By Emeka
Alex Duru
2027 general elections may still be far but signs of what to come are becoming clearer and indeed, disturbing. Nigerians may be in for a rough deal, perhaps, worse than what was experienced in 2023, if the morning, as they say, tells the day. Mudslinging and ethnic recriminations are already dominating public spaces, in place of issue-based engagements. Lagos is a place to watch in the worrisome development.
By Emeka Alex Duru
Nigeria was among the countries that observed Children’s Day, last Tuesday, May 27. It is largely a commemorative event celebrated annually in honour of children whose date of observance varies by country. On such occasions, speeches and pledges are made in assuring the children of their importance to society.
In this year’s edition, President Bola Tinubu advertised his administration’s commitment to safeguarding the rights and well-being of Nigerian children, declaring them as the “pride and future of our great nation”. Eating into the theme of the celebration, tagged, “Stand Up, Speak Up: Building a Bullying-Free Generation”, Tinubu said it aligns directly to the culture his administration is building, which he said entitles every child to feel safe, respected and heard, both in physical spaces and digital communities.
By Emeka Alex Duru
I always recall what a friend lectured as the staying power in Nigeria’s politics each time any politician literally dances naked in dramatizing the indispensability of the president. The trick is to be seen as loyal, no matter what it takes and how it is demonstrated. Suspicion of disloyalty, by facts or perception, can be fatal.
But to be considered loyal, is all that is required for advancement and all that come with it. When therefore you see a politician, especially an appointee shouting himself hoarse in praising the president or governor, he is only trying to keep his job and remain relevant. In Nigeria, politicians are like street hawkers who thrive on traffic. Their fidelity is attached to where their stomachs are nourished at a material time.
By Emeka Alex Duru
It was quite depressing listening to a member of the House of Representatives from Zamfara State, Aminu Jaji recount the worsening security situation in his constituency. Jaji painted a harrowing picture of attacks, mass kidnappings, and general lawlessness that have left his constituents devastated and displaced.
Over 200 of such attacks have taken place in communities across Kaura Namoda Local Government Area alone, including Dayo, Banga, Gabaki, Korea, and Madura, according to the lawmaker. In one instance, 60 people were abducted in Banga. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of 30 million naira. Out of those abducted, 10 were killed, and the fate of the remaining 50 hangs in the balance, he said. The chilling aspect of his narration was one in which a pregnant woman gave birth in captivity and her newborn twins thrown to dogs by a bandit leader. He also gave instance of a boy with epilepsy who was executed for falling in the presence of a bandit. This is bestiality at its worst.
By Emeka Alex Duru
The trending controversy on Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the British Conservative Party and her disposition to Nigeria, reminds me of an encounter with a media aide to a governor in the South East.
An obviously traumatized citizen had posted a comment on his social media Facebook page, chiding the governor for always frolicking in Abuja while the state suffers on account of insecurity and poor governance. That was all that it took for our friend, the media aide to break loose against the hapless citizen.
By Emeka Alex Duru
No matter how one tries not to bother at the certificate issue involving President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chicago State University (CSU), the institution he claimed to have attended for a degree, the matter keeps popping up. Like the mythical incubus, the bad dream which hardly dies, it keeps coming and does not let go. In a way, it has become a sore on the thumb, which only Tinubu can cure.
In our days in the rested The Post Express newspapers, a hardworking colleague was about being made the daily editor, when, overnight, his rival contemporaries connived with corrupt minds in the administration department and all his academic records were removed from his file, leaving only the West African School Certificate. The smart Aleks had their way and rumours were injected into the organisation that he was not adequately educated for the position.
By Emeka Alex Duru
A friend called the other day from Germany to get a true picture of situations in the country. The initial attempt was to pretend that all was well, that, apart from the dust of the February/March elections, there was not much to worry about. But that seemed a big error, in fact, a terrible one. He blurted: “Old Boy (as we address ourselves), you got it wrong on this. Reports I get every day from people at home indicate that things are not working. The emergence of Bola Tinubu has not helped matters. Except those in the corridors of power, every other citizen is panting. What I get is that, for Nigerians, it’s from frying pan to fire.”
There was nothing to argue with him. Perhaps, at no time have Nigerians had it as rough as they are going through currently. And to think that this is a country that is not at war, yet the citizens are literally passing through hell in the hands of their leaders. It rankles exceedingly. The cost of every basic item in the land has hit the rooftop. Nigerians are hungry and angry! Minor issues that would have been overlooked can now result in fisticuffs. People wear frowns on their faces as if they woke up to continue with unfinished quarrels.
By Emeka Alex Duru
I cannot recall where, between Benin and Kano, that I first came across the hashtag “#AllEyesOnTheElectionTribunalJudges,” powered by Diasporas for good governance. But I read in it that Nigerians had not lost interest on the last general elections and all that played out in the exercise. Indeed, they should not and ought not! That was a particular election that Nigerians of all ages and classes, especially the youth, saw as one that would change many narratives in the country.
It was one election which the organisers – the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) – advertised as the best that would happen to Nigeria. Buhari, in fact, boasted that the success of the election would stand as a legacy and point of reference for his regime. INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, equally assured the whole world of conducting an election that would mark a radical departure from the past that was characterised by manipulations.
By Emeka Alex Duru
I confess that I initially bought into the explanation by officials of Lagos state on the reasons for the demolition of some structures in the popular Alaba International Market. The government had on Sunday, June 18, commenced pulling down 17 buildings it tagged distressed at the market.
The General Manager of Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), Gbolahan Oki, who spoke on the exercise two days earlier, claimed that the affected buildings had been marked for demolition since 2016. “The marked inscriptions from LASBCA seen on different parts of the buildings that were looking physically distressed had vacation notices as far back as 2016, 2020, 2022, and several others issued to this year, 2023,” the state added in a post on its website.
By Emeka Alex Duru
Growing up, we were treated to a certain ghastly form of wrestling, referred to as cage fight, in which the competitors were herded into a chained ring and made to attack one another until a winner emerged. Watching the contest could be gory and not for the faint-hearted. Each wrestler was free to adopt any strategy, no matter how unconventional, to dismantle his opponent. It was usually catastrophic. Not even the eventual winner got out of the ring intact. Everyone lost in one way or another.
This summarizes the tortuous route the All Progressives Congress (APC) has taken Nigeria through in the last eight years as the ruling party. Like ardent con artists, chieftains of the party have driven the country down the slope in a manner of a car without brakes to the point of crashing it beyond repair.
By Emeka Alex Duru
You would notice that the speech delivered by the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, at Chatham House, London, earlier in the week, has been drowned by criticisms trailing his outsourcing the question-and-answer section to his cronies. That is not without reasons. It falls into our position here, some time ago, on the need for the flag bearers to assume their offices and speak directly to Nigerians on their agenda for the nation and how they intend to go about them.
Our observation then was that the presidential candidates carry on their shoulders the burden of marketing themselves and their political organisations. In other words, they are the faces of their parties, their poster boys. That is why being the standard-bearer of a political party, is a big deal – a contest for serious minds. It demands a lot. To paraphrase Gerald R. Ford (38th U.S. President) the presidency is not a prize to be won, but a duty to be done.
By Emeka Alex Duru
Weeks to the official flag-off of the 2023 presidential campaigns, signs of what to come are becoming clearer. And disturbing! Nigerians may be in for a rough deal, perhaps, worse than they are having, if the morning, as they say, determines the day. Mudslinging and ethnic recriminations may dominate public engagements, in place of issue-based campaigns.
They are
avenues for the candidates to advertise themselves and market their parties to
the people and tell them what to expect from them if voted to power. Whatever
declarations made by the standard-bearers on such events, are taken as
yardsticks upon which they would be assessed while in office. For the
incumbent, they provide opportunities to brandish their achievements, while the
opposition, cash in on the window to expose the lapses of the party in power
and project itself as the alternative.
An
incidence in the 1980 American presidential election offers a good illustration
on this. In the final week of campaign between the candidate of ruling
Democratic Party, President Jimmy Carter and Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan,
the two were put on debate. In course of the exercise, Reagan posed what has
become one of the most important campaign questions of all time: “Are you
better off today than you were four years ago?” Carter’s answer was a
resounding “NO”. That response was what the voters needed to deny him
re-election but America as country won in the long run. That is the beauty of
presidential campaign.
As the
Independent National Electoral Commission gets set to lift the seal on the
campaigns, you would expect the presidential candidates of the leading
political parties in the country and their foot soldiers to be addressing their
minds to such important questions. The presidency is the hardest job in the
world, says American essayist, John Dickerson, in his piece on the White House.
He prescribes that when the national fabric rends, the president will
administer needle and thread, or at least reach for the sewing box of unity.
This is a big lesson for those aspiring for the office.
But that
is not what we are getting here, so far. It is rather campaigns of calumny and
regurgitation of primordial sentiments. Resort to ethnicity is more dominant.
In place of interrogating and analysisng the contents of pronouncements by the
presidential candidates, their persons and pedigrees, issues of regions of
birth are being played up, obviously to divide the people.
In Lagos
for instance, the campaigns are drifting from the challenges facing the country
to such fleeting topic as the ownership of the city. In the process, drinking
joint banters or off-hand jibes by loose minds, are being cited as reasons to
profile others and accuse them of attempting to take over the state. Since the
emergence of the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and the
momentum he has been generating especially among the youths and down trodden
Nigerians, there have been waves of insinuations on the Igbo for “plotting to
covet Lagos state”. Suddenly, the allegation of the Igbo purporting that “Lagos
is no man’s land” has been on the rise and penetrating. Supporters of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Tinubu, are firing relentlessly on
this.
But that
is a ruse. There is no space that can be described as “no man’s land”. Every
entity has an indigenous population with certain claims of ownership or
autochthony. Lagos cannot be an exception. Regardless the length of residence
of an Igbo or any other non-indigene in Lagos, he/she remains a visitor.
Next to
this is the lazy recollection of subjective narratives of the First Republic
politics featuring the hackneyed mistrust between Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief
Obafemi Awolowo, for which some Igbo and Yoruba seem sworn not to accept one
another. The idea behind raking up these baseless topics is to further drive
the wedge between the people from the two regions. The agenda may appear simple
on the surface. But most genocides and ethnic cleansings in history, had
started by casual profiling of the victims. That is the reason why these
reckless expressions of sordid sentiments, should not be taken lightly
Importantly,
they are not issues that should bother Nigerians, presently. The candidates need
to tell us how they intend to tackle the challenges facing the country. These
are matters of failed governance, infrastructure collapse, insecurity, youth
unemployment, depreciating value of the national currency, endemic strikes in
the institutions of higher learning and restiveness in the component units of
the country.
The
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), just
released a data the other day, which puts Nigeria as having about 20 million
out-of-school children. The rate before was between 10.5 and 13.5 million. But
with insecurity and kidnapping of school children, some parents are scared of
sending their wards to school in some parts of the country. The present
estimate is worrisome.
Elsewhere,
though there seems a disagreement on an earlier report by a global terrorism
research/analysis group, Jihad Analytics (JA), which placed Nigeria as the
second most terrorised/attacked country, and that of fact-check which quotes
the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) as saying that the country is sixth in the
league, the fact is that the climate of insecurity remains high, here. Farmers
can no longer access their farms, resulting to food insecurity in the land. In
other indices of development, we are not faring better. Nigeria remains the
Poverty capital of the world since 2018.
Nigeria
tops the list of fragile, failing states and now the most stressful country to
live in, according to the stress level index. For seven months running,
students in public universities have been out of school due to the face-off
between their teachers under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities and the Federal government over unfulfilled agreements.
Some
Nigerians abducted in the Abuja-Kaduna-bound train on March 28, are still held
by their captors, while the government looks the other way.
These are
the issues that should matter in the 2023 debate. The task ahead is enormous
and not the trivial issues of the Igbo or any group trying to take over Lagos
or indeed any state in the country for that matter. Nigerians do not have the
time for such idle talk.
*Duru is a commentator on public issues
By Emeka Alex Duru
There seems to be the tendency by other political parties and their presidential candidates, of leaving the burning issues in the land and focusing on Peter Obi, the standard bearer of the Labour Party, LP. This is usually the case when these other candidates or their supporters grant television or newspaper interviews. As if these are not enough, they have flooded the internet and other social media networks with hired hands, whose briefs are to attack and bruise the image of Obi. Foot soldiers of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, are the most visible in this cheap exercise.
In doing this, there is nothing being spared, including Obi’s
family and his private life. They go to the extent of creating fictitious
accounts on the social media, cloning identities of his supporters and making
frivolous assertions to mislead the public to believing that such poor outings
are from Obi. Among these puerile attempts was the alleged letter from the
Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo, purportedly asking Tinubu, to support
Peter Obi and take care of his health. The aim was to pitch Obi against the
Ghanaian President and his country.
Obi’s media team has, however, punctured the move by explaining that any publication from his group is always properly signed and the origin very clearly spelt out.
