Interrogating President Tinubu’s UNGA Speech

 By Jideofor Adibe

On September 18, 2023, President Bola Tinubu gave a speech from what could be called the grandest stage of them all – the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It was his maiden speech on such a stage. For a first speech at the UN, I feel Tinubu performed above expectation. Overall, I would score him a ‘B’. There is however still a big room for improvement.

*Tinubu

The speech highlighted five themes- (a) the need for global institution and other nations to see Africa as a priority; (b) an affirmation of democratic governance as the “best guarantor of sovereign will”; (c) the challenges posed by violent extremism; (d) Problems of illicit mining and pilfering by extra-African powers and companies; and (e) the threats posed by climate change. 

Was There Really A Consensus That Fuel Subsidy Should Go?

 By Jideofor Adibe

In my last week’s column (Beyond the PEPT’s Judgement), I argued, among other things, that the Western brand of liberal democracy we currently practise does not, and cannot work in our type of society where the basis of even statehood remains contested.

This is because the adversarial nature of our electoral competition aggravates the structures of conflicts in the society, deepening the fault lines necessarily mobilised as part of our identity politics and consequently undermining the nation-building process. I equally argued that largely because of these factors, many Nigerians feel alienated from the political process and consequently from the nation-state itself.

Remembering Nelson Mandela

 By Jideofor Adibe

July 18 of every year, which is Nelson Mandela’s birthday, is celebrated across the world as Mandela Day. It should be recalled that the United Nations General Assembly declared in November 2009 that July 18 of every year should be commemorated as Mandela International Day in recognition of the contributions of the late South African President to the culture of global peace. The Mandela Day was essentially aimed at honouring the late anti-Apartheid activist’s lifelong commitment to social justice, reconciliation, and human rights.

*Mandela 

The day also encourages individuals and communities worldwide to engage in acts of service that will make a positive impact in their communities. In December 2015, the UNGA extended the scope of the Mandela Day to also include promoting humane conditions of imprisonment, raising awareness about prisoners being a continuous part of society and valuing the work of prison staff as a social service of particular importance. The UNGA adopted the revised UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and approved that these should be known as the “Nelson Mandela Rules”.

Issues With Tinubu’s Education Loan Scheme

 By Jideofor Adibe

Tinubu’s first three weeks in office have been packed with actions – fuel subsidy was removed on his inauguration, some aides have been appointed, the Naira has been floated and a Bill establishing an education loan scheme has been signed – among others. Though the actions so far have been mostly policy pronouncements that are yet to be implemented and tested, some people, carried away by the giddiness of the actions, have wrongly declared that Tinubu’s first 15 days in office have been better than a whole four-year term spent by past administrations. 

This piece interrogates the Access to Higher Education Act 2023 (otherwise known as the education loan scheme), flagging the promises and issues it raised: 

Options Before Bola Tinubu And His Critics

 By Jideofor Adibe

The Friday, May 26, 2023 Supreme Court’s dismissal of the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party seeking the disqualification of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the February 25, 2023 presidential election over alleged double nomination of his Vice-President Senator Kashim Shettima, essentially removed the last hurdle to his inauguration on May 29, 2023.

*Bola Tinubu

This means in essence that those who cannot bear the thought of Tinubu and Shettima as President and Vice President respectively will have to find a way of adjusting to the reality that they will be stuck with the duo till August this year (at the earliest) when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the challenges to the INEC-declared outcome of the election. We are of course assuming that there will be no other unforeseen variable in-between. 

Soyinka, Chimamanda And Obi-Dients: When Does Opinion Cross The Line?

 By Jideofor Adibe

In recent weeks Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, multiple award winning writer, Chimamanda Adichie, and supporters of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25, 2023 presidential election  (otherwise known as Obidients), have been trending. The backgrounds were an interview granted by Datti Baba Ahmed in which he was quoted as saying that whoever “swears in Mr. Tinubu has ended democracy in Nigeria”. Elsewhere, Dr. Datti Baba- Ahmed was also quoted as saying that Nigeria does not have a President-elect.  

*Chimamanda and Soyinka 

The conversation took a different turn when Soyinka criticised the comments by Dr. Datti Baba-Ahmed, saying: “I have never heard anyone threaten the judiciary on television the way Datti did I heard the kind of menacing, blackmailing language that we were treated to by Datti. That kind of do-or-die attitude and provocation is not what I think we have all been struggling for.”

Nigeria: Dousing Political Tension In The Land

 By Jideofor Adibe

Elections everywhere tend to be divisive. This is because mobilisation of support hinges on a successful creation of a simplistic binary of ‘we-versus-them’ dichotomy, which is then nourished by all manner of scaremongering. This is why political campaigns are often likened to wars without weapons.

In Africa, it is even more so where politicians seem to have taken literally the exultations by Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneering pan-Africanist and Ghana’s independence leader (1957-1966), to seek first the political kingdom and everything else would be added unto them. In Africa, the allure of political office is exceedingly high. Apart from being perhaps the quickest means to personal material accumulation, there is a pervasive fear that the group that captures state power could use it to privilege its in-group and disadvantage others.

Detribalised Nigerian Does Not Exist; It Never Did!

By Chidi Odinkalu

In 1989, academics, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, published to great acclaim their study of the evolution of the diverse dialects of English language from different empires. Their title was The Empire Writes Back. The book shows how various outposts of the empire took ownership of the language and adapted its grammar and usage.

*Odinkalu 

Few outposts from Empire have been as prolific in this enterprise as Nigeria. Conceived as somewhat of an illegitimate offspring in the ménage à trois between Sir George Taubman Goldie; his mistress, Flora Shaw; and his successor in propinquity to her, Frederick Lugard, Nigeria became a colonial experiment in the Tower of Babel.

A national anthem composed in 1959, one year before independence which occurred in 1960, acknowledged this reality in the third line of its first stanza, reminding the world of the aspiration to create a country even “though tribe and tongue may differ.” The anthem itself invited citizens to “hail” the country in antiquarian, biblical third person, symbolising a relationship with the country that was fractured from origin. Never mind that the hailing was to be done in the borrowed language of a foreign country.