Opinion

Revisiting Atiku’s legacies in constitutional democracy

Published

2 years ago

April 5, 2023

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By Tunde Olusunle

Ever since I trained my mind to follow the unravelling of Nigeria’s sociopolitics through martial and civilian governance, I’ve found no deputy who has been as harried and harangued as Atiku Abubakar. I have highlighted the word “civilian” in the preceding sentence because much of what we have witnessed particularly in Nigeria’s last two general elections have merely parodied genuine expression of popular franchise and real democracy. Scholars in political science, sociology, history, literature, public affairs, have work to do in interrogating with every rigour, whether the elections of 2019 and 2023, can pass as being representative of the expression of free will and popular democracy.

Discerning and objective Nigerians are not alone in the caustic denunciation of the wasteful thievery of our resources by roguish electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), in the name of elections. The grand charade and phenomenal putrefaction labelled general elections in the 2019 and 2023 cycles, as the lowest points of our return to democracy. International observers of various hues have also been unsparing and consistent in tearing down the specie of electoral robberies they witnessed in Nigeria in borrowed robes of elections.

Back to the matter of the mistreatment of Nigerians who served in the positions of Number Two citizens, Atiku holds the record of being the most wrongfully vilified, soiled and sullied occupants of the office. Beginning from Joseph Akinwale Wey; through Olusegun Obasanjo; Shehu Musa Yar’Adua; Alex Ekwueme; Tunde Idiagbon; Ebitu Ukiwe; Augustus Aikhomu; Oladipo Diya and Mike Okhai Akhigbe, never have the travails of Number Two citizen’s ever come close to the heckling and harassment Atiku faced as Vice President. Not even Goodluck Jonathan, Namadi Sambo and Yemi Osinbajo, his successors thus far. Ukiwe voluntarily left the office of Chief of General Staff, (CGS) to military president Ibrahim Babangida, one year into their regime in 1986, and retired from military service.

Ukiwe, a fine breed, an unusually principled officer and gentleman, who as the political second-in-command, refused to be relegated behind his juniors in the order of military hierarchies. He fought on the side of the unrecognised Republic of Biafra during the 30-month long Nigerian Civil War, 1967 to 1970. Following the reintegration of soldiers of the Nigerian army who fought on the side of the “rebel forces,” his “seniority” was not restored as it should have been. This placed him at some disadvantage in the seniority-uncompromising military services. Diya, who passed on recently was military deputy to Sani Abacha. He was framed for a coup attempt and sentenced to death by a military tribunal in 1997. He survived by divine intervention, following the providential demise of his principal and potential nemesis, and the ascendancy of Abdulsalam Abubakar. As we shall find in our discourse, the experiences of Ukiwe and Diya, under regimental rule, are completely different from that of Atiku.

Atiku Abubakar paired Olusegun Obasanjo after the latter’s victory at the presidential primaries of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), February 1999, held in Jos, Plateau State. He had already acquired the reputation of a nascent political force in the nation’s unravelling politics, and was governor-elect of Adamawa State awaiting inauguration. Six years before then, Atiku put up a very strong showing at the presidential preliminaries of the defunct Social Democratic Party, (SDP), which held in the same “Tin City.” Jos assumed that longstanding alias because of the substantial mining activities that took place in Nigeria’s primordial economy. He posted third behind Moshood Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe, and had to be prevailed upon by his political leader at the time, Shehu Yar’Adua, to step down so Abiola could win the fiesty contest. Atiku had therefore built substantial cross-national political capital, even at that time.

As a public officer who rose to a level which can be equated with the contemporary designation of a “Deputy Comptroller-General,” (DCG) of the Nigerian Customs Service, (NCS), Atiku was posted around the country quite robustly during his eventful two-decade stint on the job. He made friends and nurtured relationships within the period many of which remain till date. His marriage to Titi Atiku-Abubakar who is Yoruba, spontaneously defined Atiku a Fulani, as pan-Nigerian and cosmopolitan. These broad tentacles he developed early in his public service life, played in his favour at the beginning of the fourth republic. He was the natural rallying point of the cream of PDP governors who unanimously deferred to him because of his experience and charisma. It will be safe therefore to say that he leveraged these relationships for the electoral success of the Obasanjo/Atiku ticket. The duo coasted home at the 1999 presidential election, despite Obasanjo’s inability to win in any of the six Yoruba states, his sociocultural homeland.

Everything looked good and chummy between Atiku and his boss until the twilight of their second term in office. Atiku had, back in 2002, rebuffed suggestions that he should contest the presidential primary against Obasanjo who was expected to adopt the Mandela prototype. This would have meant Obasanjo giving up the presidency after one term and handing over to his deputy. This was the same way Nelson Mandela, icon of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, gave way to Thabo Mbeki, his deputy. Towards the end of Obasanjo’s second and constitutionally final term, however, Obasanjo allegedly began to entertain suggestions to the effect that he could indeed run for a third term! Part of the plot, purportedly, was to induce the parliament materially, to pull this off. Sums ranging between N40 million and N50 million per Member of the House of Representatives and per Senator, respectively, were reportedly gifted the lawmakers respectively, as part of the plot. Principal officers in both strata of the legislature presumably received more.

Atiku, a veteran of the democratic struggle would not sit by and watch the desecration of the nation’s hard-earned democracy. He pulled the strings in the national assembly, reminding parliamentarians about the potential damage Obasanjo’s scheme could visit on Nigeria’s fledgling democracy. Nigeria which has stridently opposed political sit-tightism elsewhere in Africa, should not suddenly become a model for what is wrong. What morality shall we preach to Robert Mugabe, Paul Biya, Yoweri Museveni, Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Zimbabwe, Cameroun, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, respectively, if we trod the same path of illegal and unconstitutional perpetuation in office? Atiku won the backstage battle and the parliament rejected Obasanjo’s third term proposition. Thus began the coordinated scheme to marginalise, undermine, decimate and denigrate Atiku’s person and office, by loyalists of the president.

There were orchestrated attempts to remove Atiku, a sitting vice president from office illegally; violate and withdraw the immunity conferred on him by the Constitution, and to arrest him unlawfully and prosecute him. The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), on the directives of the presidency, disqualified Atiku from contesting elections in 2007; the Code of Conduct Bureau, (CCB) as instigated by the powers-that-be commenced proceedings against him, while the PDP, the party he help to birth and groom, expelled him outrightly. Such was the multifaceted buffeting and opprobrium Atiku endured in his service to democracy. Such was his simulated predicament in service to nation.

I was on Obasanjo’s personal staff within the period and witness to these happenings, by the way. I was repeatedly traumatised each time I visited the vice president’s wing of the presidential villa, to discover that one more friend or colleague had been sacked on presidential orders, or one more office padlocked. For me, the height of it all was watching the withdrawal of all the official vehicles in the fleet of the vice president. Such mean-spirited pettiness. I was moved to tears because the very same Atiku being so mindlessly stripped and savaged, was a serial and multiple benefactor of many people across the world. Ownership of fleets of classy automobiles were the least of Atiku’s needs. Stories about his kindness and generosity in various ways, evoke the envy of people not close enough to him to be potential beneficiaries.

Atiku has never been a rofo-rofo exponent though. He has always subscribed to due process and rule of law. He earned a diploma in law at the Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU), Zaria decades earlier as a young quester for knowledge. He thus believes in the efficacy of unbiased, uncoloured legal interrogation. Atiku challenged all seven infringements on his constitutional rights within the ambience of democratic governance in Nigeria. He pursued all the suits to the topmost judiciary in the land, the Supreme Court. He won all seven litigations. Dahiru Musdapher, GCON, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, (CJN), applauded the single-minded gusto with which Atiku pursued every matter for the advancement of democracy and the rule of law. Musdapher wrote the “Foreword” to Landmark Constitutional Law Cases In Nigeria: 2004 – 2007: The Atiku Abubakar Cases, edited by Maxwell Gidado, SAN, and Chudi N Ojukwu, and published in 2013. He commended “the depth of research work done by the authors as ably demonstrated by the number of authoritative decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.”

Nigeria’s nascent democracy has been entrenched in several ways courtesy of Atiku’s courage and subscription to legal processes. First, it is not possible for a president to remove or sack his deputy, under any circumstance whatsoever. They are elected on a joint ticket and will together remain on that same ticket until the constitutional terminus of their administration. Secondly, the provision at Section 308 of the nation’s statutes, unequivocally and expressly restrain a Nigerian president from setting up an inquiry to probe or investigate the vice president, in any way. Thirdly, INEC cannot unilaterally disqualify a candidate from participation in an election. The jurisdiction for this rests squarely with the judiciary. Atiku’s interrogations should also, have assisted in promoting internal party democracy across political parties, as against extant practice of mindless vending of tickets to contest various political positions by the leaderships of political parties. His exertions on this cause should have impacted incidents of pre-election litigations. Unfortunately, in instances, political parties are yet to wean themselves of high-handedness and the impunity of imposition of candidates, serially violating the rule on consensus building internal democracy.

Institutional memory in our system, sadly, is so disastrously poor if not nonexistent. And this is the root of our collective failings and failures as a people. Contemporary beneficiaries of the comforts and conveniences provided by landmark judicial pronouncements in the past, do need to take a step back from time to time, to ruminate about how their paths were so paved. Atiku Abubakar was that bulwark who gave his yesterday to enable today’s democratic ascent. Atiku Abubakar it was who braved the odds in the specific instances he so diligently interrogated in the process of democratic deepening.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, 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.