That was a thorny question one of my sisters was asking emotionally as the undertakers were lowering the casket bearing the remains of my father last Friday afternoon. I was shaken that I would not see the ‘Baba Aladura’ again. Every one of the ten surviving children was sobbing, muttering nonsensical things as we were bidding him goodbye at the graveside. The question: ‘who will pray for me again? re-echoed while the pastor who prayed for the family in the house reminded the widow about the significance of that emotional outburst when he (the pastor) reminded me and the widow about how to fill the gap my father left behind as the chief priest for the family.All the testifiers from neighbours, through relations to the children recalled at the modest but remarkable wake-keep on Thursday Papa’s unique role as a prayerful father and arrowhead. As soon as you appeared before him over the years, his first assignment was a word-based prayer: he always prayed directly from the word of God especially in Psalms. He demonstrated in his prayers at all times that our Creator should be praised and adored first before asking for anything. Yes, he knew how to praise God in most of the names the scriptures have revealed to us. We were always ever willing to kneel before Him to hear more names of God. My dad knew the power in praise more than prayers for material things. As that my sister, Itunu asked that question, who will prayer for her again, I realised too that there would be no one to pray for me too in Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs and the exact words of Christ from His sermon on the Mountain.

Uundoubtedly, we will all miss the man who taught me how to manage my emotions even in the face of crisis. Yes, Pa Michael Oloja Lemikan was never angry about anything. Even when you deprived him of anything and even cheated him, he would only smile and ask God to be with you. No one heard any harsh words from him. He was always quite witty. He was a clean man who also cherished a good dress-ence. He would always remind you about a clean God who would not tolerate dirty environment. Before returning to the significance of my father who just left me to my devices, I would like to thank friends and relations who made me realise that despite the harsh environment that our duty bearers have just imposed on us, there is still love in my country. My friends and relations most of whom were never invited honoured me in my modest town, Ajagba which is about 30 minutes away from Ore where the civil war ended in 1973 in today’s Ondo state. I would like to be grateful to the late Olusegun Agagu who as Governor of Ondo State opened up the Ore-Irele-Omi-Ajagba-Agadagba axis road networks. May the good Lord continue to bless the memories of Agagu who also made our neighbours, the Ilaje to be able to drive to their ancestral homes since creation. Anytime I travel home I pray for repose of the soul of Agagu. May the good Lord continue to bless his family. My guests from Abuja and Lagos could not lament getting to my town In Irele Local Government. They got there on good roads. I hope more governors could get accolades when they are no longer there. I hope more people in power would learn to number their days so that they could apply their hearts to wisdom – that there will be the judgment of men too here on earth before they face their Creator for the consequences of their stewardship. May Agagu’s soul continue to Rest In Peace! Sorry about the digression, no thanks to the way Agagu actually broke the power of road transportation darkness over the old Okitipupa Division. I can’t continue to mention all the names of those who were there physically. I would also like to say, Thank you’ to those who sent messages to me across digital platforms. I thank those who inquired about the promised virtual participation. There were technical hitches, which made that impossible. Accept my sincere apologies. I am still overwhelmed by emotions including those from my national media family. And The Guardian family’s pleasant surprise…Who am I that The Guardian family has been mindful of me? They came to Ajagba, they saw my sleepy, modest town and painted the place red. They helped me to pay my father the last respect. I had never seen anything like that before: 55 of them from all the departments of the flagship of the Nigerian press were there. They contributed and bought a cow for me. They organised without leaking it to me. They brought the cow live through our Ondo State Correspondent.  The Lagos and Abuja integrated newsroom did this to me. The Business Operations situation room also did wonderful things. Some individuals in the same commercial sections contributed to bring their preservation facilities with food items from Lagos. They also brought Plan B drinks – just in case of their ‘anti-social’ chief servant’ could lack in capacity to play host to too many people. They brought the day’s newspaper issue. I was sober. They made me realise the significance of an ancient word that there are some friends who stick closer than brothers. I am  overwhelmed by the outpouring of love by the ‘The Guardian’ great family.  All I can say is that I am very, very grateful to the Board that made this happen. I will forever remain grateful to the Alex-Uruemu Ibru family that built this great media empire, which has remained credible and influential. I will forever remain grateful to the God of all flesh who has supplied the grace to sustain One Love that has kept us together. The covenant-keeping God will not allow us to fail. He will not allow us to falter. He will not allow us to fall from grace. His grace will continue to be sufficient for us in Rutam House where we have all pledged to work together for the rise and rise of ‘The Guardian’. Who am I really that ‘The Guardian’ family rose for me at the weekend in a remote village? I will continue to probe the question: who am I that my people in Rutam House were mindful of me this last weekend? My Significant Dad My father wasn’t a prominent person but he was part of those Rick Warren would like to tag as significant persons who don’t have to be prominent anyway as so many prominent people in this our broken world are not significant to God and mankind. He was born some 93 years ago to the family of  Pa Eyinmonoren Lemikan and Mama Medunrunmonen Lemikan, both of Blessed memory. They were peasant farmers. Principally, Elder Oloja was literate to some extent. Pa Oloja was a farmer, hunter, a trained local medicine dispenser and an itinerant chemist who would keep his medications in a box. He was a local musician and a very artful dancer. He served as Chairman of the Parents Teachers Association of Local Authority Primary School, Gboroye, Ajagba (I attended) for so many years before relocating to Ode Ajagba. He was a community leader of some sort. My father became a Christian very early in life by joining a Baptist Church in Gboroye Village and used his knowledge of the scriptures to serve God. He was indeed a devout Christian who dedicated himself to cultivating peaceful relationship with people across ethnic groups, which resulted in extending his friendship beyond ethnic and tribal groups. My dad could speak English, Edo, Urhobo and Itshekiri, among others. He was a compassionate father to all his children and younger ones within the nuclear and extended family settings. He was not just a preacher of the word, he was a peacemaker and dispute resolution expert throughout his lifecycle. Note this: my dad never used forceful words or arms on anybody. There is a sense in which we can conclude that he was busy throughout. There was no dull moment for him even in his old age, in his house. The got married to the late Mrs Alice Oloja as his first wife and later married Mrs Ruth Oloja Lemikan, the only surviving wife. He left behind ten children, many grandchildren and great grand children. In his prime time, he kept four bossom friends outside his community. They were Aghonenbaren from Kiribo, a town in present Ese-Odo Local Government Area in Ondo State, Elder Kosoko from Igbekebo in the same Ese-Odo LGA, Elder Peletu from Igbotu in the same Ese-Odo and Uwenmajega who hailed from the Urhobo-speaking Delta state. They were always exchanging visits when they were younger. I believe this was why my dad’s favourite delicacy till his demise was unripe plantain cooked with pepper-soup source made of dry or fresh fish. But all the aforementioned friends of my dad had died earlier. My father joined them on September 14, 2021.My dad who had a sobriquet ‘Bebebokaja’ for his dexterity in dancing would be sorely missed as a man who didn’t like chieftaincy titles either in the church or in flesh. He hated anything that could be interpreted to mean worshipping of idols or other gods he regarded as the works of men. That was why all of us his children could have asked that question: who will pray for us now that our prayer warrior had gone to be with His creator? Certainly, as the Lord liveth, I think as the firstling (the one who opened the womb of the wife of his first love) the answer should not blow for too long in the wind. Thank you all for your messages of love and hope. May the God of all grace teach us in the end to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. I can’t forget all the Ministers of First Baptist Church Ajagba, Ode Irele, Akotogbo,  especially Pastor Babafemi Omolade Aiyela who is the Minister-in-Charge of First Baptist Church, Ajagba for their services at the wake-keep and the final funeral service. Thank you all. Good Night my significant dad!

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Despite recent advances in Malawi and Zambia, elective government stutters and sputters to the uncertain rhythms of pathogens and politicians across Africa. The onset of 2022 has served notice that Nigeria’s 2023 general election, #NigeriaDecides2023, is likely to be the most complex and most watched in a brutal biennium for elective governance in the continent.

In Mali and Guinea, these uncertainties have produced military coups. In Ethiopia, it has led to a civil war. The electoral landscape in Africa over the next biennium reads like a minefield. Among the countries scheduled to vote, “Libya, Somalia, Mali, Guinea, and Chad are all tentatively scheduled to hold elections that have been delayed or disrupted by coups or conflict.” Some of these may slip. The general elections in Kenya and Angola in 2022 will also be closely watched.
In 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way wrote that Africa was increasingly a hotbed of “competitive authoritarianism”, which they describe as “a type of regime in which the coexistence of meaningful democratic institutions and serious incumbent abuse yields electoral competition that is real but unfair.” Nigeria is among the 21 African countries which fall into this category. The one time there was a let up in 2015, the country experienced electoral alternance.
On 27 April 2021, Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, served a 660-day notice of the date for the next general election, which will occur on 18 February 2023.
Nigerian politicians like to claim that an election is a game of numbers. That is not actually accurate; elections are about counting and accounting. As a country, Nigeria has historically not distinguished itself in either enterprise.
You can have numbers without counting. In June 2020, Andy Uba manufactured entirely fictional numbers for a party primary that took place only in his imagination to emerge candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the governorship election that took place in November 2021. In the case of Rtd. Cpt. Ahmed Haladu Bichi & PDP v. Alhaji Ibrahim Muazzam & Others, Petition No. EPT/KNS/HR/29/07, the election petition tribunal in Kano accused INEC of indulging in institutional “abracadabra”. In Chief (Mrs.) Edith Ejezie v. Hon Ralph Okeke & Others., Petition No. EPT/AN/NAF/HR/13/2007, a separate tribunal in Anambra found INEC guilty of “generating of results for an election that did not hold.”
Competitive authoritarianism is a system that seeks to confer legitimacy on electoral abracadabra through mechanisms of incumbency, including coercion, menace and institutional forgeries. Electoral abracadabra is not an event. It is the result of a multi-system process usually set up over an election cycle. It has many actors and components, nearly all of them within the state sector. Whether Nigeria will continue with this squalid tradition in 2023 will depend on several factors. Five will be pivotal.
First, the independence of INEC itself. 2023 will put to test whether INEC has improved from its default for abracadabra. Electoral systems at the end of the day are run by human beings. When they are crooked or lacking in independence and integrity, the elections are compromised. Already there are reports of “serious concerns in INEC that preparation for the 2023 general elections may not command public confidence.”
The ruling party APC has clearly not been wanting in intent to compromise INEC. Last July, the National Assembly reluctantly rejected the unlawful nomination for the position of INEC Commissioner of a card-carrying member of President Buhari’s ruling APC. The ruling party has used attrition to get rid of INEC’s independent commissioners. Credible sources within INEC report that during the Anambra governorship election, a state governor in south-east Nigeria repeatedly threatened an INEC Commissioner from the same region that he would be replaced if he did not comply with the need for the governor’s party to corrupt the election. His party lost the election. The Commissioner has recently been replaced with a nominee who is himself a staff of INEC. In 2019, the regime sought to intimidate the same commissioner by deploying the State Security Service (SSS) to arrest him in the middle of the general election. His crime was that he could not be bought or sold. The Commissioner for logistics, a retired Air Vice Marshall, has also been replaced. In July and August 2022, the tenure of at least 23 Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECS) will lapse. Their replacements will have less than six months to bed in before the 2023 elections. If this trend of replacing experienced commissioners of integrity continues, INEC will not be able to salvage any credibility from the 2023 elections.
Second, technology. INEC has been quite voluble about the Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) as its answer to Nigeria’s chronic problems of voter accreditation and ballot collation. This system had its first major outing in the Anambra governorship election last November. BVAS is geospatially dependent. It is also broadband dependent and needs 4G to guarantee functionality. Anambra is Nigeria’s second smallest state at 4,844 km², with a dense population, in which communities live cheek-by-jowl with one another. The next two states in which INEC will audition BVAS before the 2023 presidential election, Ekiti (6,353 km²) and Osun (9,251 km²), combine for only 15,604 km² of landmass or nearly the size of Lagos State smaller than the smallest state in northern Nigeria, Gombe State (18,768 km²).
By contrast, Niger State, the biggest state in (northern) Nigeria at 76,363 km² is about two and a half times the size of Oyo State, which at 28,454 km² is the largest state in southern Nigeria but only the 14th in the country. In Anambra, INEC could get away with the electoral frustrations of BVAS but they are unlikely to do so in Zamfara State with 39,762 km² or in Taraba State’s 54,473 km². Despite its evident geospatial sensitivities, BVAS will only have been tested in three relatively small states of southern Nigeria before the 2023 elections but nowhere in the north. A situation in which BVAS can only be deployed in Southern Nigeria in 2023 but not in the North will rather problematic, to put it mildly. With 4-G coverage of Nigeria realistically unlikely to break 65% in the next year, the elections could be decided in Nigeria’s telecommunications blindspots.
Third, violence. 2021 recorded the worst toll in deadly violence in the country since 2015. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Early Warning Projections for 2021-22 ranks Nigeria 8th in the global list of countries at risk of mass killings. Access to illegal firearms has been democratized. At the beginning of 2022, the Auditor-General of the Federation reported “the total number of lost firearms (from the Nigeria Police Force) as reported as at December 2018 stood at 178,459 pieces. Out of this number, 88,078 were AK-47 rifles.” The numbers are likely to have grown vastly since 2018. To police the Anambra election last November, the country deployed nearly 14% of active-duty police assets, supplemented by other security agencies. There will not be this proportion of assets available in a general election. In the absence of any credible ideas for diminishing the current trajectory of violence in Nigeria, INEC will struggle to find election administrators and numbers will be manufactured from places where no voting can take place.
Fourth, judicial capture. Every election cycle in Nigeria has three seasons. The campaign season belongs to the parties, the politicians and their godfathers. This is followed by the voting season, during which the security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission hold sway. Thereafter, matters shift to the courts for the dispute resolution season, which belongs to the lawyers (mostly Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs) and judges. Invariably, the judges will cast the final votes in the 2023 elections. The politicians know this and they have been busy getting their judicial inoculations and boosters in a competitive game of judicial capture at different levels of the judicial hierarchy. As Supreme Court Justice, Centus Nweze, pointed out in March 2020, Judges can do a lot of damage by arrogating to themselves decisions that only the collective of voters in any constituency are allowed by the constitution to make. Imo State under Hope Uzodinma provides tragic proof. The judges who have accused INEC of procuring electoral abracadabra are themselves avid exponents of the dark art of judicial abracadabra. In 2023, this jurisprudence of abracadabra could cost us the country.
The final factor could be the Electoral Act. Nigeria’s current Electoral Act is in arrears. In six years in power, President Buhari has never seen an Electoral Act that he could assent to. As Owei Lakemfa has pointed out, on four occasions in that period, Buhari has, under different artifices, declined assent to the Electoral Bill passed by the National Assembly. The design seems clear: by enabling a tyranny of artisanal manipulation, he configures an electoral landscape favorable to the party that controls the official mechanisms of coercion and the state violence. That is his party. If he continues on this path, Nigeria’s 2023 election could be a tragic farce with deadly consequences for the country and beyond.
The landscape is still in flux and will evolve. Nigerians – civics, politicians, organisations and all – and Nigeria’s international friends and partners can enhance the odds on a credible contest in 2023 by affecting each, some or all of these factors. The stability of West Africa and beyond could depend on how much they succeed or fail in doing so.
A lawyer and teacher, Odinkalu, can be reached at [email protected]

Our expectations are high for the year 2022 and this is expectedly so, for many reasons. The year gone by was a very difficult one for many, especially in the area of dwindling economic capacities, given all the variables of inflation, the climbing exchange rate, unemployment and the consequences of the global pandemic. Ordinarily, many are on the fringes, barely managing to survive the biting effects of recession and the economic downturn, even though constant promises from the leadership reverberated to cushion the effect, with little or no tangible results. The major challenge as it were, is the crippling effect of insecurity, which has more or less put the nation at a standstill. The reason why the Constitution in section 14 (2) (b) gives priority attention to security as the yardstick to measure governance is because of its strategic importance to human existence. A society where life is not secure, where living has no guarantee and where the fear of death grips the larger populace would necessarily experience slow development. So, we cannot exhaust discussions on security since it is the primary purpose of the government.

Without any doubt, one of the reasons that led to the ouster of the previous administration was the growing insecurity in the land at the time and the seeming inability of that government to contain it. The emergence of an infantry expert, a war hero and an experienced soldier gave hope to many, but things have not changed much. Even though serious acts of terrorism have been contained and limited to the base of the insurgents, we do not seem to be getting out of the woods, going by spate of attacks in recent times. The nation at large has wondered why the President has not been able to tackle the security challenges facing the nation headlong, given his experience and knowhow, on the subject. On March 24, 2018 during the convocation ceremony of Taraba State University, another war veteran, General Theophilus Danjuma (Rtd), shocked the nation when he stated pointedly that the Nigerian armed forces were colluding with insurgents and killer herdsmen, saying that Somalia would become child’s play, should the President fail to act promptly. He called on the people to rise up to defend themselves.

“The Armed Forces are not neutral. They are conniving with armed bandits that kill people. They facilitate their movement. They cover them. You must rise to defend yourselves from these people. If you are depending on the armed forces to protect you, you will all die one by one. I ask every one of you to be alert and defend your country. Defend your territory, defend your States, because you have nowhere else to go.”

As usual, government propaganda went agog, vilifying the retired general, until reason prevailed and the President had an audience with him, after which everything returned to business as usual. We have heard stories (though not verified) of helicopters with military men said to be aiding terrorists and bandits with supplies of weapons and foodstuffs, in line with General Danjuma’s assertions. In answer to this malady, military intelligence can be deployed effectively to combat the connivance, if indeed it is true, or else we may just be going round in circles. Long after the dust gathered on General Danjuma’s explosive revelation, a former Naval officer, Commodore Kunle Olawunmi (Rtd) on August 26, 2021 on national television, stated that terrorists named current governors, senators and Aso Rock officials as their sponsors during interrogation by the military authorities. He said the government had not been able to prosecute the sponsors because it was partisan. You then wonder how low things can go. Let’s hear him.

“I told them that the centre of gravity of Boko Haram in Nigeria is the sponsors of the programme. It was beyond us because the job we needed to do was kinetic but we cannot resolve issues of sponsors of Boko Haram that were in Buhari’s government that we know them. That was why we couldn’t pursue that aspect that could have resolved the issue because we need to arrest people.”

The late former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Obadiah Mailafia, said in August 2020 that repentant terrorists revealed that a serving northern governor is a Boko Haram leader. So, why is the government pretending not to know what to do? This matter is not peculiar to terrorists though but also extends to armed robbers, kidnappers, fraudsters and other criminal elements, who all make society ungovernable. What is needed to tackle them is the will power from those who are in authority. This is why the solution of state police or community policing as the case may be, should be embraced by the government holistically. The Neighbourhood Watch in Lagos State has proved to be an excellent idea, just as the Amotekun Corps in Ondo and Osun States have proved effective in combating the festering crisis of kidnapping. This should be replicated in other parts of the country, with necessary modifications.

Commodore Olawunmi had stated that most military formations had been compromised by the infusion of religion into the system, which the insurgents exploit to maximum advantage. When criminals invade religious places of worship, it becomes easier for them to take advantage of the spiritual atmosphere to perpetrate their evil deeds. Recently, two ex-convicts who were absorbed into a church for rehabilitation, turned around to kill the pastor in order to rob him of money belonging to the church. Though a delicate choice to make in the prevailing circumstance of present-day Nigeria, the government must nonetheless insulate all military formations from religion, at least in profiling the civilian populace that throng these centres to perform their spiritual obligations. This concern was recently confirmed by the former Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai (Rtd) who was reported to have said that “there is a strong religious affinity between the people in the town and the bandits and terrorists in the forests.”

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), as at June 2021, Boko Haram terrorists killed about 350,000 people in the North-East alone, 90 per cent of whom were children. The crisis is compounded in the South-East, where officers who sacrifice themselves to protect others have become targets of brutal attacks by so-called unknown gunmen, whom we now understand are being sponsored by politicians to settle scores. In the final analysis, it all boils down to the will power of the government to tackle the issues headlong, or else there is a failure of government. The President along with the governors of the states all pride themselves as chief security officers over the people and huge sums of money go to service this nomenclature without accountability, annually, in the name of security votes. This then leads us to the issue of conspiracy of corruption by the leaders. Given all that we now know from Dasukigate, it is actually possible for leaders in power to collude with terrorists, bandits, unknown gunmen, pipeline vandals, kidnappers and armed robbers, to fuel insecurity in order to loot the common purse. That is the way it would seem to us, if this particular government cannot rein in this monster.

Unfortunately, the situation seems to be slipping out of the hands of the government, given the scenario of greed, corruption, collusion and religious affiliations that have been unveiled to us by those who should know. Nigerians did not elect bandits, terrorists and criminals as their leaders. People with known identities canvassed for votes from us upon certain promises. Let them brace up to the challenges of their offices and secure the country.

The government should be bold to adopt the concept of state police nationally as a first step towards tackling this menace. Since those who are colluding are all known to the government, they should be relieved of their positions in order to cleanse the system. Going by the declarations of the Katsina State Governor, the situation is already deteriorating. That is from the home State of the President himself, so it cannot be said that leaders are immuned from the crisis. Right Honourable Aminu Bello Masari once presided over the House of Representatives before he was elected governor in 2015 and he is currently serving his second tenure in office. If such an influential leader should confess to helplessness in begging the people to buy guns to defend themselves, then the government has failed.

“It’s Islamically allowed for one to defend himself against attack. One must rise to defend himself, his family and assets. If you die while trying to defend yourself, you’ll be considered a martyr. It’s surprising how a bandit would own a gun while a good man trying to defend himself and his family doesn’t have one.

“We’ll support those who come with the initiative to procure arms because residents need to also complement the efforts of security agencies. These people (security agencies) don’t have the number to protect the people … Count it yourself, how many policemen do we have in this country? How many soldiers do we have? Even if we say every policeman should go back to his home state, it’ll still not be enough. So, if we fold arms and decide to do nothing, we’ll be the ones to suffer the most.”

In a way, the governor is right, to the extent that the concept of a federal military might is insufficient to combat the gravity of the issues surrounding insecurity in our land. This then takes us to the issue of restructuring, in amending the Constitution to take away the exclusivity of security as a federal agenda. The National Assembly has the golden opportunity through the pending constitutional amendment to balance the forces on the side of state police. In the same vein, it is anachronistic to have the governor of a State as Chief Security Officer when he is really not in charge of security.

He has no control over the operations of the security within his state, legally speaking, since the Constitution puts the operations and command of all security agencies in federal officers. In the meantime, Nigerians will be delighted to see an active Commander-in-Chief that will rise up to tinker with the security architecture to end insecurity in the new year.

Happy new year all.

• Adegboruwa is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)