Humphrey Nwosu: Unsung Hero Of Nigeria’s Democracy

 By Tonnie Iredia

The death a few days ago of Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the outstanding Nigerian who supervised the famous June 12 1993 presidential election no doubt reminded many Nigerians of how best to organize an election. Although the winner of that election was never formally declared, everyone knew who it was and across the globe, the contest was unanimously accepted as the best Nigerian election in history. The accolade is yet to change.

*Prof Nwosu 

Those who knew Nwosu’s strength of character especially those of us who worked with him on the elections must have been elated for the first time hearing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a tribute describing Humphrey Nwosu as “as a bold and courageous administrator as well as a patriot and national asset,” who played a major role in shaping Nigeria’s democratic journey. The description was simply apt.

Professor Ben Nwabueze And Moses Oludele Idowu’s Apostasy

 By Chuks Iloegbunam

Ihechukwu Madubuike’s new book is entitled Aka Ekpuchi Onwa: Ndigbo Unbowed, (Eminent Biographies Limited; 2024). Professor Madubuike devoted the book’s Chapter Five to demolishing the infantile thesis of Moses Oludele Idowu, a poseur with claims to political punditry and Christian evangelism. Idowu posited a fallacy on Ndigbo by arguing that "The Igbo political culture of compromises is at the root of the lackluster, unenviable position of the Igbo as a people in the political process and equation rather than any conspiracy as their scholars and hagiographers have always maintained.”

*Prof Ben Nwabueze 

A sample of Dr. Madubuike’s rebuke

 

I am troubled that some of our Yoruba cousins keep drawing us backwards, because they believe the Igbo are their immortal political enemies. To make the above assertions about the Igbo without qualms by Moses Oludele Idowu in his Wages of Compromises: The Igbo Race As Object Lesson is pushing provocation and illogicality to the level of the absurd. The thesis is as unsustainable as it is otiose. If the article is intended to be seen as part of the continuing conversation to interrogate the Nigerian geopolitical space, to inquire into and understand the fundamentals of nation-building, and the overall importance of justice in determining the affairs of human beings, then it can be tolerated. But the write-up is about none of these.

There Was A Country…Remembering Chinua Achebe

 By Banji Ojewale

In the distant past, you wouldn’t talk about Chinua Achebe without instant reference to his mountaintop novel, Things Fall Apart. He was inseparable from his literary creature that outstripped its creator. But Achebe was lucky: he was spared the tragedy of bringing forth a monster which would fatally prey on its Frankenstein god. Achebe’s own genie was genial. Upon escape from the bottle-cage, it gave the illustrious novelist a new identity tag: Africa’s foremost storyteller.

*Achebe 

However, 2012 would deliver another lingering literary lease to this great man of letters. He wrote There Was A Country: A Personal History Of Biafra. More than five decades had passed to serve as a hiatus between the book of Achebe’s youth and the new product of his advanced age. Both were mileposts, the one his first published novel (1958), and the other his last huge work before his death in 2013.

But when on November 16, 2022, the world quietly observed the eminent raconteur’s 92nd posthumous birthday, we were all drawn to his latter-day effort rather than to the one that lionized him. Why?

Soludo’s Bile Against Obi Unwarranted

 By Charles Okoh

Whoever advised Governor Chukwuma Soludo on the path he has taken in his unwarranted attack on the former governor of the state and presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, has obviously and totally misled him. If anything, his reaction was so infantile and lacking tact.

*Obi and Soludo 

What would Soludo say was the reason he went overboard and spewed all those bile when he is not contesting the position of the president? Between Obi and APGA’s Prof. Peter Umeadi, who realistically has a better chance?

After all said and done, Soludo ended up projecting the candidacy of both Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), than he has done for his party’s candidate (Umeadi).

Nigeria Is Not An Emirate

 By Chidi Odinkalu

November 28, 1988 was a Monday. In Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, FCT, a Constituent Assembly inaugurated by military ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, had been in session for just over six months since May 11, 1988. At the helm as its chair was Anthony Aniagolu, then a recently retired Justice of Nigeria’s Supreme Court. He was a Christian from Enugu State. His deputy was Muhammadu Buba Ardo, then Chief Judge of Gongola State, who died suddenly in 1991, two years after the Assembly completed its work. He was Muslim.

*Buhari 

The Secretary to the Constituent Assembly was one Alhaji Babagana Kingibe, whom the country has since then got to know a lot more eloquently, a Muslim from Borno State. Kingibe’s assistant was Amal Inyingiala Pepple, who would rise to the height of the civil service in Nigeria, before retiring in June 2009 as the Head of Service of the Federation. She is a Christian from Rivers State.

In those days, Nigeria had 21 states: Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bendel, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Gongola, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kwara, Lagos, Nigeria, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, and Sokoto states, plus the FCT.

The Constituent Assembly, which Justice Aniagolu chaired, comprised 567 members drawn from all these states. A total 458 were elected, while 109 were nominated by the Federal Government, including the Chairman and his Deputy (both of them male), and drawn from the ranks of judicial figures, senior lawyers, titans of industry, traditional rulers, experienced public servants and administrators, academics and other professionals.

Olusegun Obasanjo At ‘80′

By Ochereome Nnanna

I have only encountered President Olusegun Obasanjo twice. The first time was in 2001 when his Media Adviser, the late great journalist, Mr. Tunji Oseni, invited me to Aso Villa for the Presidential Media Chat series. The second event was quite dramatic. I visited a friend, Osita Chidoka, in his office in August 2007.

 

*Obasanjo 

He had just been appointed Corps Marshall of the Federal Roads Safety Commission, FRSC. At lunch time, he asked me to accompany  him to see “someone” at the Hilton, Abuja. When we arrived at the hotel, I became suspicious when we rode the elevator to the topmost floor and Chidoka led me to the end of a hallway with two coated security guards on duty.

It was then that I knew we were seeing a VVIP. After signing us in, Chidoka stood aside as a bespectacled elderly man still wearing shabby bedclothes (at 2.00pm) came out. Everyone in the room stood reverently. He bantered with Chidoka and I took a closer look. It was former President Obasanjo!

Chidoka introduced me: “Baba, this is Ochereome Nnanna of Vanguard…” Obasanjo, who was already about to shake my hands, quickly withdrew it as if I had turned into a cobra. He gave me a hostile stare and walked away. I whispered to Chidoka that I would wait for him downstairs.

All this drama apart, the lesson I took away from the encounter was that, contrary to Obasanjo’s pretensions that he does not read Nigerian newspapers, he does. His reaction to me just proved it. I have never hidden my disdain for the recycling of the military generals who fought the civil war as elected “civilian” presidents.