Nigeria In Disarray: Waiting For Damnation

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu  

This Fiction Called Nigeria: The Struggle for Democracy by Adewale Maja-Pearce; (Verso, UK, 6 Meard Street, London; Verso, US, 388 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York; 2024; 185pp) 

Adewale Maja-Pearce does not pull his punches in his prolific engagements in public intellectual pugilism. He packs quite a punch, and comes strongly recommended by such eminent worthies as Jeremy Harding of London Review of Books who writes thusly: “Adewale Maja-Pearce is Nigeria’s most dependable journalist.” 

There is no denying the fact that Nigeria as a country is in dire straits. It is as though Africa’s most populous nation is forever thrust in suspended animation, especially after the heavily flawed 2023 presidential elections. Incidentally, Adewale Maja-Pearce starts out with these words: “This book was written against the background of the 2023 elections.” 

The Place Of Food In Nigerian Politics

 By Tony Afejuku

The essay you are about to read is culled from my Nigerian Tribune column In & Out of Monday, February 4, 2013. Its import is still as relevant now as it was then, although our current experience is readily and particularly worse than any calamitous calamity can be. Indeed, what we noticed then is nothing compared with what we have and observe today.

Our new Senate President, for instance, confirmed this last week with his gluttonous display of his extravagant gluttony on the occasion of his long-stomach birthday celebrations. The nicely nice brevity of the essay says so much in a few words about the longish-ness and long-ness of the monstrously monstrous politicians of protruding throats and bellies of bellies of bad belle bellies crushing the land and landscape from everywhere to everywhere.

Zik’s Day Beckons!

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu 

The man fondly called Zik of Africa deserves his day. Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s foremost nationalist and first president, deserves his birthday, November 16, to be slated as a national holiday.

*Azikiwe 

It is a deserving honour for the pivotal leader who led the charge for Nigeria’s independence on October 1, 1960. 

As a result of his unparalleled efforts Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe would in the course of time become the only black Governor-General of Nigeria, the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the only Nigerian whose name appeared in a Constitution of Nigeria, the first Senate President, among many other sterling firsts. 

Nigeria@63: Politicians’ Jumbo Pay And Impunity Must Go!

 By Ayo Baje

To strike the delicate balance between Nigeria’s vast, God-given resources of oil and gas, fertile fields for huge agricultural practices, rare solid minerals, places of scenic, spell-binding tourist attractions and the persisting paradox of pervasive poverty of the led majority is not rocket science for Nigerian-born best of brains such as the Philip Emeagwalis, the Gabriel Oyibos, Jelani Aliyus  or Silas Adekunles. No! The salient reasons behind the ever-widening, socio-economic gap between the leaders and the masses is patently obvious.

In fact, not a few of our crop of political leaders-spanning the spectrum of the so called democrats and the military despots-have, out of overt greed, over the decades, brought the country to its begging knees. So, when yours truly refers to their antics as “a restless run of avaricious locusts”, it is stating it as it is. If in doubt consider these startling statistics.

Nigeria Without Trucks And Their Drivers?

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Project Nigeria, started by the British with the 1914 Amalgamation, is still work in progress, after a century. In fact, next year will make 110 years of the Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates. Many people will say we have made a lot of progress since flag independence in 1960, while another multitude will counter them by saying we have made none. We are actually not progressing, they would say.

A coin has two sides; so I find on both sides — those that say we have made progress and those that are of the belief that we have not. It is a recurring debate where many are gathered, either at parties, bars, workplaces, or even in the molue or danfo, wherein self-appointed pontiffs who claim a lot of knowledge about what should have been done or not proclaim the way the country should have gone. In all the discussions, what is usually omitted is the fact that the individual has a role to play in the nation’s development, and that since many Nigerians don’t think they have an obligation to their country, they find themselves in situations they don’t like and are impotent to do anything about.

The Metamorphosis Of Uncle Soyinka

 By Ugoji Egbujo

Professor Soyinka is a genius. Besides his exceptional creativity in drama and poetry, he has fought oppression like an attendant spirit. However, in the last few months, he has spent more time proving that he is human than engaging the demons of corruption and injustice. Before Tinubu, his friend ran for president, Soyinka would dwell on the credibility of the electoral process and dream of mass participation.

*Soyinka 

And if INEC spent two years seeking the authority to transfer polling unit results electronically to enhance transparency and eliminate substitution of results at collation, Soyinka would insist it was non-negotiable. And if INEC ran into a suspicious glitch on election day, leaving room for mischief at collation centres, Soyinka would worry about the integrity of INEC and lampoon the credibility of the process.

Before Babies Begin To Emigrate

 By Adekunle Adekoya

There must be a problem in the land, a very big one. I am not talking about the usual that we have lived with for decades — lack of potable water, epileptic power supply, parlous healthcare system and all that. I am talking about a feeling of disenchantment, perhaps hopelessness, especially among the youths which has fuelled what we now call “Ja pa.”

On the internet, it has trended for a few days now that 266 Nigerian doctors have been licensed to practise in the United Kingdom. In my hood, I noticed that I have not seen some of the younger men with whom I relate for some time. To be candid, I don’t remember having seen any of them since before the election. I asked around. Someone volunteered that the guys after whom I’m asking have joined the Ja pa train. “They left for Canada three weeks ago,” my informant said. I shuddered in disbelief. 

Nigeria: Steal The Election And Let Them Go To Court

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Any ruling party can make even a goat win an election. The only exception to this great truism is Goodluck Jonathan who lost his baton. Nigeria had a much-ballyhooed presidential election on February 25, and there is not much to report except that the election was bought and sold. 

Any talk of the elections being free, fair and credible belongs to fiction. The election result was declared at the ungodly hour of 4am, and losers in the contest were asked to go to court. It’s a well-worn mantra – steal the election for me and tell the opposition to go to court very fast. 

The Collapse Of The Nigerian Tripod

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Nigeria today stands on wobbly legs, and what needs to be done to make the country to stand steady and strong is to go back to where the rain started beating the country in the modern day.

At independence in 1960, Nigeria was said to stand on a pivotal tripod of East, West and North. The 1967-70 Nigeria-Biafra war ensured that the North in alliance with the West defeated the East.

The oppressed minorities of course took sides with the victors because nobody would ever want to be in the corner of losers.
That is a simple historical fact, and any other embellishments only exist to serve expedience.

Nigeria: A Season Of Political Malapropisms

 By Chidi Odinkalu

Politics in Nigeria is largely of the transhumant variety. It is not defined by any big ideas. With the exception of perhaps the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian politicians have been largely devoid of clear ideological moorings.

Freed as such from the forces of ideological gravity, the only impetus that they respond to for the most part is from the stomach. Gravity in Nigerian politics tends to be a force defined by the imperative of human grazing.

An opposition may be essential for democracy to thrive but no Nigerian politician or party wants to linger in that neighbourhood. In power for 16 years at the centre, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been an abject failure since it went into opposition in 2015, unable to articulate any alternatives to the unmitigated disaster that has been the government of the All Progressives Congress, APC. Both parties are separated by a revolving door.

Concerning Buhari’s National Honours 2022

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

At the beginning of August 2022, President Muhammadu Buhari constituted a nine-member National Honours Nominations Committee with a four-year tenure. It is chaired by Alhaji Sidi Muhammad Bage, the senior judge who resigned from Nigeria’s Supreme Court in 2019 to become the Emir of Lafia in Nasarawa State.

*2022 National Honour: Buhari decorates Lawan 

The Minister for Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, George Akume, inaugurated the committee on September 16 with the mandate “to screen and select eminent Nigerians and friends of Nigeria, who have contributed to the development of the country.”

In what would have been a record of unprecedented efficiency in the annals of such committees, a list emerged a mere fortnight later of recipients of national honours. Among the recipients, it listed the Emir of Lafia, himself the newly inaugurated chair of the National Honours Committee, for one of the highest honours – Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR).

Once Upon A Fight Between Obasanjo And Babangida

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

The two generals are seen as the best of friends across the political spectrum of the Nigerian nation. In many informed circles, General Matthew Okikiola Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo and General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida are seen as belonging to the rarefied class known as “Owners of Nigeria”.

*Obasanjo and Babangida

Only the uninformed does not know that when there was the transition to civil rule back in 1999 it was Babangida who arranged that Obasanjo should be brought out of General Sani Abacha’s prison to be made the president of Nigeria.

This act made Obasanjo to create the record of a two-time leader of Nigeria after having been a military Head of State in his first missionary journey.

At The Peter Obi Event In New York

 By Sonala Olumhense

As a Nigerian with considerable interest in public affairs, the Grand Ballroom of New York City’s Hilton Midtown Hotel, the venue of “Afro-Economics & Government Policy: A Conversation with Governor Peter Obi,” was my destination last Sunday.

*Obi

The engagement followed others in the United States, some of which had been mismanaged by local organisers who chose to charge a gate fee. Not New York, which was free to every registered attendee, thanks to the Columbia University’s Africa Business Club and Black Law Students Association.

The Hilton Grand Ballroom is a cavernous facility capable of accommodating 3,000 persons. For a city with nearly 700 hotels pre-COVID, Hilton bills the facility as the city’s largest ballroom.  At the height of the event, it was about two-thirds full.

Corruption And Nigerian History

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

There is talk here and there of bringing back History with a capital “H” in the Nigerian school curriculum. It is cool by me to do a short history course with the ruling party, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari. Necessary lessons need to be learnt before the elections that will lead into the next dispensation of Nigeria’s much touted democracy.

To start back in time, Nigeria’s first coup as arranged by Emmanuel Arinze Ifeajuna, Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Adewale Ademoyega etc. did raise the issue of corruption as a major prong of why they struck to sack the First Republic. The entire coup attempt got mired in the corruption of ethnic politics until there was the bloodier counter-coup in which they revenge squad wanted secession, code-named “araba”, until the British colonial masters advised against herding into arid nothingness. 

Nigeria At Intensive Care Unit!

 By Hashim Amao

Across sectors, the tempest in Nigeria had doubled, and in some cases, tripled with the failed regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). Sai Baba is not the sui generis of Nigeria’s woes, but he has forced Nigerians to tread more throes. Like Umar R.A would smile and sob anytime he remembered the dark days he made his god with Meccan dates, worship and still feast on it when hunger visits; anytime this writer recalls the days of his stellar support for the “godsend Buhari,” the superficial things he did to sell Buhari to his people, laughter and sadness would knock in synchrony. For, we had thought Nigeria was sick then, but now, it is at the intensive care unit, gasping between life and death.

Crippled economy, insecurity, hunger, hike in commodity prices, incessant strikes, corruption and disregard for the rule of law; frankly, in Adipele’s multi-layered dentition, I don’t know how many teeth to count. But one thing so clear is: Baba Yussuf has failed Nigerians, deplorably, that his wife had once vented her vexation as a result of her “sense of justice, and not confrontation or disrespect.”

Nigeria ranks sixth in the 2022 Global Terrorism Index, no thanks to Boko Haram, Unknown Gunmen, killer pastoralists, kidnappers and other agents of doom that have provoked the peace of Nigeria. Sadly, Nigeria is no longer sitting on a powder keg; it is reclining on an atomic couch, while we hope it does not explode. Human lives have been devaluated that, sometimes, people get slaughtered in some parts of the country and there is low media coverage for the attacks.

Ndigbo: Caught Betwixt And Between In Nigeria (1)

 

By Tiko Okoye 

In a few weeks – July 6, to be more precise – it would be exactly 55 years since then-Nigerian military Head of State and Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Armed Forces of Nigeria and Chairman of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), then-Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, declared war on the short-lived Republic of Biafra. 

The United States State Department recently declassified top-secret diplomatic dispatches. They are spread over 21,000 pages and provide previously unknown information about the Nigeria/Biafra civil war. This columnist would be making use of copious excerpts from the declassified dossier to more objectively link the dots embedded in the potpourri of information in a four-part series. 

2023 Presidency: Why Jonathan Should Not Contest

 By Ifeanyi Maduako

Lagos Lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, recently argued that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan is not eligible to contest for the presidency of Nigeria again having spent five years as president between 2010 and 2015.

Falana premised his argument on a 2018 constitutional amendment which purportedly bars Jonathan from contesting because if he (Jonathan) becomes the president of Nigeria in 2023, he will spend a cumulative nine years as president whereas the amended constitutional provision on which Falana relied on limits the occupant of the position to two terms of eight years.

*Buhari and Jonathan 

I am not conversant with the amended constitutional provision that Falana relied on but I dare say that he got his interpretation of that provision wrong. A law does not take a retroactive effect and the 2018 constitutional amendment does not affect Jonathan. It can only affect a fresh president from the date it was signed into law. What if Jonathan had won the 2015 presidential election, didn’t Falana know that he would have been in office for nine years by 2019?

School Cults As IncubatorsOf Violence

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Trending heavily in the media- new, traditional and social- is the death of 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni, a student of Dowen College in Lekki, Lagos, last week, ostensibly from injuries sustained from beatings by a group of bullies, also students of the same school. Deaths are emotional occurrences for us humans, even when it is the death of an aged parent, talk less that of a teenager in whom much was being invested, with prospects of a bright life ahead.

In this instance, it is even more emotional, deeply troubling if you like, as it was revealed that the dead student had reported instances of bullying in the past, which elicited little or no reaction. The situation is worsened by the revelations of other parents, who suddenly started disclosing instances of bullying by their children, all after Oromoni’s death. Too little, too late.

Nigeria And The Threat Of A One-Party State

 By Dan Amor

Aside from the usual historical rendition that Nigeria became a political reality following the fusion of the Northern and Southern protectorates of the River Niger area in the interior coast of West Africa in 1914 by Lord Fredrick Lugard, a British military administrator, Nigeria actually adopted a Federal form of government in 1954. Even though still under colonial rule, party politics thrived in the country. 

*Buhari

The leading parties were: the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) which stood for political democracy in its classical, individualistic form; the Action Group of Nigeria (AG) which stood for federalist democracy; the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), which exemplified the modernization of traditional political authority; and its radical opponent, the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), which espoused egalitarian democracy. As a strictly regional party, the NPC did not threaten the Southern parties in their home regions. Since the Northern Region was said to have contained an absolute majority of the national population, (though a myth of the 1959 population census), the NPC could control the Federal government by monopolizing electoral power in the North. 

Ban On Open Grazing: Victory For The South

 By Tony Ademiluyi

The 1804 Jihad spearheaded by Usman Dan Fodio made the Fulani tribe the overlords of the Hausas. Dan Fodio departed from the norm in imposing Fulfulde as the new language of the court. Instead he did the unthinkable by ensuring an adoption of the Hausa language as the lingua franca of the conquered territory. This linguistic affinity spread throughout the north which ensured that they spoke with one voice and were united despite their tribal differences.

The British found this useful in their policy of indirect rule which made the northerners have a general apathy towards nationalistic activities that was largely a southern affair. As a reward, the departing colonialists ensured that they had the majority seats in the House of Representatives which was the more powerful of the bicameral legislature at the time as the senate was ceremonial. This action by the British has haunted us more than sixty years after the Union Jack was lowered. At the moment, the north has 19 governors while the south has 17 and far more seats in the National Assembly than the south which has ensured that they are always in charge no matter who sits in Aso Rock.