Integrity Matters In Politics: Britain Shows It, Why Not Nigeria?

 By Olu Fasan

Call it a tale of two countries. One, Britain, puts integrity at the heart of its politics and punishes any departure from it, as evidenced by the recent toppling of its prime minister, Boris Johnson. The other, Nigeria, lacks integrity in its politics and tolerates acts of impunity, as proven by the prevalence of vote-buying and other dishonest practices in its elections. The contrasting stories of both countries and the implications for Nigeria’s democracy are instructive and deserve our attention. Let’s start with Britain!

*Buhari and Johnson

In December 2019, Boris Johnson secured a landslide victory for his party, the Conservative Party. He won an 80-seat parliamentary majority, the party’s biggest for 40 years. Yet less than three years later, he was brutally defenestrated by Members of Parliament, MPs, from his own party.

Ironically, last week, the same Tory MPs gave Johnson a standing ovation during his final prime minister’s questions, PMQs, after a barnstorming speech, which he ended with the words: “Hasta la vista(goodbye; see you later), baby!”

So, within three years as prime minister, Boris Johnson was ousted from the job he coveted his entire political life. The question must be: Why? Well, here’s why. Conservative MPs admired Johnson’s charisma and electioneering skills, but they strongly detested his personal flaws, his perceived lack of integrity, and the latter feeling trumped the former. As one Conservative insider put it, “the principal reason for removing Johnson was to restore honesty to public life”.

Nigeria: A Sick Society With Unhinged Citizenry

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Nigeria  is a sick country, very sick. What is worse, Nigerians have increasingly become unhinged. Many of the things happening in the country are bizarre and it takes only an unhinged population to condone the maladies. 

You are wrong if you think I am talking about the importation of adulterated fuel which has grounded almost the entire country and destroyed many vehicles. In any other country other than Nigeria where there are consequences for actions of state officials, heads would have rolled by now.

The petrol supply chain was disrupted last week when the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, otherwise known as The Authority, announced that it discovered methanol quantities above Nigeria’s specifications in imported petroleum products.

Even as the queues get longer at the petrol stations, the noise has lessened and we have all gone back to our pastime – grumbling. Nothing will happen because the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, NNPC, the regulator and sole importer of petrol in Nigeria, which is busy pointing fingers of blame at four marketers, including its own Duke Oil, is the major culprit.

Umar’s “BIAFRAN Boys” Dig Up Part of Nigeria’s Unofficial Igbophobia

 By Farooq A. Kperogi

Danladi Umar, the notoriously vain and sickeningly skin-bleached chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, was caught on camera on March 29 physically assaulting a securityguard identified as 22-year-old Clement Sargwak. 

Umar flew into a tempestuous rage because Sargwak besought him to not park his car at a spot that obstructed traffic in Abuja’s Banex Plaza in Wuse 2. 

                          *Danladi Umar 

In the aftermath of the swift, across-the-board social media denunciations that his cowardly physical violence against a lowly security guard roused, Umar caused the head of the Press and Public Relations unit of the Code of Conduct Tribunal by the name of Ibraheem Al-Hassan to issue an agonizingly dreadful and error-ridden press release that, among other things, singled out nameless “BIAFRAN Boys” for blame in a show of shame in which he is the main villain.