Opinion

Buhari, Yakubu, Atiku and the death of trust (Part1)

Published

2 years ago

March 14, 2023

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By Tunde Olusunle

If anyone had prophesied the retention of Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) in that office to which he was appointed late 2015 by Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president, beyond 2019, he would have been pilloried as a false prophet. Yakubu, a professor of political history and international relations was on the staff of the Nigerian Defence Academy, (NDA), Kaduna before his appointment to that office. We run a country which naively confers seriousness, integrity and respectability on people, simply on the basis of their often padded and advertised curriculum vitae. Just being a professor and coming from the geo-religiously “correct” extreme of the country, privileges certain people for consideration and appointment into specific offices, and the accrual of benefits therein.

The 2019 general elections under review, spontaneously donned the regalia of Nigeria’s most controversial and contested polls in all ramifications, in recent political history. It was dogged by systemic tardiness, orchestrated disjointedness and simulated discombobulations. Electoral materials were wilfully conveyed to the wrong states and addresses, as part of a grand script for the authentication of premeditated dubiousness. Despite the mammoth mobilisation of Nigerians, many to their countryside abodes at great individual risks and costs, Mahmood Yakubu and his colleagues blatantly stage-managed the postponement of the polls by one full week. This was a rarity, even in the days of Nigeria’s earlier politics. To be sure, since I became an avid follower of Nigeria’s electoral politics back in 1979, the 2019 elections were the most treacherous and tragic I ever witnessed.

The four-year stewardship of Nigeria’s outgoing president who ran on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), had done more than enough with its gross and aggregate performance, to be determinedly denied a second term. The hydra of insecurity; crass nepotism; reinvented religious bigotry; widespread unemployment; rudderless governance; prevailing hunger, had collectively inflated and inflamed palpable anger, on the borders of gargantuan conflation. It was this level of mass disaffection which propelled Nigerians to the 2019 elections, with the belief that their permanent voter’s cards, (PVCs), will be deployed convey their collegiate disaffection and to effect the much desired political change.

Nigerians seemed to have been sold on the assurances and reassurances of Mahmood Yakubu and his team, which promised to deliver free, fair, transparent and credible elections. Mike Iginni, one of the more principled and forthcoming resident electoral commissioners, serially admonished Nigerians to keep faith with INEC. Buhari was televised warning thugs and touts who made themselves available to do the biddings of their political overlords, by snatching ballot boxes, to write their epitaphs. As Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria’s armed forces, the president had issued explicit orders to the troops to give effect to his pronouncements. Nigerians genuinely thought Buhari, whose pre-election alias in 2015, was Baba mai gaskiya, meaning “the honest old man,” could very truly be trusted. Buhari subsequently retired to his country abode in Daura, Katsina State, to participate in the polls. In response to a question en route Daura about what his reaction would be if he lost the election, Buhari gruffly retorted “nobody can unseat me.” He promised not to return to Abuja after the election, if he was truly trounced.

As poll results began to trickle in, however, there were vivid indications that Buhari was in for a hiding. Technology has availed us the privilege of keeping up real-time with developments across the world, from our handheld devices. Figures filtering in from across the country indicated that the scales might have been tipped in favour of Buhari’s major challenger in that election, Atiku Abubakar. Atiku, Nigeria’s Vice President in the Olusegun Obasanjo regime between 1999 and 2007, flew the flag of the major opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), in that 2019 presidential election. Democracy was being deepened, Nigerians assumed, if a sitting president, from credible figures obtained from the server of the electoral referee, INEC, could be ousted at the ballot for a second time in four years.

Buhari hitherto, held the bragging rights to this feat, having displaced his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, at the 2015 elections. There were actually celebrations across the land as Nigerians absorbed the plausibility of the incumbent president’s displacement afterall. The PDP had hoped for truly impartial declaration of results on the strength of its performance at the polls. The party was, however, shocked by the turn of events. Ballot boxes had seized in several places; many were stuffed with ballot papers which were previously thumb-printed. Figures had been changed with correcting fluid in several instances; electoral officers had abducted and transplanted in the homes of noveau riche political dons to serve their ends.

There had been shootings, across the country culminating in casualties, the maimed and the summarily despatched. At least in one instance, a helicopter was procured and deployed to hover over the skies of Lokoja, the Kogi State capital and to fire at voters from the skies! A new expression “inconclusive elections,” was launched into the nation’s political vocabulary. It was the APC’s terminology, borrowing from the parable of the ram which takes a few steps back, to launch out with greater ferocity. It was the party’s disingenuous formula for bidding time, albeit for a few days, for the perfection of its manual for large-scale electoral thievery. Suddenly, INEC’s acclaimed server for which billions of naira was budgeted, which was procured and duly hoisted, magically vanished!

Unknown to the APC and to INEC, the PDP operated a discrete situation room, (SR) from where it downloaded information from the very same disappearing server. The location of the SR was presumably tracked by state intelligence and severally breached by the gun-wielding operatives who repeatedly harassed and unsettled staff of the SR, impounding documents and equipment. A particular minister from the south allegedly took over the APC’s counterpoint to the PDP’s SR concept. Figures were reportedly tweaked in barefaced re-enactment of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s lyrics in his “Unknown Soldier” classic and, with its unforgettable refrain about “government magic,” which “turned red into blue, and the electric bulb into candlelight.” Buhari suddenly felt comfortable enough to return from his hibernation in Daura where he promised to confine himself if he lost the election. This was after industrial-scale mischief and shenanigans had been perfected in his favour.

Elsewhere, public officials who cherish their integrity and good name, who find themselves in such quandary of overwhelming malfeasance, of such sticky, messy situations, throw in the towel the morning after. By his calling as an academic and professor who was reportedly the “first northerner to earn a first class in History,” Yakubu is at liberty to choose whichever institution he prefers to serve, either at home or abroad. But not in Nigeria, where public office opens the water tap of limitless access to filthy lucre. It has been proposed that in Nigeria’s 62 year trajectory, the Buhari administration has most probably thrown up more “overnight multibillionaires” than all previous regimes put together. A former service chief has thrown his hat in the ring for the coming gubernatorial contest in Bauchi State, on the platform of the APC. A very senior principal officer in the nation’s parliament is vying for the governorship of his state in the south south zone. He reportedly whispered to some confidants that he has a private vault in excess of a dozen billion naira to prosecute the coming contest. This, regrettably, is the reality of the legacy Buhari is leaving.

If blundering public officers like Mahmood Yakubu are so bereft of shame and conscience as not to send in their letters of disengagement after such unpardonable betrayal of public trust, they get summarily fired by their employers. As has become his trademark, however, Buhari is unable to cast his search net broadly and widely, to ferret and discover better qualified Nigerians to man several government ministries, agencies and departments, (MDAs). So, rather than launch deep to unearth our contemporary Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealas, Arunma Otehs, Amina Mohammeds, Akinwumi Adesinas, Chukwuma Soludos, and so on, Buhari simply gifts Yakubu a fresh five year term! Reappointed in October 2020 in overt, maybe obvious compensation for “a job well done the previous year,” Yakubu should be in office until late 2025. Yakubu’s blighted profile, further sullied by reports of international elections observers, was not enough to restrain Buhari from further foisting his favourite son upon hapless Nigerians.

Yakubu conned Nigerians momentarily to forget his wrongdoings from the 2019 elections, as he embarked on reforms to bequeath on Nigeria, more believable, more admissible and more acceptable polls. The off-season gubernatorial elections conducted by INEC in Edo, Ekiti and more recently Osun states, demonstrated that we can do things right with requisite commitment and willpower. The innovative Bimodal Voter’s Accreditation System, (BVAS) deployed in Ekiti and Osun for instance, ensured that people’s votes truly counted. Popular investment of emotion, physical exertion and invaluable time expended by voters at the polls, were not rubbished by electoral roaches, rats and robbers. INEC had just proven that poll results from my unit in Omowa-Mopo, Isanlu, would be uploaded instantly for the world to glimpse. This revved public expectation and faith in the electoral process, to unprecedented heights.

Buhari seemed resolved to play the “born again democrat” he postured he was in those frantic days when he accepted every known ascription, to burnish his chances. As often as he could, he reiterated to Nigerians that extant shortcomings of the electoral process had been rejigged. Nigerians could go to sleep as he was resolved to bequeath a legacy of visibly honest electoral transition. Buhari enjoined Nigerians to vote for candidates of their choice at the polls, warning hoodlums to steer clear of polling zones on election day. If Buhari set out to do that which was right and proper, he faced treasonable opposition from within his party. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State repeated on several television interviews he granted, that it was not Buhari’s duty to reassure Nigerians about how the elections would pan out, but to campaign for the candidate of his party. It was therefore a reluctant Buhari who got dragged around the campaign grounds of Bola Tinubu, presidential flagbearer of his candidate, presenting him to wary party supporters.

Tunde Olusunle, poet, journalist, scholar and author, is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (NGE)

Opinion

BENUE 2027:The Apa/Agatu Quest for Equity

Published

4 days ago

January 14, 2025

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By Tunde Olusunle

It may be well over two years to the next cycle of general elections in Nigeria. For the people of Apa/Agatu federal constituency in *Benue South, however, the measure of their participation and integration into the governance scheme will be defined in the run-up to the general polls that year. Nine local government areas make up the predominantly Idoma country of Benue State also labelled Zone C in the senatorial tripod of the geo-polity. The zone is also home to the Igede ethnic stock and the Etulo. Local government areas in “Benue Zone C” include: Apa, Agatu, Oju, Obi, Ado, Ogbadibo, Okpokwu, Otukpo and Ohimini. The other zones, Benue North East and Benue North West, are wholly dominated by the Tiv nationality, striding across 14 local government areas. They are christened Zone A and Zone B in the local political scheme of the state. Federal constituencies in Benue South are: Apa/Agatu, Oju/Obi; Ado/Ogbadibo/Opokwu and Otukpo/Ohimini.

The subjugation of groups and ethnicities considered demographically smaller, by the larger groups which has dominated Nigeria’s politics over time, has not been any different for the Idoma of Benue State. Until the circumstantial emergence of a Yahaya Bello from the Ebira ethnicity in Kogi State in 2015, the Igala had the relay baton of governorship of Kogi State, in rounds and succession. The Ebiras and the Okun-Yoruba zones in the state could only aspire to be serial deputies or Secretaries to the State Government. This political template was virtually cast in stone. The Ilorin people of Kwara State have similarly wholly warehoused the gubernatorial office, sparingly conceding the position to other sociocultural groups in the state. The only exception was the concession of the seat to a candidate from Kwara South, in the person of Abdulfatah Ahmed, by his predecessor, Bukola Saraki in 2011. Even at that, there were murmurs and dissent from those who believed Ahmed came from a community too close to the Ilorin emirate to be of genuine Igbomina stock, which prides itself as the pure Yoruba species in Kwara State.
Twenty-six years into the Fourth Republic, the maximum proximity of the Idoma to Government House, Makurdi, has been by the customary allocation of the Deputy Governor’s slot to its people. Ogirri Ajene from Oju/Obi, the charismatic blue-blood of blessed memory, was deputy to George Akume, incumbent Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), from 1999 to 2007. Akume it was reported, genuinely desired to be succeeded by Ajene who exhibited competence and loyalty and could build on their legacies. The Tiv nation we understand, shot down the proposal. Gabriel Suswam succeeded Akume and had the urbane multipreneur, Stephen Lawani from Ogbadibo as deputy. Samuel Ortom, a Minister in the Goodluck Jonathan presidency who took over from Suswam opted for Benson Abounu, an engineer from Otukpo as running mate, while Hyacinth Alia, the Catholic priest who succeeded Ortom, also chose as deputy, Samuel Ode, who was also a Minister in the Jonathan government, from Otukpo. Arising from this precedence, Apa/Agatu has not for once, been considered for a place in Government House, Makurdi.
In similar fashion, the position of Senator representing Benue South, has repeatedly precluded Apa/Agatu federal constituency. David Alechenu Bonaventure Mark a former army General from Otukpo, took the first shot at the office in 1999. He was to remain in the position for five consecutive times, a distinctive record by Nigerian standards. Mark would subsequently become President of the Senate and the third most senior political office holder in the nation’s governance scheme for a string of two terms between 2007 and 2015. He was replaced by Patrick Abba Moro, who hails from Okpokwu and was a former teacher, in 2019. Abba Moro who previously served as Minister of Interior in the Jonathan government from 2011 to 2015, won a second term at the 2023 general elections and remains substantive Senator for “Benue Zone C.” He is indeed incumbent Minority Leader of the Senate, and thus a principal officer in the leadership scheme of the “red chambers.”
While Moro is barely two years into his second term, there are suggestions that he is interested in a third term which should run from 2027 to 2031! This is the core issue which has dominated contemporary political discourse in Benue South, especially from the Apa/Agatu bloc. For Apa/Agatu, it is bad enough that they are repeatedly bypassed in the nomination of deputy governors in the scheme of state politics. It is worse that they are equally subjugated by their own kinsmen within the context of politics in *Idoma and Igede land.* This is particularly worrying when both local government areas constituting the Apa/Agatu federal constituency, Apa and Agatu, are not in anyway deficient in human resources to represent Benue South. Names like John Elaigwu Odogbo, the incumbent *Och’Idoma* and respected clergy; Isa Innocent Ekoja, renowned Professor and Librarian; Sonny Togo Echono, FNIA, OON, Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFUND), and John Mgbede, Emeritus State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Benue State, readily come to mind.
Major General R.I. Adoba, (rtd), a former Chief Training and Operations in the Nigerian Army; Professor Emmanuel Adanu, former Director of the Kaduna-based National Water Resources Institute, (NWRI) and the US-based specialist in internal medicine, Dr Raymond Audu, are eminent Apa/Agatu constituents. There are also Ada Egahi, long-serving technocrat who retired from the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, (NPHDA), and Super Eagles forward, Moses Simon, (why not, hasn’t the retired soccer star, George Opong Weah just completed his term as President of Liberia)? The Member Representing Apa/Agatu in the House of Representatives, Godday Samuel Odagboyi, an office previously held by Solomon Agidani, as well as Adamu Ochepo Entonu, is, like his predecessors, a prominent figure from the resourceful Apa/Agatu federal constituency.
The Olofu brothers, Tony Adejoh, a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, (AIG), and David, PhD, a renowned management and financial strategist, who is also an Emeritus Member of the Benue State Executive Council during the Ortom dispensation, are from the same federal constituency. So is Abu Umoru, a serial entrepreneur who represents Apa State Constituency in the Benue State House of Assembly. The continuing intra-zonal alienation of Apa-Agatu from the politics of Benue Zone C, remains a sore thumb which must be clinically diagnosed and intentionally treated in the run-up to 2027.
If previous top level political office holders from Idomaland in general and Apa/Agatu in particular, had diligently applied themselves to tangible, multisectoral development of the zone and constituency, the present clamour for inclusiveness would probably been less vociferous. *River Agatu* which flows from Kogi State, and runs through Agatu before emptying into *River Benue,* is a potential game changer in the socioeconomy of Apa/Agatu, Benue South and Benue State in general. Properly harnessed, it can revolutionise agriculture and aquaculture in the state, beyond subsistence levels which are the primary vocations of the indigenous people. Rice, yam, guinea corn, millet and similar grains, thrive in the fertile soils of the area. These can support “first level” processing of produce and guarantee value addition beneficial to the primary producers, before being shipped to other markets. River Agatu can indeed be dammed to provide hydro-electricity to power the entire gamut of Idomaland.
The infrastructure deficit in Benue South with specific reference to Apa/Agatu is equally very concerning. A notable pattern in Nigerian politics is its self-centeredness, the penchant for political players to prioritise their personal wellbeing and the development of their immediate space. This has accentuated the ever recurring desire of people to ascend the political pedestals of their predecessors if that is the principal window by which they can also privilege their own primary constituents. Motorable roads are non-existent, seamless travel between communities therefore encumbered. Expectedly this has been a major impediment to subsistent trade and social engagements between constituents and their kinsmen. Primary health facilities are almost non-existent, compelling people to flock to Otukpo, headquarters of Benue South, for the minutest of medical advice and treatment.
Apa/Agatu pitiably bleeds from the relentless and condemnable activities of vagrants and bandits who have reduced the constituency into a killing field. Reports suggest that in the past 15 years, no less than 2500 lives were lost to the vicious attacks of marauders and trespassers in the area under reference. This unnerving situation has compelled engagements between concerned Apa/Agatu leaders, and the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force, (NPF). The prayer is for the swift establishment of a mobile police outpost in the troubled sub-zone to contain bloodletting. The proposal, anchored by AIG Tony Olofu, NPOM, (rtd), and Echono, has received the blessings of the police high command. At the last update, a commander for the outfit had been named, while the deployment of personnel had begun in earnest.
It is very clear that in the march towards 2027, Apa/Agatu will refuse, very vehemently, to be sidelined and trampled upon in the political scheme of their senatorial zone. Abba Moro may desire a third term in the Senate, but the people of Apa/Agatu are quick to remind him that his curriculum vitae as a politician is sufficiently sumptuous for him to yield the seat in the “red chambers” and sit back like an elder statesman. They remind you that for a man who began his working life modestly as a lecturer in the Federal Polytechnic, Ugbokolo in 1991, Abba Moro has done extremely well for himself in Nigerian politics. For reminders, Abba Moro was elected Chairman of Okpokwu local government in the state as far back as 1998. Ever since, he has remained a permanent fixture in Nigeria’s national politics.
The people of Apa/Agatu will put up a determined fight for the Benue South senatorial seat in 2027, and no one should begrudge them. They are the proverbial ram which was pushed to the wall, which must of necessity push back with angered horns to liberate itself. They are already engaging with their kith across “Benue Zone C” to ensure that intra-zonal equity, fairness and justice, prevails in communal politics.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja

Opinion

The Prince Adebayo prescriptions for ease of doing Business: 15 Take-Aways

Published

5 days ago

January 14, 2025

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By Dr. Ag Zaki

On Thursday, 9 January 2025, Prince Adewole Adebayo presented a keynote address at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos. The occasion was the annual conference of a group of professionals, business executives and experts codenamed J9C for January 9 Collective. The theme of the Conference was “Business and Policy Strategy: Examining the Role of Reform in enhancing the ease of doing business in Nigeria.” Prince Adebayo is a versatile cerebral man of many parts, a lawyer, a multimedia practitioner, a real estate investor, a large-scale miner, a philanthropist, a community developer, and the 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The organisers of the J9C conference introduced him as an intercontinental lawyer because he currently practices law in over sixteen countries.

The full speech of Prince Adebayo at the occasion is available online and can be accessed by clicking at this url: https://youtu.be/SsHkcJbVNRg?si=ebvoOVqGh0zVOsnt or by scanning the QR code above. However, we are presenting the salient take-aways from this most incisive keynote address below for the convenience of interested persons and for the public good.

THE TAKE-AWAYS
Preamble
1. Not every change of policy or programme is a reform. A reform is a fundamental change in the activities, programmes, and policies structured to cause improvement. Genuine government reforms are people oriented and so citizens can interject, comment or contribute.
2. Reform may be internally motivated, externally forced or imposed, or technological driven.
3. The government of Nigeria must first reform itself to be able to implement development-oriented reforms to improve the country’s economic performance.

In general terms
4. Fiscal and monetary reforms are critical and are urgently required in Nigeria. While government can freely control its fiscal reforms, it must be bound by market forces for realistic and realisable monetary reforms.
5. Economic reforms must positively affect developmental policies, programmes and projects to engender economic growth, increase in efficiency, and lead to stability. Economic and political reforms must be implemented pari-passu for untainted policies and programmes.
6. Urgent structural reforms are required in areas of legal reforms, laws on banking controls and regulations, lending and borrowing as well as land matters.

In specific terms
7. Reforms which are aimed at targeting ease of doing business must be aligned with the Malam Aminu Kano maxim that “all civil servants should abstain from contracts or business”.
8. Nigeria must break the current odious and unwholesome conspiracies between policy makers, civil servants, and contractors, which can lead to irreversible endemic corruption, long foreseen by the revered Malam Aminu Kano, and which can permanently damage the economy.
9. Structural reforms must ensure that land laws open up maximum benefits and potentials of the land, encourage labour productivity and efficient and transparent entrepreneurship rules including registration, capital and lending matters.
10. Tax reforms should be broad-based, not about sharing of revenue but promoting productivity and competitiveness in all aspects of endeavours and infrastructure reforms should make transportation of people and goods safe and cost effective.
11. Monitoring economic crimes must be thorough and should go beyond arresting of “Yahoo boys” and those spraying Naira notes, but those devaluing the Naira and abusing economic rules and regulations.

Warnings
12. Adebayo left some stern terse warnings for the business sector and for the government of Nigeria.
13. Business executives and professionals should not ask or encourage government for specific reforms but for general broad-based reforms as firm-specific reforms can enhance operations of specific firms or business in the short term but will ultimately kill the industry.
14. Government should not meddle into business or be guided by partisan businessmen; government should meet business only at the junction of regulatory framework.
15. Government should be selfless and honest in carrying out reforms, incorporate measurable performance indices and ensure that reforms are implemented in a way not to inflict pains or punishment on the people.

# DrZaki25, 903 Tafawa Balewa Way, Abuja

Opinion

Governor Monday Okpebholo: A Blessing to Edo State

Published

6 days ago

January 13, 2025

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Monday Okpebholo

By Eigbefo Felix

His Excellency, Senator Monday Okpebholo, the Executive Governor of Edo State, has demonstrated that he is a blessing to the state through his policies, appointments, initiation of road construction across the three senatorial districts, and his deep love for the people of Edo State.

Governor Monday Okpebholo has begun fulfilling the five-point agenda he promised the good people of the state since his inauguration.

In the area of security, he has shown total commitment. He assured the people of Edo State that he would ensure their safety, and true to his word, the state remains peaceful, which has brought joy to its residents. He has provided the necessary support to security personnel.

The governor increased the subvention for Ambrose Alli University (AAU) from ₦40 million to ₦500 million. He also promised to address the issues facing AAU medical students. Additionally, he has started renovating primary and secondary schools across the state, underscoring his understanding of the importance of education.

The agricultural sector has taken a positive turn as Governor Okpebholo has allocated ₦70 billion to the sector. Recognizing agriculture’s importance to both the state and the nation, he is positioning Edo State to become the food basket of the nation with his investments in the sector.

During the electioneering period, Senator Okpebholo promised to create 5,000 jobs within his first 100 days in office. He has already begun the process, and soon, the people of Edo State will benefit from these employment opportunities. Unlike in the past, he will not rely on MOUs before making appointments. Furthermore, he has started appointing Edo State indigenes, rather than outsiders, to various positions.

Governor Okpebholo has commenced road projects across the state, from Edo South to Edo Central and Edo North. He believes that when roads are motorable, the prices of goods in the market will automatically reduce.

He has also begun investing in the health sector, understanding its critical importance to the people of Edo State.

Governor Monday Okpebholo’s initiatives and actions affirm his dedication to transforming Edo State for the better.