Sensitive materials for the upcoming Ondo State governorship election, have arrived in Akure, the state capital.
The materials were flown to Akure by the Nigerian Air Force. Upon arrival, officials from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) were on hand to receive them.
The election is scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 16.
More to follow…
By Tonnie Iredia
Between Saturday, February 25, 2023 when the presidential and national assembly elections were held in Nigeria and today, the mass media have been replete with calls for the next president to compose a government of national unity (GNU).
The argument is that such a strategy could calm frayed nerves and create some measure of unity between winners and losers of elections. However, an overview of elections in Nigeria does not reveal the commitment of our politicians to national unity.
What history seems to attribute to them is the propensity to always get into one office or the other only to perpetrate their hobby of primitive appropriation and accumulation of public funds. In which case, the call for unity government which is usually instigated by the political class is essentially to keep on course opportunities for their personal gains.
For example, in 2003, when General Muhammadu Buhari the then presidential candidate of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party ANPP was at the middle of an election petition to claim his mandate, officials of his party were scrambling to share the few positions allocated to their party in the government of national unity instituted by the victorious PDP.
The greedy officials neither put their presidential candidate into confidence nor did they follow the guidelines of the party for aligning with another party. The decision to be part of the so-called unity government was made by the party officials whose basic motivation was the material benefit they looked forward to from the arrangement.
In 2007, many of those who accused President Olusegun Obasanjo of a third term ambition were leading politicians from outside the PDP who had hoped that the third term government would be that of national unity that would include them. In 2011, opposition parties didn’t show much interest in Goodluck Jonathan’s proposed unity government but ample background work was done concerning the idea.
One of the pillars of democracy is majority rule. Consequently, good democrats have no business in a government formed by a political party to which they do not belong. Except a political system provides for proportional representation in which seats in the legislature are awarded to political parties in proportion to their strength in an election, government of national unity is unnecessary.
It is only in Nigeria where politicians seek to function as permanent state actors that those who lost elections always agitate for a government of national unity. After 24 years of continuous democratic rule, it is time for Nigerian politicians to grow up and allow the majority party to form a government which should be placed on its toes by a viable opposition. Otherwise, we shall continue to have a pseudo-democracy in which everyone bows to a ruling party so as to be appointed into some government position. It is for the same reason that the 9th national assembly under the guise of collaborative federalism functioned all through from the pocket of the executive.
Luckily for our commercial politicians, the so-called victorious parties are always favourably disposed to the institution of a government of national unity because the acclaimed winners feel the way out is to placate owners of stolen mandate. Indeed, in many constituencies in the past, votes were swapped to make losers become winners while in some other locations, election results were simply procured for polling booths where voting did not happen.
Following the failure to put a halt to election rigging, it will certainly be difficult to stop the agitation for government of national unity. It is true that smooth talkers who can fluently defend our bogus elections abound in the nation but such partisan orators often look at election rigging from a narrow perspective.
Those who give pass marks to INEC and the election process often focus on the pictorial display of election materials arriving in different states in the country; orderly queuing and ballot casting in voting centres and the beautifully adorned conference centre where results are cosmetically finalized.
If the truth must be told, Nigerian elections have not been good. Our people should not allow themselves to be misled by the diplomatically coated reports of international election monitors and observers. What should always be noted is the unending caution which the same observers always put in an idiom that “the devil of Nigeria’s elections is in the details.”
What this idiom means is that Nigerian elections look simple on the surface but the details are usually convoluted and problematic. Our elections are likely to remain knotty if we continue to overlook the fraudulent details of the collation of results that are hurriedly declared with fanfare. Of course if the right process is followed, we could easily move one step away from incessant and selfish calls for government of national unity after every election. Such a trend would ensure good elections which are more likely to produce visionary leaders that would initiate and implement good public policies capable of improving the living standards of the people
The point that is being made is that what can best unite a given society is good governance and not the struggle for power by politicians. This presupposes that those declared winners of elections must be prepared to bring on board only persons who can add value to governance. Whereas a new president is free to appoint some of his supporters into his government, such appointees must first and foremost be visibly capable of doing the job.
Critical offices ought not to be used just for rewarding party supporters. A new president or governor must remember that many people who voted for them are not necessarily members of their party. In other words, being a member of the victorious party should essentially serve as an added advantage for appointing people. Governance is a tough task that requires the best hands, otherwise success may be hard to achieve.
In the case of heterogeneous societies such as Nigeria, the old order of emphasis on state of origin should change to a clear understanding of the expedience of good management of diverse cultures. One reason Nigeria wins more awards in sports than governance is because only the very best find their way into our sports teams while everyone no matter their visible deficiencies get into our governance teams. Today, Nigeria does not have a state which lacks strong hands, why not bring into government the best hands of every state as a double advantage that reduces the cry of marginalization and enhances the quality performance of officials? Nothing else can engender unity more than such an inclusive approach to governance which was in the first instance the framework which the federal principle in our constitution was designed to achieve.
Nigeria had in the 1970s worked assiduously towards national unity by formulating strategic policies such as the National Youth Service Corps programme. Until quite recently, the NYSC served as tool for national unity and integration. But like many Nigerian policies, most of the lofty ideas of its founders have been greatly diluted.
The federal character principle on its part has been politicised and poorly managed. In fact, the commission which was set up to ensure the smooth implementation of the principle by other societal institutions has itself been found wanting in upholding the same principle. This is where elected leaders should pay greater attention to because what the nation desires is unity among its disparate groups and not the class unity which the politicians harp upon.
In summary, Nigeria is in dire need of national development which can only be attained through the instrumentality of visionary leaders that are freely elected by voters. For this to happen, ruling parties must stop appointing partisan officials into INEC that is supposed to be an impartial umpire.
The electoral process must be credible and not the charade we watched on national television during yesterday’s governorship and houses of assembly elections in well-known volatile areas like Lagos. Painfully, the credibility of our security agencies who had earlier read riot acts while claiming to be battle ready to stop all disruptions was rubbished. If this culture of electoral malpractices continues, government of national unity as a damage control strategy cannot help Nigeria to grow.
March 19, 2023
It was in 2002 that Reverend Fr. Ejike Camillus Anthony Mbaka first unraveled. That year, he would gather his congregation at the Adoration Ministry and ask everyone to start pointing at the Lion building (Enugu govt house) while commanding Holy Ghost fire against the then governor Chimaroke Nnamani whom he said was a wicked Governor who God already told him would not live beyond that year not to talk of winning the 2003 re-election.
This man didn’t just stop at this weekly harvest of Holy Ghost fire against the governor, he actually went a step further to release a special audio tape titled “This Wicked Generation” in which he swore that if Chimaroke won his 2003 reelection bid, he (Mbaka) would know he was not serving a living God and would therefore resign as a Priest.
2003 election came and governor Chimaroke won his re-election, finished his second term and even contested and won another election as a Senator. As I type, Chimaroke is currently in the senate TWENTY YEARS after. And he just secured another ticket to go to the Senate again in 2023 and is set to be the Enugu state governor come 2023 BY PROXY.
Mbaka neither resigned as he swore he would nor did he even apologize for telling lies in God’s name.
This is Mbaka for you. A religious Ponzi Master who praises anyone who gives him money even if that person kilked a million innocent people to make that money. And once you refuse to give him money, you become an enemy. Recall how he lamented that the presidency no longer picks his call which was exactly why he started attacking the same Buhari whom he was praising in 2019 at a time it was obvious that his govt has been a disaster.
If you know Mbaka so well, you won’t wonder why he said a man who throws money around, even if it is stolen public fund, is better for Nigeria of today than another man who refuses to PUBLICLY announce his donation to the church even when doing so would have earned him some political capital but instead, requested to be taken to the project site, that he could even singlehandedly execute the project for the church. And this same man went and donated N100,000,000 to Bishop Shanaham Specialist Hospital Nsukka (BSSHN) to upgrade its School of Nursing and Midwifery to a College. BSSHN is a missionary hospital owned and managed by Nsukka Catholic Diocese.
Between PUBLICLY giving money to Mbaka, without seeing any project for which he intends to use the money, And donating a whopping N100,000000 to upgrade an academic HEALTH institution owned by the church, WHICH ONE SERVES HUMANITY AND GOD BETTER????
I’m happy that Nigerians are waking up. Integrrity-challenged, morally bankrupt crooks can no longer continue to hold us hostage simply because they are wearing a white cassock.
My only disappointment is with the mother church for refusing to wield the big stick on this chalatan. How can one emotionally truncated man hold the mother church hostage in this manner? I grew up as an Alter Boy at Sacred Heart Parish Akpugo and I know one or two things about the level of Organisational Discipline in the Catholic church. Mbaka is successfully making nonsense of all that while my Lord Bishop watches on. A shame, isn’t it?
By Charles Ogbu (Twitter @RealCharlesOgbu)
Towards ensuring security during the conduct of the Area Council Elections in the Federal Capital Territory, the FCT Police Command on Thursday said there will be restriction of movement from 12 midnight of Friday 11th Feb to 4 pm on Saturday 12th Feb in Abuja.
The restriction however exempts students who were already scheduled to write their WAEC examination nationwide as well as other essential workers.
A statement by Police Public Relations Officer, FCT Command, DSP Josephine Adeh warned that those who did not fall within any of these categories and are found wanting, will be made to face the wrath of the Law.
The statement is titled, “FCT Police Command Boast of Security Deployment: Set to Enforce Pronounced Restriction on Forthcoming 12 February 2022 Area Council Elections”.
DSP Adeh said, “The FCT Police Command in a bid to cement the security architecture and deployment towards the Saturday 12th February 2022 Area council elections, will be all out to enforce the declared restrictions on the Election Day.
Read Also: FCT Poll: Confusion As Two Candidates Lay Claim to AMAC APC Ticket
“The restriction emplaced between the period of 12mid night – 4 pm of the said date was put in place to enable the Police in a concerted effort with other sister agencies to do due diligence in the discharge of their duties as ensuring a free and fair Election thereby totally paralyzing any form of threat emergence and creating a vote worthy atmosphere for voters and the electorates at large to perform their civic right and obligation.
Consequent upon the above, the Commissioner of Police FCT Command CP Babaji Sunday while expressing his confidence in the already emplaced security measures urges the good people of the FCT to turn out to exercise their voting rights without the fear of harassment or molestation of any kind.
“He however noted that the Restriction only bears an exception for essential workers and Students who were coincidentally scheduled to write a nationwide WAEC examination, stressing emphatically that parties found otherwise wanting will be made to face the wrath of the law.
“Furthermore, the CP wishes to remind all stakeholders in the election to be reminded of their signed peace accord and ensure that their actions and inactions are ushered by constituted guidelines.
“He, therefore, calls on residents to remain vigilant and report any suspicious or abnormal occurrence to the Police through the following emergency lines: 08032003913, 08061581938, 07057337653 and 08028940883.”
Where I come from, it is often said that it is not possible that a blind man, roasting a palm kernel would allow it get burnt twice. But can that be said of Nigerians? We have on several occasions not only burnt our palm kernels but also stoked the fire that burns our kernels.
While many Nigerians are thinking a good leader is going to fall on them from the sky, they keep making the same mistake of voting people who have no business in leadership. Leadership is responsibility. It is not buck passing and escapist excuses.
In the last 60 plus years with its human vicissitudes, Nigerians ought to have developed the uncanny ability to smell a conman from afar. Too many tribal and religious conmen have risen to swindle he people of their commonwealth. Sick people have arisen, and used the nation’s lean resources on boosting their health. Poor men have been voted on the platter of trust, only for them to snub the people and proceed on their own hidden agenda. Prison inmates have received pardons and have become president only to become demigods and untouchables.
We have had loud mouthed legislators whose words don’t match actions. There are those who say yes but indeed they mean an emphatic no. Still, there are people who outrightly think of gaslighting us into believing their terrible and puerile mendacious ramblings.
Suppose we put all that behind us and have a new beginning. We need to stop kowtowing to the caprices of the evil elite. Those who lost their lives defending the elite’s interests would turn in their graves, seeing that their godfathers and their ‘enemies’ have reconciled.
So, what really matters?
The past 60 years would have taught us a big lesson. Without much ado, I’d itemise what should matter to us as the elections are upon us. This year, 2022, is the most critical in our political journey. 2023 is just for the crystallisation of what we have put together in this year.
One of the lessons that should matter to us is that action, not word tells who is the man. We should refrain from believing everything we read on social media. Many people have been commissioned to turn white to black and hustle people’s minds for their patrons. They’d tell you that a Presidential candidate had raised the dead at a point or the other. They question you should ask yourself is whether this is a fact. I repeat, do not believe things you cannot verify.
The value the candidate places on human life. Human life is sacrosanct. It does not matter whether one person or a million died. Beware of anyone who tries to compare the number of deaths. Beware also , of anyone who keeps silent in the face of brutality. We are not animals. Humans show empathy. A callous, unempathic, unemotional made-of-steel leader can kill anyone without blinking. My people, please run away from such a person.
Deal with a person’s antecedents, not his rhetoric. Have his past investigated. The fact that people actually believe anything they are told , even when they are being sold dummies, is a intellectual affront. In the build up to the 2015 elections, I was in an argument with a colleague over Nigeria’s foreign reserves. What he told me got me temporarily paralysed. For an economist to believe that a country’s foreign reserve was used up!
The candidate must be able to give a timeline for his agenda. Nigerian politicians behave like a man desperate to make love to a woman. He can promise heaven and earth. He may even promise to dig his own grave. But as soon as he gets what he wants, he changes tone, talks down on the people and do totally different things. He is never interested in discussing with his people, he belongs to a new clique of opportunists whose only interest is milking the country.
A formidable legislature populated by people with academic and technical information on how to run a country. There must be a defined process of recalling people from the Chambers if their representation seems unbelievably unbecoming. Permit me to say that some people go to the legislature without a clue about what it is all about. They kowtow to the president or the governor. Ministers and commissioners ignore their invitations at will. Nigerians must insist that their legislature is particularly flooded by young brilliant minds.
The candidate must be a people’s man. Whether a governor or a president, he should see himself as the leader of the entire country or the state he governs. His actions or inactions should tell us whether he is going to be an internal colonist, a tyrant or a chauvinist. This country needs
Last but not the least, the leader must have an idea of how to run an economy. The fact that everything depends on the economy makes it the pivot around which our other daily activities revolve. We have to ensure that the person to be voted in is of a sound mind. He should be able to tell us what will happen when, how it will happen and back it up with data, projections and forecasts. Nigerians should move away from shouting yeeeeeeh! to dubious political pronouncements like ‘I will turn this nation around’. The normal reaction to this kind of statement should be curiosity. The questions should be how, when, in what way etc.
As we start the search, let us shine our eyes. We cannot afford to be going backwards while others are progressing. A word is said to be enough for the wise.
By Tonnie Iredia
Before the casting of ballots, segments such as the registration of voters, the delimitation of electoral constituencies, the nomination of flag bearers through party primaries and electioneering campaigns must be seamlessly concluded. After these, election is still not over until the casting of ballots, collation of votes, declaration of results, inauguration of winners and the settlement of election disputes have been concluded.
Many people lose elections in Nigeria because they fail to appreciate the true meaning and nature of election with its many dimensions. In the last few years, the segment on the settlement of election disputes has seized the front burner of the country’s electoral process as political parties have learnt to devote ample time, energy and resources to the segment.
Many factors have greatly contributed to the elevation of the settlement of election disputes to the foremost election segment in Nigeria. Among the factors are a) commercialized political system which encourages players to adopt a fight to finish approach, b) weak internal democracy in the nation’s political parties, and c) finality of judicial decisions which enables the judiciary to reverse any electoral victory even where the decision upturns the evident verdict of voters.
The scope of disputes is widened by the opportunity of an election tribunal where politicians can disagree with election figures as well as another chance where courts are allowed to deal with matters on eligibility. This has emboldened a poor spirit of sportsmanship in which politicians hop from one platform to another in the hope that one strategy might just pay off. However, no one can stop any person from using the platforms because they exist within the framework of the rule of law. Anyone with appropriate ‘locus’ can thus approach the judiciary which naturally has its own bad eggs.
The above background establishes why the political opponents of Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state have been in court with the objective of reversing the reelection of the governor at the September 19, 2020 governorship contest in the state.
In a suit marked FHC/B/CS/74/2020, they urged the court to not only invalidate Obaseki’s candidacy but to also restrain INEC from recognising him as a contestant in the gubernatorial contest because Obaseki, according to them, forged his academic credentials. But the University of Ibadan which issued the certificate in question sent her Deputy Registrar Legal to the court to testify in favour of the governor. Based on this, Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja who presided at the hearing rejected the unsubstantiated claims by the plaintiffs.
As if propelled by instinct to break the case in simple terms for all to comprehend, Justice Mohammed explained that for the Plaintiffs to insist that Obaseki forged his certificate, even after the school confirmed the genuineness of the document, was akin to alleging that someone has no father, even in the presence of the person’s father.
One would have thought that such wise counselling was enough to halt the case because the ruling appeared quite convincing. Indeed, as if they clearly understood the judgment and that it further reinforced the voters’ actual mandate, market women in Benin City, the Edo state capital, danced round major streets in the City to celebrate their governor. But that was not the perspective of the plaintiffs about the case.
They were instead dissatisfied with the high court decision and decided to approach the Appeal Court to challenge the judgment of the lower court. Last Thursday March 18, 2021, Justice Stephen Adah of the Court of Appeal Abuja Division reiterated Justice Mohammed’s earlier verdict, but this time, with costs in favour of Governor Obaseki, his party and the electoral body. Some people would regard the entire episode as an unnecessary waste of the rather precious time of our courts which have piles of files of poor litigants unattended to because of the nature of our politics.
Sadly, the trend of the refusal of our politicians to play by the rules is even more disgusting in another state where on the same day as Obaseki’s case, two different courts made contradictory rulings on the same matter. The issue had to do with an election to the vacant seat of the Imo North District in the Senate which was held on December 5, 2020. Though won by the APC, no candidate was returned as elected because of a dispute between two candidates of the party.
Last Thursday March 18, 2021, Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja having convinced himself that Senator Ifeanyi Ararume was the authentic candidate of the APC ordered INEC to issue Ararume with a certificate of return within 72 hours. While the over-joyed candidate and his supporters were still rejoicing, an Owerri High Court presided over by Justice E. O. Agaba made a pronouncement which clearly reversed the order, leaving the people of Imo North Senatorial District without representation in the Senate. Considering that our clime has since become a society of electioneering without end, no one can fathom when this would end.
Thus, except care is taken to reverse our now entrenched political culture of distraction to governance, either at the legislative or executive branch, it is our society that would remain shortchanged. In the case of Edo, one can only hope that our politicians would allow Obaseki to concentrate on governance so as to improve the living standards of the people. Our fears are supported by precedents.
In 2018, when it became clear that the APC which produced Governor Obaseki in his first term was the same one that was distracting him over their pursuit of personal gains, I appealed to them in my article titled “Edo APC: Let Obaseki work” published on September 9, that year. A year later, the distraction had become unbearable amidst threats of widespread infectious diseases; with no politician listening to the warnings by the World Health Organization (WHO). This made me to write another article titled “Edo politicians: Remember Lassa Fever” published on January 25, 2020 with a plea to our politicians to allow the governor face the health challenges of our people especially those in Edo North where the disease had claimed casualties.
The new distraction after the elections has been frivolous political litigations. While election petitions and some other substantive cases can entrench democracy, the idea of suffocating our judicial system with shallow cases is unacceptable. We need to particularly denounce the boring case against Godwin Obaseki in which his opponents made no effort to painstakingly investigate their allegations before testing them in court.
As the case of the degree certificate forgery has shown, neither those who made the allegation, nor their witnesses visited the University of Ibadan to verify their claim of forgery. They merely compiled a series of allegations in the hope that one might work. It all started with the politics of exclusion in which APC concocted stories to arrive at a predetermined end at the party primaries stage, but to transplant and more than once represent such political rascality of concoctions to courts of different jurisdictions is deplorable.
