Kogi, Imo And Bayelsa Off-Cycle Elections: Applauding Dysfunctionality

 By Alabi Williams

Year 2023 began with a lot of trepidation over the general elections. Nothing seemed very sure, especially as the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), prevaricated on its choices. That caused them to resort to self-help at different levels. In all, new experiences emerged and suggestions are being canvassed on how to raise the integrity bar in the next elections.

The three off-cycle elections in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa have also come and gone. Off course, there will be disputations at the tribunals on how the playing-ground was tampered with to make it cumbersome for some players. Some take-aways have emerged to further the conversation on the precarious nature of this democracy. For some, there were no elections in many places and the exercise was a bug joke. For others, it is the smart politicians that took the day.

Bola Tinubu’s UN Fantasies

 By Casmir Igbokwe

The majority of Nigerians are in agreement that President Bola Tinubu made a fantastic speech at the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last week. Some sound bites from his speech made many Nigerians proud and projected his speech writer as a candidate eminently qualified for promotion.

*Tinubu at UNGA 2023

Like a motivational speaker, our President intoned, “To keep faith with the tenets of this world body and the theme of this year’s Assembly, the poverty of nations must end. The pillage of one nation’s resources by the overreach of firms and people of stronger nations must end. The will of the people must be respected…” Good talk, Mr. President!

Nigeria: Again, The Triumph Of Selfish Politics

 By Dan Agbese

The discerning knew it would come to these: that the electoral act bill sent to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent on which he sat for 30 days,  would once more come to grief; that the president who marketed himself to the electorate as the only Nigerian with the capacity to clean up the mess in all areas of our national life, would be persuaded again by his minions to refuse to rise to the critical challenges of democratic leadership and statesmanship and thus blow the chance to be the authentic change agent he promised in his many forays into our national politics. 

The bill raised hopes in all of us because it represented a fair attempt to pull up our nation from the marsh where we march on the same spot. We cannot in truth get our democracy right so long as we fail to get our electoral system right. Sadly, the hopes now lie shattered on the rocks of a half-hearted commitment by our political leaders to a government genuinely instituted by the electorate. Democracy rests on the strong peg of a transparent electoral system guided by laws made for the good governance of the polity and not on the whims and caprices of political leaders. A good law is not one that pleases the president; it is the law that makes for a better country by enhancing good governance; it is the law that strengthens the institutions of democracy; it is the law that treats as sacred the wishes of the people to be governed by the laws made by their representatives in parliament. 

The President’s Handlers And His Health

By Ikeogu Oke

This piece was triggered by a tweet I stumbled on recently. Emanating from the tweeter handle of one George Okusanya, it read, ‘Femi Adesina: “The president is not sick”.

Lai Mohammed: “The president is hale and hearty”.

GMB: “I couldn’t recall ever being so sick”.’

 

*Buhari 

Clearly, the tweet juxtaposes the words of Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, and Lai Mohammed, the President’s Minister of Information and Culture, on the one hand, and those of the President on the other hand. By this contrasting placement, the tweet seems to provide proof of the allegation that the President’s handlers had misinformed Nigerians about the state of his health while he was in the UK on medical leave, in consequence of which they have drawn flak from a legion of critics.

I, for one, had been taken aback by the morbid interest shown by some Nigerians in knowing the exact state of the President’s health while he was receiving medical treatment abroad. And this is why: I had thought such people would be more concerned about the resultant indignity for our country that, 56 years after Independence, our President, the President of the country that prides itself as the “Giant of Africa” and “the most populous black nation in the world”, still travels to a foreign country, the country of our colonial masters, to receive medical treatment for a protracted period, during which he might be splayed repeatedly on an operating table, anesthetized, and carved open by foreign scalpels.

President Buhari: Dead Or Alive?

By Wale Sokunbi

Two major issues dominated public discourse in the past week. First, is the raging rumour on the “death”,  or otherwise, of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is officially said to be on a 10-day vacation in the United Kingdom. I first chanced on the news of the president’s supposed death on the social media about two weekends ago, and immediately waved it off as one of the fake news for which that medium of communication is becoming quite notorious.

*Buhari 

But, I had apparently underestimated the great interest and excitement that any negative news about Buhari and his government generates among certain segments of the Nigerian population.  What I had thought of as a mere tale spawned by some idle social media tattlers soon took on a life of its own, complete with intriguing plots and murderous suppositions that could dwarf any tale told by  James Hardly Chase and the other old grand masters of fiction writing.

Strangely, many of the carriers of these tales have worked themselves into a frenzy over a “development” that they believe is likely to lead to “Nigeria’s second civil war, if not an actual dissolution of the country”. Many of the purveyors of this most unlikely story can hardly keep their excitement under check, as they surreptitiously regale those with whom they choose to discuss the matter, with “details” of how the president was flown, “totally unconscious”, out of the country, and died shortly after arriving  in London.

Yet, others hold firmly to online accounts of how the president was caught “trying to commit suicide”, and rushed to the hospital, where he is now in a vegetative state, while his handlers, are trying to hoodwink Nigerians and rule the nation by proxy, as happened in the last few weeks of the late president, Umaru Yar’Adua.

Others say Buhari has even been buried, while one person said he had called the president’s spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina, and asked him why he had joined others by telling lies on the matter of the president’s death.  The person, strangely, insisted that he did not believe that Buhari was dead, but he was convinced that his media handlers were lying that he was alive. What a contradiction!

Nigeria: When 'Clueless' Is Better Than Calamitous

By Bolaji Tunji

The present government of President Muhammadu Buhari would, in a few months, be two years old. Ever since the government was sworn in, save for the euphoria that trailed a new government and the expectation of Nigerians looking for change, if truth has to be told, Nigerians have not really got anything to show for all the change that they were promised. There is hardship in the land occasioned by the poor state of the economy. Nigerians are hungry. Prices of essential commodities are soaring. Food items are no longer affordable. As for social amenities, Nigerians experience more of darkness than light as power has worsened. Former Lagos governor and Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Raji Fashola, has not been able to find solution to the problem.

*Buhari 

Most of the people who aided and supported this government such as former President Olusegun Obasanjo have equally signaled their dissatisfaction with the way things are going. He told the government to concentrate on clearing the mess inherited instead of complaining about the situation. In the early days of the administration, it was the in thing to blame the Goodluck Jonathan administration for the rot in the system. If the present government would continue to have its way, it would still have preferred to continue blaming the previous administration. But this would have shown the new government as lacking in initiative for still blaming its predecessor at nearly two years of taking over. Come to think of it, does this present administration have initiative, creativity? I do not think so. As much as Nigerians admire the person of President Buhari for his honesty, integrity (I equally do),  he has fallen short of the expectation of so many Nigerians. This is not just about criticizing the president for the sake of it, but criticism is coming because the president, in the past 17 months, has shown his unpreparedness for governance. I want him to succeed but wishing is different from the reality. The reality is that nothing is working. Companies are finding it difficult to continue and jobs are being lost.

I have written about the fact that there is no clear cut economic blue print and so many other Nigerians, who are in position to know this, have said the same. It is what former President Obasanjo described as administration by “adhocry”. Looking for quick fix solution without an in depth understanding of the problem. It is what led this same administration to China like other administrations before. Obasanjo visited China twice, late President Umaru Yar’Adua, President Jonathan equally visited before President Buhari’s visit in April.

Prior to that trip, the government had made us to understand that solution to the problems we are facing especially as it concerns the dollars would be found in China and that the focus on that country would reduce the over dependence on the dollar.  I had sounded a warning that the China trip would not solve our problem as it was an ad hoc solution. We were told that many agreements were signed in areas of power, solid minerals, etc. I am yet to see any of these taking off. Why not against such a trip, it should have been taken as part of a larger picture of our economic policy. If we have an economic policy, the question would have been; how does China fits into the overall picture?