Bestriding the Ethnic Politics: A Case Of Peter Obi

 By Ndubuisi Nwafor

“This dimension of our identity politics is frightening, but it’s not an unusual experience” – Gimba Kakanda, Daily Trust, 9 August, 2022

Nigeria’s political, social, cultural, economic and religious space is currently awash and agog with political activities. Such activities include ethnic, ageist, and other toxic innuendoes with the propensity to scuttle the very existence of our dear country Nigeria.

*Peter Obi 

The history of Nigeria’s power transitions may have assumed a parabola tangent, ranging from elections, coups and even appointments as was the case with transition from IBB to Chief Ernest Shonekan, but in all, good fortune and electoral popularity played major roles.

The argument that South East has been displaced politically in the power equation of Nigeria is an honest and painful truth, however, this situation is both self-inflicted and also as a result of festering fear of Igbo domination in the contemporary Nigeria.

The Presidential Media Chat – A Review

By Gimba Kakanda

President Muhammadu Buhari's first interaction with the nation this Week highlighted the hope of a new Nigeria, as well as the potholes, speed bumps and roadblocks ahead. It's perhaps the most honest ever revelation by a Nigerian president, even as such blunt and frank positions may undermine the efforts and popularity of the government he heads.

President Buhari during the Presidential Media Chat 

(pix:Vanguard)

I'll leave the praises of Buhari's performance at the chat to his media handlers and their fire-spitting minions, and address a few issues not exactly impressive.

The revelation that our security agencies have no intelligence on the whereabouts of the girls of Chibok is saddening, and perhaps even worse is the statement that the government has no credible means of establishing contact with the leadership of Boko Haram. What have the intelligence units of our various security agencies been up to all these months? This, to say the obvious, is reckless and not something any leader should say without feeling a sense of guilt or embarrassment. So, who have we been fighting all along? Ghosts? We've people like Ahmad Salkida and Barrister Aisha Wakkil around to serve as consultants in contacting this terrorist group and Nigeria still confesses to cluelessness.

The president's seeming disinterest in the Shiite-Army clash is only a leeway to an imaginable disaster. Despite claiming to have no conclusive report on the clash yet, he's already judged the clash and couldn't even mask his disgust at the activities of the sect. His reaction was more of old military elite losing his mind over the audacity of a gang of teenagers to dare confront members of the active military elite class.

The Shiites have already lost on moral grounds, and perhaps only need an unbiased foreign court, through interested human rights organizations, to file a case against the government of Nigeria for the unjustifiably brutal use of force to decimate their erring members. This court may interpret and exact the rule of engagements employed by the military and point out the moment their traffic offence degenerated into criminal offence, punishable by such horrible death.