By Martins Oloja

Our politicians and political leaders (some of them offspring of our First Republic politicians) are on the march again. They know the story of how the First Republic fell to the Federal Republic of the Nigerian Army in 1966. They are ignoring the warnings of legends such as Bernard Shaw about the implications of ignoring classic lessons of history. They have seen the implications of the Republic of the ‘Soldiers of Fortune.’ They saw how the Second Republic came to harm through their godfathers. They have read Adewale Ademoyega’s ‘Why We Struck,’ yet they have ignored the lessons and impacts of political corruption. They knew that the Third Republic was imperiled by crass opportunism nurtured by rampaging corruption, yet they have ignored the expediency of transparency and accountability in governance system in their Fourth Republic, which began 23 years ago. They have since demonised democracy and redefined it as government of the few rich who can buy votes for the benefit of only the family of the few powerful ones. Within 23 years, they have destroyed the economy of the most populous black nation on earth.

In the last 23 years, Nigeria’s politicians have destroyed the power of the law, which can no longer rule. They are the law. They alone rule. They are above the law. They have ruined the majesty of both the law and democracy in Africa’s most populous nation. They have destroyed the notion that judiciary is the last hope of the common man. Even the judiciary is struggling to tell the people that justice is indeed blind. Yeah, our new political leaders have built their electoral justice system that can give them the democratic mandate that the people deny them. The legislators in the house our founding fathers built are being freely called ‘legis-looters’ and they cannot deny the cognomen. Those who have exercised executive powers in the last 23 years have been tagged ‘execu-thieves’: they can’t remove the emblem of shame from Google and the people’s hearts. The currency they have given us has destroyed everybody’s purchasing power. They have no answer. They are clueless and cruelly so about the strong room of governance called the civil service. They have tagged that ‘evil service.’ The current Chief Executive of the Federation and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was our Petroleum Resources Minister 46 years ago.

Incredibly as it may sound, 46 years on, he is still the Petroleum Resources Minister and President. Yet the oil sector on his watch has become the world’s most curious cesspool of corruption. The country that in January 1976 mounted a rostrum on behalf of Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and declared to the powerful G-7 leaders to ‘leave M.P.LA, Angola alone’ because ‘Africa has come of age, is no longer a strong voice even in its West African region. The military firepower that even the United Nations used to rely on to defend the flash points in Africa has lost its classic mojo. Our soldiers and police operatives and officers are being killed and humiliated by rag-tag non-state actors we call ‘terrorists.’ Tertiary education quality that once attracted students from even the United States, has become a symbol of ridicule and our political leaders ask  academic leaders and their scholars to die of hunger for crying out against rot in the system. Never in the history of governance system have a people become so helpless to change the principalities and powers that have held and let them down!

That is why as they want to begin the campaign this week, there is a responsibility to remind the political leaders that they are on the march again and the foundation of the democracy they seek to deepen is already rickety and people no longer have confidence in it. We need to remind them that the older people are beginning to notice some striking similarities between the corrupt politics that led to the fall of the First Republic and the ‘politricks’ they have entrenched. The politicians who have been abusing their opponents instead of reading and researching history books of what led us to this sorry pass should note what the spirit of good journalism and civil society is telling them, lest they will crash this Republic and there will be jubilation all over.    

https://player.adtelligent.com/prebid/iframe.html?adid=1837a4f04ccd21b1&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fguardian.ng

The politicians who are seeking to lead us from May 29, 2023 should note this contextual reporting of history of the fall of the First Republic as chronicled by credible scholars who posit that:  there are always many levels at which a complex social phenomenon can be explained and understood. To begin at the surface, the First Republic was overthrown because the people lost faith in it — not because some disaffected colonels were worried about their careers, not even because a disaffected ethnic group was worried about its position in the Federation. The former worry may have existed, and certainly the latter did. But they explain neither the success of the coup attempt nor the outpouring of joy and relief that greeted it across the country. The First Republic’s loss of popular legitimacy was a remarkably deep and broadly based — and, by the end of 1965, thorough — phenomenon. 

‘In short, the rulers used power that they held constitutionally to do unconstitutional things. In the process they destroyed themselves. Nigeria had censuses that were not censuses, elections that were not elections, and finally governments that were not governments.’ This was a Nigerian opinion in February, 1966. There are lessons here for our ‘politiricians.’

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim, a columnist, sounded a similar warning in 2015 in an article on election lessons in which he drew copious lessons from the same First Republic. He quoted a credible authority, Larry Diamond whose thought also triggered today’s intervention – the fire today’s politicians are trifling with. According to Prof. Ibrahim then: ‘The 2015 Nigerian election is turning out to be as acrimonious, bitter and a hateful play of brinkmanship that could derail our democracy as that of 1964. It has the potential of threatening the survival of our country…’ 

As the 2023 election is barely five months away, we need to reflect on what we did wrong that led to the collapse of the First Republic and subsequently the emergence of the civil war. Doubtless, a useful guide on this as Ibrahim pointed out in 2015 is Larry Diamond’s book, ‘Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria: The Failure of the First Republic.’ It’s a good resource on the failure of the First Republic. The classic reveals layers of the dynamic interplay of class, ethnicity and regionalism that was bound to lead into only one outcome, system collapse. The print edition is available in Nigeria and the digital copy is available online. Reproduced below are excerpts and summary from the chapter on the 1964 historic election.

The author draws our attention to the fact that Nigerian politicians have a history of v and fecklessness. In fact, ‘The Daily Express’ editorial of December 28, 1964 had argued that the crisis in the country was the result of inordinate ambition of some politicians. Debating the crisis in a formal colloquium in London the same week, Nigerian students also concluded that politicians rather than the constitution had failed. Diamond argues that the failure was too easily attributed to the ethnic question. The reality, however, was that ethnicity was the construction of politicians and not the eruption of popular sentiments. He draws attention to a survey carried out in 1963-64, which demonstrated “surprising levels of inter-ethnic tolerance and acceptance among the ethnically heterogeneous work forces sampled.”

The core argument of Diamond is that the First Republic collapsed because there was no respect for the core principle of liberal democracy – free and fair competition for power through elections. For many years, regional governments were violating the spirit and increasingly the letter of this basic principle, until each region had become a virtual one-party state. He points out that the degree of overt repression, especially in the North, and the subjugation of the Action Group through a manifestly fraudulent and partisan use of Federal emergency power were fundamentally inconsistent with liberal democracy. The 1964 Federal Election erased most of what remained of the democratic character of the system. And that set the tone for the collapse of democracy and federalism two years later (in 1966).  

In other words, the ‘soldiers of fortune’ did not jump into the political arena in January 1966: they were dragged in. In 1964, southern university students, concerned that the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) was manipulating the electoral process called for a three-month Army takeover to organise the elections. Immediately, after the elections, United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) opposition leaders began talking of secession and vowed, in the aftermath of the election, not to accept the authority of any government based on its outcome. Indeed, UPGA militants felt betrayed when President Azikiwe finally conceded to Sir Abubakar’s authority. From then on, political leaders throughout the Eastern Region, and unarguably the bulk of their followers, would not recognise any NPC federal government as legitimate in its authority, though they would, for utterly pragmatic reasons, grudgingly accept it. Such alienation and cynicism were also growing in the Western Region, where ‘the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) by a mixture of persuasion, force and fraud, secured a larger number of seats but in doing so intensified popular support for the AG.

Perhaps most ominously, the election crisis drew the Army into political conflict more fully than ever before. Though the army sided with the Constitution and attempted to remain as far above the conflict as possible, it had been forced to take sides. And increasingly, the Army was being called upon to quell and contain the unrest that the politicians had generated, which meant using its coercive power and authority in support of the NPC Federal Government. More and more, the Army was coming to be seen as the only force capable of refereeing political conflict. If many politicians and opinion leaders were maintaining that only the Army could fairly and efficiently administer the elections, what were the officers themselves to think? In fact, it appears that a number of middle-ranking officers, including perhaps three Lieutenant Colonels ‘seriously discussed whether the military should intervene to resolve the crisis’ Diamond, argued in this seminal piece. 

Following the election, crisis broke out on January 1, 1965, when the contents of a speech to be delivered by President Azikiwe were revealed. The core issue was that Azikiwe vowed to prevent the Prime Minister from forming a new Government on the basis of the election results. Reviewing the repeated frustration of attempts to ensure a free and fair election, and Sir Abubakar’s rebuff of his request for postponement and UN supervision, he said they had finally agreed to allow the Federal Electoral Commission (FEC) to take ‘appropriate action.’ But when the FEC failed to postpone the election and three of its members resigned, he felt morally compelled to reject the election result (and by extension, Sir Abubakar’s entitlement to form a new government). The Prime Minister’s response was that postponement of the election had never been discussed between them; that only the FEC could call off the election and only the courts could remedy irregularities…

Before we round off the details in this history next week, let our politicians reflect on the words of a Spanish philosopher George Santayana that, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ 

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Last week the INEC Chairman Prof Mammod Yakubu publicly promised that notwithstanding the gargantuan challenges facing the commission it would conduct free and fair elections or would deliver electoral justice in 2023. “Only the votes cast by Nigerians will determine who wins and this is our commitment to the nation,” said Prof Yakubu.

Beyond mere verbal undertaking, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu led-INEC must truly and really conduct an impartial, free, fair and credible 2023 elections especially the Presidential election. Of all the elections the Presidential election is the crucial election which outcome will make or mar Nigeria. In fact guaranteeing peace, unity and stability in Nigeria in 2023 depends so much on the outcome of the 2023 Presidential election. The truth of the matter is that the people want a breakaway from the pre-existing ruinous legal order. They want total breakaway from the two political parties-APC and PDP-which are hanging on the same leprous hand. There is a time for everything under the sun. This is the time for breakaway or severance from the yolk of slavery and oppression. That is why the teeming population of young people that constitutes the bulk of the population of Nigeria has trodden the streets and alley ways across Nigeria, in reminiscent of the storming of the Bastille, to demand for a new political order where commutative justice, equity, character, competence shall flourish. Armed with their respective Permanent Voting Cards (PVCs) most young people across the geo-political zones of the country are poised to cast their votes for the Presidential candidate of their choice in the forth-coming Presidential election.

In the past, the country’s youths had displayed a somewhat nonchalant attitude towards elections and electoral processes. But today this attitude has changed for good. In fact, as we speak, the Nigerian youths are out in the streets, expressways and alleyways dancing, singing and demanding for electoral justice in the 2023 Presidential election. Apart from the Nigerian youths, other Nigerian voters from variegated bloodstream of Nigerian society are casting so much hope in the 2023 Presidential election. They perceive the election as the election which will bring positive change in Nigeria. Therefore INEC has no option but to conduct a free and fair Presidential election in February 2023. INEC must ensure that the will of the Nigerian people is reflected in the 2023 Presidential election. A very credible American election monitoring team which is based in Washington D.C that came to Nigeria in 2019 to monitor the 2019 Presidential election in Nigeria stated that candidate Atiku Abubarkar clearly won that election not candidate Muhammadu Buhari. Therefore INEC must not rig the forth-coming Presidential election in favour of the APC. The other day an APC chieftain was boasting that the APC would rule Nigeria for the next three decades. And President Buhari has said that he is eagerly looking forward to handing over power to another APC man in 2023.

If President Buhari was/is the nominator and appointer/re-appointer of INEC chair Prof. Yakubu coupled to the fact Prof.Yakubu is not financially independent of the Presidency, it is not illogical to believe that Prof Yakubu would dance to Buhari’s tune. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Isn’t it ? Think carefully about what I am saying. Mind you, this is the first time the chair of our electoral body is coming from the same ethnic group as the President of Nigeria. For example, in 1979 Chief Michael Ani who was the chair of the then Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) did not come from the same ethnic group as the late President Shehu Shagari. Other successive electoral body bosses such as Prof. Eme Awa, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, Abel Guobadia, Maurice Iwu, Attahiru Jega did not come from the same ethnic group as the heads of government who appointed them. But today we have the chairman of INEC who does not only come from the same ethnic enclave as President Buhari but who was singularly handpicked and appointed the INEC Chairman by the same President Buhari. This is why the people are entertaining the fear that Prof Yakubu might manipulate the results of the Presidential election in favour of the APC. I tell people that Presidential Buhari would not want to commit a political suicide: he would not want to hand over power to a Peter Obi who, wittingly or unwittingly, would dismantle the Fulani oligarchical structures and corruption structures which he (Buhari) has been labouring to put in place in the last seven and half years.

Granted that by virtue of the Electoral Act 2022, votes cast by voters can now be electronically transmitted. The new Electoral Act has given legal backing to INEC to deploy technology to enhance the credibility of the electoral process. This has given birth to the deployment of INEC Voter Enrollment Device (IVED), Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal. But the aforesaid are not bulwark against election gerrymandering or manipulation. A technology operated by a fraudster can become a fraudster. So, notwithstanding the deployment of technology in the electoral process, INEC staffers can still rig the election in favour of any political party if they want.

Of all the INEC officials, the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) are the most powerful and influential. The RECs are the representatives of INEC at the State level. The role of RECs is critical for the success of any election. The duties of the RECs include monitoring the activities of all INEC ad-hoc staff/RECs as well as providing for proper verification of election results. In fact, the INEC relies heavily on RECs verifications in authenticating the election results on the presupposition that RECs are people of unquestionable integrity.

The pertinent question is: what are the names of the current RECs officiating in the 2023 elections? The coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) complain that some of the 19 RECs newly appointed for INEC by President Muhammadu Buhari are either card-carrying members of the ruling party or people who have been previously indicted for corruption. On their own part, the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) also complain that the current national voters’ register has been adulterated with fake and foreign names. In response to the allegation, INEC says it is presently conducting a comprehensive Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) clean-up of the registration data by scrutinizing every record after which it would, in line with section 19(1) of the Electoral Act 2022, appoint a period of seven days during which the register will be published for scrutiny by the public for objections and complaints”. While awaiting the publication of the register, INEC should also publish the names and designations of all the INEC’s RECs, INEC returning officers and staffers officiating in the 2023 elections to enable the public ascertain their background and antecedents. The allegation that some INEC’s RECs officiating in the 2023 elections are card-carrying members of the ruling party is a serious allegation which INEC should not just dismiss with a wave of the hand. Rather than dismiss the allegation, the onus is on INEC to rebut or counter the allegation with credible evidence, if any. INEC could even vouch for the character of the current RECs.

It is not enough for INEC to say that it is capable of organizing free, fair and credible elections in 2023”: INEC must be seen from the outside by fair-minded and informed members by the public to be manifestly organizing, through its actions, utterances and behaviour, free, fair and credible elections. The rule against bias or likelihood of bias is predicated on the perception of the fair-minded and informed members of the public. The basis for the rule is to maintain public confidence in a public institution such as INEC. Therefore INEC cannot claim to be conducting a free and fair 2023 general election if the members of the public have lost confidence in INEC or are going about beating their chests and regretting that INEC is not impartial or “independent” as its name suggests

By Martins Oloja

‘I would like to remind the black ministry and indeed all the black people that God is not in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people’s problems on earth.’ (Steve Biko)

I would like to borrow from the brilliance of Steve Biko, one of the original heroes of black consciousness and South African anti-apartheid activist to advise all of us the oppressed people in Nigeria that lamentation over the broken walls of the country and incredible cluelessness of the ruling class and desperation of the scoundrels who are campaigning to succeed the outgoing mediocrities in power isn’t a strategy, after all. Yes, lamentation isn’t a strategy.

And so I would like to remind all the good people of Nigeria who would like to see a better Nigeria after May 29, 2023, that the same God Steve Biko was referring to isn’t in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people’s election problems on earth. This means that we can read God’s mind through His words that He has lifted above His name. He has revealed to us that He is not deceived, whatever a man sows he shall reap. He has also revealed to us that only good trees can produce good fruits. Besides, He has warned us clearly that we cannot continue in sin so that grace may abound. He says He forbids that and so we can’t take His grace for granted. Here is the thing, all concerned Nigerians should note that the 2023 elections have consequences upon consequences. It is indeed a period of consequences. The elections will determine whether we should continue to with our failing country or we should continue with nation-building. The election management agency, INEC again assured the aristocracy of the Nigerian media at the weekend that we should expect electoral justice in 2023. This is a credible promise as the electoral umpire has demonstrated through recent staggered elections that INEC can indeed organise a remarkably free and fair election. All that is needful at the moment is how to organise ourselves to defeat the retrogressive forces that are desperate to continue our downward trend. We need to stop the desperate executive bandits and monsters who want to continue looting for themselves and their families. The 2023 elections are consequential. The young and the old should organise instead of agonising.    The reasons are not too far to seek. There is a sense for instance in which we can claim to Nigeria as I was saying here: “Nigeria, We Fail Thee”! We are supposed to proclaim, “Nigeria We Hail Thee” as the old anthem suggests. But even in this season of sycophancy, there is nothing concrete to hail Nigeria about. There is no doubt that the angry young ones who will have access to the citizen journals on digital platforms today will repeat an earlier title by Toyin Dawodu (2014)“Nigeria, We Hate Thee”. October 1, 2022, which is staring us in the face, should be a day to celebrate our great country really. But it will soon turn out also as a day of reflections on the 62 years that the locusts have greedily eaten. It is also a day that is suitable for the locusts to know that because they have eaten our tomorrow for their today, we should tell them that we are now aware. The 2023 elections will be a veritable opportunity to demonstrate that the people can change and shape their destinies.

Besides, we need to counsel the young ones to organise instead of agonising about the locusts. Just the way they organised the very significant #EndSARS 2020. We should trumpet it to them again that lamentation in the social media is also not a strategy. They need to migrate from that sweet nothing called rhetoric to action spots where we should embrace that weapon called execution – the discipline of getting things done. And so, it is time to save up to buy more ‘insecticides of mass destruction to deal with the rampaging locusts that always eat up our national assets, our virtues. Finally, it is time to share some pieces of information to the young ones about the power of skills acquisition and research at such a time like this. And the purpose-driven research is about one thing; the 2023 general elections. You may be wondering why I am raising enthusiasm in the 2023 elections again. I have been reflecting on a 2009 statement by the U.S first African American President, Barack Obama that, “elections have consequences”.

On January 23, 2009, President Obama said, “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won”. That was when President Obama was snapping at the Republicans after his election in 2009 when he didn’t have to worry about compromise when his Democratic Party had majority control of both the House and the Senate. So, the same Obama proceeded to introduce radical measures including the ObamaCare, among others. And in 2014, the voters noticed and voted in record numbers against Democrats in Congress. It was then recorded of the Hurricane Obama, “You said it, Mr President: Elections have consequences. Because you lost in 2014, Republicans can now reject your lame-duck Supreme Court nomination. And should…” It came to pass then that when the Democrats were in the minority, and the Republican were trying to stall the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, even as President Obama told the Senate Republicans to go nuclear if necessary, they reminded the President about the power in his words that, “elections have consequences”. Again, finally, in 2016, the words came back to Obama as an outgoing President when he was campaigning to get Hillary Clinton to succeed him as a Democratic Party candidate.

Mrs Clinton didn’t eventually win and the world again saw the power in those words, “elections have consequences”. Hurricane Donald Trump came, saw and redefined ‘the West’ and Tweeted on end ‘America’s awesome exceptionalism’. These have been the consequences of elections even in America, their America as the legendary J.P Clark calls them in a book title.

Those words have had some impact on me in recent months as I reflect on how the Nigeria’s power elite, nurtured by the Federal Republic of the Nigerian Army (according to General Chris Ali) have failed Nigeria, the world’s most populous black nation. I feel the young ones who desire real change for development should take the slogan to all the nooks and crannies of this country that: “We have been naïve. We did not know what General IBB and his men knew in 1993 when they cancelled the people’s wishes expressed in the 1993 general and presidential elections. We fought him and ran away. He too ran away to Minna, the capital of Niger State on 26 August 1993. And democracy was scotched just as the self-styled Prince of the Niger killed the consequences (dividends) of our elections. Even after the sudden deaths of the symbol of democracy and the June 12 elections in 1993, Chief M.K.O Abiola and the usurper-in-chief of the people’s mandate, General Sani Abacha, the same military cabal still imposed one of their own, General Olusegun Obasanjo as President in 1999. We all felt the consequences of his election and re-election in 1999 and 2003-2007. As we dozed off in 2007, the artful soldiers again imposed a candidate they knew was not healthy on the nation. And while men were deep in their slumber, the sick candidate too resisted all moves to get him a strong running mate. We all saw the consequences of the election of the unprepared one, President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011-2015 after completing the truncated tenure of his principal from 2010 to 2011. Behold, the consequences of the 2011-2015 elections paved the way for the 2015 election upset we all celebrated: that indeed a man of integrity whose body language alone could literally improve electricity and indeed the economy had been elected. Haven’t we seen the consequences of the 2015 elections. The administration produced by the 2015 election has been battling with a two-point agenda namely, “fighting insecurity and corruption”. As it has been noted here several times, the president may have recorded some plaudits in a section of the media on the two-point agenda in recent weeks, but they cannot be recorded as quite significant, in this connection. Corruption seems to have technically knocked out the ‘New- Sheriff-in Town’ Malam Garba Shehu introduced to us in 2015.

Specifically, insecurity and corruption are still waxing stronger as headaches for all governments in the country. Are there any institutions of governance or social services that the nation can be proud of – from education, healthcare, power/energy sector, roads construction and maintenance to aviation? These are consequences of elections from just 1999- to 2022/23.

We have read enough about the patriotism of the founding fathers who built this nation and obtained independence for us. Today we should talk to those who have pulled down the house and failed Nigeria. Now, under the watch of today’s leaders, we do not write about Nigeria or the Federal and State Governments anymore. We now write about the presidency or president Obasanjo/Yar’Adua, Jonathan or Buhari or Governor this or that or governor this-or that administration. There is no Nigeria or federal government to attribute anything to. We give all the glory to mere men in power. President this or governor that has approved road repairs from one town to the other: no reference to the federal or state governments anymore in our media language.

As I once asked here, where indeed did the rains start beating us? On October 1, 1960, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa,

Nigeria’s first Prime Minister who opened the first chapter in the history of Nigeria on Independence Day had noted among others in his address titled, I Dedicate Myself To The service of My Country: “…At this time when our constitutional development entered upon its final phase, the emphasis was largely upon self-government: We the elected representatives of the people of Nigeria, concentrated on proving that we were fully capable of managing our affairs both internally and as a nation, However, we were not to be allowed the selfish luxury of focusing our interest on our own homes…”

When shall we get leaders who will today dedicate themselves to the service of this country? In the country today, our leaders who failed to develop our roads and transportation infrastructure loot out treasuries to buy private jets to fly over the bad roads. Our leaders who failed the nation by refusing to equip public schools retired home to establish good private schools and universities that children of the real people cannot attend. Nigeria is poor, down and almost out but its rulers always have enough war chest to run for public offices at any time. They complain as candidates that Nigeria cannot make it unless the public oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is reorganised or even privatised. But when they get to the same office they accused of corrupting the operations of NNPC, they sabotage the reform of the same oil corporation. Where will the redemption song come when the legislature the organic law gives the power to oversee the public purse becomes the ‘legislooter’?

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Last Wednesday some hired political thugs, hoodlums and hooligans threatened the Labour party in Lagos to stop conducting a rally tagged: #Obidattti23 Forward Ever Rally” scheduled to hold in Lagos on October 1 2022. Also last Saturday another set of hired thugs, hooligans, hoodlums and policemen were sent to disrupt the peaceful one-million-march movement organized in Ebonyi State by the Labour Party supporters in Ebonyi State. All these travesties of democracy are happening at the threshold of the commencement of political campaigns that would usher in the 2023 elections, and, also around the time that the test polls conducted by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s NOI Polls Limited and Tedo N. A Peterside Foundation reveal that the Presidential candidate of Labour party Peter Obi towers above the duo of Alhaji Atiku Abubarkar and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Without holding brief for the Labour party or its Presidential candidate Peter Obi, the aforesaid threat, aggression, hooliganism and violence meted out against the Labour in both Lagos and Ebonyi States, is, to say the least, a big set-back for Nigerian democracy. Why should a political party descend to the barbaric low level of threatening another political party to refrain from carrying out their political campaign? Democracy is a learning process but I seriously doubt whether our Nigerian politicians are really and truly learning the lessons of democracy. I had thought that the Nigerian democracy had outgrown the weaponization of threats, intimidations and violence in cowing down political opponents or in disrupting their political activities. It is obvious that I was mistaken. Impelled by an inordinate thirst for power, pomp, property, quick money, some dirty politicians are still using threats, intimidations and violence in their bid to grab political power. Machiavellianism still reigns supreme in our national politics, otherwise why should a political party issue a threat to stop another political party from holding its political rally? If the man with a cheap appetite is so desperate to become the next President of Nigeria he should roll out his manifesto and engage the electorate in a robust political discourse instead of hiring political thugs, hooligans and never-do-wells to threaten the Labour Party to stop its political activities in Lagos.

Labour must not succumb to their threat, violence, aggression and hooliganism. Rather it should simply ignore them and work harder to coast to victory in the 2023 general elections. I have perused the scrap contained in the writ issued against Labour in Lagos State by the hoodlums, and, I would advise the party to ignore the scrap. First, the makers of that scrap are hired young hoodlums and never-do-wells. Besides, the court does not act in vain. No court makes an order that cannot be obeyed. No judge makes a court order to take away the inalienable rights of an innocent citizen or to prevent the citizen from exercising his or her constitutional right to freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom of thought, conscience and religion as enshrined in our 1999 Constitution. No judge can make an order contrary to the current Election Act to empower hooligans to continue to indulge in their illegality, hooliganism, and violence in our national politics. Therefore the threat issued against Labour in Lagos is a violation of the Electoral Act. It is illegal and unconstitutional. Ditto for the disruption of the political rally organized by Labour in Ebonyi State. Look, you cannot stop anybody from exercising his or her God-given freedom. You cannot force a voter to vote for you in 2023. I am disappointed with the dirty politicians hiring thugs to intimidate and harass their political opponents. Instead of concentrating on winning the confidence of the electorate to vote for them in 2023 despite their monumental failure in the last seven and half years they are busy issuing threats and unleashing violence against Labour because they are afraid that Labour might win the Presidential election next year.

As I earlier said, I am not a member of the Labour party neither am I a card-carrying member of any political party for that matter. But I must call evil by its name. I cannot say that evil is good. The violence unleashed on Labour in Lagos and Ebonyi States is illegal and antithetical to the tenets of democracy and by extension human civilization. Note that this is not the first time political thugs have been hired to issue threats and unleashed violence against perceived political opponents in Lagos State. I remember that during the last general elections in Lagos State hired political thugs were seen gallivanting about intimidating potential voters to refrain from voting for candidates of their choice or else they would be driven out of Lagos. One man even went to the ridiculous extent of threatening to throw some people into the Lagos Lagoon. Apart from threat and intimidation, they have formed the habit of sending their political things to remove, or yank off or destroy the hoisted campaign banners or billboards of other political parties. There is one thing I cannot still fathom: the gullibility of the governed. Aside from the leadership crisis, the next crisis undoing Nigeria is the followership crisis. When will Lagosians and the people of the South-West understand that the politician with a cheap appetite is merely exploiting them for his own benefit?. When will they understand that the man does not put food for them on their respective tables? At times I wonder whether this man has cast a kind of spell on the people which blinds them to follow him. What does it profit a man or woman to vote for the politician with a cheap appetite only for him or her to thereafter continue walking the streets battered and hungry?.

This is sad. I tell friends that violence has never been used to solve the problems of mankind. If violence is useful in the settlement of human disputes Russia would have won the Russia-Ukraine war a long time ago. Violence begets violence in the same way injustice begets injustice. Violence is a recipe for anarchy. Ours is a multi-party and multi-religious system. Therefore it makes no sense for one political party to choose to become a nuisance to other political parties or disrupt their political activities. Life is live and let live. No man is a single verse. Nobody can live alone in this passing world. Man is a social animal. We are members of the same human family. We need one another in our socialization and even political processes even though our tribe, tongue and religion may differ. By using threats and violence to disrupt the political activities of Labour the politicians sponsoring these hooligans are conveying the impression that they are incapable of winning an election except through violence, rigging, gerrymandering and election manipulation.

The current Electoral Act punishes electoral threat and electoral violence. For instance, sections 116 and 128 of the Act stipulate that anybody or group persons disrupting a political meeting or gathering or anybody directly or indirectly, by his or herself or by another person on his or her behalf, makes use of or threatens to make use of any force, violence against any political candidates or political party commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine or imprisonment or both. Therefore Labour is advised to lodge a petition with the law enforcement agents to arrest the Lagos hoodlums and their sponsors threatening to stop the rally of the Labour Party on October 1 2022. The party is also advised to petition the law enforcement agents to arrest the hooligans who disrupted the Labour activity in Ebonyi State last Saturday. Certainly the arrest and prosecution of these hoodlums and their sponsors would serve as a deterrent to other hoodlums and party stalwarts planning to commit the same crime.

Legitimate competition to win power is not synonymous with deployment of thugs to intimidate and harass political opponents. If political competitiveness is allowed to degenerate into violence the negative fallout of it might spell doom for our country. This is why the Federal government must warn all political parties to desist from wielding violence against their political opponents. INEC, federal government and the police must ensure that the Lagos hooligans and thugs do not make good their threat against Labour. Nobody has the monopoly of violence. If the Lagos hooligans proceed to disrupt Labour rally on October 1 2022 and Labour tries to repel the attack in self-defence, a breakdown in public peace might occur resulting in the killing and injury of many people. This is why the law enforcement agents must intervene now to arrest the hired Lagos hooligans and thugs threatening to stop the Labour rally on October 1 2022.

As fragmented and pluralistic as our political culture is it justifies our faith in a common creed-belief in human freedom even though some politicians have shown an inclination to think otherwise despite what freedom means for modern society. We still hold this truth bequeathed to us by our nationalists and freedom fighters: freedom is our greatest achievement, and our greatest bequest to posterity. Therefore all hands must be on deck to denounce hooliganism and violence that violate freedom in our national politics. In his book, Spirit of Liberty, Learned Hand, writes, inter alia, “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women: when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.