Tinubu’s Minority Government Faces A Legitimacy Challenge

 By Olu Fasan

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the newly installed president of Nigeria, is a product of two great institutional anomalies. One is a deeply flawed Constitution designed to delegitimise the presidency of Nigeria. The other is a Might-Is-Right state that manipulates state agencies to impose its will on the people. These anomalies deny Tinubu’s presidency the strong mandate and legitimacy it badly needs to govern.

*Tinubu

Let’s start with the constitutional anomalies. Under section 134 (2) of the 1999 Constitution, a candidate is deemed elected as president, where there are more than two candidates, if: (a) he has the highest number of votes cast at the election, and (b) he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two thirds of all the states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

NNPC: Northern Nigeria Petroleum Corporation?

By Luke Onyekakeyah

The reported lamentation of the leaders of Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), over the blatant lopsided appointments into top management positions of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), deserves attention from the Federal Government with a view to correcting it. The development makes one wonder if the organization has surreptitiously become Northern Nigeria Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

It is clear that since 1999, for instance, what used to be a pan Nigeria giant oil corporation that manages Nigeria’s “cash cow”, has been northernised by way of appointments into key positions in the organisation. The complaints and disaffection resulting from this have largely been ignored by the Federal government.

The latest appointments of 20 northerners into management positions in the NNPC while ignoring the south has raised the ante, leading to discontent as reported by ThisDay of May 17, 2020. For those looking for divisive forces threatening Nigeria, this is one of it.

When A President’s Silence Isn’t Golden

By Banji Ojewale

 Silence isn’t golden when your house is in flames and you’re alone at home. You need to shout for help from the army of neighbours within reach. You need to raise your lone voice above the crackles of the inferno gaining new grounds.

 Silence isn’t golden when your spotless reputation is vociferously impugned or threatened and you have an opportunity to stop the campaign. Silence isn’t golden when there is a cacophony of opinions and reports, false or accurate, reaching the public about your candour. Your silence here isn’t golden; it is grotesque, grisly and grimy.

Third Term Agenda And The Buhari We Don’t Know

By Banji Ojewale

Some compatriots say we wouldn’t know the real man we have as our president until the chickens come home to roost in 2023. In that year, would President Muhammadu Buhari have removed the veil to succumb to the current sacrilegious clamour to go for a fatal tenure extension? Would he have given in to calls to trash the Constitution so he can walk on the slippery ground euphemistically termed third term? Would he be the Buhari of the wailers? Or of the hailers?

*Buhari 

In 2023, is Buhari going to remain the man we’ve always known as our beloved president? Or a stranger foisted on us? Would he be the bride we didn’t pay our dowry for? Would the husband discover he’d been shortchanged at the point where only God would be the Unseen and Silent Onlooker? Would there be a supplanter at work?

Nigeria: Restructuring More Urgent Than 2019 Elections

By Nwokedi Nworisara

Election is a function in the process arising from the structure. It is defined by the structure and serves as a vehicle to achieving the goal. Now when you have a wrong structure,a distorted goal emerges leading to a purposeless election which cannot further democracy no matter how you define it.

*President Buhari 

Before now I had called for restructuring before the 2019 elections to make its outcome meaningful. I called on the National Assembly to initiate bills to ensure true federalism before elections. I called for the states to join themselves along the three original regions in line with the 1963 Constitution.

Can The Break Up Of Nigeria Be Peaceful?

By Remi Oyeyemi

The above question is necessary to wake us up on and to the realities confronting us. The need to provide answers to it is very pertinent.

In my view, what is needed to save Nigeria is intractably antagonistic to Nigeria's NATURE and CHARACTER as a STATE.

What are needed to save Nigeria are basic and simple but yet humongously overwhelming for and to our WILL, if we have it at all. I have suggested and still suggest that it is important that we allow individual ethnic nationalities to have greater controls on their economic, social and political issues. A replication of the EUROPEAN UNION model could work to save Nigeria. But such a beautiful idea would not be allowed by those who want to dominate, enslave and exploit others.

Nigerian Army And Human Right Obligations

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

It is no longer news that the Nigerian Army has commenced an internal military operation in the largely peaceful South Eastern states of Abia, Enugu, Anambra, and Ebonyi. They have not been withdrawn.

It is also no longer news that the key civilian population that inhabit this geopolitical entity of the South East of Nigeria stridently opposed the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to so deploy such heavy weapons and operatives in the streets of the South East states.

This deployment has clearly constituted a cog in the wheel of economic progress of millions of people in the South East of Nigeria who due to panic and social upheavals created by the activities of the Army had to shut down their business premises to be safe. 

Can Nigeria Become A Nation Under President Buhari?

By Steve Orji  

Listening to, and probing deeper into the sentiments of Nigerians, tells you something ominous and it’s the fact that there are yet very deep cracks within the notion of Nigeria’s nationhood.

*President Buhari

The ethnic sentiments often couched in speeches or responses to national issues, captured in the body language and emotional sensibilities of well-placed and common Nigerians, provides a gauge to touch and feel where we are in the march to becoming a nation.

Are we a nation? We have yet to be!

Nigeria: How Government Steals From The Poor

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Thursday, May 18, 2017 started for me in a very special way. First, I got a distress call from a young single mother of three children who ekes out a living by hawking fresh fruits somewhere in Wuse Two, Abuja.

This call came at about 8 am the moment I settled into my office desk to begin the day’s work. The purpose of the call was to report that armed operatives of the Abuja Environmental Authority seized her articles of trade and arrested her late last night. She was forced to cough out five thousand naira before she could be left off the hook, but the men went away with her entire business wares.

This lady, by name Miss Evelyn, has a toddler she still breastfeeds in addition to the other two children who are in public school even as she relies on the petty trading to take care of them the best way she can. She wept uncontrollably and urged that our group should intervene so her wares could be released. But our effort was fruitless.

Olisa Agbakoba Files A Fundamental Rights Class Action Against The Federal Republic of Nigeria

*Olisa Agbakoba (pix: vanguard) Mr. Olisa Agbakoba has filed a Fundamental Rights Class Action against the Federal Republic of Nigeria for himself and on behalf of the South East Zone on grounds of discrimination pursuant to Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution. This action was by Originating Summons supported by an affidavit of 99 paragraphs and a statement. The grounds of Mr. Agbakoba’s application are summarized as follows;  (a) Total neglect of the Applicant’s Geopolitical Zone by the 1st Respondent in terms of infrastructure and general federal presence making the Applicant feel not part of the 1st Respondent.  (b) Abandonment of the Niger Bridge to collapse and failure to build the ‘Second Niger Bridge’ making the Applicant feel isolated from other parts of 1stRespondent and causing him apprehension about disaster on crossing the existing bridge.  (c) Abandonment of Federal Roads, which are death traps and robbery baits and occasioning and constraining on the Applicant grueling road journeys within the Geopolitical Zone. Failure to develop strategic new roads especially the Anam-Nzam Federal Road linking the South-East with the North-Central at Idah in Kogi State to give the Applicant easy access to the northern part of Nigeria. (d) Failure to exploit the Oil/Gas Reserves in the Anambra Basin and stalling the Applicant’s legitimate expectation from employment and derivation funds for development of the Applicant’s South-East Zone.  (e) Abandonment of the Enugu Colliery and depriving the Applicant of his legitimate expectation from employment and derivation funds for the development of the Applicant’s South-East Zone.  (f) Failure to develop trade-friendly ports and customs policies and establish ‘ease-of-business’ platforms to assist the Applicant’s trading brothers and sisters to do better and operate on a higher and modern scale in trading, which makes the Applicant to spend money to support relatives.  (g) Failure to have an operational international cargo airport at Owerri to aid trading, which causes the Applicant to spend huge sums of money to support trading relatives to haul airborne goods by road from Lagos, , with the attendant risks.  (h) Failure to dredge the Lower Niger and establish a Port at Onitsha to aid trading which causes the Applicant to spend huge sums of money to support trading relatives to haul seaborne goods by road from Port Harcourt or Lagos, with the attendant risks.  (i) Disparity in States structure which puts the Applicant’s South-East Zone behind every other Geopolitical Zone in political and judicial appointments and representation at the National Assembly, as well as in revenue allocation.

Those Spoiling Nigeria

By Sunny Ikhioya
The foundation of any nation state is based sorely on unity, you cannot attain unity without peace and justice. And, you cannot attain peace and justice without love and honesty. To enable us understand this further, let us look at our national anthem that we all stand up everyday to honour.

 Those who composed our national anthem had this in mind when they wrote in the last verse of the first stanza thus: “One nation bound in freedom, Peace and Unity”. Have we really considered the weight of this verse as we recite when the opportunity presents itself? Have our leaders really tried to govern this country in an atmosphere of fundamental rights, as enshrined in the United Nations charter on freedom?

Has it not been a situation of the strong always oppressing the weak ? Have the minority rights ever been upheld to the letter as enunciated in our Constitution? One good thing that is happening in this country is the discovery of crude oil in places outside the Niger Delta, like in Lagos and a few in the north as being touted in certain circles. Will these oil producing areas be treated the same way the Niger Delta region has been treated, with disdain and neglect? My answer is no.

Already, the rumour mill is rife with stories about relief and compensation given to areas affected by the oil drilling activities in the north, especially to  Emirs. The NNPC is in position to clarify details on this but surely they will not get the Niger Delta treatment. I do not know if our leaders take time to read and digest the national anthem, the second stanza, verses five and six which speaks of  building a nation  “ In love and honesty to grow, And living just and true”. Have we related to ourselves in love and honesty? Where the Jigawa man is saying that the oil in Bayelsa belongs to Jigawa?

 Why have the Niger Delta people been completely deprived of the control of their natural resources? The Petroleum Industry bill, PIB, designed to take care of the interest of all, has been kept in the cooler by the majority ethnic groups in the National Assembly for almost eight years now. Where is the justice in that? The last verse of our national anthem says; “To build a nation where peace and justice shall reign”.  It is indisputable that, in a nation where peace and justice reigns, progress is guaranteed. The composers of our anthem noted this fact and all of our past and present leadership have accepted it as such. It therefore follows that all the past leaders,  including the present leader ship have failed to govern with justice, honesty, fairness and equity.

The Menace of Cattle Herders in Nigeria

By Leonard Karshima Shilgba

There has been a rash of proposals to resolve the menace of cattle herders’ invasion of Nigerian farmlands, who are killing unarmed Nigerians (children, women and men) and burning down or destroying houses and property, where understandably, no feeds or grasses exist for their cattle. All of these are happening on the victims’ ancestral lands, which the Nigerian constitution recognizes, even as according to Section 25(1) of the Constitution, a Nigerian by birth is so recognized only if either of his parents or grandparents “belongs or belonged to a community indigenous to Nigeria.”

In all the proposals available to me, I see none that provides for the farmers, who need even more parcels of land for their crop-farming activities than the cattle herders do. Whether they are proposals for “grazing reserves across Nigeria” or “Ranching”, for which the Federal Government seems prepared to invest public money for private business (I am yet to be provided evidence that the cattle herders are  herding government animals), I see no provision of a compensatory nature for Nigerian farmers and people, who have fallen victim to the recurring impunities of cattle herders that seem to be ever strengthened by some conviction of protection from certain quarters.

I wish to remind here that whatever proposals that the federal government may eventually adopt should be in agreement with the Constitution, otherwise they will fuel more crises and provoke anarchy in the land. Even the weak, when they face injustice, or perceive injustice that threatens their existence, will fight back in a deadly manner; for, after all, they believe they only have all to lose if they do nothing. But fighting back, they may have some to save.

 Let me cite a germane section of Nigeria’s Constitution: Section 42 (1) [Right to freedom from discrimination]:

A citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a person-

(a)    be subjected either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or administrative action of the government, to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions are not made subject; or

(b)   be accorded either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or administrative action, any privilege or advantage that is not accorded to citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions.

A close examination of the above Section shows that the constitution frowns at both discriminatory restrictions (and imposed disabilities) and discriminatory privileges or advantages. In view of this, I frame three questions for public determination:

1.       If the federal government chooses as a solution, to expend public money and expropriate lands from the natives across Nigeria, and hand over those to cattle herders for grazing, would that not amount to discriminatory restriction (of the natives, who will lose ownership of their ancestral lands) and discriminatory offer of privilege and advantage (to the cattle herders), who would then, like the Biblical Levites, live in government-protected “cities of refuge” across Nigeria? 

APC And Restructuring: Wither Oyegun

By Charles Nwaneri

Many Nigerians, concerned about the slow progress of the nation since independence in 1960, and desirous of giving the country a new lease of life via restructuring the federation by devolving more powers and responsibilities to the constituent parts have at various times and for long, called for the restructuring of the country.

*Tinubu, Buhari and Oyegun 

By restructuring, these concerned Nigerians want a situation whereby more freedom is allowed the constituents to be in charge of their affairs while the central government retains control of only those areas of national affairs where sovereignty confers superiority and exclusive jurisdiction on the Central government. In a restructured system, the constituent units would have more control over their local resources and endowments and exploit these for their benefit, paying only royalty and taxes to the central authority. This means that in such a federation, unlike what we have now, states or federating units would be less dependent on the central authority for revenue and their pace of development.

With less revenue and authority, the attraction of the center would be reduced while the economic and development action will be more at the constituent levels thus reducing competition for power and control at the center.

Something close to a weak center obtained in the 1960’s when Nigeria operated the Parliamentary system of government, anchored on the regions with latter being the constituent parts of the then Federation. The then powerful regions dictated and decided the pace of politics and economic development. In fact, at that time, the regions were engaged in healthy rivalry for development as none depended on the central government for funding rather each paid taxes to the center when they export their agricultural products which was the mainstay of the nation’s economy. However, while there are many voices clamouring for restructuring, there is no consensus as to the degree; time or even in what sectors of national life these important changes should take place, though the sector of State Police has dominated national discourse for some time.

Since the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar renewed his clarion call for the restructuring of the country, at a book launch last week in Abuja, a Pandora box of sorts have been opened among Nigerians.

Restructure Nigeria To Save It

By Reuben Abati  

No one should be surprised by the loud and widespread support that has attended the latest call by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar that Nigeria needs to be restructured. In his words, “our current structure and the practices it has encouraged have been a major impediment to the economic and political development of our country. In short, it has not served Nigeria well, and at the risk of reproach it has not served my part of the country, the North, well. The call for restructuring is even more relevant today in the light of the governance and economic challenges facing us…Nigeria must remain a united country…I also believe that a united country, which I think most Nigerians desire, should never be taken for granted or taken as evidence that Nigerians are content with the current structure of the Federation. Making that mistake might set us on the path of losing the country we love…”

*Dr. Reuben Abati 

In those words, the former Vice President and now APC chieftain simply summarized what is already well known and has helped to draw attention afresh to what has been talked about over time but which Nigeria at the expense of its citizens and its own corporate existence is yet to address frontally and forthrightly. Indeed, Nigeria as presently structured and managed is not working. To save the country, the country must be restructured, not only politically but also in terms of the relationship between the federating units and the values that hold the union together.

Nations evolve on the basis of a creative rethinking of their processes and experiences. When the Americans came up with a Presidential/Congressional system of government in 1787, and wrote a Constitution to express their aspirations and expectations, they wanted to address the cleavages within the union and build a united country. In Nigeria, we inherited a skewed federal arrangement from the colonial masters, failed to improve on this, and ended up with the wages of that defect in the form of political crises and eventual civil war.

We have experienced years of military rule during which an enduring culture of praetorianism and dictatorship was established and when eventually we returned to civilian rule, we simply copied and pasted the American Presidential style of government. We have also borrowed the slogan of federalism, but in reality what we have is a unitary type of federalism, a unitary state, completely de-federalized. This is ironic considering the fact that one of the reasons for the collapse of the Aguiyi-Ironsi administration is commonly accepted to be his introduction of Decree No 34 of May 25, 1966, which in effect, transformed Nigeria into a unitary state.

Nigeria is in urgent need of a “re-set”, a rethinking, a redesign. The view that this is necessary has been in the public domain for more than 20 years, but successive administrations either toyed with it, politicized it, or they got round to it at end of term, so late that they gave a succeeding administration the opportunity to conveniently ignore it. The latest of such efforts was in 2014 when the Jonathan administration organized a National Political Conference, where far-reaching recommendations were made to ensure a restructuring of Nigeria. Sadly, the Report of that Conference, endorsed and supported by the Nigerian people, is hidden somewhere in government closets, gathering dust.

Is The Nigerian Senate So Bereft Of Shame?

By Simbo Olorunfemi

It is difficult to tell exactly what to make of the Nigerian Senate. It is that redundant contraption, an after-thought, mindlessly foisted on the Nigerian system by the drafters of the 1979 constitution in a bid to blindly copy the American system. Unfortunately, neither the 1990 nor the 1999 constitution corrected this anomaly, leaving us with a sore that has continued to fester, since then. The Green Chamber, that ant-infested arm of a bloated legislature, might yet be the greatest undoing of the present democratic dispensation.

*Senate President Bukola Saraki

Under the parliamentary system of the first republic, there was the Upper chamber or “House of Chiefs” fashioned after the largely-ceremonial British “House of Lords”. Its task was as ceremonial as it was institutionally redundant. But rather than for our Fathers to learn from that misadventure and embrace a nimble and manageable unicameral parliamentary system, they opted to embrace an expansive and expensive Presidential system. The Senate personifies everything that is wrong with the present system. It symbolises the waste, insensitivity, inefficiency that have come to define the system, over the years. The Senate is a symbol of disconnect between those charged with making laws and the people they purport to represent. Nothing in their words or action indicates that they understand where we are coming from or an understanding of the change of paradigm being witnessed in other arms of government. 

The Senate has always struggled for relevance, no doubt. The Enwerem-Okadigbo-Wabara era was one for internal schism over the spoils of office. The dust settled only for the chamber to transit into the pocket of a cabal, who for 8 years, turned it to a mere rubber-stamp for legislating acquiescence to anti-people policies and pronouncements. The Mark of the just-ended era was the military precision with which opposition was silenced in the chambers. ‘Bow and Go’ was institutionalised, as the serious assignment of screening and confirmation of nomination to high offices was reduced to a tragicomedy, played out to the full glare of the world.
 
With the exit of the first set of state Governors from office in 2007, the Senate soon became the favourite retirement pad for former Chief Executives of states. Those ones, standing on the ruins left behind in their states, simply picked Senatorial seats, transitioned to new offices and continued the life in Abuja. Some are Governors-emeritus, running the states from the Senate. Many are godfathers, dispensing favours at will - appointing, disappointing, nominating, engaging in all manner of shenanigans, while pretending to be Senators. The only use of the Senate being the perks, fat allowance and the opportunity for ‘oversight’, as many are known to be perpetual absentees from sittings. Those who show up hardly bother to make any contribution, spending time mostly for banter and inanities, when they are able to manage to stay awake.

 

Ordinarily, the Senate would do well to avoid media or public attention, as much as possible. There is hardly anything about it that commends it to us. From its filthy car-park to the disorderly face it presents to the public, the Senate should be content to be silent, while at ‘work’. But the Senate operates only in accordance with its own rules when it comes to the matter of shame. This is not even about the interesting circumstances under which the present leadership of the Senate emerged. It is not about the treachery, so alleged. Not about the Leader having to sit in the car park, hours before sitting, to be able to make it inside the chambers while other party members are at a meeting called by the party.  This is not about refusing to tow the party line and teaming up with the opposition to up-stage the position of the party, simply for the sake of personal ambition. It is not about all that, for integrity is not in high supply, when it comes to politics and struggle for power. It is not even about the budget.

Rape! We Are All Guilty!

By Joe Onwukeme
I was moved to tears as I watched raped victims and their families stood in the House of Representatives on Thursday, 23rd October 2014 to narrate their agonizing experience in the hands of rapists.

The victims, mostly young girls, pleaded for justice to be done on their plight and also called on government through the female lawmakers and their counterparts to expedite action and pass Sexual Offences Bill that is currently pending in both the lower and upper chambers with a view of sparing them the trauma they are going through.

We Didn't Kill Pro-Biafran Activists - Police

PRESS RELEASE 

The attention of the Nigeria Police Force High Command has been drawn to several false posts on Facebook and other social media, accusing Police of shooting, maiming and even killing members of the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), who have taken their protests to streets, markets and other public places in some eastern states of Nigeria, infringing on the rights and freedom of innocent citizens who were ordinarily going about their lawful businesses.

Despite provocation, the Police have maintained and managed the situation with high sense of responsibility and professionalism.

The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Solomon E. Arase, fdc, NPM wishes to state that, the Nigeria Police Force is conscious of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association amongst others as enshrined in Chapter Four of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended), and cannot afford to maim or kill citizens exercising these rights.

Noting that the Nigeria Police are duty-bound to enforce these rights, the IGP charged Police officers in State Commands to ensure that citizens embarking on rallies and other peaceful demonstrations are provided adequate security in line with the standard operational practice of the Force.

The Inspector-General of Police therefore called on all law abiding citizens to disregard the allegations by these groups, describing their allegations as false and calculated attempt to attract undue attention and sympathy. Even though the Nigeria Police Force appreciates the freedom and rights of citizens under the Constitution, the groups are strongly advised to respect the rights and freedom of others while exercising theirs.

The IGP, while calling on leadership of Ohanaeze to wade into these superfluous protests, to save the law-abiding and innocent citizens in the affected states from the hardship being melted out by the groups, reminded those embarking on violent protests/assemblies that such actions are criminalised by law, and anybody arrested will be treated as such under the appropriate legislations.

Ag. ACP Olabisi Kolawole

Force Public Relations Officer,

Force Headquarters,

Abuja.

Obasanjo’s Letter To Jonathan — Some Observations 2

OBJ’s letter to GEJ—some observations 2

By Chinweizu

14dec2013

sundoor999@gmail.com

1] Former President Obasanjo, OBJ, is a general. Like a good general he is trying to defend a city under siege by launching a diversionary attack elsewhere, to draw the besieging troops off to defend the target of his diversionary attack and give himself respite to defend his city. That’s a military strategy that’s been in use for thousands of years.

 

 *Presdent Jonathan

I think that’s the strategic objective of his 18 page letter to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GEJ.

OBJ is a diehard defender of the Nigerian status quo, of which he has been a major lifelong beneficiary. This National Dialogue/Conference debate is directing serious attack on the 1999 Constitution and the status quo that is based on it. Presumably, being doubtful that the system can withstand this siege, OBJ has launched this diversionary attack on corruption, which he believes will capture the attention of the, supposedly, gullible Nigerian public and divert them from the issue of the SNC and a new People’s Constitution. We must resist the temptation to follow him and change the conversation to corruption from the issue of the SNC and a new Constitution.