The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently announced dates for general elections in the country for the next 36 years, from 2019 to 2055. The elections include presidential, gubernatorial and national and state houses of assembly. INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu announced the dates at a consultative meeting with leaders of political parties in Abuja. He said the move was to engender certainty in our democratic system.

Yakubu said in 2019, the dates for the various elections are Feb. 16 and March 2; in 2023, Feb. 18 and March 4; in 2027, Feb. 20 and March 6; in 2031, Feb.15 and March 1. According to him, in 2035, it is Feb. 17 and March 3; in 2039, Feb.19 and March 5 and in 2043, Feb. 21 and March 7. “In 2047, it is Feb.15 and March 2; in 2051, it is Feb.18 and March 1; in 2055, it is Feb. 20 and March 6,” he said. Prof. Yakubu said in other democracies of the world, periods of elections were generally known and were not topics for speculation. He said the aim was to ensure certainty in the election calendar and allow for long-term planning by the commission and stakeholders.

This standardization, according to findings, greatly increased the speed of presidential elections and others without recourse to the convenience of any individual or group of persons. No wonder that INEC rolled out this elections timetable at a time the National Assembly is trying to change the sequence of 2019 elections. The legislators have already amended the Electoral Act and re-ordered the election arrangement in such a way that that of the National Assembly would come first and the presidential election last. Many groups have already faulted the reordering of the election, accusing the legislators of a self serving voyage. 

Also citing relevant sections of the Constitution, INEC through its chairman also said it would go ahead with its initial timetable for the 2019 elections with put presidential election first at a time the amended bill is before the president for assent.  From all indications, it is only the courts that would resolve the impasse in the event President Buhari declines to sign the amendment into law. INEC’s 36 year election timeline, coming at such a time, elicited varied reactions.

Announcing election dates so far into the future, especially when they are not backed by law, is a curious act and in the end many of the dates may not stand the test of time.  The most important thing to do at this time is to institutionalize the process with legal backing which would only come into effect when the Constitution is amended.

Rather than show-casing dates for elections far into the future which could be altered by other leaders of the electoral empire in the future, INEC should initiate a bill with a proposal that presidential election should hold on a certain day in a certain month in the election year.

For now INEC, National Assembly and Presidency should work together and resolve the issue at hand which revolves around which election should hold first next year. Time is not on our side.

Daily Trust

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its latest report on Nigeria, averred that despite the recovery of the nation’s economy from recession, more Nigerians were sliding into poverty. The Bretton Wood Institution’s report came a few days after the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on National Social Investment Programme, Mrs Maryam Uwais, said that no fewer than 80 million Nigerians live in poverty.

This underscores the fact that the government is not oblivious of the debilitating and devastating poverty in the land. But despite this cognizance, is the government doing enough to liberate Nigerians from the smothering muscle of the demon of poverty?

Rather than throwing money at the problem of poverty, the government should emplace appropriate policies that would facilitate economic growth and engender employment generation. While the role of the government in cushioning the effects of poverty on the vulnerable is not debatable, the government needs to come to the realisation that it will fail to properly protect the poor if it does not first create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.

Without businesses succeeding, there will not be enough tax revenue which the government would deploy to help the poor.

Poverty in Nigeria is rising principally because doing business in Nigeria is generally a nightmare. Businesses are going through a hard time and are forced to shed some of their workers because of the hostile operational environment. If an enabling environment is created for micro, small and medium scale businesses to thrive, a number of unemployed young people will be able to start their own businesses, which would result in the decline of poverty.

If the right environment is created by the government, big businesses will thrive, expand their operations and create employment opportunities for the youth.

Although in 2016 the Federal Government set up the Presidential Enabling Business Council whose activities resulted in the country moving up 24 points on the ease of doing business index published by the World Bank in 2017, the fact is that there still exist institutional barriers such as the squabbles among government agencies located at the ports which slow down the pace of doing business in the country. Till date, it takes almost forever for companies to clear their imported items at the ports. This hampers businesses. When businesses are hampered, the economy flounders and poverty flowers.

Then, the cost of doing business at all levels is on the increase. As the cost of doing business climbs up, so does the viability of businesses go down with the effect that many of the organisations reduce their operations and are forced to let go of some of their employees. So, a nexus exists between scaling down the cost of doing business and slowing down the rise of poverty in a country.

One of the ways the government can reduce the cost of doing business is to address the nation’s infrastructure deficit. Moving finished goods from one end of the country to another still costs a fortune because of the poor state of the roads and the near absence of the rail system. In spite of the fortune expended on electricity generation, companies still have to generate their own electricity because the electricity companies have yet to get their acts together.

So, the government should pull out all the stops to make businesses to thrive in Nigeria. When the government makes it easy for businesses to flourish, it indirectly prepares the ground for the citizens to move out of poverty, as many of them become productively engaged. It is a thriving private sector, not a stipend-sharing government, that holds the key to poverty reduction.

Tribune

The apex socio-political body of the Igbo, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has said it will consult widely before taking any decision on the 2019 elections.

The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Mr. Chuks Ibegbu, who disclosed this in a statement on Thursday, said the association’s position on the forthcoming elections would be based on the views of Ndigbo.

“The apex Igbo body will not take any decision on 2019 without subjecting it to the opinion, views, inputs and contributions from a wide spectrum of Igbo society,” Ibegbu said.

However, the Ohanaeze spokesman stressed that the body’s major concern at the moment was the restructuring of Nigeria.

He said, “Our main concern now is the restructuring of Nigeria in sync with other progressive groups and individuals in Nigeria. Once Nigeria is restructured, other things will fall in place.

“We want a level-playing ground for all sections of Nigeria; we want justice, equity and fair play. We want a Nigeria in which the bountiful talents of Ndigbo and other Nigerians will be fully realised. The nation as it is presently constituted kills initiative,” Ibegbu added.

Meanwhile, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has called on the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to first disarm Fulani herdsmen before ordering licensed gun owners to submit them to the police.

Ibegbu, who stated Ohanaeze’s demand in the statement in Enugu, faulted the IG’s directive that all licensed gun owners should submit the firearms to the police.

“Without disarming the armed Fulani herdsmen, it will be inappropriate to tell licensed gun owners to submit them in the face of terror and attacks on innocent citizens in all parts of the country, especially in the Middle Belt and the South.”

The spokesman for the group, Mr. Okey Colbert, expressed regrets over what he described as the “unfortunate reduction of the killings in Benue, Taraba and Adamawa states to a mathematical contest of the number of casualty” by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Maybe if his own children were butchered by hoodlums, he would know how other victims of the Fulani herdsmen terror feel too,” he noted.

Punch

Without batting an eyelid, Maikanti Baru, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, told a bewildered nation last week that he had spent $5.8 billion importing petrol in just two months. This figure is likely to rise sharply since he says the NNPC’s petrol supply will rise from 55 million litres per day to 100 million lpd.  No sane country carries on wasting so much of its resources on importing a product it can so easily produce for local consumption and for export.

But this is a misadventure long foretold: this newspaper has for years highlighted the folly of relying on imports for refined petroleum products, while the 2018 national budget is anchored on a daily crude oil production of 2.3 million barrels. Stubbornly, against all economic reasoning, the government holds on to its four loss-making refineries, instead of selling them to competent private operators. Highest capacity usage was 42.4 per cent throughout 2017, according to the NNPC figures, with zero capacity recorded for some months at some refineries.

The Central Bank of Nigeria figures indicate that foreign reserves rose to $43.2 billion on March 6, the highest level since mid-2014. Significantly, the CBN just announced a drop in average national import bill to $1.9 billion monthly in the second half of 2017, down from $5.5 billion previously, following measures to curb certain types of imports.

While the House of Representatives in 2012 swiftly investigated the expenditure of N2.53 trillion on subsidy payments in the 2011 fiscal year, it is lukewarm about the $5.8 billion (and rising) spent in just two months that, at an official exchange rate of N305 to US$1, comes to N1.76 trillion, about the same amount that was identified by the Reps ad hoc committee as fraudulent, unbudgeted subsidy payments in 2011. It also represents about 20 per cent of the 2018 budget of N8.6 trillion.

Ibe Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, says Nigeria spends about $28 billion each year importing petroleum products. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, total value of exports from Nigeria in the second quarter of 2017 was N3.1 trillion, while spending an annual average of N3.35 trillion importing petrol. The NBS put the value of petrol imports in 2016 at N2.39 trillion. Worse, according to Kachikwu, 40 per cent of this is spent on “logistics.” We cannot afford this continued waste and crippling import dependence for everything, including goods in which we have comparative advantage. Already, the country spends $22 billion each year importing food, says Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, though it has adequate arable land and a rich diversity of cash and food crops.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s leisurely response to this fiscal haemorrhage is unhelpful; the bounce in the external reserves stock is attributable to higher crude oil prices. Our external debt stock on the other hand had risen to $15.35 billion by the end of September 2017 and is still rising fast as the government borrows furiously to fund capital projects and the budget deficit.

It is imperative to check the claims from the NNPC and the Petroleum Ministry: while Baru puts current demand at 60 million lpd, up from the 55 million litres he cited last month, Kachikwu claims a daily demand of 66 million lpd. But while other marketers were involved in importing petrol, 35 million lpd was supplied and largely met local demand and a thriving smuggling market to neighbouring countries. Convinced that widespread smuggling is responsible for persistent shortages, the NNPC visited the Nigeria Customs Service and submitted details of retail outlets close to the country’s borders to its Comptroller-General, Hameed Ali. Given the severity of the problem, Ali and other security agencies’ heads require presidential orders to move decisively to stop the smuggling trade.

Independent investigations should be undertaken urgently by the Presidency and the National Assembly into the petrol import system. Who verifies NNPC’s claims? The Reps probe in 2012 uncovered bogus claims by importers and opaque dealings by the NNPC. Today, despite higher import claims, many retail outlets have no stocks when there should be enough to use and more than enough to smuggle! According to the US Energy Information Administration, petroleum consumption in the neighbouring countries where our petrol is believed to have been smuggled to is: Chad 11.2 litres per capita or 2,200 barrels per day; Togo 13,000 bpd or 102.6 litres per capita; Niger Republic 14,000 bpd or 46.5 litres per capita; Benin Republic 41,000 bpd or 234.2 per capita; and Ghana 83,000 or 157 litres per capita. These markets combined cannot absorb the volume of petrol “missing” daily from Nigeria.

Top priority should be getting other marketers back to break the NNPC’s import monopoly. The news that landing cost per litre has dropped from N170 per litre to N161 per litre is enough to galvanise government to entice marketers back through transparent, competitive bidding. The NNPC should not be allowed to continue spending as it deems fit without strict oversight. Its plan to raise and spend another $1.8 billion for turnaround maintenance of its four dysfunctional refineries is surely precious money going down the drain, the latest in decades-long endless cycle of waste and graft that has never achieved the advertised target of full capacity utilisation or subjected to any acceptable standard of accountability. 

Without spiritual monarchy, televangelist’s life leaves legacy for Nigerian Christian leaders

In a world where perversion reigns and many who claim to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ are caught in vices, contrary to the word of God, there lived an evangelist who preached for about 80 years without a whiff of scandals. If anyone could be described as faithful to his calling, it was Billy Graham whose lessons are engraved on stone for Christian leaders all over the world.

Early enough, he realised the need to start with principles and values that would drive his ministry. In 1949, his team met at Modesto in California to work out the now famous Modesto Manifesto, a testament of sorts. The Manifesto was anchored on four cardinal values: Honesty in all things, including in reporting attendance at crusades; Humility as the evangelist was not carried away by the fame he garnered over the years; Purity as he and his partners chose to resist the devil by ensuring that none held discussions or counselling with women privately; and Integrity in realisation that money is a great tempter with its love declared as the root of all evil in the Bible, Graham ensured that he lived on a well-advertised, modest salary beyond which all financial matters were handled by the Board of Directors.

The evangelist who obtained the title, the American Pastor as a result of a great influence that saw him pray for 12 presidents of the great country, never sought to appropriate the influence for personal gain. He was not tempted to institute a spiritual monarchy. At all times, he gave all glory to the Lord, asserting that, ‘’I’m not a great preacher…I’ve heard great preaching many times and wished I was one of the great preachers. I am an ordinary preacher just communicating the gospel in the best way I know.’’

Graham stayed true to his calling for the 99 years he lived, left the stage for the younger generation when the incapacitating hold of old age sought to knock him out, thereby forestalling the bitter succession struggle that attend the demise of such charismatic leaders. Today, he is gone, but his disciplined lifestyle remains a model to all who claim to have been called to the ministry of proclaiming the gospel.

As a society in dire need of progress and development, and with the hold religion has on the people, Christian leaders should learn from Billy Graham the need for ecumenism. He remained a member of the Southern Baptist Convention all life and would not be tempted to branch out. His Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) reached out to, and collaborated with, many churches and ministries. Nigerian ministers could borrow this virtue, realising that in the face of assaults from the enemy, they are better united. Resources, materials and spiritual, become more formidable when they are pooled together.

His resolve to avoid partisan politics while relating with earthly authorities, only praying for them is another lesson, in view of Nigeria’s recent history that saw Christian leaders chose to swim or sink with political leaders, receiving gratification, compromising values, attempting to serve God and mammon, forgetting that God cannot be mocked.

The attempt last year to introduce Governance Code for the Churches readily comes to mind. The ferocious attacks from modern-day Pentecostal missions are an indication that the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) have a lot to do in mobilising their members for internal regulation. Otherwise, external regulation might become inevitable someday.

Billy Graham, soldier of Christ, your light shall continue to shine even as you have inevitably bowed out of the stage here.

The Nation

As it was in the beginning, so it is now, but it must not be allowed to be the acceptable standard of political conduct. In principle, if you hold a view which is no longer defensible or you belong to a group which is no longer compatible, it is human and indeed legitimate to change course or company. But that was not the case at the advent of carpet crossing in Nigerian politics in 1952 in the defunct Western Region. Rather, it was a deplorable, obscene and desperate appeal to group ethnic solidarity for carpet crossing.

Despite that disturbing situation, there were men of conscience who remained constant, untainted and nationalistic. Caught in the disgrace of their action, beneficiaries of the 1952 carpet crossing rationalised themselves on a non-existing and unconstitutional principle of east for easterners, west for westerners and north for northerners.

Ten years later, initiators of carpet crossing in Nigerian politics were consumed by the same corrupt act, a sizable  section of the feuding Action Group in the internal crisis in the party crossed the carpet to a newly-formed Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) and formed the government. Even many of opposition NCNC members were also seduced with ministerial appointments to cross the carpet.It is thus obvious that, from the onset, carpet crossing in Nigerian politics was for the self-serving purpose of grabbing power in a civilian setting.

Later, some of the architects of carpet crossing recanted. On November 16, 1994, Chief A.M.A. Akinloye, a key actor in the carpet crossing episode in the Western House of Assembly in 1952, inserted advertisements in some Nigerian newspapers, ostensibly congratulating Nnamdi Azikiwe (the major victim of the carpet crossing) on his birthday but significantly apologised to Zik with the unsolicited explanation that the carpet crossing was never aimed at stopping Zik or NCNC from forming government. According to Akinloye, all they (they NCNC members who crossed to Action Group) asked for was that a Yoruba NCNC member of the House should be allowed to form the government in the west.

That was simply a mischievous ethnic-laden opportunism, in violation of the constitution of the day whose only unambiguous provision was that the leader of the party with majority elected members would form the government. Chief Ayo Rosiji, federal secretary of the the Action Group, who played a leading part in the carpet crossing, later in his biography, owned up to his role of luring NCNC members, including F.O. Awosika, he described as his principal at secondary school. Chief Bola Ige, in his reminiscences, expressed reservations on the carpet crossing episode. By the way, each of the three regions in 1952 had in its constitution identical and unambiguous provision that any elected member in the region that was leader of the majority party would form the government.

The 1952 carpet crossing in the Western Region still bedevils Nigerian politics till today. Ideally, carpet crossing should be based on principle, especially if there is disagreement on party policies among members, But usually, especially currently, legislators cross carpet from opposition to ruling parties. Not even an Abuja high court ruling on the matter is being enforced that any legislator quitting a party for another must vacate his/her seat and seek fresh mandate on the platform of the new party.

The loophole being exploited in the best of cases is the proviso in the Nigerian constitution that a legislator may retain his/her seat if carpet crossing was caused by factionalisation of the party.  But there was a difference in 2014 even five serving state governor took the rare gamble of resigning from the ruling PDP to join in forming a new and untested APC. This followed the demand of northerners that, after 14 consecutive years, the presidency must return to the North, especially as an agreement to that effect was allegedly breached by the then incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan, who, rightly or wrongly, demanded any document to that effect. A gentleman’s agreement.

Unable to produce such document, northern members of the ruling PDP muscled their numerical strength as governors, members of state and national assemblies, resigned from PDP and joined South Eest-based ACN and factions of APGA, ANPP as well as the CPC to form a new party, the APC. The significance of that development was that legislators resigned from a party in control of the federal government to found a rival (if opposition) All Progressives Congress.

In the 1952 carpet crossing, the culprits betrayed the electorate to grab government. In 2014, PDP members resigned from a ruling party and sought a fresh mandate on the platform of a rival party in 2015 and got properly elected, almost as stipulated in the Nigerian constitution. While they were seeking a fresh, mandate on the platform of their new party, PDP remained in control of the federal government and most of the 36 states.

If the electorate disapproved of the few state governors who resigned from the PDP and/or those of the ACN, APGA, ANPP and CPC, which all dissoved and merged to found APC, on which platform a new mandate was obtained, they could all have been rejected at the polls, moreso as they were all contesting against a ruling party. That was the nearest to principled politics.

Unfortunately, from that strong base, the ruling APC may be digging its political grave with the seeming open arms with which the party is welcoming deserting PDP members in both national and state assemblies. No principle is involved in the latest wave of carpet crossing.

The only convenience for these shameless fellows is their confidence (more than hope) that the APC will return to power to continue ruling Nigeria in 2019. There lies the political risk for APC, should the party offer automatic tickets to carpet crossers from PDP.

APC should consider this prospect of the carpet crossers seeking APC ticket merely to be re-elected and continue serving as legislators after 20 years (from 1999 to beyond 2019). That is at the best. What then is APC’s reward for its long-standing and loyal members all over the country? Monkey de work only for baboon to be chopping from any ruling party? In the worst case, carpet crossers from the PDP, if re-elected on the platform of APC and defect to another party, they will conveniently cite past defections to strenghten the case that their defection back to PDP is supported by the constitution.

With that, what is the guarantee against their ganging up to impeach a sitting President of the Federal Republic Republic of Nigeria? Witness their series of manouvres with treacherous APC members in the National Assembly even against APC’s interest and decisions awaiting ratification.

Brickbats towards 2019 polls

Ordinarily, next year’s general election should be mere routine but, being Nigeria, an ever restless country, a lot will happen towards that exercise. At least, there will be a triple showdown, the combatants will be Aso Rock, the Independent National  Electoral Commission and the National Assembly. The first challenge was thrown by the National Assembly in the self-delusion of arm-twisting the electoral agency out of its complete autonomy in discharging its statutory obligations to the country every four years.

Trouble-shooting legal/constitutional expert, Femi Falana, has since exposed the ignorance of the National Assembly in the attempt to excercise power not conferred on their privileges, which they could otherwise have claimed had been breached. For this, we owe Falana much for neutralising on-coming political tension of unimaginable magnitude.

Probably, with that latent unquestionable exclusive authority to conduct elections in the country, INEC has robbed it in by announcing election dates in Nigeria for the next 36 years, However, INEC was wrong or at least was partially wrong in claiming that its decision to fix election dates for that long is the standard in major democracies throughout the world. Only the United States seems to have fixed dates for presidential elections, since 1845. Presidential election is held in United States first Tuesday in November but strictly after the first Monday in November every four years.

That rule operates till today because there is never any emergency to warrant any postponement of the presidential election. Come hell or high water, America goes on. That is the abiding patriotism of the average  citizen.

President Charles de Gaulle’s policy of reforms in response to students protests in 1968 were rejected by national assembly, He resigned and there was immediate presidential election won by erstwhile prime minister Pompidou. However, INEC is in order only because Nigeria practises presidential system with a fixed tenure of four years. Fixing election dates for the next 36 years only means sheepishly copying United States. Still, Nigerians must get ready for possible rascality, which will cut National Assembly down to size.

Yet, despite the nullity of their efforts to control the 2019 elections, National Assembly may still confront Buhari with a fake, purported amendment to the Electoral Act, which he would veto, in line with his powers under the constitution. The veto will then be overriden by the National Assembly after which INEC would be handed a fake law on how to conduct the elections.

At that stage, INEC must assert itself by proceeding to enforce its own lawful arrangement sourced from its power under the constitution on the conduct of the 2019 elections. In short, INEC must not dignify National Assembly by challenging in court a law that has been proved beyond reasonable doubt not to exist for one second. INEC should dare National Assembly to be dragged to court for ignoring a law brought in dead. That will then set the stage for the real showdown between eager Nigerian voters and spoilt brats of Nigerian politics.

The premature declaration by the Muhammadu Buhari administration that Boko Haram insurgency has been totally defeated has been proved wrong by a devastating resurgence of the deadly terror group. Deadly incidents of suicide bombing, sacking of towns, attacks on military formations and IDP camps have resulted in the death of many Nigerians. However, before the administration’s Goebbels could downplay these deadly incidents as “antics of the totally degraded and fleeing remainants of Boko Haram insurgents who are after soft targets” (as if lives of soft targets are less important than lives of hard targets), the Dapchi incident happened.

The Dapchi incident was reminiscent of the Chibok tragedy. Long convoy of vehicles, manned by combat-ready Boko Haram insurgents, moved unhindered into Dapchi town, Yobe State, north-east Nigeria, and headed towards their target: Government Girls Technical School, Dapchi, from where over a 100 schoolgirls were abducted in Chibok style. Like happened in Chibok in 2014, this town was unprotected by the military. Similarly, the Buhari administration was thoroughly embarrassed by the Dapchi incident as much as the Chibok incident did the Goodluck Jonathan administration, and futile attempts were made by both to deny the incidents happened. While the Jonathan administration outrightly denied the Chibok attack, the Buhari administration described the girls as missing, initially refusing to admit they were abducted.

Germany coach Maren Meinert has described Nigeria’s U-20 Women team (Falconets) as a strong opponent full of grit and spunk.

Reacting to the France 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup draw that pitched two time silver winning Nigeria and the three time champions  Germany together in Group D, Meinert said that she is expecting a tough duel when both sides open their campaign on August 6, 2018.

“Nigeria are a robust and direct team, we have seen that from the finals in 2010 and 2014. So we know that it will be a tough game against them.

“Our group is full of quality , so that shows us that we need to work hard and be completely ready for our game against them.

Nigeria will also trade tackles with familiar foes China and World Cup debutants Haiti in Group D.

This would be the fourth time Falconets will face Germany at the U-20 Women’s World Cup level.

At the 2010 edition of the tournament , Germany defeated Nigeria 2-0 to lift the trophy. Both teams also meet in the finals four years later in Canada 2014 and Germany ran away with a slim 1-0 victory over the African giants.

Falconets also lost narrowly to the German Ladies 4-5 on penalties at the quarter finals of Thailand 2004 after the game ended 1-1 at regular time.

Nigeria, will kick off her campaign in Saint-Malo against Germany on 6th August.

Sun

“We now have the least competent, the most isolated, most divisive and arrogant leader in the history of Nigeria. And in a country that is so complex and not so cohesive, this is clearly a disaster, which is where we are heading” – Junaid Mohammed

The optics and the substance issuing forth from the Presidency of General Mohammadu Buhari get increasingly worse. If Nigeria were not the collateral damage, all those who warned against his election should be entitled to chest thumping vindication at the subsisting near total demystification and unraveling of the Buhari mystique. As the rapporteur of the reelection campaign of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003, I was occupationally required to acquaint myself with the political make up (in all its ramifications) of our main opponent, the flag bearer of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, namely Mohammadu Buhari. The insight I gathered from this preoccupation was as follows-his entry into partisan politics was uniquely actuated by personal animus and simultaneously reinforced by Hausa-Fulani irredentist outrage.

Before he went into prison, on the trumped up charge of plotting a coup against the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha, Obasanjo’s core political constituency in the North was the ‘Kaduna Mafia’-of which Buhari was an armor bearer-recall the singsong of the Buhari military junta being the offshoot of the Murtala-Obasanjo military government. On his return to the pinnacle of political power in 1999 and for justifiable reasons, the incoming President undertook a wholesale review of inherited projects from the Abacha dictatorship and quickly dispensed with those that did not meet up with his fancy.

The outcome of the financial scrutiny of the PTF was predictably incriminating-to the embarrassment and humiliation of Buhari who may or may not have foreknowledge of the wrongdoing that was uncovered. Beyond the disbandment of the agency, the fact that Obasanjo took no further steps to impose sanctions did little to assuage the bitterness of his erstwhile protégé at being exposed to ridicule. From this encounter emanated the evolution of Buhari into the embodiment of the Northern irredentist outrage at the autonomous level playing course, Obasanjo had charted for his Presidency.

As it is often deliberately misappropriated, any equitable and egalitarian initiative of the Nigerian federal government is liable to be politicized as anti-North. And so (for instance) was the decision to retire all military officers who had hitherto served in political offices and positions- who were regarded as ‘political soldiers’ and thereby prone to coup plotting. In quick order, this was the why and how the instrument of a power play by a beleaguered Zamfara state governor was transmogrified and contrived into a regional wide Moslem North casus belli against a convenient target-who happens to be a Christian from Southern Nigeria-talking of the Sharia crisis. The following polarizing and subversive catch phrases are the representative pronouncements of the ensuing malice-with Buhari as the chief missioner.

“I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the Sharia movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria. God willing, we will not stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the country.” – Buhari (News24, August 27, 2001)

“Muslims should only vote those who will defend their faith. We are more than the Christians if you add our Muslim brothers in the West.”- Buhari (Liberty Radio Kaduna, 2003)

“Why should Christians be concerned when Muslim cut off their limbs? After all, the limbs that are being cut off are Muslim ones and not Christian. So why should Christians bother about it?? – Buhari (Liberty Radio, Kaduna 2003 Hausa Service, 2015)

“I can die for the cause of Islam if necessary. We are prepared to fight another civil war. We cannot be blackmailed into killing Sharia.” – Muhammadu Buhari (Freedom House, 2000)

And so when President Obasanjo inquired of me after the 2015 Presidential election my reasons for actively championing the reelection of President Goodluck Jonathan, I had no hesitation in reminding him of his instrumentality to my partisan standpoint-by giving me the assignment to know and understand (beyond the average ken) the political wherewithal of our opponent in the 2003 election. And whatever opinion I held of Buhari in 2003, he consistently reinforced over the subsequent years-and that is his unrivalled penchant for hypocrisy, divisiveness and malicious parochialism.

My central argument against his candidacy in the 2015 Presidential election was that any Nigerian politician who rose to prominence through the politics of division and parochial insularity should never be rewarded with the Nigerian Presidency. On this score, he has even managed to surpass my projection and done abundantly more than we can think or imagine. According to Abba Mahmoud ‘The verdict out there in the public is that this government, as constituted now with its skewed appointments, is the most provincial, most sectional and most primordial. Even the immediate two predecessors of President Buhari, as unexposed to national limelight as they were, tried to have national outlook. Late President Umaru Yar-Adua’s ADC was from Edo state, his Principal Secretary who acted as Chief of Staff when the Office of Chief of Staff was abolished, was from Delta state, his Defence Minister was also from the South, among others, and all his security chiefs were Christians. His successor, President Goodluck Jonathan’s NSA was from Sokoto, Defence Minister from Zamfara, his ADC was from Benue, his Chief Detail was Muslim from Bauchi, while his Principal Private Secretary was a Fulani from Adamawa’.

Of all the viral satirical deprecations of this government none is more telling and apt than the ‘take us back to where you met us in 2015’ one liner. If there was ever any doubt in my mind regarding the validity of this refrain, it was completely erased by the report of the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index, which scored Nigeria worse under the Buhari stewardship. More than any other liability, this was, afterall, the adjudged singular bane of the Jonathan government which constituted the warrant and prescription for a Nigerian leader of Buhari’s (false) reputation. But here is the most authoritative corruption watchdog in the World telling Nigeria that it has willfully sold itself a dummy; that we have inflicted on ourselves a cure worse than the disease, that in the juxtaposition of Jonathan and Buhari, appearances have proven quite deceptive.

Said Junaid Mohammed,’ Now, among the people in the cabal, but very powerful and not known is someone called Tunde, originally called Sabiu Yusuf. He is the son of Mamman Daura’s immediate younger sister. He is, today, P.A to the President, even though he has never worked for one day in his life. But a P.A job is normally the work of a full-blown director or a permanent secretary. That boy only got married last year and as I speak to you now, he is one of the billionaires in Nigeria today. Nobody of his age has the kind of money that boy has’? Pastor Tunde Bakare has provided another perspective to the degenerate situation “For 16 years of PDP they borrowed N6 trillion, for three years of APC, they borrowed N11 trillion. And they are not going to pay the debt. You and I, and our children, and our children’s children will pay the debt”

And if there is anything worse than the TI rating, it is the mind boggling rebuttal that has emanated from the ranks of the paper tiger functionaries of the government. Not surprisingly and acting his credibility bereft position as the anti-corruption polemicist of the Buhari government, it was the audacious and indignant Professor Itse Sagay who called the logic of the TI rating into question with a most illogical counterpoint.

According to Sagay, “Transparency International is making a major error. It is confused between the actual level of corruption and the level of revelation of acts of corruption. Corruption was worse than now….but because of the activities of the anti-corruption agencies, particularly the EFCC, virtually no day passes without one act of corruption or the other being revealed. To someone who is just relying on statistics of what is revealed, it’d seem that corruption is increasing. In fact, it is decreasing, because those that are revealed involve prosecution of suspects or forfeiture of assets. Corruption is being dealt with. So, that’s the error there.”

In order to fully appreciate the folly of the illogic being espoused by Sagay, we only need to take a look at the corollary- that the less transparently active the fight against corruption, the greater the likelihood the TI will adjudge the country better on its corruption watch list. Second is the absurd inference that the TI is blissfully unaware that the corruption that is frequently and loudly touted by the Buhari government is almost exclusively attributed to the previous government. How then can the agency blame this government for the misdeed of the previous government that is being exposed? Is the TI this daft and simplistic?

To crown it all and as if nemesis is relentlessly at work, Buhari would spectacularly and specifically fail on the delivery of another governance priority on which he was projected to play the hero to Jonathan’s villain. Is there a better way to, once again, dramatize the Buhari messianic illusion than the repetition of the signal failure of the Jonathan regime? What makes the abduction of the Dapchi girls quite irksome is the apparent failure of the government to learn from the lapse of the previous tragedy to forestall a recurrence.

he relevant authorities must do more to address the problem of hunger and malnutrition

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed that the South-west has the second highest number of stunted children in Nigeria. Some 19.4 per cent of children in the zone are stunted. The South-east and the South-south are relatively better. The North is worse off as millions are undernourished. “This calls for more work by everyone – government and all of us. As agenda setters, we must do more to keep child nutrition conversations on the priority list of those that can act to reverse this ugly trend,” said UNICEF Communication Officer, Blessing Ejiofor last week.

It is very depressing that in Nigeria no fewer than six million children, representing about 37 per cent, are stunted while the world’s average is 25 per cent, even when the figure for Rwanda, another African country, is 20 per cent. Meanwhile, going by the same dreary statistics, 29 per cent of our children are underweight, compared with the global average of 15 per cent. Again, the figure for Rwanda is 2.5 per cent. For all the zones in the country the situation is bad, but alarming in the rural areas. This should worry the authorities.

Since stunting also severely limits the cognitive senses, what we are doing is permanently short-changing not only the physical, but also the mental capacities of our future citizens. “The nutrients a child receives in the earliest years of life influence their brain development for life, and can make or break their chance of a prosperous future. By protecting and supporting children’s development in early life, we are able to achieve immense results for children throughout their lifespan,” said UNICEF Senior Nutrition Adviser, Roland Kupka. With the intellectual potential of children gravely constrained, wherein lies the future of our country?

But unless our governments, at all levels, take immediate steps to address hunger and malnutrition, especially in children and pregnant women, our poor indices on maternal and child mortality can only further worsen. Indeed, if concerted and deliberate actions are not taken, millions of Nigerian children will be physically and mentally stunted and their lives devastated by malnutrition.

Political commitment is therefore necessary to ensure advocacy on the adverse implications of malnutrition and how to avoid its devastating consequences. Partnership with civil society and academic institutions with focus on food and nutrition is also an imperative. But such political commitment is best demonstrated by a tangible increase in resource allocation, with the relevant ministries and agencies doing their bit and a road map to up-scaling nutrition in the public sphere.

Such a road map should consist of clear roles and responsibilities for the various stakeholders, as well as implementable strategies with milestones for mainstreaming nutrition into agriculture, fortifying basic foods with essential minerals or vitamins, mobilising communities for action on growing more beneficial foods, and educating them on the perils of malnutrition. Our governments need to sit up and confront malnutrition with resolute decisiveness if the future of our children is to be secure.

Thisday