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”.

Electricity Tariff Hike: Civilised Nations Don’t Pauperise Their Citizens

 By Olu Fasan

A nation is civilised not because of its aesthetic, its beautiful architecture. Rather, a nation is civilised because of how it treats its citizens, because of the duration and quality of life of its citizens. That’s why social security or safety net for the poor is a badge of the heathy society. However, Nigeria creates billionaires but eviscerates the middle classes and makes everyone else poorer without meaningful state support. 

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo once bragged that he created many billionaires while in government. “My aim when I was in government was to create 50 billionaires,” Obasanjo said. “Unfortunately, I failed. I created only 25.” But how? Well, he banned imports of certain products, allowing some manufacturers to enjoy a protected domestic market and rake in billions; he granted waivers of import tariffs to favoured people, who imported large shipments of consumer products, such as rice, tariff-free and sold them expensively, thereby becoming billionaires; and he gave oil blocs to a select few, turning them into billionaires. It’s crony capitalism, a rentier state. Capitalism is rigged to favour a small elite.