At a Senate meeting some two weeks back, Senator Ahmed Ogembe, representing Kogi central alleged that his state governor, Yahaya Bello, sponsored thugs to disrupt an empowerment programme he organised for his constituents. In response, Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Senate President taking an overview of a number of undemocratic practices in the country reportedly opined that with the rapid way the country’s democracy was receding, it was not impossible for the military to consider taking over.

The furore which greeted Ekweremadu’s comment probably forced him to recant; more so, as it was given different colourations.  In reality however, the statement is a true reflection of the current political situation in Nigeria. Many issues confirm this.

In the first place, with the unwholesome behaviour of the country’s political class, some people are beginning to miss the military era. Indeed, the often stated axiom that the worst civilian government is better than the best military regime is now questionable. In fact, people who used to think that civilian governments and democracy were coterminous now know they have been exceedingly simplistic.

Perhaps the old argument is valid for real democracies but in Nigeria, civilian and military governments have a lot in common with the main difference being dress. It is true that Nigerian soldiers often shot their way to power in the past; in like manner their civilian counterparts have been getting to power against the wish of the people through fake elections. The number of people in political offices who got there through free and fair elections is so few that it is not irrational to conclude that the electoral process is not the real basis for forming governments in Nigeria because all our elections have always followed the same poor pattern.

As once aptly described by the Election Observation Delegation of the International Republican Institute (IRI) the conduct of election in Nigeria can hardly “measure up to those observed by members of the delegation in other countries whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or the Western Hemisphere.” Painfully, those who get into office spend our scarce resources to enthrone their cronies as may happen soon in states like Imo and Ekiti. 

It is one of our landmark ironies that soon after a governorship election, governors who claim to be democrats, dissolve “democratically” elected local councils and install unelected caretaker committees. Thereafter, they organize sham local elections in which every seat is won by the ruling class. In certain cases, some candidates garner more votes than are available just as others secure overwhelming votes in election booths where voting did not take place.

Since the present dispensation began in 2015, there have been local elections in 23 states. Of this figure, the ruling APC has “won” 100% of the votes in 14 states that it controls. Its immediate rival, the PDP has also done so in 8 states that it controls. APGA which controls only one state; did what others do. Unfortunately, each charade wherever it occurs gulps huge sums of money, yet majority of our states are unable to pay workers’ salaries- the only thing the latter look up to as of right.

The point to be made is that there is nothing to be happy about with our politicians. Although they promised to build strong institutions, they have only succeeded in weakening all public organizations. In the public service what is in vogue is supersession in which inexperienced persons are being made to head several offices.

Whereas the public is left to believe that there is an embargo on employment, unqualified people are being recruited daily through the back door. Within our poor economy, political office holders are daily acquiring expensive official cars. In the states, the legislature is an extension of the government house and for material consideration does whatever the governor wants.

At the federal level where legislators appear independent, Senators as revealed by one of them last week, have N13.5million each to play with every month in addition to several other bogus allowances.

With these ills quite visible wherever one goes, what seems to matter to people who are virtually becoming hopeless is solution, irrespective of who can bring it. Instructively, the same political class has shown clearly that the best way to solve any problem in the country is to give the task to the military. Hence, our super military are now deployed to all trouble spots like Benue.

It does not seem to matter what they make of the assignment. In other parts of the world, internal security is the function of the police. It is not so in our clime. Even a civilian task like election is being secured by the military. Toll gates otherwise called check points now have military personnel. The police is now reduced to guard duties with every VIP having a sizeable number of them despite the organization’s unending cry of under staffing. If the military must intervene in everything, who says they cannot consider directing their searchlight to our politics.

Those who have stuck to the argument that military rule is an aberration, have a strong point but that is not the only aberration we should abhor. We also need to deprecate others like the pauperization of the masses and the high level of insecurity across the country. Except something drastic is done to our politics, we cannot recover from our imminent downfall.

The panacea which is to search for visionary leaders who can formulate and execute viable policies to transform the nation can hardly materialize because only wrong people get “elected”. Bearing in mind that they are usually coerced by large rented crowds who incessantly appeal to them to contest, they never had cause to tell us what they would do if elected, making it hard for them to be accountable.

So, whatever Ekweremadu said or denied, the earlier it is realized that our military is made up of Nigerians and that they see the nation’s ample political rascality, the better for us all. Growing-up, one of the sayings of our people that made much sense to me was that which said, anyone who is hanging around to stop a fight, ought to have begun appropriately by first stopping violent disagreements that could end-up in a fight.

If we are all silent over the things that are making our state fail, it would be hard to stop the fall. We don’t want military rule; we also don’t want a political class that behaves like a child born drunk. 

Chief Olu Falae, a former presidential candidate of the defunct Alliance Democracy/All Nigerian Peoples Party and current National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), in this interview, says the ‘third force’ has come to upstage the two major parties in the country, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He also speaks on the alleged lopsidedness in appointments under the Buhari administration, the performance of the APC-led government, herdsmen/farmers clashes and the 2019 general elections amongst other issues by Dayo Johnson.

What’s all the talk about the SDP being a third force? ls it true that more bigwigs from the PDP and APC are planning to join the SDP?

What started happening last week is a fulfilment of a dream and of a promise which l think the Lord himself made when SDP was re-registered in 2013. When you look at the first poster we sent out, we said ‘The SDP is back’, the third force has arrived. By the grace of God, it is beginning and in a process of emerging as a third force. What is happening is normal in politics, especially in Nigeria where the political domain is always in a state of flux. In Nigeria, politicians are always moving from one political party to other. If you look at the current situation, many leaders, who were in the PDP when Dr Goodluck Jonathan was in power, are today in APC criticizing Jonathan and the former PDP government. However, what is happening, I believe, is a logical outcome of people running platforms and not parties. When I presented my book, ‘The Way Forward for Nigeria’, in 2005 in Lagos, I did say that what we had were no parties, that they were just opportunistic gangs struggling for power. What do I mean? People who have money get together and ask, ‘what can we do to get power in this state?’ ‘What do we do to capture the treasury in the state?’ They make a budget and there is so much poverty around. So they throw money around and people rush to them. They try to outspend one another and on election day, people give them votes and put them in government. Then crisis comes. Because you are not a party, you have no blueprint which you are going to implement to elevate the people from poverty, they start creating what I call adult toys to play around with but end up increasing the pains of the suffering masses.

Some of them set up road map for two years out of four-year tenure and, at the end of the day, there is nothing profound or of value for the country. Some just use projects as a smokescreen for stealing public funds and so there is general disenchantment with politicians and politics particularly with the two major parties that have been ruling us and unfortunately ruining us as well. And that is why the APC, which is ruling party at the federal level, has been unable to do something about killer herdsmen and there is complete devastation of the country. Now I think it is beginning to dawn on them that there is a third force, there is an alternative to these so-called two political parties where the only programme is how to spend money but I think money is beginning to fail. A young man seeking the ticket of one of the parties for governor told me how he paid N500million to his party Chairman and he still did not get the ticket. How can anybody take that huge amount from someone and then manipulate him out of the contest? This is why more people will come to the SDP. I suspect people want something better, they want a leadership they can trust, a leadership that has idea of how to govern the country and move it forward, a leadership that has integrity, honesty and fairness.

Some analysts say that with the influx of politicians you say are discredited into your party, the SDP may soon also be polluted. What is your perspective?

No. We shall adopt the onion principle. You know the onion has many layers but there is the core layer inside. Once the leadership of the SDP is that core, we can accept layers upon layers of people coming to join us. Fortunately, we are not new in Nigeria; we know most of the politicians in Nigeria and they also know us. Some of them we went to school together, some of them we served in the civil service together; when I was in the banking industry, some of them were there and I have been in politics now since 1990, we have been playing politics together and we know each other very well. So, once we have the knowledge, the rest is easy.

It is speculated that former VP Atiku and some former governors may be heading to your party. What is the situation? I expect every Nigerian politician to join the SDP. Even President Buhari himself, we welcome him. But we will do things according to the philosophy and principles and discipline of the SDP. What has been missing is discipline. You have many overbearing politicians, no party Chairman can discipline them because they are the ones who handpicked the Chairman and pay him. So who is the bloody Chairman to tell them what they don’t want to hear? But in the SDP, by the grace of God, we have a leadership that controls the party; a leadership that upholds the principles of the party regardless of who is involved. I think when everybody knows that, we begin to have a cleaner political environment.

Can you then tell us those who have signified their intention to join the party? 

I can’t give you a list because you know how politics is played in Nigeria. The people l saw in Abuja on February 12 when we had our first meeting and last Thursday (March 1) were all jubilating, but don’t be surprised if some of them say they have not left their parties. If they still have some meetings with their parties, they won’t want the world to know that they have left. I don’t want to spark any controversy but the newspapers are publishing some names. Meanwhile, I signed the MoU on behalf of the SDP and Prof. Jerry Gana signed on behalf of the group he belongs to. It is not just PDP, there were people from other parties and, I can tell you, in another fortnight, I will be going to some northern states to receive a large crowd of people defecting from the so-called big parties to the SDP including former governors, former senators. When you say something is bad, it is bad. They are all sure that in the SDP they will be well treated.

The National Assembly reordered the 2019 general elections’ timetable set by INEC, a move just vetoed by President Buhari. What is your take?

We should do what is right, what is fair and what will deepen democracy in Nigeria. What will deepen democracy is that sequence of elections that will encourage parties to contest and win elections. If you start with presidential election, you know Nigeria mentality: Once someone wins the presidency, the bandwagon effect will follow; so small and new parties seeking to win the National and state House of Assembly elections will not have any chance. By so doing, you are creating a one-party state; if that is what you want, you can go ahead and do it. But if that is not what you want, let’s do what is sensible, reasonable and what we have done before, which is to start with the House of Assembly election. It is the most widespread, where everybody can play, run and fight; maybe 10 or 12 parties, we will have some victories here and there. If they say any party that does not win anything in the elections, in a democracy, is free to remain a party, but you are not going to contest elections because you are merely causing administrative confusion. You will be justified to say so because they have been given fair chance to try and win something. But when you start with the President, how many parties can contest the elections? And, by definition, you have ruled out 95% of the parties and that is undemocratic. That is why it should be House of Assembly election first, after that the House of Representatives, after that Senate, then governorship and lastly presidential. I think we have done that before and what INEC has done is an attempt to manipulate the elections and fraudulently upstage smaller parties.

In order words, you are in support of the reordering of the elections by the National Assembly? Absolutely. I was in an INEC meeting in Abuja to which party Chairmen were invited to meet National Electoral Commissioners and I told them that ‘you want to be fair and deepen our democracy? Assert your independence of government and if you want to prove that you are not being manipulated, then do the following: House of Assembly first, followed by House of Representatives, then Senate, then governorship and then presidential. That is the fairest and most sensible thing to do.

In your own assessment of the performance of President Buhari, do you think he deserves second term?

It is the absolute prerogative of President Buhari and his party to decide whether he should go for second term or not. Constitutionally, he is entitled to second term. It is his right and, if he chooses to go, it does not bother me. If he goes, it means we will meet him on the field on election day and we will defeat him. If he does not go, he will spare me that pain of having to defeat my good friend in the election. If his party brings somebody else, by the grace of God, we will defeat that person.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of his performance in office. Are you satisfied?

l think all of us agree that his performance has fallen below expectation because I know him as a military man. He was Commissioner for Petroleum under General Obasanjo regime and I was a Permanent Secretary in that government working in the Economic Department. So, based on my observation at the time, l have good reason to be disappointed now because his performance is low. Maybe his illness is part of the explanation, maybe being a military man not used to political manoeuvre and manipulations is the reason. Every chief executive, whether in government or in business, your first responsibility is to learn to manage your board. In government, the people that voted for you, the National Assembly are your board. If you are not able to manage your board successfully, you can’t succeed. Buhari has not been able to manage his board properly and that is why his performance has not been as good as we had expected.

Transparency International was quoted as saying that the Corruption Perception Index under Buhari government is low. What do you think?

Once your management is ineffective, corruption will thrive. He has not been able to manage the government and everything suffers. The federal bureaucracy is enormous. I believe the total number of the staff cannot be less than five million, soldiers, civil defense, police, immigration, regular civil servants, to manage that enormous workforce, the administrator has to work hard to know what is going on. When I became the Secretary to the Federal Government, I was horrified to see hundreds of files for me to attend to. But my experience in the bank for five years helped me. I had seven Permanent Secretaries working with me. I told them it will not be administration as usual ‘and any matter that comes to your table and you are capable of treating without embarrassing government you go ahead, and those you think you can’t attend to because you have no authority to deal with, bring it and you and I will read and we take a decision and you will take your file and go’. No file will sleep in my office and that was how we were able to do it for four years. So my table was clean and my head was clear and was free to think and it helped the President to tackle the difficult problems of the nation. Management is a difficult matter, and you need highly skilled people to manage a vast and complex system like Nigeria. I think it is beyond those who have tried to rule us in recent time.

Some students were kidnapped in Yobe State by Boko Haram and government keeps boasting that the terror group has been technically defeated. What is your perspective?

In a country where that had happened before, one will expect that we would have learned some lessons from Chibok. Apparently, we have not. In the areas where Book Haram is terrorising the people, a boarding school for girls is a soft target and can be attacked any day. So to discourage attacks, you need to put in place adequate security. Clearly, Boko Haram has not been defeated, but the frequency of attacks has reduced and that is some achievement. Globally, terrorist organizations don’t die easily and if they cannot longer fight battles, they break into smaller groups like guerrillas and continue fighting. All these boys fighting in the bush are deprived children who are hungry and uneducated, they do not see any hope for themselves and somebody comes around to preach a place in heaven to them and puts food in their stomachs and tells them ‘follow me to kill these oppressors’ and they will follow you. We should allow military campaign to go hand in hand with economic rehabilitation so that there will be no incentives for these boys to remain in terrorism or those that are not there to be recruited into terrorism.

Are you bothered by the alleged lopsidedness in the appointments made under the Buhari government? 

It did not start with the present government. Three years ago, we held a meeting of the Yoruba Unity Forum led by Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi in Ibadan. We had done some research into the pattern of employment into the federal civil service. We pointed out that many departments were dominated by people who were not from the South-West and there were departments which had not been headed by any Yoruba person and we concluded that this could have been a deliberate thing. It is not a new thing and the new government just continued the practice. The idea of federal character is a serious matter. It means if you want to share 360 things and you have 36 states, that is approximately 10 per state. But to some government, like the one we have today, 50 will probably go to the state of the President, and then two or three to other states. This is not acceptable. Some people say that there must be affirmative action in the award of scholarship, in terms of admissions based on concessions but not in terms of bastardizing the system as in appointments.

That kind of bastardization has caused anger in the country. Nigeria belongs to all of us and my position is that federal character has so far failed to address lopsidedness and imbalance in several cadres in the public service because those who are operating the system, from the beginning, have focused entirely on the top level of the civil service. They bring people from northern civil service and promote them to level 15 and they will be there for four or five years and they move to the top. For the sake of fairness, at the point of entry, make it equal, maybe 10 per state; and every one of the 10 has basic qualifications and moves in the best possible way; that would be the most comprehensive federal character we would ever have. But when they bring somebody to level 15 who never went to university, his performance is substandard, although he may give himself any title.

As a leader of Afenifere, are you not concerned about the alleged marginalisation of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the ruling APC after he had helped the party to capture power at the federal level? 

We had in the past made our position clear through our leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, that Yoruba leaders believe that part of why he is treated that way is because of where he comes from; we might be wrong, but that is what we believe. He is a smart guy and a politician who knows what to do to favour him at every time and every stage in his life. He is not a baby, he has not said he needs my advice or tutoring or mentoring, so it is unnecessary to ask for an unsolicited advice on his behalf. So if tomorrow Asiwaju Tinubu decides to come to the SDP, he will be welcomed.

Of course yes; we were both members of the SDP before, so it will be ‘welcome home Bola Tinubu’.

Prof. Ango Abdullahi in a recent interview said herdsmen are fighting injustice hence the killings and maiming.

He is a man I know during the old SDP days when I was seeking the presidential nomination and he was backing General Shehu Yar’Adua. I have a lot of respect for him because he was a Vice Chancellor at a time but some of the things attributed to him, recently, surprised me. I cannot make sense in his claim that killer herdsmen are fighting injustice; you can say they are fighting because of a situation they cannot help, that will be nearer the truth. It is a fact that Lake Chad, which used to sustain hundreds of thousands of herds and farmers, has dried to less than 1/5 of its original size. Those that depend on the lake have to survive but you cannot rationalise the killings to say they do it because of injustice. Who brought the injustice? Is it the nature that dried up the lake? It is not injustice, he used the wrong word. He may say they are struggling with a very difficult situation and who should he blame?: state governments in the North who have responsibility for looking after their people. If Chad is drying up and desertification is advancing in the far North, there should be measures in place. So (Ango Abdullahi) should abuse governors of those states and not the hapless farmers of Benue or Ondo or Nasarawa or the South being attacked by herdsmen; they are not the ones doing any injustice to herdsmen, it is due to nature and failure of the state governments to provide good governance.

He went further to say that your kidnap by some herdsmen was nothing special.

He has every right to feel so but when I was kidnapped, the nation trembled. You will recall that soon after I came out, Yoruba leaders met in Ibadan and passed a resolution that if government failed to protect our people, the Yoruba will find a way out of the country. Nothing has ever pushed the Yoruba to that point; if despite that Ango Abdullahi feels that there is nothing special about the kidnap, good luck to him. I want to thank President Buhari because he sent the Inspector General of Police to Ondo State himself to go and look for me.

What is the way out of herdsmen crisis?

We are not dealing with something people have not done before. Almost every nation on earth eats cows as we do. But you don’t go to California and run into cattle on the tarmac. You don’t even go to Ghana and find cattle in the city square. We found the solution at the National Conference in 2014 that free grazing of cattle is out of date, disappeared over 200 years ago in most countries and that we cannot continue to live in the past. Ranching is the answer, not by walking your cattle from Kano to Akure and, by the time they get here, they are all bones, and that’s why they desperately needed my maize and cassava to become fresh again so that the cows could be sold at good prices. . 

The nation’s debt incurred by PDP in 16 years was put at about N6 trillion but reports say it   has jumped up to about N11trillion in three years of the Buhari administration. 

I have not read the story and I will like to see. I am not like most Nigerians, not only because I am an economist. I was once the Finance Minister and l have knowledge of the internal workings of government. If there is a marching creation of assets, the debt is nothing to shout about. If I go to the bank and I borrow N500million and I build a factory that is producing and making profit and the debt is still there, is that a debt? But if I borrowed N500million and I have nothing to show for it, then there is a problem. It depends on what government did with the money they borrowed. If they used it to create assets, not necessarily commercial assets that can create income, but if they created assets that brought relief to the economy, for example, good roads, potable supply and electricity and people can run their businesses, there is nothing bad about it. But if the money is borrowed and you can’t identify the assets created with it, then there is a problem because you have to pay back the debt. First you have to service the debt, pay interest before it matures. And if people say they met empty an treasury, that is an empty statement. The treasury can never be empty because everyday revenue flows in and expenditure flows out. In public finance, those who say it are semi-illiterate. Everyday customs duties are being paid at the wharf and that money goes to the federal government. And you talk about Value Added Tax (VAT) every day as people buy things and the revenue goes into government coffers.  

Vanguard

The story of liberal democracy flourished when the Soviet Union fell into irreconcilable parts and eastern Europe smothered under communist ideology went on a tear of disintegration. West exulted and one of its noted intellectuals, Francis Fukuyama, announced gloatingly that liberal ideas would now rule the world. So, Fukuyama and his uproarious choir proclaimed “the end of history.”

Fast forward to 2018. And that celebration sounds too optimistic and premature. This age is aflame with a sense of illiberalism. Against this background, a Vladimir Putin roars to a return to power as the indispensable man in Russia, a Duterte of the Philippines rejoices over his bloodthirsty programmes, an Erdogan of Turkey relishes throwing journalists behind bars and entrenching himself as the despot of the land. Even in the world’s most adored democracy, the leader, Donald J. Trump of the roosterly combover, coddles all these men and even looks to them with a sort of systemic envy.

China has never regarded itself as a western-style democracy. Never mind that its citizens, like most in the world, fall to elements of its cultural imperialism: movies, fashion, eateries, music, et al. China has always seen itself in the light of its imperial past, its burgeoning civilisation, its eminent military, its science, its arts, the pop and colour of its royalty.

When its present leader, Xi Jinping was voted overwhelmingly as the premier for life, or at least indefinitely, the west saw this as antagonistic to what it saw as the wise path for nations. Yet what cannot be denied is President Xi’s era has been marked by a systematic whittling down of his opposition.

He has also turned its military, though still far behind the United States’, to an increasingly powerful force in a world that is verging gradually into an arms race. He has also become an apostle of what many military and geo-political analysts call the Asian pivot, trying to overthrow the United States as the major force in southeast Asia.

All of these mean he has revived the pride of the Asian stalwart and fed nostalgia to its stature as the world’s dominant power. The decision to make him the paramount ruler counters a cautionary chapter in its history a generation ago when the same Chinese power elite decided to chasten its rulers to term limits.

This was after the death of its famous leader, Mao Zedong, who had unlimited powers. Mao gave the country a revolution in the communist style. His style was not only that of a despot but he subjected the country’s citizens to years of extreme suffering in what was known as the cultural revolution and the great leap forward.

He had overthrown the ancient regime, a feudal stronghold and asphyxiated a strong and virile people. So, at his exit, the political elite decided that Mao had wielded too much power and it was necessary to avert such tyrannical muscle in the future. The era of the gang of four in which a quartet strangulated the country with a show of power and corruption in a decade of turmoil capped the Zedong years.

These temptations to tyranny led to the enactment of the term limits. In spite of the benefit of hindsight,why did the Chinese elite succumb to another set of experimentation? We are not aware of any show of power arrogance in an overt sense from Xi. But he has been firm on his foes and sterilised them. Could that be a prelude to a more robust manifestation of power?

Yet, the system that led to term limits was not a western style system but it was an overthrow of an autocracy by the cult of one man. That cult seems awake again in China. Is this a different time? Mao Zedong allowed his wife to bring the system into a fever of oppression of the citizens. Do the Chinese bear that in mind or are they so trustful of Xi that they believe that his level-headedness will prevail?

He is presiding over unexampled prosperity and national pride and it could be that they believe that he has the personal vision and acumen that no other person can deliver on the national stage.

This is how autocracy yields to dictators. We only hope that he does not precipitate the indiscretions that Mao brought his fraught land. There is always a trap fall in a system that relies on one man. The Chinese and Xi are betting on the premier. The world watches.

The Nation

Russians voted in a presidential election on Sunday set to give Vladimir Putin a runaway victory, the only possible blemish for the Kremlin being if large numbers of voters do not bother taking part because the result is so predictable.

Opinion polls give Putin, the incumbent, support of around 70 percent, or nearly 10 times the backing of his nearest challenger. Another term will take him to nearly a quarter century in power — a longevity among Kremlin leaders second only to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Putin’s opponents alleged officials were trying to inflate the turnout.

Many voters credit Putin, a 65-year-old former KGB spy, with standing up for Russia’s interests in a hostile outside world, even though the cost is confrontation with the West.

A row with Britain over allegations the Kremlin used a nerve toxin to poison a Russian double agent in a sleepy English town — denied by Moscow — has not dented his standing.

The majority of voters see no viable alternative to Putin: he has total dominance of the political scene and the state-run television, where most people get their news, gives lavish coverage of Putin and little airtime to his rivals.

Galina Zhukova, a pensioner, came to polling station number 1512 in Zelenodolsk, about 800 km (500 miles) east of Moscow, with her husband, Alexei. They arrived soon after the doors opened.

“We voted for Putin. Things are all right for us,” said Alexei. “And there’s no one else to vote for,” said Galina.

A day of voting across Russia’s 11 time zones began at 2000 GMT on Saturday on Russia’s eastern edge, in the Pacific coast city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

There, voters were handed small plastic flags with the slogan: “I love Kamchatka. We are the first.”

Voting will run until polls close at the westernmost point of Russia, the Kaliningrad region on the Baltic Sea, at 1800 GMT on Sunday.

A March 9 survey by state-run pollster VTsIOM gave Putin, who was first elected president in 2000, support of 69 percent. His nearest rival Pavel Grudinin, the Communist Party’s candidate, is on just 7 percent.

The first politician in years to challenge the Kremlin’s grip on power, Alexei Navalny, is barred from the race because of a corruption conviction he says was fabricated by the Kremlin.

He is calling for a boycott of the election, saying it is an undemocratic farce, and deploying supporters to collect evidence of anyone rigging the ballot to inflate turnout and support for Putin. The Kremlin and election officials say any fraud will be stamped out.

In an address to the nation broadcast on national television on Friday, Putin said voters held the fate of the country in their hands and urged them to vote.

A low turnout would diminish Putin’s authority in his next term, which, under the constitution, has to be his last.

“There is no intrigue. I do not see any point for me in going to the election,” said Alexei Khvorostov, a resident of Krasnodar, in southern Russia.

Yevgeny Roizman, a Kremlin opponent who is mayor of the industrial city of Yekaterinburg, said officials were using bribes and inducements to persuade people to vote.

“They’re herding the whole country to the polling stations,” Roizman, a rare example of an elected official opposed to the Kremlin, said in a video blog. “It’s degrading... We’re not sheep.”

In the Khabarovsk region, on Russia’s Pacific coast, officials delivered supplies of eggs, tinned peas and frozen pike to polling stations. It will be sold to voters at a discount of between 10 and 30 percent compared to prices in local shops.

“By doing this we hope to attract voters to the polling stations and we think we can increase turnout,” said Nikolai Kretsu, chairman of the consumer market committee in the regional administration.

“The second objective is to strengthen allegiance toward the authorities.”

Reuters

Nigeria is sliding fast. The people’s dreams are transfiguring to nightmares. The hope Nigerians once had has turned forlorn. Misery reigns in high and low places. Despondency has become the citizens’ lot. Hopelessness is driving young Nigerians into peril in their search for a more luxuriant pasture. They want to be anywhere but their fatherland. They believe in any country but their native land. In their desperation to bid Nigeria bye, they brave the hunger and the danger of the desert, the terror of Libya’s slave camps and the turbulence of the Mediterranean Sea. Many have lost their lives while searching for the elusive Golden Fleece. Many have lost limbs. Many have been turned into slaves. Yet more are determined to travel same path. Even those once rescued have returned to their land of slavery.

How shall we tell the President that our young men and women are losing faith in their fatherland? How will the President know that he needs to arrest this situation? Shall we send Alhaji Lai Mohammed? Or shall we ask Lauretta Onochie to tweet at him?

Perhaps the President does not know that our value system as a nation is being daily eroded by the corruptive inclination of his appointees. How shall we tell the President? Shall we send Katsina elders to him? Or shall we give the task to Colonel Hameed Ali (Rtd.)?

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo once bailed Nigeria out of serious indebtedness. His administration, after effecting part payment of the huge debt, got $18billion debt forgiveness for the country. But according to the DMO, Nigeria’s debt stood at N21.7trillion as of December 2017. Warning about the consequences of the debt-piling attitude of Nigeria, IMF last year said over 60 percent of the country’s budget goes for debt servicing. How shall we tell the President that our country is regressing into economic slavery?

How shall we tell the President that with merely 34 percent left of our budget after debt servicing, development will remain a mirage in our land? How shall we tell the President that racking up debts today is a recipe for a difficult time for future generations? How will the President get to know this? Shall we send Mallam Nasir el-Rufai or Alhaji Yahaya Bello? 

IGP Ibrahim Idris flouted the President’s directive to relocate to Benue State after the gruesome killings by herdsmen in the state, yet the President was oblivious to this. After being intimated with this gross misconduct whose obvious consequence was more killing in Benue State, the President has been too genial to wield the big stick. Mass killing has become a daily occurrence in Nigeria, yet the President is either too busy to stop the killings or too timid to punish dereliction of duty. The President has been too engrossed in self adulation to hear the gush of Nigerians’ blood. Despite relentless bloodletting in the country, the President was so satisfied with his performance about securing the country that he rated himself better than Dr Goodluck Jonathan. But how shall we tell the President that this is not what those who voted for him in 2015 expected?

How shall we tell the President that those who trekked from Lagos and other places to Abuja to felicitate with him did not envisage this? How shall we tell the President that he is losing grip of the nation? Shall we send the First Lady or do we trek to Abuja to express our frustration?

By the government’s own admission, over 80 million Nigerians live in abject poverty, which makes Nigeria home to the largest concentration of poor people globally. In addition, over 10 million people are in need of food assistance. More people slide into poverty at an unprecedented rate in this country. While other countries are moving their people out of poverty, we seem to immerse ours deeper in it.

How shall we tell the President that he needs to save Nigerians from poverty? Who shall convey to the President the need to save our children from the pangs of hunger? Shall we send Musa Daura? Or shall we send Abba Kiyari?

Amidst all these, a survey showed Nigerians as becoming happier. Is this mirth in the midst of misery? Or is it what Fela Anikulapo called shuffering and shmiling? Can the people become happier when they are getting hungrier? Can they be happier when they are getting poorer? How can they become happier when their hope gets dimmer daily? Shall we tell the President before the government rolls out the drums in celebration of this report that the rating agency probably mistook the deriding laughter that trailed the announcement of dead people as chairmen of government agencies as a measure of the citizens’ gaiety?

President Muhammadu Buhari cancelled his trip to Rwanda for the signing of the Continental Free Trade Area framework in order to allow more time for input from more Nigerian stakeholders. 

The spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tope Adeleye Elias-Fatile,  explained this in a statement on Sunday. 

Buhari had earlier been scheduled to leave for Kigali on Monday for an extraordinary meeting of the African Union Heads of State and Government billed to hold Tuesday for the signing of the AfCFTA agreement. 

Some of his advance team members were in Kigali when the news of the cancelation of the trip broke; while others, comprising protocol staff, security officers and journalists were yesterday recalled from Murtala International Airport, Lagos, where they were to take off. 

The Federal Executive Council had Wednesday given President Buhari the go-ahead to sign the framework agreement for the AfCFTA. 

The council had also approved that Nigeria express her interest in hosting the secretariat of the AfCFTA. 

Meanwhile, the organized labour,  through the Nigeria Labour Congress, had last weekend pleaded with Buhari not to sign the CFTA, warning that it would destroy Nigeria's economy.

It had described the proposed signing of the CFTA as "a renewed, extremely dangerous and radioactive neoliberal policy initiative being driven by the Ministry of Trade and Investment that seeks to open our seaports,  airports and other businesses to unbridled foreign interference never before witnessed in the history of the country. 

"This policy initiative, for instance, will make it possible for a foreign airline to directly do local scheduled flights without employing Nigerians. Owing to the sensitivity of this policy or its possible fall-outs on our economy, those driving it were directed to consult the Nigerian local business community and organised labour.

“However, we at the organised labour were not consulted. Information reaching us suggests that the relevant business community has not been consulted. The drivers of this policy initiative, without consulting the relevant stake holders for possible impact assessment, have perfected a document which President Muhammadu Buhari will sign  at Kigali on  March 21, 2018. We, at the NEC,  are shocked by the sheer impunity or blatant lack of consultation in the process that has led to this.”

Daily Trust

We agree with Senate’s decision last Thursday to frown at the court order granted by Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court purporting to maintain the status quo ante bellum with respect to ongoing efforts to amend the Electoral Act. The suit was brought to court by the Accord Party. The process of amendment had already reached a critical point when President Muhammadu Buhari wrote to both Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday last week withholding his assent to the Electoral Act 2010 amendment bill passed by both chambers of the National Assembly on February 13. 

Since the president has exercised his constitutional power and vetoed the bill, what remained was for the National Assembly’s two chambers to assemble a two thirds majority in both chambers to override the veto. In that case it becomes law even without presidential assent. If they fail to muster such a majority, then the bill fails to become law. Even if it is passed into law, anyone with locus standi who objects to it can then go to court and test its legality, but not before. Senate decided last week to write to Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen and urge him to draw the attention of judicial officers to the principle of separation of powers. The senators are right that the constitutional power of law making should not be stopped by a court, but any law so passed can be challenged in court for interpretation of its constitutionality.

In our view, neither the National Assembly’s nor the president’s stance on this matter is free of personal motives. Each one wants his or their election to be held first because it confers certain political advantages. As we argued in a previous editorial, we think that INEC should organise only two elections as was done in 2015, not three as the National Assembly wants in this amendment. Also, we believe that neither presidential nor National Assembly polls should hold first; that the most logical thing is to hold governorship and state assembly polls first and to hold federal elections next. However this matter is resolved, INEC should make the right arrangements to hold the polls according to the law, and this could alter its current arrangements. 

At this point we must remind both presidency and National Assembly of the need to resolve this matter as quickly as possible. The Electoral Act 2010 amendment bill contains many items other than election sequence, such as enshrining card reader into law. Whatever election sequence is adopted, we must legally protect the sanctity of the card reader, lest the gains of the last five years are completely thrown overboard.

Daily Trust

The Senator representing Kaduna Central District, Shehu Sani, has said despite the reconciliation undertaken by a leader in the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, there is still a ‘civil and cold war’ within the party.

The civil rights advocate Senator, who recently disclosed the monthly pay of each Senator, asked Nigerians to pressure those in the Presidency, the governors, the ministers, and others in government agencies and parastatals to disclose how much they get monthly.

On election re-ordering, he explained that the National Assembly took the decision to prevent what he called a “mass trial and mass conviction” of its members, adding that Nigerians would have a choice to assess their lawmakers separately from President Muhammadu Buhari. 

“The National Assembly is made up of distinguished personalities: doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics and all who made it in life. But because of this culture of secrecy and silence, people who found themselves in the National Assembly are criminalised and stigmatised.”

“The dome of the National Assembly is being seen to house people of questionable character and integrity. So, what I did was to rescue the honour and credibility of the National Assembly by removing the veil secrecy to bring it once and for all to an end,” he said.

Tribune

A huge number of Nigerians, from what I can see, will vote against President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019. Which is no news, really. All you need to do is read the newspapers, watch the TV, listen to the radio or browse the internet to come to that conclusion. Those who voted against him in 2015 will certainly do it again.

But the crowd is expanding rapidly, from what I can glean, and this is what should actually worry Buhari, who has so far not hidden his intention to seek a second term in office. When your opponents rally against you, that is natural. But when your own supporters become openly critical of you, then you need to worry. Buhari needs to lose some sleep.

But anytime someone tells me Buhari has lost much goodwill and does not deserve another term in office in 2019, the statement I usually make is that “you cannot analyse an election in isolation of the opposition”. It is not enough to say an incumbent has failed and does not deserve another chance. You need to also work out how he will be voted out. If not, he will get re-elected by default in spite of public disenchantment.

People can be dissatisfied as much as they want, but that could translate to nothing in the end. In the “aluta” community, they say “organise, don’t agonise”. No amount of agonising can defeat Buhari if the opposition is not well organised.

The way the Nigerian political firmament is today, what you can call opposition is highly fragmented. Coming barely a year to the general election, this is no good news. I’m told 24 hours is a long time in politics and something major can still happen — which is true. However, by this time in 2014, APC was already consolidated and ready to do battle. Today, much of opposition’s hope is built on the assumption that people are disappointed with Buhari and will automatically vote against him. Yet we know you don’t defeat an incumbent in Africa through wishful thinking. Anywhere an incumbent has lost, it is usually because the opposition played smarter.

Generally, Obasanjo was poorly rated during his first term in office. He spent most of the time in the air looking for “foreign investors”. He was constantly at war with the National Assembly and organised labour. There was pervasive insecurity, from Sharia riots in the north to uprising by Bakassi boys and OPC in the south. Political killings were commonplace. Fuel prices kept going up, leading to strikes, and the refineries remained comatose.

Power supply was as epileptic as ever. Federal roads were an embarrassment, with the horrendous Benin-Ore axis — the gateway to the oil-rich region that produces the Nigeria’s livelihood — making headlines as the “shame of a nation”.

Obasanjo still went on to get a second term. Why? People would talk about the incumbency factor — which guarantees the misuse of state agencies such as the electoral commission, police, military, DSS, NNPC and CBN. I wouldn’t downplay the significance of that. However, as we saw in 2015, you can control all these things and still lose an election if the opposition is very strong. As at 2003, the opposition was highly fragmented: ANPP (which is now part of APC) was limited to the north; AD (whose leaders later moved on to form AC/ACN before fusing into APC) was basically a south-west property; and APGA was more interested in Biafra.

In a sense, Obasanjo played on the fragmentation of opposition parties to keep PDP in power. In 1999, there were three officially recognised parties — PDP, APP and AD. The military actually wanted a two-party system — which would have produced only PDP and APP — but afraid that the south-west might boycott the election and raise hell again, they lightened the preconditions to accommodate AD.

At the end of the general election, PDP produced 21 governors, APP nine and AD six. If APP and AD had fused, as was being proposed then, they would have controlled 15 states and would most likely have grown stronger to keep PDP in check in subsequent elections.

AD, however, insisted on going it alone, ridiculing APP (All Peoples Party) as “Abacha People’s Party” because of the preponderance of those who served the Abacha government. Ironically, AD went into an alliance with the same APP for the 1999 presidential election, losing to the PDP. On assuming office, Obasanjo began to systematically decimate the opposition. He appointed the APP chairman, Alhaji Mahmud Waziri, as his special adviser. He later made the AD chairman, Alhaji Adamu Ahmed Abdulkadir, his special assistant. The opposition was in disarray and began to die in instalment. Thereafter, Obasanjo lured many ANPP (formerly APP) governors into his fold.

After the 2003 polls, most ANPP governors became Obasanjo’s “boys”. Buhari, the ANPP flag bearer, became politically orphaned. Not a single ANPP governor was with him any longer, including Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau who had been elected governor of Kano state simply because Buhari raised his hand. In no time, Nigeria began to move towards a one-party state — which Obasanjo had vigorously propagated for decades as a commentator on African affairs. Many opposition governors started defecting to the PDP. When Obasanjo was in 2007, PDP controlled 29 out of 36 states. The party was walking on water. At some point, they threatened to rule Nigeria for 60 years.

But something changed ahead of the 2015 elections. Many would say it was because of President Goodluck Jonathan’s soft nature — “live and let live” — while others would say it was because there were powerful political forces at play. Whatever it was, the opposition managed to come together, even if it was a marriage of strange bed fellows. Helped by the fracturing of PDP and the defection of five governors, the emerging APC became a redoubtable force. For the first time, the opposition had a real chance of displacing the ruling party.

It appeared they had learnt from their failures in 2003, 2007 and 2011. And, by the way, there was a formidable Buhari to fly the flag.

Typical of Nigerian politicians, as soon as Buhari won the election, they began to flock to APC. I was scared and I wrote about it (THISDAY, April 5, 2015), warning that opposition might become insignificant again — the same thing that sustained PDP in power for 16 years. Today, APC has 24 governors to PDP’s 11 and APGA’s one. In the national assembly, legislators are daily defecting to APC without shame. Politicians who could have stayed back to rebuild PDP could not imagine life in political wilderness devoid of milk and honey. They started flocking to APC. Whereas APC is internally unstable, it is not losing as many key members as necessary to impact on its fortune.

PDP, as presently constituted, is still the strongest opposition platform. But its brand image is not sparkling. After overcoming the storm-in-a-tea-cup internal imbroglio which many swore had the hand of APC, the PDP is now perceived as the property of one or two governors. Meanwhile, the SDP has been telling us that governors and senators will defect to “our fold” in large numbers “next week” but next week never seems to come. There is also the third force as well as the third farce. The youth are mobilising and saying they are not too young to run. A lot is going on, but where is the harmonisation? It’s less than 10 months to the nomination of candidates!

What am I driving at? It is not enough to say “Anyone But Buhari”. Agreed, “Anyone But Jonathan” worked magic in 2015, but it was a combination of many factors. For one, the opposition worked together. They were not just shouting “Anyone But Jonathan” all over the place. Remember, too, that there was a Buhari with massive electoral value in the north who was helped by a national movement to take out Jonathan. Yoruba would say “ara ran bombu l’owo”. Everything simply came together in the nick of time. While I am not ruling out the chances of the opposition (I’m not that reckless), I also don’t think they should assume that displacing Buhari is a done deal.

……………

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS

SANI REVELATION

Senator Shehu Sani has set the ball rolling by telling us how much each senator takes home every month. It comes to over N14m in a country where minimum wage is N18,000. Every senator — Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, Muslim, Christian, conservative, progressive — collects it. The senate spokesman tried to assault our intelligence by saying “it is nothing new, it is in the budget” — knowing fully that it is not broken down. Now that we know what senators earn, what about the reps? They will tell us it is inside the budget! Can the “progressive” reps help us break it down? And may we know how much do members of the 36 houses of assembly take home too? Nigeria!!!

BUHARI VS JONATHAN

Was it not last week that I was wondering why we keep discussing former President Goodluck Jonathan when we should be discussing President Muhammadu Buhari? At what point are we going to move on and face the future? Buhari himself is determined to keep playing that game. He was in Dapchi, Yobe state, where 110 schoolgirls remain missing after being kidnapped, and he boasted that he reacted better than Jonathan did over the Chibok kidnappings in 2014. The parents of the Dapchi girls will not agree with Buhari, though. And you can understand why. If Buhari did better than Jonathan, why are their daughters still with Boko Haram? Simple.

THE TROLLERS

Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, chairman of THISDAY editorial board and arguably Nigeria’s most popular columnist, almost ran into an ambush on Twitter last week. Assuming that he was going to have an intellectual engagement on the state of the Nigerian media, he walked straight into trolling by one chap who said journalists collect money from Buhari (the fellow even dragged the name of my humble self into it). In my opinion, those who lack integrity are always the first to question the integrity of others. Nevertheless, public debate is critical to our development and all good people must learn to eat the rice and ignore the stone. Tact.

STEPHEN HAWKING

I don’t know much about physics, just that I am always fascinated by things like gravitation, motion, time, space, light, relativity, black hole and stuff. The more I try to understand them, the more I force my brain into overdrive, so I quickly respect myself and give up. Stephen Hawking, the British physicist who just died at the age of 76, goes into history for propounding theories that left fellow physicists with problems to solve! Isaac Newton gave us the law of gravitation. When man eventually landed on the moon over 200 years later, the law was more than confirmed. Hawking’s theory on the black hole will be absolutely confirmed someday. Maybe in AD 2300. Genius.

In an audacious move, the Nigeria Police on Saturday refuted claims by Presidency officials that President Muhammadu Buhari had queried the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, for his alleged disobedience to a presidential directive ordering him to relocate to Benue State in the aftermath of the New Year day massacre in the state.

“The IGP was not queried,” Jimoh Moshood, newly promoted Assistant Commissioner of Police and Force Public Relations Officer, said firmly to THISDAY on phone, adding: “There is very clear issue on that, that he was not queried by the President.”

But the president was told by the Benue State Governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom, and elders of the state during his condolence visit to Makurdi, the state capital, last week, that the police boss disobeyed his directive, saying Idris never spent a night in the state.

Rather, the IGP was said to have spent only a day in Benue, relocating to neighbouring Nasarawa State, from where he subsequently returned to Abuja.

“I did not know that the IG did not stay in the state. I am getting to know this at this meeting. I am quite surprised,” a visibly embarrassed Buhari told his distraught hosts, who were on the boil for what they called less than caring attitude of the president that was visiting the state more than two months after the incident.

Buhari’s comment attracted severe criticisms from many Nigerians who felt that the president was not in charge of his responsibilities, giving room for the disobedience of his orders by his appointees, like the IGP.

Many Nigerians had also called on the president to sack the IGP following the revelation.

Last Tuesday, Idris was an early morning caller at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where presidential spokespersons said he was queried over his alleged disobedience to the presidential order to relocate to Benue State.

“Pres @MBuhari today summoned the Inspector-General of Police to explain his flouting of the presidential order to remain in Benue State. The President has also asked for a comprehensive report on Police Operations in the affected States, after which further decisions will be made. We would like to restate our determination to ensure that the attacks and killings are brought to an end, and perpetrators brought to justice,” an official twitter handle of the president read.

Relying on this twit many Nigerians believed that the IGP had been queried and that he was preparing his response.

However, on Saturday when THISDAY asked the police spokesperson for an update on the presumed query, he rebutted the claim.

“Anybody that said the IGP was queried by the president should bring the copy of the query, let us display it,” Moshood said.

He argued that those speculating that the IGP had been queried by the president were angling to cause disharmony and disaffection, with the intension to distort facts.

Moshood told THISDAY that since the presidential visit to the state, security of lives and property of the people had improved.

ThisDay