Enough Of IMF/World Bank Puppets

 By Nick Dazang

Individuals, corporate entities and countries which succeed are those who plan for the long haul, provide for contingencies and keep their eyes firmly on the ball. They think long-term; they delay immediate gratification; and they deny themselves in the knowledge that things will turn out well in due course.

Such individuals, corporate entities and countries do not cut corners. They follow due process. They are transparent. They only tweak their policies to align with their long-term goal(s). Their leaders complement these qualities by demonstrating emotional intelligence; by delivering good governance; by demonstrating prudence; and by exuding respect and fellow-feeling for their compatriots.

Why Tinubu Should Listen To Our Elder Statesmen

 By Nick Dazang

Apart from an army of voluble commentators holding successive governments to account and speaking truths to them in the most parliamentary and patrician fashion, Nigeria is blessed with scores of irrepressible elder statesmen.

*Tinubu

Whenever matters come to a head and Nigeria teeters at the brink of precipice, these statesmen weigh in with their thoughts. They intervene by way of statements or well calibrated pronouncements. Sometimes they do so by authoring scathing epistles. Some of these statesmen, such as Chiefs Gani Fawehinmi and Anthony Enahoro and Dr. Tai Solarin have departed this sinful world.

Presidential Jets And The Rest Of Us

 By Nick Dazang

There is an apocryphal story animating the social media. And it is doing so with a frenzy. It is to the effect that the Presidency had since allegedly acquired two jets via the Chagourys; and that the jets were being allegedly configured in lieu of their delivery to Abuja.

Even though this story appears outlandish and not in consonance with the latest reports in the mainstream media, namely, that the Presidency is considering auctioning some of the aging aircraft in the presidential fleet to make up the money to buy a new one, the said exaggerated story speaks eloquently to two salient and concerning issues.

Bola Tinubu Should Come Clean!

 By Nick Dazang

Unless drastic, coherent and proactive measures are taken, the chickens may soon be coming home to roost for the fledgling Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration. I state this with the highest sense of responsibility and advised by recent tragic events and ominous auguries.

*Tinubu

For the first time, and on his watch, we have thus far had a rash of peaceful demonstrations against hardship. Nigerians, in their numbers, protested in Kano, Minna and Suleija. It is noteworthy that even before he departed Lagos for Abuja, after the Christmas and New Year breaks, Lagosians shouted at his convoy that Nigerians were having a hard time.

The Coup In Niger

 By Nick Dazang

The Czar of military coup d’etats in Nigeria once offered us a useful glimpse into the prime motivation and raison d’etre for the overthrow of governments by force. Former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, a putschist par excellence, and a veteran of all successful coups, except that in which the late General Sani Abacha ousted the illicit Interim National Government, ING, of Chief Ernest Shonekan, once stated that all coups were inspired by the subsisting frustration in a given society.

In the aftermath of the 1983 coup, which ushered in the draconian administration of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, as he then was, a well respected Nigerian Editor, fed up by the chicanery and ineptitude of the President Shehu Shagari administration, proclaimed that God was a Nigerian. In retrospect, this well regarded Editor must  rue his effusive endorsement of military rule. The flip side to this unrestrained display of emotion must be the sedate but poignant observation by Mr. Peter Enahoro, one Africa’s best Journalists.

Let The Students Vote!

 By Nick Dazang

From colonial to contemporary times, students have played uplifting and progressive roles in our country’ storied existence.

Under the auspices of the West African Students Union (WASU), students were in the forefront of our decolonization efforts. In the course of military interregnums and interventions, students have fought gallantly against oppressive and anti-people policies. Even in the course of our democratic dispensations, students have been unsparing of governments whose policies were out of sync with the yearnings of Nigerians or which tended to reinforce suffering and failure.

When Politicians Buy PVCs

 By Nick Dazang 

Whereas politicians in other climes and jurisdictions obsess themselves with how to add value to their societies and bequeath ennobling legacies, ours, especially those of the Fourth Republic, are simply geniuses of travesty.

They excel at undoing their people or visiting untold destitution on them. Consider an abridged catalogue of their many failings and chicanery: The Nigerian politician is bereft of self-enlightened interest. He does not understand that to sustain the democracy project, and, by extension, his exalted position, he needs to justify the appurtenances of his office by delivering good governance and improving the welfare of his people.

When Candidates Shun Debates

 By Nick Dazang 

Power wielders/seekers and the media exist in mutual antagonism. They have a love-hate relationship. In spite of this antagonism, they are kindred spirits, of sorts. They find congruence in good governance and what advances humanity. By law, and in a democratic dispensation, the media are expected to rein in the predilection of power wielders to overreach themselves and abuse their offices. They are expected to hold power holders to account. By the same token, the power wielders and politicians need the media to secure visibility and to communicate their visions and agenda.

*Nigerian politicians at a Town Hall Meeting 

In democracies, the media helps politicians grab the limelight. Also, the media and their owners endorse and project candidates, who, in their views, possess exalted visions and the requisite character and capacity. For instance, the media made it possible for the eloquent, svelte and sartorially elegant John F. Kennedy to trounce Richard Nixon in the first ever televised presidential debate on September 26, 1960. 

Why Climate Change Must Define Our Elections

 By Nick Dazang

Following unprecedented rainfall this year, the vast length and breadth of this country has been flooded. Most adversely impacted are Kogi and Bayelsa states. Kogi State, which is located smack on the confluence of Rivers Niger and Benue, has been submerged by water. Bayelsa, which is down stream, has been cut off completely from civilisation, with nearly one million of its citizens displaced.

It is a tale of woe for nearly all the states of the federation, including the Mambilla and Jos plateaux, which experienced the most torrential rains in a generation. Not less than a conservative 700 Nigerians have lost their lives. Millions have lost their properties and live in camps. And millions more are prone to diseases and hunger as a consequence.

The Trouble With Our Political Parties

 By Nick Dazang

Nigeria’s 18 political parties are the pre-eminent and foremost stakeholders in the electoral process. They are the chief beneficiaries of elections in that they field candidates and contest for elective offices.

Nigeria’s political parties, to some extent, meet the classical definition of political parties. They are organised largely by people who think alike. They contest elections and field candidates. They approximate to special purpose vehicles and platforms for recruiting leaders who then proceed to contest elections. They canvass certain platforms and programmes. And they provide the voter with a number of candidates from which to choose.

Take The War To The Terrorists!

 By Nick Dazang

By dint of the legion of dastardly and wicked attacks by terrorists of all hues over the past seven years across the country, leaving in their trail deaths and mayhem, the chickens have been coming home to roost. Only, and unfortunately, no one hearkened to them. Not even President Muhammadu Buhari whose solemn remit it is to protect and defend the country.

If anything, his aloofness, his complacency and smug indifference suggest, not to a few Nigerians, that he may have been at one with the terrorists. The government, under President Buhari’s watch, treated the terrorists, at best, as untouchables and at the worst with kid gloves. This is even as it dealt in draconian fashion with others in their ilk.

The government -until now? – has been slow and tardy in decimating the Boko Haram terrorists such that the terrorists became emboldened. And such that ordinary folks were tempted to conclude that government had betrayed them and that it was in cahoots with the terrorists.

Vote Buying As Clear And Present Danger

 By Nick Dazang

Shortly after Professor Attahiru Jega assumed office as the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in June 2010, his first major outing was a visit to the INEC state headquarters office in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. By the same token, shortly after Professor Mahmood Yakubu was inaugurated as INEC Chairman on October 21, 2015,  he replicated Professor Jega’s pilgrimage with modifications.

He visited the South-West geopolitical zone, by beginning with a tour of the INEC state headquarters office in Ibadan, Oyo State.

*Voting day in Nigeria 

After receiving a rousing welcome by the Oyo State INEC officials, the media savvy Professor Yakubu flagged off a visit of media houses in the zone with a robust engagement with the editorial board of Tribune Newspapers at Imalefalafia, Ibadan. One of the issues raised by a member of the Tribune editorial board was how Professor Yakubu intended to address the scourge of of vote-buying and selling also known popularly in the South-West as “see and buy”.

At the time of this engagement, the menace of vote-buying and selling was as inchoate as Professor Yakubu was new to the Commission. Therefore, Professor Yakubu requested that the said editorial board member elaborate on what he meant. An election cycle down the line and the conduct of many off-season governorship elections and a legion of bye-elections under his belt and watch, the phenomenon of vote-buying and selling has since assumed the proportion of a clear and present danger to our electoral process.

From what stakeholders have witnessed recently during the conduct of the FCT Area Council Elections to the presidential primaries and the conduct of the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, vote-buying and selling have become rampant and commonplace. Whereas vote-buying and selling were carried out in the full glare of observers and the media during the FCT Area Council Elections and recipients were liberally rewarded with Naira notes,  the currency of vote-buying in the presidential primaries morphed from the Naira to the Dollar, with deleterious consequences to the economy and the electoral process.

Following the token arrests of perpetrators of the act by anti-corruption agencies during the conduct of the Ekiti governorship election, the perpetrators, who are our own version of geniuses of travesty, have contrived other means. Votes were reportedly bought in lieu of the Osun governorship election days ahead either by direct cash or by way of offerings or gifts. Rather than display thumb printed ballots, following the prohibition of android phones at voting cubicles, commitments were extracted during the Osun governorship election through vouchers by agents who then proceeded to take care of complicit persons who voted for their preferred candidates.

Instead of playing by the rules as enunciated by the Constitution and Electoral Act, thereby upholding the sanctity of the electoral process and putting our democracy on an enviable keel, our unscrupulous politicians seem to excel in gaming the system. Each time INEC plugs a loophole created by them, they proceed, with frenetic zeal,  to create new ones. The upshot of their prolific negative genius is clear: they imperil and make nonsense of the onerous efforts of the Commission to sanitise the electoral process and to deliver wholesome elections which reflect the true and genuine wishes of the Nigerian people.

My fear- and indeed that of most stakeholders in the electoral process- is that if vote-buying and selling  are left unchecked and untrammeled, they will not only torpedo and undermine the integrity of the electoral process, they will rubbish all the gains and reforms which INEC and its partners have fought for and instituted over more than one decade.

Vote-buying promotes the outright sale of political office to the highest bidder. It brings diminishment and devaluation to political power which ought to be sacred and hallowed. And when or where a deep pocket buys political office he will either covet or abuse it. He will seldom deploy it to uplifting ends. At best he will obsess himself with recovering his “investment”. At worst he will enrich himself with a view to further perpetuating himself in office. In this sordid scenario or circumstance, good governance and delivery of democracy dividends are the first casualties.

 The office holder is not obligated to deliver them. The voter who has exchanged his birthright for a miserable dish of pottage loses the moral high ground from which to hold such an office holder to account. We have arrived at a sorry pass on account of bad governance and the arrogance and betrayal of the political class. Should we compound our woes by selling our votes and condemning ourselves and our children to untold and continuous suffering and servitude?

To rise to the challenge of vote-buying and selling, INEC has had to expand its Interagency Consultative Committee on Elections Security, ICCES, by co-opting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Commission, ICPC. In response to the threat of vote-buying, the two anti-corruption agencies made a few arrests during the conduct of the Ekiti and Osun  governorship elections. 

But given the widespread manner in which vote-buying reportedly took place in the said elections, the arrests were at best niggardly. The arrests pale in significance when compared with the large number of alleged perpetrators. As if the arrests were not significant enough, we are yet to hear of the prosecution and sentencing of perpetrators by our courts in what appear to be open and shut cases.

As the Election Management Body, EMB, and, therefore, the chief driver of our elections, INEC has a responsibility to insist that those apprehended are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. INEC should upscale its voter education, underscoring to voters the danger which vote-buying and selling constitute to our democracy and good governance. 

INEC and the anti- corruption agencies should be proactive and anticipate in advance the shenanigans and tricks deployed by politicians to buy votes and to stop them in their tracks. In addition to being on top of their game,  subsequent arrests of perpetrators of vote-buying should not be limited to the minions.

Arrests should be extended to their high-profile sponsors. Beyond these, INEC must work with other stakeholders to ensure the establishment of the Electoral Offences Commission and Tribunal ahead of the 2023 general elections. That way we shall have a separate body which remit shall be the apprehension and punishment of those who seek to undermine the electoral process. 

This should strengthen the integrity of the electoral process and divest INEC of the legion of responsibilities with which it is saddled and for which it has limited resources to discharge. The establishment of the Electoral Offences Commission and Tribunal will also help check impunity in the electoral process and further improve the quality of our elections.

*Dazang is a former director in INEC (nickdazang@gmail.com)

2019: Because Buhari Is Too Old To Run

By Martins Oloja

I would like rely on some ancient words of a wise king who once said, “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heaven”. Yes, there is a time to be quiet. There is a time to be loud; a time to be politically correct in the interest of peace. And there is a time to refrain from political correctness and speak truth to power in public interest. And this should include a time to tell our best friends the truth and nothing but the truth, especially the one to set them free from unnecessary fear. I am therefore fully persuaded that it is time to tell our friends, especially in the far North, some plain truth about Nigeria. Yes, Nigeria whose destiny all of us are gambling with at the moment. 

*

For the record, I have more friends in the North. I have had some personal relationship with the North that spanned about three decades. My professional profile was remarkably shaped in December 1990 when the premier newspaper in Abuja owned by investors from the North appointed me Editor of their newspaper, The Abuja Newsday. I once narrated part of the remarkable story of the first newspaper in the nation’s capital here. I had then noted that Alhaji Bukar Zarma, former editor of New Nigerian who hails from Borno state, set up the newspaper and appointed all the editors without consideration for religion and ethnicity. The Chairman of the Board of Directors was Alhaji Hassan Adamu, Wakilin Adamawa.