Why Next Senate President Should Be Christian

By Dan Amor
At a time when the alleged acrimonious campaign to Islamize Nigeria by an emerging power bloc is almost gaining currency, few members of the public, the Press, or the political class have never actually presumed – in context or in full –the hidden agenda of the new clique of powerful anti-Christian elements whose ultimate design is to implement the secret accord they had with their sponsors using Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a pastor, as dress rehearsal. The clamour by a section of the political class to push for the emergence of a Muslim as the new Senate President in spite of the its inelegant religious statement since the President-elect General Muhamadu Buhari is a Muslim and the sure bait of another Muslim emerging from the Northeast as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, flies in the face of rationality.

*David Mark: outgoing senate president 

(pix: Sun)

This dangerous maneuver puts at risks, to say the least, nothing less than the survival of the structure of our government as set in place by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which in its wisdom recognizes the Federal Character and ethno-religious paradigms of our Union. If this terrible gamble scales through, what now passes for constitutional theory in our most prestigious law schools, in many of our courts, and in much of liberal society is not legal theory at all, but an egalitarian political agenda which no elected legislature will enact, thereby prompting an elite intellectual and political minority to use the courts as a means of fighting the imposition of religious agendas. 

Who Needs Patricia Etteh’s House?

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 
Not long after the N628 million contract scandal involving the leadership of the House of Representatives exploded in the face of Nigerians, Vanguard newspaper (August 29, 2007) carried an interview with Dino Melaye, the Chairman of the House Committee on Information and National Orientation. Mr. Melaye who has unduly advertised himself as one of the loudest supporters of the House Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Bunmi Etteh, in her current travails, had, in the course of the interview, startled Nigerians with a very loaded and overly distasteful statement that spoke volumes about the quality of minds that “make laws” for Nigerians at the nation’s Lower Legislative House.

Said Melaye: “This woman [Etteh] told us, on the floor of the House, that she’s got two boobs. That the old [House Members] can suck one while the new would suck one. Honestly speaking, we are sucking. We are enjoying the sucking. We are doing that right now.”

Open Looting Of Nigeria By Nigerian Lawmakers

Salary Of Nigerian Lawmakers – Incredible!

Do You Know That A Senator In Nigeria Earns - N29, 479,749. 00 Per Year And They Still Want More!

Who says politics doesn't pay in Nigeria? Not me.
Check the frivolous breakdown out.

 You can't but laugh in pity.

                                      

The National Assembly In Session

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Basic Salary - N2, 484, 245.50.
Hardship Allowance @ 50% of Basic Salary - N1,242,122.70 (I love this kind of hardship)
Constituency Allowance @ 200% of BS - N4,968,509.00
Furniture Allowance @ 300% of BS - N7,452,736.50
Newspaper Allowance @ 50% - N1,242,122.70 (Which kind newspaper be this,  shey na online or hard copy?).

Wardrobe Allowance @ 25% - N621, 061.37
Recess Allowance@ 10%: - N248, 424.55
Accommodation @ 200% - N4, 968,509.00.
Utilities @ 30% - N828, 081.83.
Domestic Staff @ 35% - N863, 184.12.
Entertainment @ 30% - N828, 081.83.
Personal Assistance @ 25% - N621, 061.37.
Vehicle Maintenance Allowance @ 75% - N1, 863,184.12.
Leave Allowance @10% - N248, 424.55.

One Off Payments (As Advised by Sagamite Severance Gratuity) @ 300% - N7, 452,736.50 (Once they get fired.)
Motor Vehicle Allowance @ 400% of BS - N9, 936,982.00 - Every Four Years

Senator’s Salary Per Month. - N2, 456,647.7

Total = N29, 479, 749.00

* 109 Senators Grand Total = N 3,264,329,264. 10
A feeding frenzy!!!

 

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Salary U.S. President: $250,000/yr.
GDP U.S. Economy: $13Trillion/ yr.
Allowance Nig. Senator: $1,500,000/yr
GDP Nig. Economy: $45 Billion/yr.

 

And They Want More!! Doctors, Teachers, Civil Servants Can't Boast Of N1m A Year And These Guys Want N30m Every Month

SAY NO TO THIS OPEN LOOTING OF NIGERIA !!!

Nigeria’s Cult Of Corruption

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye


 Virtually every Nigerian knows and strongly believes that any day Nigeria is able to make up its mind to end its obscene and ruinous romance with the stubborn monster called “Corruption”, this country will automatically witness the kind of prosperity no one had thought was possible in these parts. Just imagine the amount of public funds being stolen and squandered daily under various guises by too many public officers and their accomplices, and the great transformation that would happen to public infrastructure and the lives of the citizenry if this organized banditry can at least be reduced by fifty percent!  

 Now, is this monster divorceable? Of course, yes. But are there any signs that anyone in the corridors of power is interested in ending the strong grip it maintains on the very soul of the nation? That is the problem. It is sheer foolishness to expect any of them to willingly block the very hole from which great goodies also flow to him or her just because some other persons are also benefiting from there. No, you can neither fight corruption with soiled hands nor retain monopoly of it! It spreads like cancer. And the whole thing has now been horribly compounded by the emergence and empowerment of a very formidable class whose sustenance and longevity solely depend on its ability to continue sustaining the culture of corruption and bleeding the nation pale.


Nigeria's Anti-Corruption Agency: How Effective?

 This problem began when public office gradually ceased to be a platform for rendering selfless service to the people and transformed into the easiest route to financial empowerment. And since then, several generations of public officers have passed through public office, looting the nation blind with utmost impunity, and retired into abundance and incredible plenty, without any fear of anyone ever prying into the clearly unearned wealth they flaunt with utmost abandon.

 Thus, an ever-swelling Cult of Looters has emerged, whose nuisance value and the ruinous culture they are perpetuating, are now the undisputed headaches of the nation.  And since it is now almost impossible to find any former council chairman, governor (military or civilian), minister, president (military of civilian), army general and several other categories of public officers who is not sitting on boundless accumulation of unearned wealth, it has also become impossible to persuade the current rulers to resist the temptation of surpassing their predecessors in the stealing contest – the only thing that qualifies them for the membership of the great Cult of Corruption.

  Indeed, wealth has become everything and no one cares any more about leaving behind sterling legacies and a good name. And so, virtually no Nigerian governor, for instance, would find it ennobling to wake up every morning, after he had left office, to engage in honest labour to earn a living. That would automatically demean him, and present him as “inferior” to his colleagues; in fact, even his people may begin to call him a big fool for returning from the Government House a “poor man.” And, so the desperation to retire into boundless wealth and comfort is the reason for the mindless stealing going on everywhere.  



Deprived In A Nation Of Plenty:
Searching For The Next Meal

 Who now will break this circle? Well, he must be a person with no inclination to steal! And who is that person – who does not want to retire into billions after public office? Is it the president, governors, ministers, or even the chairpersons of the so-called anti-graft bodies set up to battle the monster to the ground? That’s one question we need to answer sincerely, because, it is difficult to find any person among those ruling us today who is more interested in acquiring a good name than accumulating unearned riches. No doubt, the Cult of Corruption is an attractive assemblage of the nation’s political and economic elite, and the sole qualification for initiation into this elite cult is wealth, boundless wealth, stolen from the public treasury, and ownership of a couple of exquisite mansions in choice areas in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, London, New York, Paris, Dublin, Dubai and so on. I doubt if the point being made here should in the least sound strange to anyone who has lived in Nigeria.

 Now, was it not late Sunday Afolabi, who, while working for the irredeemably corrupt Olusegun Obasanjo regime, told us that those who were offered political appointments were actually invited “to come and eat.” At least, the man was sincere about his understanding of the whole thing. Gone were the days when people went into public office to serve the people and make a good name for themselves.  No, not any more! Today, people go there to serve themselves and make boundless wealth. And they usually end up losing the capacity to feel ashamed, so much so, that even if they are called thieves to the faces, they remain unperturbed.

 How then can this monster be tamed? How can anyone make all the past public officers to give up all they had stolen and live normal lives with resources whose sources are explainable, in order to make those currently in office to resist the temptation to steal? Where would any one possibly start? And who would lead such a campaign? When will Nigeria be made a functional state so that people would not need to go to great lengths to steal in order to provide for themselves the amenities and comforts they failed to put in place for the entire citizenry when they were in power?



What Did Nigeria Celebrate At 50? The Triumph 
Of Corruption?(Pix: ediomo)


 With this dreadful cult in effective command at all our public institutions, including INEC, how then can we possibly hope to have a free and fair election in this country? Because, having criminally accumulated so much money while in office, these fellows only enthrone themselves as formidable godfathers and kingmakers, and deploy the billions at their disposal to install and remove governments at will. Many of them can single-handedly found and fund political parties without the slightest impact on their bottomless pockets. They also have all it takes to frustrate any attempt to pry into their slimy and hideous pasts. The very negligible few among them who manage to get “messed-up” in the “anti-corruption war” are those foolish enough to find the trouble of those more powerful than they are, or get into some really complicated situation that it would be difficult to extricate them without a serious backlash that might  threaten the peace and stability of the entire cult. So, he is carefully sacrificed to preserve the whole house from going under.

 The Cult of Corruption also has many quiet and more deadly members. These include “very successful and wise” fronts, errand boys (and girls), thugs whom the ‘ogas’ use (or had used) to prosecute their criminal accumulations, and, also, the countless mistresses, concubines and “state prostitutes” who take care of the leisure moments of the ogas. These, too, in the process of time, acquire their own wealth and clout, and gradually rise in prominence to become “successful business moguls” or “party stalwarts.” Others get into government as Special Advisers, Commissioners, Ministers, council chairpersons, State or Federal lawmakers, or even governors. A nation is judged by the quality of persons leading it. On this score, Nigeria has been most unlucky.   



 Now, with such a very formidable criminal elite controlling the politics and economy of the nation, with many of them even maintaining effective hotlines to the Presidency, how can anyone pretend to enthrone transparency in the governance of the country? How can corruption be rooted out? How can progress be recorded? Do the fellows ruling us even understand what it means to build a country? By the way, where would the person intending to root out corruption even start from? 

The sheer number, clout and destructive ability of members of this Cult of Corruption are simply too intimidating. Some have over the years even matured to become refined, patrician “elder statesmen” (and women) with vast “family business” empires, commanding enormous respect, but still doing enormous harm to the nation. Yet the only day jobs anyone could remember they ever did were serving as either ministers or ambassadors, local government chairmen, governors, presidents, army or police officers, special advisers, commissioners, permanent secretaries or just as a “director in the presidency.” 

 But should we give up? No! Never! No society should ever sit passively and watch the scums, scoundrels and dregs in its midst seize its tomorrow and murder it. That nation is doomed which has shameless thieves as its kings.  Ask yourself today: What are the antecedents of my governor, lawmaker or councilor?

 Can a thief possibly succeed in rebuilding the very house he is busy plundering? It amounts to unqualified foolishness on the part of the majority to  allow themselves to be perpetually enslaved by a criminally-minded minority? A time comes in the life of a nation when the people must rise with one voice and bellow a big NO! And that time is now! Especially, as 2011 general elections  approaches.

scruples2006@yahoo.com

Nigeria’s Perpetually Diminished Assembly

(First published Tuesday, September 4, 2007)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

 Last Sunday (September 2, 2007) , The Guardian carried an interview with Professor Pat Utomi in which he lamented that contrary to every expectation that the 2007 electoral exercise might somehow console the nation with some form of improvement in the quality of lawmakers that would be dumped in the National Assembly, Nigeria still, sadly, found itself saddled with a class of legislators that is ten times worse than any it ever had. The worst evil “those who conducted the last election did to Nigeria” he said, was  “to put in place a National Assembly that is 10 times inferior to the one we had before.  The last Assembly was bad enough, but we were supposed to make progress from there. Most societies would make progress and in the next elections get better. But what we got is a much more inferior National Assembly this time around.” 

Indeed, Pat Utomi spoke my mind on this issue! Any reader of this column would easily recall that in several essays here, I have never been able to contain my sorrow and deep pain over the quality of lawmakers we end up with each time, and how such a misfortune continues to sabotage our best expectations for progress and development, since all it does is to extend generous incentive to the Executive to celebrate its insufferable ineptitude and directionlessness with indecent fanfare. As our decadent politics and the mostly base characters that star in it continue to inflict the nation with grossly underweight and light-minded fellows as lawmakers, that is, individuals who neither have any acquaintance with sound ideas nor the capacity to appreciate the gravity of the assignment they are supposed to be performing in Abuja, what the nation gets in return can only be retrogression and unchecked decay. What has remained sadly true is that for most of the lawmakers who had diminished our legislative chambers with their uninspiring presence these past few years, their real reason for showing up in Abuja was just to scramble over dirty naira notes like wanton street boys over balls of akra suddenly falling off the tray of an indiscreet hawker. Indeed, these were mostly down-and-out fellows dusted off from here and there, easily excited by such little things as a sumptuous lunch with the president, and they emerge each time from such encounters feeling so high that they forget their very important brief in Abuja. In  them, we found the best example of a prodigal House in hapless nation! And if indeed, as Prof Utomi reminded us last Sunday, the present set of lawmakers is ten times worse than the others before them, then the future, dear reader, is indeed scary. We are already seeing the signs, aren’t we?  


Everyone can now appreciate my pain and sadness. Nothing seems to change in our National Assembly, whether it is their strange mindset or the way their leaders are always handpicked by external forces and imposed on them. When Anyim Pius Anyim became Senate President by the “vote” of one man, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was not even a member of the National Assembly, and he began to place his godfather’s interests over that of the nation, I lamented here in an essay I titled: “The President Obasanjo Gave The Nigerian Senate.” Anyim had ensured the Senate remained an appendage to the Executive, until he fell out with Obasanjo, due to a clash of their individual interests. When Adolphus Wabara also came on board, through the same route, that is, by the decree of the same man, and then continued to lead the Senate through the same path of irresponsibility and unproductivity, I also cried out in another essay captioned:  “Wabara: How Long Shall We Suffer Thee?”

 In fact, until the inauguration of the present National Assembly, Wabara’s Senate had remained the best example of a rudderless, unfocused and totally purposeless Assembly. It was a Senate which believed in nothing, stood for nothing, without any sense of history, and clearly had no plans of changing anything or achieving anything. 


Now, virtually everyone recalls with refreshing nostalgia the dignity and sense of direction the former Senate President, Mr. Ken Nnamani brought to the business of lawmaking in Abuja, but as far as I could remember, his tenure had practically made little or no noticeable effort to transcend the Anyim/Wabara demoralizing paradigm until on Wednesday, September 1, 2005, when I focused my sad eyes on the drab National Assembly over which he was presiding and screamed in this column: “Where Is the Senate President?”

Prof. Pat Utomi: Disappointed With An Underperforming Assembly


 Although the article, unfortunately, attracted a very abusive rejoinder from Nnamani’s media adviser, there were also rejoinders from several Nigerians who shared my frustration and pain over the almost lifeless National Assembly he was leading, while a ruthless civilian dictator rode roughshod on Nigerians.


Please, permit me to quote the concluding paragraph of that essay:

 “As an implacable Executive drives the nail hard on a hapless populace, the unspoken question everywhere is: Where is Senator Ken Nnamani, the President of Nigeria’s Senate and leader of the National Assembly? Does he ever pause to ask himself the real reason why he is in Abuja? Has he ever told himself that his office demands more ennobling engagements than supervising the cutting of cakes at society weddings and chairing some multitudes of largely unedifying events?  What is his response to the undisguised programme of perpetual impoverishment which the current government is executing with chilling dedication? What can Nnamani say is the achievement of the National Assembly under his watch? Where is Nigeria’s Senate President? Sorry, he is on a permanent leave.” 

Now, I refuse to take any credit for Ken Nnamani’s sudden recovery of his focus, which caused the National Assembly to start showing a sense of direction and purpose, thereby reclaiming the respect and confidence of Nigerians. Who am I to move a whole Senate President? All I keep insisting is that I consider the National Assembly a very essential and strategic institution in any nation, and how it chooses to discharge its constitutionally assigned roles may sink or advance the progress of that nation. That is why, during the dark years of Obasanjo, when he operated in utter disdain for laws and decency,  I had heaped greater blames on the National Assembly. Indeed, I do not think that other nations whose rulers try to behave like human beings waited until they had elected angels into office before they began to get quality leadership. It was clear to me that if by any stroke of misfortune  America suddenly found itself with the kind of legislature Nigeria regularly gets,  President George Bush will make the Obasanjo disaster pale to total insignificance. In fact, each time I look at Bush, the picture I see is that of a thoroughbred dictator held on a strong leash by a responsible Congress. What this means is that leaders can be compelled to rule responsibly if countervailing institutions and relevant laws are strong enough to keep them within the bounds of reason, patriotism and decent conduct.  

So, Obasanjo was able to ride rough-shod on hapless Nigerians and impoverish them as suites his fancy because, he was merrily aware that the principles of Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, which differentiates a democracy from a dictatorship never made any meaning to the good-for-nothing and totally debased National Assembly headed by the light-minded fellows he personally handpicked and installed. All we had got were a gaggle of disoriented and misdirected lawmakers, who idled away at Abuja at huge expense to the nation, while the people whose well-being they were supposed to safeguard were grossly brutalized, impoverished and re-enslaved by a irremediably wayward Executive. In fact, at one point, after examining the quality of National Assembly Nigeria was cursed with, I had to commend Obasanjo for resisting the temptation to totally become another Idi Amin, because, from all available evidence, there was no Assembly with the requisite will and patriotism to scuttle such a vile ambition. 

Well, the expectation had been that all these should have since become part of our dark, distant history. But, unfortunately, in 2007, we are still stuck with an even worse variety, a species no one could have imagined would still be with us at this time and age. Whatever modest advancements Ken Nnamani may have recorded in his time have been rudely reversed, and the nation dragged further backwards. While small countries like Kenya, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, are all advancing and refining their electoral processes and strengthening the instruments of democracy in their domains, Nigeria is still a willing captive to the backward, vile fancies of a few prehistoric men, who, it would seem, have vowed to ensure that Nigeria never moved forward. 


In 2007, we have a Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, who are there, not because of any special qualities or superior ideas they may possess, but because some fellow, whose eight year siege on Nigeria now ranks as the nation’s worst trauma, thinks they should be there, to solely represent his narrow interests. That’s where we are, dear reader, and if you watched the recent nausea-inducing farce they called Senate screening of ministerial nominees, and saw how would-be ministers in whose hands the nation’s destiny would soon rest were either merely entertained with perfunctory and even frivolous questions, or just asked to “take a bow” and go, you would then appreciate what Pat Utomi was saying about the quality of lawmakers we are stuck with today.    

Senate President, David Mark, may even be sincere, and probably wishes to preside over a Senate which Nigerians would happily respect, but these are hardly enough. One may be sincerely wishing to assist another person to make some meaning out of the directions for administering a life-saving drug written in Greek, a language both of them are blissfully unfamiliar with. His good intentions notwithstanding, he would be of no real help to the other person. That’s how these things go. I appreciate Mrs. Patricia Etteh’s admirable struggles to move the House of Representatives forward. But it is also easy to see that she is already overwhelmed, like the fellow battling to interpret Greek words he is unfamiliar with to another person. It is usually a pitiable spectacle. 


One admires Etteh’s zeal, courage and struggles to take charge of the situation, but how long can a nation in crying need of persons with sound ideas wait for perpetual learners. Well, a child confronted with a highly complicated toy can only dismantle it, to bring it to his level. That is exactly what is happening in the National Assembly today. And so, instead of bright ideas and quality lawmaking going on, we only hear bellyaching tales of pursuits of vanities and revolting contract scams and other obscene tales. And mind you, this will continue to assault our sensibilities until we decide to put our fifth eleven aside and go for the first. But can we?

———————————————————
scruples2006@yahoo.com

Nigeria: Madam Speaker Plays Her Level

(First published Tuesday, August 28, 2007)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

The first time I heard her name was a couple of weeks or so before the inauguration of the present National Assembly. At that time, rumours had begun to make the rounds in media circles that former President Olusegun Obasanjo, intent on still holding the nation to ransom from his multi-billion naira farm in Ota, Ogun State, was bent on imposing a certain Mrs. Patricia Foluke Etteh on the nation as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Although there were widespread concerns about her obvious intellectual and political limitations, and in fact, hushed disapprovals even within the PDP’s unwholesome “family” and among her would-be colleagues at that time, nobody could stand on the way of the Emperor and Conqueror of Modern Nigeria.

And so, at the end of the day, a conquered nation watched dumbfounded as Foluke Etteh, propelled only by the fearsome determination of the Emperor and Life Leader of the PDP behind her, timidly emerged from one dark hole to become the Speaker of Nigeria’s Lower Legislative House, while, another Obasanjo unabashed loyalist and comrade-in-arms, David Mark, was pronounced Senate President.  

Well, if there is any consolation in the whole monstrous set-up, it may be detected in the growing optimism that Etteh, and all other vestigial remains of the Obasanjo nightmare, are today in several strategic positions solely to continue reminding us of the primitive state of our politics. By their predictable failure of character and leadership, they would, hopefully, succeed in awakening in us the capacity to feel deeply mortified that even in Africa today, Nigeria appears to be the only nation still left behind in what is clearly the slimy pit of jungle politics.

So, as Etteh and Co. play their level in our politics and governance, they can only help to continually shock us into the harsh realization of the extent of our country’s backwardness, and our folly in resigning ourselves to the insidious dictations of a few men of tunnel vision and unwholesome intentions, who, having conquered the nation by force of arms, have imposed on us our fourth eleven as leaders, for the simple reason that they can always be trusted to place their narrow interests over and above those of the nation. No, wonder Nigeria has become a perpetual embarrassment to Africa and the entire Black world.  

I am not surprised at Etteh’s strange understanding of the essence of public office. She is only playing her level. To expect her to ascribe to some higher ideals in leadership and politics would amount to stretching her modest intellectual and moral properties beyond their malleable limits. For her, public office is just one more prized opportunity to play the “big lady” and wallow in profligacy at public expense, nothing more, nothing less.

2007 Nigerian Elections: Why Maurice Iwu Failed

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

 

Last Saturday Prof Maurice Iwu and his “Independent” National Electoral Commission (INEC) went all out to shatter the expectations of Nigerians for orderly, free and fair elections in the country, by enthusiastically delivering to the nation a bundle of astounding failures and searing disappointments.


 Despite the revolting chest-beating presently going on in INEC quarters and the (unsurprising) vulgar commendations emanating from the dark covens of the People Democratic Party (PDP), everyone now knows that Iwu and his INEC were simply unprepared or unwilling (or both) to take Nigerians beyond the usual sad, discomforting stories that had attended the past elections in the country, especially, in 1999 and 2003.  
Indeed, last Saturday’s elections have been described as the worst in the history of the nation.  The open and transparent rigging was simply unprecedented. 







Prof Maurice Iwu


Obviously, INEC had another agenda, which it did not even attempt to hide. What Nigerians are therefore seeing as devastating failure is, in the skewed thinking of Iwu and his motley crowd at INEC, “an assignment well executed”. And if you look around you, you will see that those they unambiguously worked for are smothering them with superfluous praises, even in the face boundless failure, horrible malpractices and overwhelming gloom across the nation.   


Iwu’s abysmal failure should come as a surprise to no one who had keenly observed the untoward path INEC had treaded with unqualified glee. For several months, the commission left its own job and preoccupied itself with what should not be its business. It allocated an unfair share of its time and resources to ensuring that candidates whose faces were not liked in Aso Rock were roughly shoved aside, so the anointed ones could smile home with unearned victory. At one point, (I think at it was at the Appellate Court), the presiding judge had to ask INEC what its business was in a case of disqualification of candidates. 



Olusegun Obasanjo


Yet, the commission remained undeterred. Its loyalty, clearly, was not to the Nigerian people, but to a tiny cabal of unpatriotic characters who derive peculiar animation from seeing Nigeria remaining backward and chaotic. 
Despite several court rulings stating clearly that INEC had no powers to disqualify candidates, Iwu had continued to speak and act as if disqualification of candidates was the only job INEC was set up to perform. In fact, the commission got itself so distracted with this thankless, extraneous job that little or no time was left for it to prepare for the elections. 


 Perhaps, that was part of the script, to deliberately make the elections to fail, so that the crises that might possibly follow would create an enabling environment for the resuscitation of the obnoxious Third Term agenda. But, unfortunately, as has become clear, the Third Term stuff will never find a fertile ground in Nigeria again. It is dead and buried, and so Iwu is left alone now in the quadrangle of shame, to grapple with the failure caused by lack of preparations and insincerity of purpose, and be soaked with all the bashings and public odium for the massive charade that took place last Saturday.

Umar Musa Yar'Adua


INEC’s obsession with the disqualification of candidates that stood in the way of Aso Rock’s anointed candidates was most pronounced in Anambra State, aside the obvious (prominent) Atiku case, which was pursued to a most ridiculous extent. While the commission eagerly accepted a court order it claimed was quietly served it by the Chekwas Okorie faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) to not accord recognition to the Victor Umeh-led faction of APGA (which had fielded the incumbent governor, Peter Obi, as its candidate), it blatantly refused to honour another court ruling which held that Dr. Chris Ngige, the former Governor of Anambra State, whose tenure Anambra people still remember with immense relish and refreshing nostalgia, is eligible to contest the gubernatorial elections. 


By preferring one court ruling to the other, INEC was only betraying its desperation and doggedness to execute what looks like an unambiguous mandate from Aso Rock to ensure that all formidable oppositions in the race are shoved aside in order for “Dr” Andy Ubah, Aso Rock’s own candidate, to be imposed on Anambra people. 


 And now, that Igbo leaders of thought, under a better-focused and independent-minded Ohaneze-Ndigbo have made it clear that no election took place in Anambra, let’s see whether Iwu and his masters can afford to ignore them, or dream up another strategy to weather the challenge.   



PDP Logo




It does seem that Iwu’s troubles are increasing as his task becomes more complicated. Last Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that INEC lacks the power to disqualify candidates, and that Vice President Atiku Abubakar, whom the commission has deployed every energy and resources to hound out of the presidential race is eligible to contest. 
Who now will  Iwu obey? The Supreme Court or his “Supreme leader” in Aso Rock? What is the implication of this ruling to the case of other candidates, which INEC stopped from contesting last Saturday’s elections? Is there nothing that could be legally done to redress the injustice meted out to them, by an electoral commission that cared less if unwanted and unworthy candidates are imposed on the people? 


I think that further interpretation should be sought from the Supreme Court on the fate of these candidates. The Supreme Court must realize that the judiciary is fast acquitting itself as the only credible arm of government in Nigeria today, and so must save the people from the trauma of being governed by those they did not elect. By this ruling, the Supreme Court has endorsed the popular sentiment that the issue of disqualification candidates is so profound and strategic a matter to be left to the whims of an administrative body like INEC. Or else, we will continue to witness this kind of very repulsive abuse to which such a provision was subjected by the Obasanjo/Iwu mob! 
By the way, I thought this was supposed to be a “computerized” election?


So, why was the whole exercise dominated by papers, as of old? Why did it turn out that several people whose names had been fed into Iwu’s magic computers could not find their names in the badly arranged registers on election day?  The names were not even arranged in alphabetical order. What kind of computers were incapable of doing something as simple as that? Sometimes, it took the poorly trained INEC officials a lot of time to find the names of voters. This caused so much frustrations.  


In many places voting could not take place. Election materials in several cases arrived so late or did not at all. Many Nigerians were disenfranchised including Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Senate President, Ken Nnamani, Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State, Action Congress (AC) Vice Presidential Candidate, Edwin Umeh-Ezeoke, President-General of Ohaneze-Ndigbo, Dr. Dozie Ikedife, Emmanuel Ibeshi, AC Gubernatorial Candidate in Cross River State, and many others, because voting did not take place in their wards. INEC would have to look for better liars to try to convince us that this was not deliberate, to put some candidates at a disadvantage. So, in spite of  all the noise about INEC’s state of preparedness, this was what Nigerians got after all. So unfortunate. 
Again, despite all the stern-looking, gun-wielding soldiers unleashed into the streets to intimidate everyone, ballot boxes were still stolen, and stuffed with already thumped ballot papers. Were these perpetrated by privileged hoodlums?


By the way, I thought Iwu had promised us that his computers would detect multiple-voting?  How many of such were detected last Saturday? We surely would like to know, because so much time and energy was wasted on this Data Capture machine stuff (or whatever they called it), and Iwu had stubbornly insisted on using them despite the position of many Nigerians and the National Assembly on it. He must be willing to tell us the advantage that has accrued to the process as a result of their usage. 


Well, I have heard it mentioned here and there that the only consolation for the very disappointing elections held last Saturday is the realization that no matter the outcome of the overly fraudulent exercise, President Olusegun Obasanjo would certainly show Nigerians his back on May 29. The belief is that foundations for a new and progressive Nigeria can only be successfully laid at his back. 


Indeed, there is an ever growing consensus that the most outstanding legacy of the outgoing regime in Abuja, apart from institutionalization of corruption, glamorization of incompetence and failure, and extreme lawlessness, is, perhaps, our gradual graduation from massive rigging of elections to no elections at all. It is most unfortunate, and what Nigerians must insist on is that such a satanic practice must go with the regime that instituted it. 
After massively rigging the elections, Obasanjo has flooded the streets with gun-wielding, stern-faced soldiers to intimidate everyone into silence and suppress and crush any form of dissent. Nigeria today looks like a typical coup day, and everyone lives in fear. That is Obasanjo democracy. Democracy of fear and intimidation. 


Well, the main loser in the whole charade they are calling elections would of course  be Prof Maurice Iwu who would always be remembered on the wrong side of history as the man who sought to gratify the narrow interests of a tiny, unpatriotic few at the expense of the national expectation for progress and democratic stability. Whatever ugly incidents that these elections are throwing up will surely be blamed on him. 


In Imo State, for instance, the Governorship election was cancelled because of alleged eruptions of violence, yet in some states where worse things happened, the elections have been announced and applauded by the PDP/INEC. And mark you, the elections into the State House of Assembly in Imo State in which the PDP achieved a “fraudslide” victory was not also cancelled. INEC is yet to tell us how it determined that the violence was only perpetrated in respect of the governorship polls, even though the two elections ran simultaneously. 


But what everyone knows is that INEC/PDP cancelled the Gubernatorial election in Imo State and fixed a run-off election on April 28, so that the PDP which had expelled its Governorship candidate can now have the opportunity to field another candidate and equally rig him in. Nothing can be so outrageous. Iwu does not even pretend at all about where his loyalty lies in this election. 


 Well, after the all this mess, Iwu would certainly sit down to count his losses, just as the nation is doing now, and determine where the rain began to beat him. For instance, the way he had gone about his present job had led some people to probe his past, and some questions marks now accompany his academic reputation. When the clouds have cleared, and this strange PDP/INEC assignment is over, he would have to grapple with this, and the fact that he shattered the hope of his people. 


Indeed, this INEC Chairman would be remembered as the man who was given an opportunity to advance his nation’s progress but he chose to conspire with a tiny congregation of retrogressive and dishonourable characters to abort the prized dream of his nation. Most unfortunate, indeed.
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scruples2006@yahoo.com