzintain his political predominance in the state. To criticize Mr. Umahi in Ebonyi state is to transgress against all known deities. For him, intimidation and harassment of his political opponents seems routine. Opposition politicians, journalists and plain well -meaning citizens have been subjected to this governor’s ire for just holding contrary views or questioning the governor’s half- baked and ill digested ideas and policies. Ig does not matter that he has changed political parties in pursuit of some phantom Igbo presidency project which he saw as his entitlement.

    Probably because he is uncomfortable with the growing popularity of Mr. Peter Obi and his OBIdients movement, a peaceful street rally in Abakaliki by the movement was visited with police tear gas and truncheons ostensibly on the orders of the state police commissioner. It remains doubtful whether any state police commissioner can undertake an action that violates the constitutional right of assembly of citizens without the authorisation of the governor of the state. But that incident went down as the first and only state where the rallies and street marches of the OBIdients has been dispersed with tear gas anywhere in the federation.

    The governors of Ondo and Benue states belong in a somewhat different category. They have engaged in acts that run in open contradiction to the spirit and letter of the constitution. Reacting to the pervasive insecurity in the nation and the heavy tolls it has taken on lives and property in both states in particular, the governors have responded to what is clearly an emergency. They have pioneered the setting up of state security outfits. In the case of Ondo, it is the Amotekun vigilante outfit which is a pan-South West endeavour. But Mr. Akeredolu has gone a step further than his other South West counterparts. He has vociferously taken federal authorities to task on the matter of the calibre of weapons that Ondo state Amotekun should bear. He has requested for military grade weapons such as AK-47 assault rifles and other high calibre armaments that clearly go beyond the security needs of a state. Mr. Ortom of Benue state has followed suit.

    There may be some justification in the stance of both governors. Their argument is hinged on the nature of the threat on their states. After all, the armed herdsmen, sundry terrorists and bandits who attack and kill their citizens are armed with military grade weapons and display a proficiency in weapons use that can only be found among highly trained and professional killer squads. But the insistence of the governors on arming their respective militias with military grade weapons runs counter to the law of the land. Constitutionally, only the authorised security agencies are allowed to acquire and use weapons like assault rifles and rocket propelled grenade launchers. The insistence of these governors on their request is in violation of the constitutional provision which places the armed and security services and their equipment in the exclusive hands of the federal government. To insist otherwise is to run foul of the demarcation of powers between the two tiers of government. It is also an open challenge of the supreme sovereignty of the federal government.

    Basic constitutional compliance is at the root of the democratic essence of every sovereign nation state. Open challenges to the national constitution except through the judicial process amount to political rascality under the guise of protection of citizens of their respective states. The argument of the federal authorities that a state government cannot be more concerned about citizen security than the federal government is, to some extent valid. But the security of citizens is a joint responsibility of the federal and state authorities.

    In Imo State, Governor Hope Uzodinma has tended to pursue political survival and pre- eminence in his fractious state through all manner of authoritarian head butts. For a governor whose legitimacy and ascendancy hinges on the verdict of a handful of Supreme Court judges, his every step seems to be immersed in controversy. He walked into a political minefield with a predecessor that was considerably popular. The state was already charged with challenges. A hostile populace plus a former governor, Mr. Rochas Okorocha, who was embattled over illicit property matters and who is deeply entrenched in the Imo power structure meant that Mr. Uzodinma has to fight for every inch of political foothold he enjoys.

    Add to this the weaponization of politics in Imo and the enlistment of factions of IPOB separatist militia and other opportunistic criminal gangs into the Imo fray and you have the makings of a battle field of sorts. A small Mexico! A state like this can only be conducive to anarchy and violent insecurity. The rapid descent of a hitherto peaceful and happy- go- lucky state into a hell hole of violence and anarchy is a study in the convergence of bad politics and opportunistic criminality as an enterprise.

    Mr. Uzodinma is clearly an embattled governor from many fronts. Arguably, therefore, the niceties of democratic civility may not secure him the power longevity he desires as a politician. He has tended to adopt autocratic measures to survive while pretending to catering to state security and restoration of order. He has, for instance, enacted a law authorizing him to arrest and detain citizens who may not share his views or those whose activities and views he adjudges inimical to peace and order in the state. He has also reportedly cooperated with federal security agencies to levy acts that amount to war against communities in parts of the state where separatist militants allegedly have calls and camps. The trouble in these so called special ‘security operations’ has been how to distinguish between the governor’s armed political opponents and genuine criminals or IPOB activists.

    This warlike situation has exposed federal security operatives deployed to the state to great risk leading to a high casualty rate among policemen and soldiers and of course grave human rights violations. This has perhaps become a license for more authoritarian measures. In the process, the governor’s credentials as a democratic leader have become badly tainted as his state has descended into a permanent state of undeclared emergency. And states under some form of ‘emergency rule are never the best venues for democratic civility or genteel displays.

    In present day Rivers state, we come face to face with all the facets of the abuse of democratic mandate to propagate the worst traits of authoritarianism and despotic rascality. The most recent initiative of Governor Nyesom Wike is a plan to recruit no less than 100,000 ‘special assistants’ predictably to act as authorised political thugs in the 2023 election season. Prior to this, Mr. Wike, who is in the political trench with his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a factional leader, has used undisguised intimidation, harassment, blackmail and violence against his political enemies within the state. He has closed the businesses of his adversaries, demolished houses and hotels of his enemies and withdrawn titles, privileges and patronage from political allies who now believe and align differently. He has unilaterally converted the apparatus of state to an instrument of political blackmail, authorized gangsterism and reckless charity.

    In utter devaluation of all democratic norms, Mr. Wike has barred political campaigns in public premises including schools. He has used the State House of Assembly to instigating the de-listing of Mr. Omehia as former governor despite earlier recognizing and rewarding the same man as an ex governor. The fact that the list of Mr. Wike’s political victims and adversaries corresponds to all those who now support his opponent, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, who roundly trounced him to emerge as the PDP presidential candidate, is interesting. In terms of general political conduct, Mr. Wike has descended from the high pinnacle of an elected state chief executive to adopt the language and mannerisms of an undisguised gutter snipe and motor park bus conductor. The candour of expression, respect for decorum and consideration for public sensitivities are utterly lacking in the dictionary of this elected autocratic upstart. In his embodiment of all the anomalies in Nigeria’s democracy today, Governor Wike may have unwittingly ended up more as an online comic content creator than a serious politician. The most lowly in the public merely laugh off his foibles for entertainment.

    Taken together the multiple transgressions of this diversity of governors amplify the crisis of Nigeria’s democratic pretensions. Nothing in our constitution amounts to a code of conduct for state governors in a democracy. We are therefore left with only the schedule of duties and responsibilities of state governors in the constitution to guide our basic assessment of the conduct of our 36 governors.

    Perhaps the most compelling indictment of the current spate of authoritarianism among many governors is democracy itself. Democracy in itself should impose an ethical code, requiring basic civility on the part of those elected to rule over us. This implies respect for the rights of the citizenry as the prime enablers of power, privilege and authority in a democracy. It also implies strict observance of the rule of law and the observance of the rules of democratic civility by those in positions of authority. A good number of our current crop of governors are in defiance of the basic tenets of democratic governance.

    To remind us all, especially our tyrannical governors, the job of state governor does not include certain defilements that we are now witnessing. A governor should not insult his opponents for believing differently. A governor should not spend or ‘donate’ public money without legitimate appropriation. A governor should not bulldoze the property of their opponents or deny people their right to free expression. Governance in a drunken state is worse than drunk driving; its casualties could include the driver himself and other innocent road users!

  • 2023: What the interest of every politician should be – Jonathan

    2023: What the interest of every politician should be – Jonathan

    Ahead of the 2023 elections, former President Goodluck Jonathan has said the interest of every politician should be the people first, adding that those who are going into politics to make money should rather go into business.

    Jonathan disclosed this in Abuja at the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation 2022 Peace Conference with the theme, “Nation Building: The Role of Peaceful Elections in a Multi-Ethnic Context” while stressing that the biggest threat to democracy is no longer the gun, but propaganda, fake news and disinformation.

    Jonathan urged young Nigerians to embrace good conduct rather than hate speech, saying those advocating for violence and orchestrating fake news were the big threats to democracy.

    “We must discourage this issue of hate speech and propaganda that are going on because before this time, we were always afraid of the gun as a threat to democracy.

    “But the biggest threat to democracy now that we know is the issue of propaganda, fake news and hate speech. Anybody that is an advocate or vanguard of this is a threat to democracy just like the gun.

    “So, our young people should know that we must embrace good conduct that would lead to good elections,’’ Jonathan said.

    Jonathan also advised political parties, their candidates and supporters to put the country first in their conducts towards the 2023 general elections.

    “I always say that, first we must have a country and state before you talk about having a president or having a governor. If you destroy the country, then where do you need a president? We don’t need a president.

    “So, anybody that is interested in leadership at the level of the president, governor, senator etc you have the biggest stake of protecting the country.

    “If you know where nations are in crisis, you will not think about economy and before you know it everything will go down.

    “So, those who want to be president, governors and their supporters should first know that we need a nation before whoever you are supporting can emerge as a governor or president,’’ Jonathan said.

    He added that the interest of every politician should be the people first; saying those who are going into politics to make money should rather go into business.

    Jonathan urged religious leaders and civil society to continue to sensitise Nigerians until the country was better.

    The former president, who noted that the electoral process of the country had improved, said that with the introduction of technology it would continue to be better and faster.

    The Executive Director of the foundation, Ms. Ann Iyonu, said that as the 2023 election approached, there was a compelling need now more than ever for multi-stakeholder consensus building towards ensuring credible, transparent, and peaceful elections in Nigeria.

    Iyonu said that to avoid a situation where elections divide rather than strengthen nations, all stakeholders needed to make a conscious effort to embrace and promote a culture of peace, justice, equity, and fairness for all groups in the polity.

    She said that the aim of the conference was to provide the avenue to examine how the Nigerian democratic space had evolved, discuss the trends and threats to an inclusive and peaceful election.

    “Promote the culture of tolerance among different political actors and highlight best practices for the conduct of credible and violence-free elections in Nigeria.

    “We also hope that at the end of the deliberations, we would have canvassed strategies toward nation-building that will consolidate our nation’s 23 years of democracy and sustain a culture of peaceful elections in the country,” she said.