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.”

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”.

Edo Governorship Poll: Only Justice Will Guarantee Peace

 
By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Saturday, September 21, Edo electorate will elect a new governor who will superintend over the affairs of the state in the next four years. In other climes, that is a simple task. Agreed, contestation for power is a serious business not meant for chicken hearted fellas, but the heavy lifting is done out on the hustings, talking to people. On Election Day, the will of the majority expressed through the ballot box prevails.

Police Should Kill Bandits, Not Democracy In Plateau, Nasarawa

 By Emmanuel Aziken

Arguably the best Inspector General of Police since the exit of Solomon Arase, Nigeria’s top police shot, IGP Usman Alkali Baba appears to have now run himself into an unnecessary controversy.

Given the foibles of the ruling political class, he had within reasonable expectations held his dignity in the face of the rascality of political actors here and there during the recent General Election.

God-wins, Edo And Lessons Learnt

 By Reuben Abati

The pundits who had predicted the outcome and the nature of the Gubernatorial election in Edo State got it all wrong. The Edo 2020 election may well prove to be a turning point in the management of elections in Nigeria, and if not, there are certainly lessons to be learnt from it. It was in every sense a rude awakening for both the actors in the drama and the community of observers who witnessed and monitored the election. 

                                                           *Reuben Abati

Pundits predicted that the election would end up as war, a do –or die affair and that there would be blood-letting in all the state’s three Senatorial Districts. That didn’t happen. An official of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was shot in Etsako Central LGA, another person was macheted and given a cut on the face. In Orhionmwon LGA, a person was killed. In Egor, Ovia South West, Ikpoba-Okha, Oredo LGAs there were reports of skirmishes involving vote buying, and physical assault, but on the whole, the election went on peacefully. There were fears that voters would stay away from the polling stations, out of fear and anxiety, for indeed, before election day, September 19, campaign rhetoric was febrile, hate speech dominated political talk. The people had every reason to be afraid. 

Nigeria As An Amusement Park

By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Nigeria is a huge amusement park. All you need do to have fun is sit back and watch the theatrics of the political gladiators. It is God’s doing, though. Our ability to laugh at our folly and the fact that there are so many clowns out there masquerading as statesmen is, perhaps, the only reason some are still sane.

In the face of the pervasive desolation, any iota of bitterness even against those whose cluelessness dug us into this hole would have been suicidal because, as the legendary global statesman, Nelson Mandela, would say, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

*Buhari

Why should we commit suicide, which is exactly what those who superintend over our affairs want us to do, having tried every other strategy to accomplish the same goal, including the use of cruel economic policies without much success?

Of course, they think we are fools. Far from it, never mind that sometimes we behave in ways that tend to lend credence to their prejudice. But the truth is that they don’t get it, the joke is actually on them.

I had a good laugh every day of last week. The shenanigan that involved the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the courts and the unseen hands of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was the icing on the cake.

As I watched the drama and the movements in and out of courts with injunctions and counter-injunctions, I couldn’t help but laugh. It was all deja vu.

But what really got me reeling with laughter was the alleged attempt by “mischief makers” to add the name of the Edo State APC governorship candidate, Godwin Obaseki, to the ever growing list of leaders without certificates or with unverifiable certificates.

Immediately the news broke, my first reaction was, “Oh! My God, not again.” You can then imagine my relief when Obaseki announced to the world that the certificates which he claimed to have lost have, indeed, been found. And guess where? In faraway God’s own country, the United States.