Help! Tribunals Are Hurting Democracy

 By Andy Ezeani 

Let no one deceive anyone; the processes and structure of democracy in Nigeria are presently in grave danger. There is no exaggeration in talking of a democracy in intensive care unit (ICU) at the moment. The danger is clear, present and escalating by the day.

Unless there is a quick, drastic containment of the excesses that have seized the democratic process in the country, no special gift of clairvoyance is needed to predict an imminent debacle. Smothering the pervasive voices of discontent and disapproval at the widening corrosive abuse of the system, as seem to be the strategy of the powers that be, can last but for a short while.

Lai Mohammed And His Treason Allegation

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Tuesday, April 4, Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, did in the U.S. what he knows how best to do – fib. Mohammed, in Washington DC on official engagements with some international media organisations, including the Washington Post, Voice of America, Associated Press and Foreign Policy Magazine, accused the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his running-mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, of inciting people to violence over the February 25 presidential election.

The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, quoted the minister as saying: “Obi and his Vice, Datti Ahmed, cannot be threatening Nigerians that if the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress, APC, is sworn in on May 29, it will be the end of democracy in Nigeria. This is treason… Obi’s statement is that of a desperate person, he is not the democrat that he claimed to be. A democrat should not believe in democracy only when he wins the election.”