As Governance Confounds Okpebholo

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

When my attention was drawn to Governor Monday Okpebholo’s “Now, it is confusing me” video, I thought his political enemies were at work aided by Artificial Intelligence. The one-minute, 17-second video captured him stuttering while presenting the 2025 Appropriation Bill to the Edo State House of Assembly.

*Monday Okpebholo

Struggling to pronounce the numerical value of the Bill which he christened “Budget of Renewed Hope for a Rising Edo,” the governor said: “The Edo State 2025 budget… appropriation bill of six billion, sixty and fifty, six hundred five billion, seventy six thousand, seventy six million, seventy six.”

Nigerian Elections: INEC Can Do Much Better

 By Tonnie Iredia

Anyone who followed the conduct of the September 21, 2024 governorship election in Edo State would not have found it difficult to identify several challenges which derogated substantially from what could easily have ended as a free, fair and credible electoral process. Must every Nigerian election be contentious and unduly controversial? Why is it so difficult to play the game of election by its rules in Nigeria?

If Nigerian politicians who have become notorious for their anti-democratic disposition make it hard for the country to attain successful elections, must election managers also allow their unacceptable partisanship to continue to worsen Nigeria’s political dilemma? Many more questions must have been silently considered by well-meaning citizens in the last one week.

Edo Sham Poll: UN Must Safeguard Nigeria’s 2027 Presidential Election

 By Olu Fasan

Outrageous! How dare you say the United Nations should help run elections in Nigeria, a sovereign state? That’s how some will react to this intervention. But leaving aside the fact that countries often seek United Nations electoral assistance, what’s truly outrageous and utterly shameful is that Nigeria, so-called “Giant of Africa”, cannot conduct free, fair and credible elections, something less endowed African countries do routinely and successfully.

*INEC Chair, Yakubu and Tinubu

This week, on October 1, Nigeria turned 64 as an independent nation. Sadly, it’s 64 years of sham elections and hollow democracy. As John Campbell and Matthew Page said in their book, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, “massive election rigging has been characteristic of Nigeria since independence”.