“We don’t believe in cheating or rigging elections but also we don’t want other parties to cheat us, and that was why we encouraged the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission to come up with a fool-proof voting process.”

– Nasir el-Rufai

The prefatory statement above belongs to Nasir el-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna, one of the few Governors who have consistently demonstrated faith in the deployment of technology to protect the integrity and credibility of the electoral process in Nigeria. He is the only one who has given effect to his conviction. In 2018, Kaduna state under his watch, conducted elections with an electronic voting system. This was the first time anyone in Nigeria would adopt electronic voting, and the second case of electronic voting in Africa, after Namibia. That year, the then extant law namely the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission Act No. 10 of 2012 was amended, to establish electronic voting in Section 16 (3) thereof.  There were allegations of multiple voting and other challenges. But this did not deter Mallam Nasir el-Rufai.  

On September 4, 2021, his administration repeated the same “offence”, if the adoption of modern technology by African electoral umpires can be so described, by ensuring that the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (KADSIECOM), again conducted elections in the state’s local government areas in line with Section 16(3) of the KADIESCOM Act. At the end of the exercise, it was reported that the challenges observed in 2018 had been addressed. Multiple voting was no longer possible. The software had been upgraded to deny any voter an attempt to vote a second time. About 18, 000 ad hoc staff were deployed whose main assignment was the verification of the voter’s register. The Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was a computerized box with simple Cancel and OK buttons that could be used even by the illiterate and the elderly. You select the logo of the party you want to vote for, and simply tap either OK or Cancel - a simple Yes or No choice. The Cancel button in fact allows you to change your mind. Each EVM was powered by a battery that could last up to 16 hours. KADIESCOM worked in collaboration with the telecommunication companies to provide the network for the immediate transmission of results. Voting took less than a minute.

The LGA election in Kaduna State on Saturday, September 4 was by no means perfect however. About 11 electronic voting machines were vandalised by suspected hoodlums. This should not be surprising. Violence is part of the sociology of Nigeria’s electoral process. Those who do not trust the system would always find a way to violate it. No matter how fool-proof a measure may be, Nigerians would always find a way to disrupt it. Oftentimes, out of raw scepticism. In the course of the elections in 19 LGAs, 41 EVMs were snatched across Kaduna State. Should anybody be surprised? The EVMs looked like boxes. In regular, manual, elections, the ballot box is the main victim in the hands of those who want to manipulate results. The only difference with an EVM is that it is electronic and has a digital footprint. Stealing or snatching it is pointless. The Kaduna State LGA elections have now ended. The APC won in 15 area councils. But the more interesting outcome was the disclosure that the Governor, Nasir el-Rufai lost to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in his Ungwar Sarki Polling unit in Kaduna North Local Government Area. It is a major dent for a politician to lose in his own polling unit! It makes no difference if his party wins across the entire state. He will be constantly reminded that he could not even get the endorsement of his own immediate neighbours.

With electronic voting, it may be difficult to manipulate results, stuff ballot boxes or thump-print multiple ballot papers. It should be noted however, that voter turn-out in the Kaduna Local Government elections of September 4, 2021 was very low. This is a nationwide pattern, and it is one of the ills that must change to properly deepen participatory democracy not just in Nigeria, but across Africa. The big gap between inputs and outcomes in the electoral process in Africa has alienated the people from the system and from democracy itself. Why go out to vote when there are no guarantees that your vote will count or translate into improvements in your circumstances? Why vote for people who will get into positions of privilege on the wings of your efforts and end up forgetting you? The biggest threat to democracy in Africa is this trust deficit and the disconnect between the people and the actual value of elections.       

This however should not discount the value of credibility, integrity, transparency and accountability in the electoral process. This is the objective of those who support the idea of electronic voting and the electronic transmission of results. Twice now, in 2018 and 2021, the El-Rufai administration has shown that it is doable. There may be hitches and challenges but these can be identified and fixed in subsequent elections. It may be argued that Kaduna state is relatively small (population – 6- 1 million) compared to Nigeria with a population of over 200 million and 774 local councils). But we have it on record that should Nigeria decide to adopt electronic voting, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) can deliver on that score. The GSM operators in the country have also openly said that they can provide the necessary services. There are certainly lessons that can be learnt from the Kaduna experience, and from other countries including Namibia and the West. The only problem we have in Nigeria is the refusal of Nigerian lawmakers at the Federal level to see the value of electronic voting. The adoption of electronic voting by Kaduna State sends a strong message to those members of the National Assembly who conveniently rushed to the toilet, or were absent, or lied shamelessly that there was no mobile telephony in their village when the National Assembly voted on the proposed Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2021.   

Getting the right electoral framework for elections in Nigeria has been a major concern since the return to democratic rule in 1999: the 2001 Electoral Act, 2002 Electoral Act, 2006 Electoral Act and the 2010 Electoral Act. It has been majorly a trial and error process. In 2018, ahead of the 2019 general elections, the 8^th Assembly passed a Bill which was forwarded to the President for his assent. The President rejected the Bill, four times, on the grounds that the proposed amendments to the law could not come into effect due to time constraints. We held the 2019 elections, which again expectedly threw up issues about the integrity of the electoral process and the need to modernise elections in line with global best practices. When the 9^th National Assembly assumed office in June 2019, its Chairman, Dr. Ahmed Lawan promised Nigerians that the Electoral Amendment Bill would be treated as a priority assignment. Indeed, Lawan kept his word, as he did also with the Petroleum Industry Bill. But it is one thing to make a law. It is another thing to do so in public interest.

What was meant to be an opportunity to provide Nigerians with a progressive, forward-looking electoral framework ended up as a farce. In the second week of July, a bewildered electorate watched as Nigerian lawmakers created an ugly scene over Section 52 (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill which stated that INEC “may transmit results of elections by electronic means where and when practicable.” The Senate passed the bill on July 15. The House of Representatives did so on July 16. Both chambers of the National Assembly later resolved that the electronic transmission of results would be allowed only with the express clearance of the National Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Assembly.

Thus, Nigeria’s lawmakers took away the independence of the country’s electoral body, a blatant violation of Section 78 of the 1999 Constitution, and a brazen attempt to sabotage the law. It was most disgraceful that even opposition politicians in the National Assembly could not vote in the people’s interest. There were other concerns: the decision to increase campaign expenses: to become President, you would need a minimum of N15 billion, Governor – N5 billion; Senator N1.5 billion, House of Representatives member N500 million and State House of Assembly member N50 million.  In other words, you have to be wealthy to aspire to any important elective position in Nigeria. If this bill becomes law as proposed, only armed robbers and internet scammers would probably end up in high places in this country. President Buhari should not sign the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021. It takes the country backwards, not forwards. It is the handiwork of cowards and a backward National Assembly. In Kaduna State, Governor El-Rufai has shown that it is possible to try new options and possibilities, and deploy modern technology to leap-frog the process. The navel-gazing lawmakers in the National Assembly should be called out. One of the errant ones has since apologised to her constituents for going AWOL when she was most needed, but there are others, so pompous and confidently ignorant, they just don’t get it.

On Sunday, September 5, 2021, President Alpha Conde, 83, of Guinea Conakry was deposed by a team of former elite military forces led by Lt. Col. Mamady Doumbouya. Conde does not deserve anyone’s sympathy and that does not necessarily amount to an endorsement of the military coup in that unfortunate country. Indeed, Conde is the architect of his own misfortune, a greedy African leader who thought he was invincible, untouchable and supreme. The photos that were released on Sunday showing him in a humiliating position, surrounded by the same soldiers who used to protect him was a loud reminder of the ephemerality of power and the unpredictability of human circumstances. The once great Alpha Conde looked very sober. The leader of the coup used to be his bodyguard.  He used to hold an umbrella over his head. Today, Conde is at the mercy of Lt. Col. Dambouya. One wrong move, he, Conde could lose his life. He wanted to remain in office for life. He denied the people of Guinea Conakry the opportunity to make their own choice. What the people of Guinea could not do, the military have done it for them. Except that the unconstitutional take-over of power in Guinea is completely unjustifiable. The people of Guinea may have trooped out unto the streets of Conakry and other parts of the country to celebrate the downfall of a man who held them down, but that is no justification for a return to military rule. Many of them removed their shirts and screamed: “Doumbouya! Freedom.” But what next for Guinea?

In the 70s, African political scientists pushed the idea of the strong man as leader and messiah, and hence accommodated militarism as a vehicle of development. But by the 80s, the wave of democratisation led by the ideological politics of the United States created a new momentum. By the 90s, democracy was the new sing-song in most African states. The challenge however has been how to consolidate the gains of democracy and its value chain. It is most unfortunate that in recent times, rather than have a consolidation, Africa is beginning to experience a backward trajectory. The coup in Guinea fits into this pattern.

Before now, since 2010, there have been coup attempts in Niger (2010, 2011), Guinea Bissau (2010, 2011) Madagascar (2010), DR Congo (2011, 2013), Sudan (2012, 2019), Benin (2013), Libya (2013), Egypt (2013), Gambia (2014), Gabon (2019), Ethiopia (2019) Central African Republic (2021) and successful coup attempts in Niger (2010), Mali (2012, 2020, 2021), Sudan (2019), Burkina Faso (2015), Egypt (2013) and now Guinea-Conakry (2021). Military interventions in African politics constitute a major setback for democracy. The coup in Guinea Conakry can only add to the instability in the Sahel region of West Africa and provide further stimulus for the agents of destabilization – the Jihadists and the terrorists operating in the Sahel. ECOWAS Presidents Nana Akufo Addo of Ghana and Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, and the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gueterres have condemned the coup but the international community must go a step further and ask Doumbouya and his gangsters to hand over power immediately to civilian authorities. They have suspended the Constitution and all institutions as part of an attempt to launch a transitional government.  

It should be made clear to them that their rebellion violates the ECOWAS protocols on Democracy and Good Governance and the Constitutive Acts of the African Union. ECOWAS and AU need not worry too much about what France thinks. The relationship between France and its former colonies in Africa is at best opportunistic. The direct victims are the long-suffering people of Guinea.

Guinea is one of the most blessed countries in the world in terms of natural resources: the biggest iron ore deposit in the world, gold, diamond, bauxite but in typical African fashion, this has not translated into prosperity for the people. Guinea is effectively one of the poorest countries in the world.  And the problems are not far to seek: corruption, nepotism and bad leadership.  Alpha Conde spent his early career as a radical, progressive, opposition politician. He challenged the government of Lansana Conte in 1993 and again in 1998. In 2010, Conde led the RPG to victory and was thus elected President of Guinea for a first term of five years. He was re-elected for a second, final term of another 5 years in 2015. In 2020, when he was supposed to step down from office, Conde chose to amend the Constitution to enable him extend his stay in office.

Despite spirited opposition to this gamble, Conde imposed himself on the people. He was 82 at the time. He even increased the Presidential term from five years to six. In October and November 2020, there were protests on the streets of Conakry. Still, he held the election, which he won of course, and began a six-year term in office, illegally and unconstitutionally. That gamble came to an end on Sunday with the coup in Guinea-Conakry. It would have been better if he was removed by the people themselves in a democratic process. He promised to be Guinea’s Mandela. He was Guinea’s Caligula. Nonetheless, the cowboys looking like they don’t know their left from their right must not be encouraged to remain in power and office. The creeping collapse of the democratic ethos as seen in Chad, Mali and Guinea-Conakry is an ugly burden for the whole of Africa. Other African leaders who are tempted to sit-tight in office should learn from the disgrace of Alpha Conde.     

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s main opposition party, is currently in the throes of a commotion that threatens to destroy the party’s capability to put up any strong showing in the 2023 general elections. Party stakeholders argue that there are enough strong internal mechanisms that would rescue the party and restore it to good health, but those mechanisms do not seem to be working. It may not be too long before the party finds itself on oxygen support, as it struggles with a self-inflicted ailment that is threatening to become a pandemic.

At the height of its power, the PDP was in charge of Nigeria as the dominant political party for 16 years: the party that produced Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 -2007), Umaru Musa Yar’Ádua (2007 -2010) and Goodluck Jonathan (2010 -2015).  In 1999, with the return to democratic rule, the PDP held 214 seats in the House of Representatives. This increased to 263 in 2007, but dropped to 208 and later 137 in 2011. As of 2007, the party controlled 28 states, and 87 seats in the Senate, this dropped to 71 seats in 2011. That same year, PDP was left with 23 Governors. Up till 2011, it controlled 23 states of the Federation out of 36, plus the FCT. Today, the PDP is a minority party although it bears the comforting title of Nigeria’s major opposition party. The changing fortunes of the PDP in terms of its scope of control over the legislative and executive arms of government indicated a greater crisis.

The best illustration of this was how the party lost the 2015 general elections to an emergent Special Purpose Vehicle called the All Progressives Congress (APC) – an association of strange political bedfellows whose only ambition was to put an end to the Jonathan administration and the PDP’s continued stay in power. By the time the 2015 elections ended, PDP lost the Presidency.  It was down to 13 PDP Governors.  It also lost its majority status in the National Assembly. Many of its leaders abandoned the party. They include Alhaji Adamu Muazu, then Chairman of the PDP, former Chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and former Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mr-Fix-It, Chief Anthony Anenih. In 2015, the PDP could not fix anything. Much damage had been done earlier to the party when former President Olusegun Obasanjo who served for eight years as President under the platform of the PDP publicly directed that his party membership should be torn into pieces.   

There have been many theories as to why the PDP lost steam and eventually the 2015 General elections. The commonest submission is that after 16 years in office, the party could not manage its success, or that the party had been taken over by those who wanted a Northern President and no-second-term for Jonathan or nothing. But whereas one side of the story does not usually capture the full scope of a manifold experience, it was true that the PDP was sabotaged by the crisis of internal democracy, and the many tendencies within the party pursuing their own narrow interests without a thought for the future. The eventual pain that the party suffered was self-inflicted. The party played into the hands of both fifth columnists and the opposition.  It will be recalled that in August 2013, the Convention of the party at the Eagle Square in Abuja witnessed an unusual spectacle.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and the governors of Adamawa, Kwara, Sokoto, Jigawa, Kano, Rivers, and Niger and all their delegates walked out of the Convention in anger. They later reconvened at the Yar’Ádua Centre to address a press conference. The issue at stake was the election of persons into the 17-member National Working Committee of the party. The Convention continued, but the party was already split down the ranks. This was the incident that led to the emergence of a new PDP, which became a partner in the APC Coalition, and it was widely believed that other aggrieved persons that did not walk away on that occasion, chose to remain within the party to wreak havoc. Alhaji Bamanga Tukur who was Chairman of the party at the time, lost his position to the crisis and was replaced by former Governor, Adamu Muazu who was hailed as “the game changer.” Indeed, the game changed for the PDP.  But could the party have survived the 2015 election if there was greater cohesion among its ranks?  

It was perhaps in sober realization of this and the fact that many PDP candidates who initially won during the 2015 general election eventually lost their positions at the election petition tribunals and the courts, that the party now decided to do an audit of the 2015 general elections. In November 2015, the party held a National Conference in Abuja on “The Sustenance of Democratic Ideals in Nigeria.” As the party grappled with its post-election crisis, Prince Uche Secondus from Rivers State, emerged as the party’s Acting National Chairman. Still, the party was not yet out of the woods. Secondus was challenged in Court by Hon Ahmed Gulak who asked the court to remove Secondus because the position he occupied had been zoned to the North East. Justice Hussain Baba-Yusuf who presided over the case ruled in Gulak’s favour and sacked Secondus - who along with the PDP appealed the judgment. The party was under heavy pressure on all fronts. It lost the Kogi Gubernatorial election to the APC.  It had issues with the Gubernatorial election in Bayelsa state. Key officials of the party and those who served in the Jonathan administration were subjected to heavy harassment, policing and interrogation by the new APC government. The APC accused the PDP and the Jonathan administration of being the cause of Nigeria’s woes. Oil prices had dipped. The country faced both revenue and debt crises. It would soon slip into recession.

Later, in 2016, the PDP held a National Convention at the Sharks Stadium in Port Harcourt. It was an exercise in chaos as the party was before then divided between supporters of the incumbent Chair of the National Working Committee Ali Modu Sheriff and other members of the party. Sheriff left Port Harcourt in a huff, brandishing a court injunction that was ignored. It was the same Port Harcourt Convention that produced former Governor Ahmed Makarfi as Chair of a National Caretaker Committee. The party never recovered from the tussle for legitimacy between the Sheriff and Makarfi factions. In December 2017, the PDP held yet another National Convention which led to the emergence of Prince Uche Secondus as Chairman of the National Working Committee. But the seeds of discord and division that had been sown within the party had germinated, and grown leafy branches. Each time there had been a conflict within the party, the leaders tend to focus more on the party at the national level. They overlook the damage that had been done down the line, all the way to the wards, states and local councils. Before 2015, PDP was the party of choice for many Nigerians. The crisis at the Eagle Square in 2013, the loss of the 2015 general election, and the inability to pull the party back from the brink merely created greater tension from top to bottom. In 2019, the PDP practically donated the election to the APC. The APC won in many states, not because it could boast of a better record of performance but because the PDP was yet to wean itself from the politics of ego and personality conflicts.

Less than two years to the 2023 general elections, the party’s leaders have started again. They seem not to have learnt any lessons from the past. At a time the party should be organizing and strategizing to take power from the APC, and provide Nigerians with an alternative that they badly need now more than ever, they are busy promoting the perception that there isn’t much difference between the PDP and the APC. The way the PDP is managing its politics, it will end up donating the 2023 Presidency to the APC. Governors are major stakeholders in every Nigerian political party. They control the constituencies. They are overlords in charge of the wards and organs of the party in their states. They do and undo. And that is why in the PDP today, the main conflict is between a governor (Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers) and the party Chairman, (Prince Uche Secondus). Once upon a time, they were bosom friends but not anymore. Party members are taking sides. Some are defecting to other parties for both personal and pragmatic reasons. The future of the party as a dominant vote-winning machine hangs in the balance. The party is back to where it was in 2013 before the 2015 elections, and where it was in 2016 before the 2019 election.

I make these comments as someone who experienced and witnessed first-hand in 2014/15 and again in 2018/2019 how the stubbornness of political gladiators can sabotage a political party’s chances. I was the Deputy Gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in Ogun State in the 2019 elections. A year to that election, it was widely believed that the State Gubernatorial election would be won by the PDP. The APC in Ogun State was practically in disarray. It had split into factions. The incumbent Governor did not support the candidate of his own party. The PDP, was also similarly divided, a victim of the Modu Sheriff/Makarfi factionalisation of the party at the centre.  Both factions were in and out of court till three days to the election. When eventually the court ruled in favour of the Buruji Kashamu faction, it was expected that other stakeholders would respect the agreement that was reached earlier that whoever won in court would be supported and outstanding matters would be resolved after the party had achieved the objective of beating the APC at the polls. Meetings were held. Leaders of the various factions waved the olive branch. But as it happened, within 24 hours after the court judgment that favoured the Kashamu faction, those who swore that the party was more important to them than their own interests had dissolved into either the APC or its break-away faction, the Allied People’s Movement (APM). Their conspiracy cost the party dearly.

The point cannot be overstated that politicians in Nigeria do not believe in anything other than their own ambitions. In our political parties, the Machiavellian ethos reigns supreme. Nigeria’s political party system is underdeveloped, driven as it is by all the ugly narratives of the Nigerian experience. Today, in the PDP, after the cliché that the party’s internal mechanisms would be used to resolve the crisis, the other thing you hear is that the APC is trying to sabotage the party, and yet no one can say exactly how the APC is responsible for the collapse of amity between the Chairman of the party and the Governor of Rivers State and others. Secondus is a tested fighter. Wike is a man of courage who likes to win wars. Both gladiators know each other too well. All the persons taking sides in their matter are actually the ones who want to destroy the party. Secondus and Wike are allowing themselves to be used by forces that they met in the course of their political journey from the creeks of the Delta to the blinding heights of Abuja. They both owe themselves a duty to resolve whatever differences they may have. They have both helped each at various times in the past. They can both help the PDP now by burying the hatchet! What does Wike want? Does he want to be a President or Vice-Presidential candidate in 2023 or a Godfather? What does Uche Secondus want? Does he want to have a say in who becomes the standard bearer of the PDP in 2023? Or does he want to succeed Wike as Governor of Rivers State? They should not allow their personal ambitions to ruin many years of friendship and brotherhood and should not drag down the party. Enough damage has been done already. Although APC leaders have more serious problems of their own, they must be in one corner laughing with all corners of their mouth. The worst legacy Secondus can leave behind is to hand over the 2023 general elections to the APC on a platter of gold.

The other problem are those lawyers running from Port Harcourt to Kebbi and to Calabar, all in one week, to secure orders ex parte to ensure the removal of Secondus from office. For many Nigerian lawyers, every election season, before, during and after, is the season for them to eat, to make money. They forget the standards and ethics of the profession and transform into ambulance chasers, looking for any desperate politician who needs an injunction from the courts to gain advantage over a rival. Lawyers are trained to be officers in the temple of justice and respect established procedures. It is one of the reasons why since 1985, every Chief Justice of Nigeria and virtually every Chief Judge of the Federal High Court has warned against the abuse of interim orders ex parte, which is a remedy in civil law procedure that is expected to be given under circumstances of a real urgency. But many judges have turned such orders into an opportunity to jump into the ugly arena of dirty, partisan, politics. They promote personal interests in the process and bring the judiciary to ridicule.

In the on-going PDP crisis, judges presiding over the same courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction have been granting injunctions with appellate import which amounts to an abuse of the justice system. It is shameful and reprehensible. I understand, however, that the CJN has now summoned about six Chief Judges whose courts have been involved in this abuse with regard to the PDP case and election matters in Anambra, Jigawa and Imo.  Judges must be restrained and lawyers must be called to order. The judiciary is the last hope of the common man. If it is turned into the playground of profiteers and desperate politicians, the heavy cost will be borne by the entire society. But while it is good to hear that CJN Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed is making efforts to remind the judges involved of established directives, is it not the case that the CJN himself emerged as a beneficiary of a controversial ex parte order on the basis of which the Federal Government removed Walter Onnoghen, CJN (as he then was) before appointing him in his place? Nigeria is never in short supply of ironies.  

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From what we have seen and heard so far, it seems most likely that the race for the 2023 Presidential position would end up as the fiercest, most contested, and perhaps the most controversial since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999. We all must keep an eye on 2023. In 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo emerged not because he was a known, seasoned, politician but because the country needed a pair of steady hands and a strong character, with the right connections and experience to save the faltering ship of state, and move the country beyond the evil annulment of the 1993 Presidential election. Obasanjo delivered. But he ran into troubled waters with his succession plans: the politics of Third Term, the bitter quarrel with his Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his open endorsement of Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, whose health status and eventual death in office defined the highest office of the land. President Goodluck Jonathan who succeeded his boss, Yar’Adua was a collective product of the law, and the majority insistence on what was right. His presidency was a turning point and a major historic landmark for Nigeria, an affirmation that Nigeria could also be a land of dreams where a man of humble beginnings could rise to the top.

By 2015, the forces of elite conspiracy and ethno-religious myopism, organised an acidic campaign against the Jonathan Presidency and got him out of office. He was succeeded by President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military Head of State, who had sought the Presidency of Nigeria as a civilian three different times – 1999, 2007 and 2011. In 2015, he was propelled into office by an electorate that had embraced his managers’ promise of change and hope. He was yet another rallying point for great expectations. In 2023, the circumstances would be different. There is no coalescing, propelling force, at this time behind any aspirant, on such a national scale, and of such a momentum as we saw with Obasanjo, Jonathan, and Buhari’s cult-like popularity. And this is why the 2023 Presidency is fast becoming a desperate gamble, a ‘try-your-luck’ kind of proposition, without any core basic agreements. A kind of anybody’s game, generating tension, so early, so far from the commencement of the 2023 electoral process.     

There is no consensus on any issue. The people of the South East argue, rightly that, it is their turn to produce the President of Nigeria. No Igbo man has been President since 1999, although Igbos have helped to put others into office. They want the marginalisation of Igbos to end. They want it on record that the Igbo race is not inferior to any other group in Nigeria. Igbos are the third largest ethnic group in the country. They have been told by Northern spokesmen that nobody will offer them the Presidency on a platter of gold, and that in any case, they should go and organise themselves and reach out to other Nigerians especially now that there is an internal debate in the South East about identity politics – who is Igbo and who is not and who is more Igbo than the other? Many persons consider this suggestion, an insult! The people of the North East and Central zones also insist that it is their turn to have their kinsmen inside the Presidential Villa and that  after the Presidency has gone round the six geo-political zones, we can then begin to talk more seriously about those principles of merit, competence, knowledge – the same issues the other privileged geo-political zones never stretched when the Presidency fell into their laps.

Constitutional provisions on eligibility for the Nigerian Presidency are stated in the 1999 Constitution. There is no mention of ethnicity or geographical zone, although Section 14(3) and (4) mention Federal Character, diversity, unity and justice. The two major political parties have since agreed on an unwritten code of Rotational Presidency, but this is beginning to look more like a tool of political expediency. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, Nigeria’s two major political parties – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) are both engulfed in crises that could be counter-productive. There is no clarity on both sides about how the 2023 process could be used to address the people’s concerns. Not even the National Assembly is serious about the provision of an electoral framework that can inspire trust and confidence. In 2021, Nigeria’s 9^th National Assembly, dominated by the ruling party, voted to prevent the adoption of electronic transmission of election results. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is possible and doable, the politicians disagree. In smaller, neighbouring African countries, electronic transmission of results is not a problem. In Nigeria, it is a source of crisis.     

But what I find even more disturbing is the bad rhetoric that is beginning to build up, the high velocity intolerance and the threat of violence that hang dangerously in the air, and the refusal of some emergent “stomach democracy activists” to engage in decent conversation. This has been a bane of Nigerian politics. But it is getting worse. It could even become more frightening. The professional political class must seek counselling for its growing mass psychosis. The right of Nigerians to choose, to express their differences and choices must be respected. Nobody has a monopoly of the right to Nigerian citizenship, or the corridors of power. The way some interested parties are carrying on is deplorable. I recall writing once in this column about likely candidates for the 2023 Presidency titled “The South West Presidential Hopefuls” (April 20, 2021). I made some categorical statements about the chances of those who were in the news at the time: Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Senator Ibikunle Amosun and Dr Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State. It was my own review of the political situation and the possibilities. But what did I get in return? Those who felt I was critical of their masters went after me with a sledge hammer. I read one reasonable piece in which the author tried to respond to the issues raised but the others were so poorly written, I couldn’t waste my time reading till the end. Bad writing gives me migraine and there seems to be a large supply of hacks around many of our political figures. In the 80s and 90s, we used to have quality debates in Nigerian newspapers. Today, the space is dominated by hacks without brains. Well maybe I was lucky. They didn’t abuse my parents.

Since that piece, the conversation about 2023 has gained greater momentum, beyond zoning and possible Southern candidates to a full-blown obsession. This reached a peak recently with the prescriptions by former Head of State and President, General Ibrahim Babangida during an interview with Arise TV, ahead of his 80^th birthday on August 17, 2021. I wrote a review of some of his submissions in the context of what marked his 80th birthday: an attempt at revisionism on certain key historical points, but again I got thoroughly abused by one of the key organizers of the IBB white-wash. I have made my point. (See Reuben Abati, “IBB’s Birthday Interview”, ThisDay, August 10, 2021).  The IBB interview, considering his own stature added oxygen to the 2023 Presidential debate. ThisDay newspaper followed up with a front-page list of 31 likely candidates, and a review of those who can lead Nigeria in 2023. I take all of that as a healthy promotion of public conversation. But it merely ended up showing a certain trait that I think can pose a threat to the journey towards 2023: the thinking by some people that the Presidency of Nigeria is already an acquired right. How? When? Where?

One of the immediate reactions to the ThisDay list came from Dr. Doyin Okupe, veteran politician, spokesperson to a political party, the defunct NRC, and media adviser to two former Presidents. Dr. Okupe, appearing on Arise TV Morning Show, said there are only three possible candidates: Senator Bola Tinubu, his good self and incumbent Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in that order. We later hosted Mr. Sonny Iroche, Chairman of the Anambra League of Professionals, who thought that Dr Doyin Okupe must have been joking, and that he, Iroche, would make a better candidate. Before Iroche, Malam Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, President of the Kings College Old Boys Association, and Chairman of the Board of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) also appeared on the Arise TV flagship show to discuss the state of the nation. He had kind things to say about Tinubu, leader of the APC but he made it clear that he, Kashim-Imam, would be the best man for the job.    

Somehow, within the South West and the APC, every man who considers himself a potential President manages to defer to just one man: Senator Bola Tinubu. Those who say anything that is off-key in that regard or fail to pay homage get knocked no matter how sensible they may sound. This then, reminds me of the case of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State who has been a target of heavy pummelling for having the effrontery to have told Senator Tinubu in an interview with the Daily Trust newspaper that the senior politician should allow his “children” to take over the Presidency of Nigeria in 2023. Yahaya Bello obviously considers himself a Tinubu “son”. Whereas the leader of the APC has not yet announced formally that he wants to be President, there is already an army of Tinubu Support Groups out there pushing the 2023 Tinubu for President agenda. As far back as May 2021, Governor Bello had announced in a television interview that “Nigerian youths, women and all Nigerians, including very objective elites” were asking him to run for President in 2023. Bello was immediately dismissed by Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, who reminded him that the Presidency in the APC had been zoned to the South, and that being a youth cannot be an automatic qualification.

Indeed, much earlier, Eniola Bello in his ThisDay column – “Yahaya Bello: The Ugly Face of APC” (March 8, 2021) had made even more damning remarks about the Governor. But Yahaya Bello has been resilient in saying he wants to be President.  His latest effort must have been prompted by the renewed debate about age and 2023 Presidential politics. His reported interview in the Daily Trust newspaper of August 22, 2021 is titled “2023: Buhari, Tinubu Pact not Binding on APC Members – Kogi Governor.”  Having confirmed that he would run for President in 2023, Governor Bello said of Tinubu: “Senator Tinubu is one of our leaders and I respect him so much. He has played a very significant role in Nigeria’s democracy and has built a lot of people. He has paid his dues, and with all respect, as a son to him, my simple advice is that it is time for him to allow his children take over the mantle of leadership and do it to the glory of God and his admiration. He should see that those children he raised are now doing well. Let him see how we manage this country in his lifetime. However, he has a right to run, nobody is questioning that. I always urge everybody to respect him for the role he has played in this country’s democracy. He is a man of integrity, to be candid.” He was then asked: “Do you think the APC would survive if Tinubu is denied the party’s ticket and he pulls out with the South West?”  Bello, who says he believes it is the turn of the North Central to produce the next President responds: “You don’t build a house and destroy it. I don’t think he will do that. He has grown past that. As an elder statesman, he will not say that the country should be destroyed in his lifetime, not even after his demise, so I don’t see him doing that.”

These are the words Yahaya Bello said, except he was otherwise misquoted by the Daily Trust newspaper. But for these respectful, almost subservient expressions of admiration for the party leader, and the affirmation of his own future ambitions within the APC, Yahaya Bello has been severely rebuked by the Tinubu Support Group. In a statement signed by the Director-General of the TSG, Umar Ibrahim, Yahaya Bello has been called a “disgrace, a failure and a betrayer.” He is advised to channel his efforts into “begging and praying for forgiveness for all the sufferings you have inflicted on the good people of Kogi State, rather than eyeing the Presidency.” Ibrahim insists that Tinubu is the most qualified person for the Nigerian Presidency in 2023.

I have never met Governor Yahaya Bello personally. I don’t need to. I have in fact been very critical of him: his re-election in 2019, and his many gaffes about COVID-19. But I think he, like every Nigerian, of eligible age, can aspire to the Presidency of Nigeria, and that the rest of us have the right to express an opinion and an interest without being mauled by any group that claims a monopoly of insight about the future of Nigeria. There is nothing that Yahaya Bello has said that was not implied in the Babangida criteria for the 2023 Presidency. Where was the Tinubu Support Group? Why didn’t Umar Ibrahim go after the elder statesman? Given the level of interest that the 2023 Presidency has generated, there would be more persons expressing views. How many views and expressions of interest will the TSG shut down? It may be possible to intimidate persons in the South West and the APC, but there are enough Nigerians who will also lay claim to the Presidency of Nigeria. The Tinubu Support Group does him great disservice. This is a leader who made great sacrifice to promote democracy in Nigeria. He invested a lot in building a generation of leaders. He earned a reputation as a master political strategist. Today, he appears to be surrounded by a group of political vultures and hacks on the question of 2023. Whoever and whatever they may be, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu owes us a duty to call the TSG, as presently constituted, to order. They are damaging his brand. Their campaign should be more focussed on selling his ideas, not motor-park politics.

Going forward, two key questions are pertinent:  Is there a dark horse and a third force in the political space who may emerge as President in 2023? And is there enough time for such an alternative to make any meaningful impact, timing being a major factor in politics? 

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One of the first things I picked up very early in this business of public affairs analysis is something senior colleagues referred to as Afghanistanism. If you were told a column, story or essay, you had submitted for publication reeked of Afghanistanism, it was clearly a subtle kind of condemnation. It meant dabbling into a remote subject that was not of immediate consequence whereas you could have chosen a better topic of greater local value and relevance. In other words, the phrase “Afghanistanism”, was not a compliment.  It was a label for absent-mindedness, an obsession with far-away places and events, sounding eloquent about other people’s issues while overlooking the same problems at one’s doorstep. Afghanistanism was thus projected as a perfect exemplification of parachute journalism. But here we are, at this time, in the past two weeks, and in the past few days, Afghanistanism is now suddenly no longer a flight of fancy. It has become the symbol and the very definition of much that is wrong with our world. It is the news of the moment, not so distant anymore, but a source of worry for the entire world. I guess it is now possible to indulge in Afghanistanism without being accused of an idle journey to distant places.

Over the weekend, Afghanistan imploded. Its President, Ashraf Ghani abandoned the Presidential Palace and fled towards the direction of Tajikistan. The Vice President went in another direction. Security agents including the police and the military dropped their weapons and fled too. Ordinary citizens headed towards every available border to become refugees in neighbouring countries. The United States which had been involved in the politics of Afghanistan since 1999 is also on the run out of the country, as it shuts down its embassy in Kabul, burning down sensitive documents, and rushing to airlift its citizens out of Afghanistan. The British, and NATO soldiers who had both supported the US in Afghanistan, are also on the run. It is an unfolding chaos and tragedy, the exact end of which no one knows, and that is precisely what makes all of this a sad day for the rest of the world. The fate of the people of Afghanistan hangs in the balance. Their future is uncertain. Their government has collapsed. A bunch of radical extremists, terrorists, ideologues and tribal warlords, known as the Taliban, are now in charge. They have taken over the Presidential palace and the entire country. In the 1990s, they were in charge of the country. The people of Afghanistan have just been taken back to the 20^th Century. That country has turned full cycle to the age of fundamentalism, the oppression of women, disdain for education and abuse of human rights. Tragic.  

The crisis in Afghanistan speaks to the failure of American diplomacy and specifically of US foreign policy.  Diplomatic relations between the United States and Afghanistan dates back to 1935. In the course of that relationship, the United States was responsible for setting up in that axis, a bunch of extremists known as the Mujahideen as part of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and China, two countries with which Afghanistan shares borders. The Mujahideen would later become the Taliban. They gained control of Afghanistan. If America thought it was exporting its Western style democracy to Afghanistan, a majorly Muslim country with strong ethnic cleavages, and that the people would adopt American ideology, it was grossly mistaken. The Muslims of Afghanistan were not willing to abandon their religious and ideological beliefs, and many resented the Western way of life. It did not take long before Afghanistan became the home of religious fanaticism and the headquarters of the Al Qaeda. Matters later took a turn for the worse when the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1267 which created the al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, and the classification of both groups as terrorist groups with sanctions over their funding, travel and activities.

Osama Bin Laden in the face of this rose to the top. In 2001, Ahmad Massoud, commander of the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban coalition was assassinated by the al-Qaeda, which by then had grown in strength and scope. As it happened, later, on September 9, 2001, terrorists struck in the United States, in the tragedy now known as 9/11. The US and its allies promptly launched a retaliatory offensive: Operation Enduring Freedom, and later, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel against the Al-Qaeda. The Taliban and its totalitarian government fell in the face of this offensive and hence resorted to a guerrilla warfare against the West and the government installed by the US in Afghanistan. Over 2, 400 US soldiers have died in the war against the Taliban. Over 20, 000 were wounded. Washington has spent over a trillion dollars.  The British have also lost over 450 soldiers to the battle. But even with the negotiations over the years, and America’s training of Afghan soldiers to keep the Taliban at bay, the intervention in Afghanistan by the US and NATO has proved futile and unwinnable. With the return of the Taliban to Kabul, the war against terror in Afghanistan has proven to be a colossal failure. America has been humiliated. What we are witnessing is two decades of bad judgment and miscalculations. In July, President Joe Biden boasted that Kabul would not fall and the day would not come when the Taliban will overrun the country. It took the Taliban just ten days to overrun the entire country. America and its allies were overwhelmed.  The now deposed Afghan government and the US have been trading blames. But after the initial denial that this is not another Saigon in South Vietnam, 1975, it is interesting to see American diplomats eating their own words. Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, and other Washington policy wonks, have now come to the realisation that this is a failed mission for the United States as was similarly the case in Vietnam, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, and Libya.

America did not need to stay in Afghanistan forever. It is simple and direct logic that the Afghans would have to clean up their own mess, at some point, but the leaders of Afghanistan failed to govern properly, and America’s hasty withdrawal plan was a mistake. America misread the politics of Afghanistan. It underestimated the Taliban. It also overestimated the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF). The US spent loads of dollars training what became known as the Afghan Special Forces. It was thought that they had received enough training to be able to secure their own country against the terrorists. But that was pure fiction. The ANDSF lacked real capability. The Forces were mismanaged by the local authorities. When the Taliban launched an onslaught, the ghost army that the US and other nations thought they had set up took to its heels.  The disaster that has now occurred was long in coming. It was a disaster foretold. In February 2020, the US struck an agreement with the Taliban in Doha. That has failed too, in part because even the Afghan leaders were excluded from it.

The regional warlords who both the US and the Afghan government thought would resist the Taliban did not raise a finger as The Taliban overran the provinces all the way to the Capital. The US thought Pakistan would help. Instead, Pakistan became a sanctuary for the Taliban. The US may well claim in the end that in 20 years it helped to reduce the scope of terror and the growth of terrorism in the world, but the failure in Afghanistan, spanning about four US administrations, looks ironically as a reinforcement of terrorism. The return of the Taliban is bound to embolden terrorist groups across the world. It will grant them confidence and hope that they can also achieve the same kind of triumph. Twenty years later, the US may have lost so much but it is the entire world that is at risk. The thinking that the US and its allies can save humanity, or that any country at all can rely on the omnipresence or the “indispensability” of the United States has been exposed as one of the biggest lies of the century. When it suits its purpose, the US will review its own priorities and it would not matter to the average American taxpayer whether you sink or float.  

And it is at this point that the prompt intervention by Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari becomes relevant. In an article published in the Financial Times of London, the same day Kabul fell to the Taliban, Buhari placed his fingers rightly on the threat that the fall of Kabul poses to Africa. He referred to Africa as “the new frontline of global militancy” and called for global action to fight terrorism. He says: “We must not complacently assume that military means alone can defeat the terrorists. If Afghanistan has taught a lesson, it is that although sheer force can blunt terror, its removal can cause the threat to return.” Indeed, there are many lessons to learn from the Afghan debacle. He would go on subsequently to say that “a lack of hope is the chief recruiting sergeant for the continent’s new brand of terrorism.” This commentary was on point in every regard. I am tempted to suspect they just recruited someone with a sharp brain into the Nigerian Presidency. When the President returned from the UK, we were told he and his delegation would go into isolation in line with official regulations. And then from isolation, the President has just signed the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law. I digress. The big point about Afghanistan is the need to realise its implications for the global war against terror, US Foreign policy, and the balance of power in the world. Professor Bolaji Akinyemi on Arise TV, analysing the dilemma that the world faces spoke about the “clash of civilizations” (an apt reference to Samuel P. Huntington) and the likely emergence of “a new world order.” But is Africa prepared?  

The failure of US policy in Afghanistan has occurred under the watch of President Joe Biden, even if it is an inherited crisis. Will it affect his rating? Is the average American bothered about whatever happens to the people of Afghanistan? What does the future portend for Afghanistan? The international community would probably make the usual noise about the need to protect human rights and refugees and the rule of law, and perhaps the UN Security Council would threaten to impose sanctions, but in the end, it is only the Afghans that can determine their own future. There is no way the Taliban can overrun Afghanistan, chase away a sitting government and seize power without the people’s tacit compliance. America must learn not to dictate ideological choices to others, in a diverse and complicated world.

As a secondary student, one of the compulsory literature texts that my set read for the West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) was a book titled Zambia Shall Be Free by Kenneth Kaunda. Our teacher had a funny way of pronouncing Zambia. He would turn Zambia into “Zam-bi-u Shar-lll -Be Friii” by Kerr-nnerthi- Kar uuun dar”. Till today, some of my old classmates in that literature class still refer to Zambia as “Zam-bi-u”. Fond memories of those old days. Kenneth Kaunda, the author of that literature text, in which he documented the independence struggle in his country, died recently at 97. He was Zambia’s President from 1964 – 1991. There have been six Presidents in Zambia since 1964. The seventh was elected this past weekend, August 12, and it was the third time power has shifted peacefully from a ruling party to the opposition since independence. It is unfortunate that Zambia like other African countries gained flag independence from colonial rule, but the dream of concrete freedom articulated by Kaunda and other African leaders has not yet been realised. Zambia in particular has been unfortunate. Rich in copper but poor in leadership. I see the election that was concluded on August 12 as an attempt by Zambians to take back their country. They made a powerful statement about people power. They resolved that Zambians deserve to be free from the grips of corruption, nepotism, neo-colonialism and the forces of retrogression. The just-concluded parliamentary and presidential elections in Zambia offer an indication that the people’s voices and choice should matter most in a democratic process.   

It was a referendum on President Edgar Lungu’s languid leadership. When Lungu succeeded Michael Sata in 2015, he promised to put an end to nepotism and inefficiency. He was hailed as a reformist but he ended up as a hypocrite. As recently as last month, when he went to London for a Global Education Summit, he had three members of his immediate family in his entourage and he shamelessly tried to defend himself. He even forced an amendment of the Constitution to allow him have a third term in office. He is leader of a Pentecostal Assembly with a Ph. D in Theology but he ran Zambia like the chief priest of a local cult. He readily boasts about the infrastructure that he has provided, but Lungu sold the soul of Zambia’s commodity sector to the Chinese. He incurred debts. The country went into recession. Ahead of the August 12 elections, he deployed the military to intimidate the opposition. He shut down the internet. He threatened to jail Hakainde Hichilema, Presidential candidate of the main opposition party, the United Party for National Development (UPND). In 2016, Hichilema lost the Presidential contest to Lungu by a mere 100, 000 votes.

Last week, and as announced yesterday by the Zambian Electoral Commission, this time around, Lungu lost to Hichilema, 1.8 million votes (39%) to 2.8 million votes (59%). The defeated incumbent President is now saying the election was not “free and fair” and that his supporters were intimidated. The same Lungu is condemning an election that he controlled by every means possible. Zambia has a registered voter population of 7 million out of a total population of 19 million citizens. Voter turn-out was 70% on election day, mostly youths who have now sent a strong and clear message that Lungu has overstayed his welcome. Hichilema, 59, has his job cut out for him: to ensure the freedom of Zambia from the forces of neo-colonialism, economic failure, nepotism, cronyism, incompetence, COVID-19, and elite stupidity. Above all, he must learn from the mistakes of Edgar Lungu.  

Guest:

Gbolahan Charles Olojede, Bsc, MBA, ACA. Executive Director, DMA Advisory and Management Services Limited

Topic: The return of toll gates on Federal roads

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General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), Nigeria’s military Head of State, 1985–1993 is arguably the most controversial person to have ever led Nigeria since independence. He turns 80 next week, August 17. Ahead of that birthday, he granted an interview to Arise TV, aired Friday, August 6, which has understandably generated considerable interest.  It has been a while since Nigerians heard directly from IBB. More recent stories about him focussed on speculations about the state of his health. Given the controversial nature of his place in Nigerian history, many also obviously waited for that interview out of curiousity. There have been reactions from different quarters. The most telling reaction for me was someone making the remark that she was pleasantly surprised that IBB is still alive. I was shocked.

She added that no other Nigerian President has been more abused by Nigerians, and if curses could kill, IBB should have been long dead and forgotten. In the wake of the annulment of the 1993 Presidential election by the Babangida junta, activists in the South West rained curses on IBB. Old women stripped themselves naked, based on the general cultural belief that if an old woman curses anyone with her exposed chest, such a person is doomed for life. Hurriedly- made wooden coffins were paraded on the streets of Lagos, and mock funerals were conducted. IBB’s offence was his annulment of the 1993 Presidential election. The lady remarked that her only take-away from the Babangida interview is how God has a way of preserving the wicked. That is the kind of man IBB is. He evokes extreme passions of opposite variety with near-equal intensity. For me, the very idea of the interview alone was useful. Getting IBB to talk at all was an achievement for Arise TV, and a special career moment for Ngozi Alaegbu, the anchor.

At 80, IBB has aged quite well. His faculties remain sharp. He was articulate, and witty as ever. His responses showed maturity and diplomacy, but a closer interrogation reveals that he is still the same foxy manipulator of public perception. Nonetheless, there were parts of the interview that one could easily agree with and others that sounded rather fishy. IBB was right to have complained about how the major problem with Nigeria today is the “tyranny of the elite”. Other countries are able to move forward and achieve more than their potential, and inspire the people to greatness because of a certain elite consensus in that direction and the impact of responsible leadership. But here in Nigeria, “there is a disconnect between leadership and followership” as IBB argues. The people do not trust their leaders. The leaders themselves do not care enough.  IBB blames them for sowing the seeds of disunity in the country. What I did not hear him say is how he is one of the same leaders that he blames.

On the question of the economy, IBB expressed the view that there is too much control in running the economy and that there is need to open it up further. Perhaps he is right. Government tends to ruin every investment it manages by itself in the long run.  He says the Nigerian military is overstretched, and that for Nigeria to make any difference in the war against insecurity, our soldiers need to do more, believe in what they are fighting for, they must be well-trained, well-led and well equipped. He also talked about inconsistency in government policies. Well, that didn’t start today. There are critics who would trace that inconsistency back to the Babangida era. On the state of the Nigerian economy, IBB says the fact that the economy has not collapsed is an indication that the government is working. If the economy were to collapse, we would all be dead, the way we died a little when the Babangida administration introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in the mid-80s. It was also interesting to see the senior citizen defending the supremacy of the rule of law, when he said “nobody should disobey lawful orders in a democracy.” But should anyone do so at all, at any time? Under the Babangida junta, the courts were routinely disobeyed.  IBB is now a democrat defending the rule of law!   

The more common-sensical aspects of his interview should be easier for many Nigerians to deal with, but there were a few controversial points made by the retired General, and elder statesman, which have set the tone for public discourse in the last few days.  He does not consider zoning or rotational Presidency a good idea, rather he defends merit and competence, and that the democratic process must produce a candidate of merit, regardless of where such a candidate comes from. The problem with this is that there are Nigerians whose geographical zone in the country has never produced a Nigerian Head of State since the return to democracy in 1999. They want the Presidency zoned to their own area also, in line with Sections 14(3) and 14(4) of the 1999 Constitution to ensure a sense of common ownership and to allay fears of marginalization. Is IBB aware of the conversation around this? Is he aware of the Igbo agitation for Presidency? Or the position of the 17 Southern Governors in the South who have specifically demanded that the Presidency of Nigeria in 2023 must be zoned to the South? The future of Nigeria depends in part on how the matter of common rights under the law is resolved democratically and not through the mechanism of the tyranny of a minority elite.

He thinks that a “one-party state” cannot happen in Nigeria because Nigerians “will not allow it to happen”. Fact-check:  the country is already drifting towards a one-party state system with the gale of defections from other political parties into the ruling All Progressives Congress, and the looming implosion within the major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The relevance of the two-party system that IBB recommends as the best option for the country is belied by the crisis in the country’s two major political parties. The view that the various other political parties do not really matter contradicts his other views about the need to practice democracy the way it is done elsewhere.  In the United States, two political parties may be dominant but there are so many other political parties representing the views and beliefs of others, including minority groups and it is the existence of such pluralism and diversity that democracy is all about.  We should understand where General IBB is coming from. He was the architect of a political system that limited Nigeria’s democracy to two political parties: the SDP and the NRC, but that experiment failed because the reduction of Nigeria’s political system to a vague synecdoche: “a little to the left and a little to the right” made it possible for the military and civilian elite to manipulate and violate the people’s will in the 90s. Nigeria is yet to recover.

General IBB struggled to use the interview to defend his legacy and rewrite history, and he made quite a spirited effort in that direction. His repeated references to the importance of democratic rule and the supremacy of the rule of law are at best ironic and revisionist.  He tells us that the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of 1986 was a sound economic policy and that his administration has been proven right. When his attention was drawn to how SAP created problems for the country, his quick response was that “other people took advantage of what we did.” SAP was the beginning of our economic woes and the root of other ills in the Nigerian society. After the introduction of SAP, which was meant to be a life-saving economic policy, Nigeria began a journey towards the precipice. The first major fuel price increase in Nigeria was under SAP in 1988. Three decades later, IBB speaks of SAP so proudly. He can do so because Nigerians tend to forget so easily. We are so tied to the present, and so troubled, memory is a burden. But anyone who lived through the period of the 80s should not forget the SAP riots of 1989. The many, including students and unionist that were murdered in cold blood. The collapse of the education system, and the gradual impoverishment of Nigerians. By the time IBB decided “to step aside” in 1993, Nigeria was no better than an accident victim on life support, with broken limbs.

It is again one of those ironies that IBB can boast that he and other members of his junta were saints compared to the present administration. He talks about how his government fought corruption. “So tell me who is better at fighting corruption?” For the benefit of those who may have forgotten, once upon a time in this country, General Babangida was considered a villain. In fact, the 1989 riot was in part a protest against institutionalised corruption!  It is a sign of how bad things have become since then that the same leader can look straight into our faces and tell us that the epithet, Maradona that was used to describe him was an acknowledgement of his “deft, political moves”. He even laughs at the oxymoronic description of his persona: “the evil genius”: “I marvel at that. The contradiction – you can’t be evil and then a genius.”” To tell ourselves the truth, yes, a genius can be evil in the deployment of his talent, and the corresponding impact. The term “Maradona” referred to his foxy and manipulative tendencies. In the quarter final match between Argentina and England in the 1986 FIFA World Cup, Argentine football genius, Diego Maradona scored a goal with his hand. He later called it “The Hand of God” goal. In these days of VAR technology in soccer, that goal would have been disqualified, but he got away with it. IBB as Nigeria’s leader was infamous for such devious manoeuvres.

But perhaps the most astonishing part of the retired military ruler’s revisionism is his excuse for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. He says “If it materialised, there would have been a coup d’état – which could have been violent. That’s all I can confirm. It didn’t happen thanks to the engineering and the “Maradonic’ way we handled you guys in the society. But that could have given room for more instability in the country.” Afenifere and NADECO chieftains and others have appropriately taken up General Babangida to remind him of the truth. Nigerians elected Bashorun MKO Abiola, as Nigeria’s President. The election was free and fair. For the first time in Nigerian history, a Presidential candidate secured majority votes in virtually every part of the country. It was a truly historic, myth-defying election with a high voter turn-out. But IBB and his friends truncated the process because of the fear of a coup. These were Generals who were master coup planners. IBB was so good at planning coups it was said he had taken part in every coup in Nigeria since July 1966. In 1985, he decided to take charge directly by removing Major-General Muhammadu Buhari from power.

IBB himself would not tolerate any such act of treason and treachery. When his friend, the soldier and poet, General Mamman Vatsa was implicated in a coup against the Babangida administration, IBB got him killed. The same man now tells us, he was afraid of a coup so he annulled a people’s election. He staged a coup against the people of Nigeria. MKO Abiola was his friend too. MKO died in that struggle. And now IBB dances on his grave. And on the graves of many other Nigerians who lost their lives, leaving behind widows, widowers and orphans. If this is meant to be another Maradonic move, it is important to call it out for what it is: cruelty. It would have been better if MKO Abiola had been allowed to claim his mandate. Even if a coup was organised against him, IBB owed him and the people of Nigeria a duty to make that coup impossible. Even if MKO Abiola died in that imaginary coup, it would have been on record that he died in the palace of democracy not in the hands of tyrants. How does IBB feel today, now that Buhari has recognised June 12 and MKO Abiola?

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Today, General IBB is the same man now prescribing criteria for Nigeria’s next President in 2023.  Hear him in his own words: “I have started visualising a good Nigerian leader. He should be a person who travels this country and has friends in every state of the country; a person who is very vast in the economy, a person who is a good politician who is ready to talk to Nigerians. I have seen about three already. The person should be in his 60s and I believe if we get such a person, Nigeria will get it right.” I disagree with his emphasis on an age bracket. It amounts to needless politics of exclusion. The problem with Nigerian leaders is not their biological age. It is the age of their ideas. In the United States, Bill Clinton became President at 47. President Barack Obama at 48. But after Obama, Americans elected Donald Trump, a 71-year old man. Current President Joe Biden came into office at 78.

We need a mixture of every demographic category to move Nigeria forward from the old order to a new place. But IBB is right about the knowledge of economic issues and the need to have a bridge-builder and a nationalist in office. My only worry is that Bashorun MKO Abiola met all the criteria outlined by IBB. In 1993, when he won the Presidential election, MKO was 55. He was also a man who had a great knowledge of the economy having established himself as a global entrepreneur. He was in addition, a Chartered Accountant. He also had friends from all parts of Nigeria and the entire world. No Nigerian before now fits IBB’s criteria better than MKO. As the General turns 80, is his conscience beginning to prick him, hence he recommends a future President in Abiola’s image?