There is a school of thought that writer’s block comes from having no ideas at all. I like to refer to it as the ‘creative juices’ not flowing enough or even at all. Others say it comes from an overflow of ideas when there is a clash of interests that your mind cannot narrow it down to one.

However, my experience with writer’s block was different, stemming up from the fear of not being able to pen down what I most needed to write.

A crippling unease invades my psyche; I begin to wonder if there is a moral code for writing about other people that have different life experiences than I do.

A week ago, I wrote an opinion piece titled “Is IPOB AGovC Alliance a Terrorism Ploy?” and newspapers of great repute such as Daily Trust, Premium Times, Vanguard and Daily Post and more that had published my articles prior to that gave it a cold shoulder.

I found the experience absolutely strange, but eventually, the reason for the snub would surface after The Guardian published it and cleaned off every issue I made against the pro-Biafra group, Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and their hostilities. It seemed like my opinion had hit a nerve, but then flaying IPOB does not equate to me flaying the entire Igbos or Igboland and what it stands for.

As a Fulani woman of Fulani descent hailing from Yola-North, Adamawa state where the majority ethnicity is the Fulbe/Fulani, does condemnation to vile Fulani-herdsmen mean an attack on my entire ethnicity? Or does casting aspersion on Boko Haram which is Nigeria’s radical Islamist group a jab at my entire religion? Absolutely not.

As a lover of good literature, some of the group of people who make me accept who I am as a Nigerian, apart from great Northerners include Igbo writers like Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa and the great Chinua Achebe. In fact, as I write this I remember from my secondary school days how my usually boring literature class would come alive when discussing Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The novel is not only a significant book in literature because of its disparity from the ‘relatable/likeable protagonist’ trope. It is also a significant book in history because it tells the story of African colonization from the African perspective.

It is also through their inks I learnt about the Nigerian civil war of 1967 and the strong-willed people of Biafra.

Though I do not think it is fair to affiliate a group of people by their misfortune and tragedies, sometimes the necessity to do so arises in order to truly appreciate the strengths of the Igbo people.

I know people hear the phrase “Civil War” and think it happened centuries back whereby only our ancestral fathers witnessed it. It actually happened some 50 years ago and our parents including some of our immediate aunties and uncles were alive and had experienced it.

Conversely, one thing I want to cast light on is that during the war Nigeria had changed its currency and so after the war. The Igbos who came out of the battle alive were homeless and unemployed. Those that still had the old currency couldn’t utilise it and were left without means or financial resources.

To rectify the issue, the Federal Government gave each Igbo citizen 20 Nigerian Pounds regardless of what the person had prior to the war.

It was also at that time that the Nigerian Indigenisation Decree was implemented. This ‘Nigerianization’ policy as it was popularly known forced foreign companies to sell their shares to Nigerians. Since the Igbos had that 20 Nigerian Pounds to their names they couldn’t benefit from said shares.

Today the wealthiest demographic in Nigeria is arguably the Igbos who acquire their wealth from sheer sweat and determination. This wealth can actually be traced back to that 20 Nigerian Pounds and how they managed to achieve this is by creating generational wealth.

Apart from the Southeasterner’s ability to persevere, another thing that is of great admiration is their unique entrepreneurialism that integrates a form of all-for-one-and-one-for-all empowerment known as the ‘Nwa Boy’.

This concept is an Igbo mentoring business that is in a form of apprenticeship that entails the youth sacrificing early marital life for servitude to their mentors who are successful entrepreneurs and this earns the young men business skills and financial support to establish their own small scale enterprise and at that process of time another set of young men will be introduced to the former mentee to become a mentor himself, and the circle goes on.

The ‘Nwa Boy’ scheme has been in existence for a long time in the southeastern region and can be said to be responsible for the root of many successful ventures.

Pondering on my favourite Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk speech titled “The dangers of a single story” which is the most-watched TED talk video on YouTube by the way, I want to point out how the media influences our beliefs.

It is unfortunate to say that the way we view ourselves as people of different ethnic groups in Nigeria is highly impacted by the media. The media’s social mechanism has an indirect influence on those that feast on it and this is due to the fact that the mode of delivery is usually public.

I understand that the media is a powerful tool to educate, inform and entertain in a positive light and enhance coordination on a norm or action through creating common knowledge.

Still, some of the information disseminated over a period of time causes us all to update our beliefs be it shared or personal.

Most of us will find out that what we think we know about a person or a group of persons is through the media’s counsel. An example is the stereotyping of Igbos as only electronic merchants and stereotyping of anyone named Musa to be a gateman.

Sometimes instead of the media being catalysts for peaceful coexistence and national unity, they end up confusing those who look up to them and serve as ethnocentric champions promoting primordial and secessionist agenda.

Asking my Igbo friend, Chukwukadibia Echefu, who we simply call ‘Cef’ his views on IPOB. He explained to me that the ideology behind the group was set to be rather reactive to evil elements than to instigate. Before I could ask if violence was the best method to respond to said elements, he condemned the criminal components of the group and of the society at large. We ended the conversation agreeing that Nigeria as a unit could benefit from the strengths of its mix of colourful ethnicities when combined in harmony.

From the foregoing, I have nothing against the peace-loving Igbos, as a Fulani woman but the IPOB militants who are seeking a secession through violent means.

•Zubaidah, a graduate of Mass Communication is a Staff Writer with PRNigeria Abuja

The trend of increasing censorship embraced by authoritarian regimes is not only dangerous, it can also lead to a future never before envisaged, where leaders of countries distort reality and determine what view of internet their citizens have. In the wake of looming social unrest, flares of insecurity, the ghost of Decree 4 appears with new laws in the making…

An autocrat is an autocrat. There is nothing like a reformed autocrat or a recovering autocrat, after all, a leopard never changes its spots. We should have known it would come to this, Buhari’s #Twitterban. In 1984, Buhari passed the infamous Protection Against False Accusations Decree, dubbed Decree 4. Till date, it is still the most repressive press law ever enacted in Nigeria. Buhari has never hidden his disdain for freedom and contempt for those outside his clan. It beggars belief that an elected leader would make the kind of genocidal statement that earned him the Twitter censure. The signs were there from the beginning. Immediately Buhari was sworn in, we learnt about his digital foot soldiers called BMC – the Buhari Media Centre. The BMC is a loose federation of trolls, influencers and ready for hire near illiterates, whose low income and deft use of  social media platforms make them generally well suited for professional trolling. They cheer every sentence from the administration, steal online pictures from other countries, pass it off as Buhari’s achievement, smear critics, spread disinformation and create barely sensible updates in support of government for monthly pocket money. The cascading insecurity and a gloomy economy has caused the government’s manipulation of social media to wear thin. The BMC have met their match in frustrated Nigerians who take the battle to them and call them out.

Unfortunately, we are in for the long haul. It will get worse before it gets better. Why? We are saddled with  a conduit House of Representatives, a mailbox Senate and a drunk Malami cabal. The secret memo that Malami wrote and feebly denied tells us to brace up for the last two years of Buhari. From now onwards, we should expect orchestrated actions from the Federal Government, which is designed to undermine democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of fundamental rights. Actually, with the exception of international disinformation campaigns, the four elements of the autocrat’s playbook has been unleashed. Announcing the #Twitterban, Lai Mohammed said that it was a reaction to the, “persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”. That is straight from the autocrat’s playbook. Autocratic governments often appeal to national sovereignty when confronted by the people. They make constitutional identity a fetish by taking it out of context, claiming the abuse of power as part of a constitutional identity. In addition, they plead national security in harassing the media and non-government organisations. We should ask Mr. Lai Mohammed if terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, killings by herdsmen, are not undermining Nigeria’s cooperate existence.

Buhari administration’s recourse to digital authoritarianism of state-controlled Internet and unprecedented high-tech repression, reliance on China for loans and infrastructure, gives a peep into his stunted view of the future. Beyond the current noise, these convergence of Chinese interests in Nigeria should worry every Nigerian.

After the #Twitterban, it was reported that the Federal Government and China’s Cyberspace Administration office discussed plans of building a Nigerian internet firewall. What that means is that the government is seeking to use digital information technology to surveil, repress, and manipulate us. Buhari’s plan is the textbook definition of Digital Authoritarianism, of which China and Russia are the gatekeepers. Hours after the Buhari #Twitterban, RT, the Russian state-controlled international television went agog. Writers for RT online praised Buhari. One of them wrote; “Nigeria is a far more serious and “based” country than the US, at least if President Muhammadu Buhari’s response to Twitter censorship – compared to that of Donald Trump’s – is anything to go by….The Nigerian government also missed an easy opportunity to clobber Twitter with its own wokeness cudgel and accuse CEO Jack Dorsey of being racist and Islamophobic – considering Buhari is both African and Muslim.” How is that?

President Buhari’s mentors in digital authoritarianism have created, mastered and exported technology-driven playbooks for authoritarian rule. Moscow is adept at repressing opposition at home and undermining democracy abroad using digital disinformation tools. The world saw what they did in the United States, leading to the election of Donald Trump. China, who Lai Mohammed et al. are looking up to for salvation from prurient critics, is the pioneer of digital age censorship through their “Great Firewall”. They are the supplier of choice for budding autocratic regimes looking to deploy their own surveillance systems. So far, they have exported surveillance and monitoring systems to many countries. Nigeria is looking to be their biggest customer yet. Buhari administration’s recourse to digital authoritarianism of state-controlled Internet and unprecedented high-tech repression, reliance on China for loans and infrastructure, gives a peep into his stunted view of the future. Beyond the current noise, these convergence of Chinese interests in Nigeria should worry every Nigerian.

The world is heading down a slippery slope if the free world is not united at sanctioning digital authoritarianism and companies that supply them with equipment. The time is ripe for the United Nations to develop a digital governance charter.

Those of us who have the unique privilege of being on the internet at its infancy in the mid-nineties are learning the real meaning of unintended consequences as the internet is being used to advance and undermine humanity simultaneously. The internet was imagined as a global web (World Wide Web) of communication where anyone can access any resource. Censorship was inadvertently aided by the United States government when the net neutrality law was repealed. It created an ecosystem of interference for the internet service providers to interfere or block internet traffic. The trend of increasing censorship embraced by authoritarian regimes is not only dangerous, it can also lead to a future never before envisaged, where leaders of countries distort reality and determine what view of internet their citizens have. In the wake of looming social unrest, flares of insecurity, the ghost of Decree 4 appears with new laws in the making, to gag Nigerians and prosecute them for exercising their rights to free speech and association.about:blank

It is not too late for the United States and other liberal democracies to tighten export controls on technologies that advance digital authoritarianism. The world is heading down a slippery slope if the free world is not united at sanctioning digital authoritarianism and companies that supply them with equipment. The time is ripe for the United Nations to develop a digital governance charter.

Bámidélé Adémólá-Olátéjú a farmer, youth advocate and political analyst writes this weekly column, “Bamidele Upfront” for PREMIUM TIMES. Follow me on Twitter @olufunmilayo

By Prof Auwalu H Yadudu

Permit me to present to your august body some ideas, suggestions and
recommendations which l hope will help you in carrying out the processes the two
wings of the National Assembly have embarked upon for the alteration of the 1999
Constitution. Although l have read the 17-item lists of issues you invited comments
on from members of the public, l wish, if you permit me, to address only four issues
that speak to some of items directly and others consequentially.

Firstly I intend to dwell on the constitutional validity, practicality and feasibility of
referendum as a mechanism for the adoption of either an altered version of the
existing document or of a wholly new one. Secondly l shall briefly address some of
challenges associated with the vexed issue of devolution of powers by reference to
how to juggle the legislative lists. Thirdly, l will speak to the controversial matter of
State Police and the place of Local Government system. In all these instances l shall propose some recommendations.

ON REFERENDUM

Of recent, it has become fashionable to lay all the evils bedeviling our polity, society,
the economy etc at the door of the 1999 constitution, the authorship of which has
gratuitously been ascribed to me personally. My attitude to this ‘donated’ honour or
infamy, defending on how you view it, is to laugh it off or humbly state that it is
unearned. Viewed differently, It is ideal talk engaged in by lazy commentators and, in
some cases, otherwise distinguished Elder Statesmen and e-warriors.

A motley of critics of all hue and cries have disparaged the 1999 constitution for
telling a blatant lie when it claims in its preamble to have derived its authority and
sovereignty from “we the people” when in fact it is the creature of a military decree.
To remove the imprimatur of personalities from its vestiges and cure it of the fib,
there have been varying calls for the emergence of wholly new constitution on which the “people” will confer legitimacy with its adoption through a referendum.
Regrettably, such calls have not come only from ‘separatist’ elements. Some clever
chaps attempted to hoist the idea on the nation by calling for the adoption of a new
constitution which they surreptitiously cooked during the National Conference of 2014. A legal icon, a National leader of the Bar and an Elder Statesman, has thrown his weight behind the idea by calling for the outright rubbishing of the 1999 Constitution and its substitution with the 1963 via the instrumentality of referendum.

One must observe that, apart from being subversive of existing constitutional and
legal order from which all institutions and offices of the Nation derive their legitimacy, such calls have tended to obfuscate issues and ignore facing basic questions of the legality, practicality and feasibility of conducting a referendum.

As a participant at the National Conference, 2014 l had occasion to address the issue
of the use of referendum. I consider it pertinent to reiterate the views l expressed
then and to make own recommendations on the subject matter as follows..
It is incontrovertible that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999
contains, very clear provisions, under section 9, and has spelt out explicit rules to
govern specific steps to follow to alter its provisions, including the adoption of an
entirely new Constitution if deemed desirable,
I am satisfied that the procedure for any alteration does not envisage or recognize “referendum” as a mechanism for bringing about any change to the existing Constitution or the adoption of a new one.

Moreover, for any alteration to the constitution to be legitimate or credible, it must
be validated by the concurrent adoption of the National Assembly and the resolution
in support of 2/3 (24) of the Houses of Assembly of the States where this is assented to by the President.

Today, many are vigorously urging for the adoption of the Report and Draft
Amendments to the 1999 Constitution as proposed by the National Conference, 2014
for a restructured Nigeria via referendum. This recommendation is faulty for many
reasons.

Which of the over 600, often conflicting and many of them of a policy nature,
recommendations do they want adopted? On whose mandate can the Conference
members rely to hoist such set of documents on the nation? Which institution has the
mandate to conduct the referendum? Under what legal or constitutional cover? Since
a referendum is designed to present two clear choices of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, What issue or
issues will be canvassed for adoption or rejection during the referendum? Are we
going to put Nigerians to a choice between the much touted 1963 Republican constitution, with its Westminster parliamentary system and four regions, against the 1999 Constitution? Or do we put them the choice to accept the amorphous, albeit discredited, policies and recommendations contained in the 2014 National Conference Report as against the 1999 Constitution? Proponents of referendum, as a panacea for all the ills of the 1999 Constitution, have avoided facing up to these and many unexplored and unresolved questions squarely. But we are entitled to ask them and to demand clarity before embarking on the slippery slopes to anarchy, political
uncertainty and constitutional crises.

While we are it, one needs not be reminded that the National Conference comprised
unelected members – however dignified or experienced they may be in their
individual capacities – and, consequently, it lacked the powers of a constituent
assembly, in the exercise of which it may propose or adopt a new constitution. In
other words, the Confab, being unelected, does not derive its mandate from the
sovereign will of the people and cannot claim to be speaking for them. For such a
defective Confab to assume such a role or purport to adopt a new constitution, as
representatives of the people or under any guise, would amount to the usurpation of
powers it does not possess. It cannot discharge or exercise a mandate not conferred on it by law.

If the Confab, whose members lack popular mandate and whose composition is
undemocratic having been assembled in a very skewed manner by the use of a
template of dubious legal or constitutional basis, purports to promulgate “a new
constitution” the constitutional document thereby produced would tell even a bigger
lie than is being leveled against the 1999 Constitution which is being disparaged as
the handiwork of the military.

It should also be pointed out that there does not exist any Act of parliament or Rules
of Procedure in Nigeria that would enable any organ or under which to conduct a
referendum and no agency of government is empowered by law to carry out same.

For the avoidance of any doubt the Confab, whether at plenary or committee stages
of its work, never tasked any members to propose a “draft constitution” which may
be considered for adoption by “referendum” or in total disregard of the existing constitutional or legal order. As the Deputy Chairman of the Conference Committee on Law, Judiciary, Human Rights and Law Reform, I can, with humility, claim to know that we were not mandated to and none of our recommendations were couched or
reduced into a new constitution. On the contrary, our clear and unambiguous
recommendations on the matter, which Conference had adopted, was for any
resolutions requiring constitutional changes to be channeled through the NASS. In
anticipation of that we even urged the President to “initiate an interface” with
members of the NASS to facilitate that. How the Secretariat came up with the scenario
of “ a new constitution” must raise some serious question.

Recommendations
The foregoing is my critique of the sort of constitutional, legal, practical and
legitimacy challenges associated with referendum as a mechanism for resolving
political-cum-constitutional questions. Clearly, in my view, there is no basis for it to
feature in your deliberations or to give your committee sleepless nights. Your
mandate to alter the existing document or replace it entirely must be undertaken in
accordance with the provisions contained in and procedures envisioned by the 1999
Constitution.

Should you be persuaded to consider the use of referendum for the future, then you
do need to amend the said constitution to address the many questions l raised above.
You do need an enabling Act to spell out what sort of questions to submit for
resolution via referendum, who is invested with power to conduct it, using what
voters’ register, who is eligible to participate in it etc.

In 2018, the APC at National level established what it termed as the “Restructuring
Committee, under the Chairmanship of Governor Nasir El Rufai. It came out with its
report containing far-reaching recommendations on various aspects of the
Constitution, including accompanying draft Bills for the NASS to give effect to its
recommendations with enabling Laws. I had occasion to express my views on the El
Rufai APC Ad Hoc Committee on Restructuring as it relates to Referendum,
Devolution of powers, State Police, the place of Local Government system etc and wish
to share them with your Committee. As you are urged to adopt its various
recommendations, l wish to reiterate my observations and recommendations for
your consideration.

ON STATE POLICE

The report canvasses for the creation of State Police and has proposed what it has
considered necessary amendments to achieve this. The strongest argument in
support of this position is that the introduction of State police will augur well for
effective community policing, accords well with our federal system and will help fill
the gap in the gross inadequacy of the federal police in numbers and funding. In any
event, advocates argue, currently a heavy financial burden is borne by States in
support of the NIGERIA Police in a manner that is unaccountable. Those who oppose
State Police point to the grave dangers of abuse of the institution, as experienced in
the past. They harvour apprehension of its susceptibility to being manipulated to
harass political opponents, ethnic minorities etc. They caution against the emergence
of militias controlled, armed and funded by States. Given our precarious situation in
inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations, opponents of State Police fear that local
warlords may hijack it to further aggravate the precarious security situation in
various community across the nation. The foregoing appear to summaries the
powerful arguments for and against the establishment of State Police. Mallam Tanko
Yakasai, a veteran NEPU activist who had been on the receiving end of the Native Police Yan Doka and who had made powerful submission against State Police, appears
to be the lone voice which has been drowned by a crescendo of its support.

I would personally recommend the retention, maintenance and enhancement of the
NIGERIA Police. However in light of its inadequacy to provide effective policing in the face of the multi-faceted security and law and order challenges facing all communities
across the nation, l would urge for the acceptance, in principle, of a community
policing system with the following safeguards and guarantees:

1. Constitutional and strong federal legislative guarantees are needed to specify
   the extent and limit of community policing powers, the roles and mandate
   allowed for States and how the new institution will interface with federal
   police, other State Police commands and other securities agencies in its
   command and control structure and operations.
2. The federation shall retain the power to specify which types of arms and
   ammunitions the community police may bear and veto powers as to
   deployment.
3. recruitment of low and middle cadres of the Nigeria Police to be from locality
   and every effort must be made to ensure inclusiveness in recruitment.
4. Allow for the establishment of a community police force or the conversion of
   existing local institutions which must meet the stipulations contained above.
5. Limit community policing to detection and investigation of crimes defined
   under local legislation, assistance with criminal justice system at community
   level, provide alternative dispute resolution mechanism etc.
6. Consider converting FRSC, Civil Defence Corps, Road Traffic Wardens to form
   part of the community police.
   RECOMMENDATION:
   The relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution and the Police Act will need to be
   amended to allow for the establishment of State Police. An Act of the NASS will need
   to be passed to embody the preconditions specified above and any other incidental
   matters. The Police will need to be transferred from the Exclusive to Concurrent List.

ON DEVOLUTION OF POWERS

The Committee has not fully articulated its idea of devolution of powers. It merely
went ahead to transfer some items from the Exclusive Legislative list to Concurrent
List. In my considered view, this amounts to no more than allowing the two tiers to
share such powers subject to the doctrine of covering the field which renders State
Laws subservient to Federal Acts. This means if you merely transfer a power from
Exclusive to Concurrent, the State legislature’s power to make laws in respect of
matter is subject to and limited by the federal exercise.

I have noted the lists the Committee recommended for transfer. Consequently, one views this to be a misconception of devolution as, in reality, powers simply “shared”
are not “devolved” or “transferred”. In reality the mere act of transfer of list leaves
matters where they belong. In place of transfer of any number of lists l would
recommend that the idea of creating a third legislative list, to be called the State List,
be seriously considered. In a way this new list will belong to States exclusively.
There is need for serious and dispassionate discussion by all stakeholders, not the
NASS alone, to reach consensus as to what such will comprise.

Be that as it may, l endorse the transfer of some but have serious reservations against
transferring others. I certainly do not support Arms and ammunitions, foods, drugs &
poison, census, ownership and operation of shipping, to be put on concurrent or the
new State List.

RECOMMENDATION

I recommend the thorough reexamination of the Second Schedule, both Parts l and ll
to the 1999, to arrive at firm consensus of all stakeholders as what items will form
part of the new State List and what items will remain on the Exclusive and Concurrent
Lists.

ON DELETION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCILS FROM CONSTITUTION (LGC)

While wrongly equating the LGC system to be third federating unit, the report
recommends for the deletion of LGC’s from mention anywhere, particularly section
3(6), the first and fourth schedules, in the constitution and section 162 which makes
provision for them in the revenue sharing formula.
I strongly oppose the deletion of LGC’s from the Constitution.

I consider these recommendations to be totally unjustifiable.

First, LGC’s participate
in revenue sharing not because they are a federating unit. But they are considered as
a local administrative tier the establishment of which section 7 has guaranteed and
which the framers of the constitution deem worthy of funding. The said section 7
seeks to ensure their establishment, protect their democratic nature and enhance their autonomous existence.

Secondly, they are the closest units of governance to the
grassroots which, if properly protected, can serve as veritable institutions for local
mobilization and socio-economic development. Lastly, deleting them will further
undermine their autonomy and political independence what with the nationwide
perversion of the electoral processes at that level by every State government which
has conducted.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Consequent upon foregoing observations, l would urge for the retention of all
provisions made in the 1999 Constitution in respect of LGC’s so as to ensure their
existence and enhance their autonomy.

We should do nothing to undermine that. If
any problems exist pertaining to how they are created, their number, funding and
structure, we should amend the identified sections as appropriate but not delete the
institution of the Local Government entirely from the constitution.

By Lasisi Olagunju

(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 7 June, 2021)

The president tweeted a promise of war. Twitter deleted the promise. The government banned Twitter. It has also promised to jail anyone found in bed with Twitter. The Buhari government’s role models on this road to infamy are North Korea, Iran and China. The list is that short. I laugh at Nigerians who say they are shocked because the president sold himself to them in 2015 as a democrat. I laugh at such simple people; they should know better – and they did. Pepper, no matter how much you pamper and temper it, won’t ever lose its smarting character. You know what a Ponzi scheme is? Anyone who has read the life history of an Italian man called Charles Ponzi, or of the more successful American, Bernard Madoff, should understand what has happened to Nigeria. Ponzi and Madoff were the reality version of a character called Ali in my primary school New Oxford English Course story book.

Ali was a merchant of tricks who conned whole villages, kings, chiefs and commoners. He was flat broke and so thought of a scam that would fetch him cool, large cash. Ali told the village that he had brought an angel into town, housed him in his bedroom and asked people to come see the celestial being for a fee. But, he warned, only clean people without sin would see the angel. Who would not want to see an angel and be saved? Again, who would refuse to see this angel and be dubbed ungodly, a sinner? So, soon, a queue formed in front of Ali’s house, and, one by one the villagers, including the king, went in, saw nothing apart from a pair of shoes placed in front of an empty chair. But, one by one, they all came out and announced how well the angel received them, shook their hands – and even prayed for them.

At another time, Ali’s house got burnt and while his people were consoling him, Ali was thinking deeply on how he could convert his loss to wealth. He soon travelled far from home until he got to a village that took tea without sugar. Ali gave them real sugar for their tea. They tasted it and chorused that it was good and great. They wanted more. He said they had to buy. Why not? Bring it, the villagers placed their orders. Ali went back home and packed the ash of his burnt house into sacks. He got back to his mugu village and sold them ash as sugar in their tea. Some attempted to complain that this did not taste sweet (as the sample was). They were promptly branded as faithless, sinful wailers. Did Ali get away with all his scams? I think you should go read the stories again. What I know is that Ali, the salesman, was so successful he came into Nigeria in 2015 and sold the nation ash labeling it ‘Change’.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) did a great job six years ago. It gathered all marketers of trash from the four walls of the world and shipped them into the life of Nigeria. They did so well convincing the children of Nigeria to drop the bean cake in their hand for some invisible honey. They bought dollar from Nigerians in May 2015 at N197 and resold it to the nation in May 2021 at N500. They rode the horse of social media’s Twitter to power in 2015; fed it richly again in their renewal war in 2019; but in June 2021, the APC slaughtered Twitter, their old war horse, to appease their god. Twitter is not the first and only casualty. Millions queued to enjoy the blessings of that angel in 2015. How many of them have since not fallen unmourned at the hands of pampered bandits of the angel?

Angelic Buhari last week vowed to treat “misbehaving” Igbos in “the language they understand.” To misbehave, my dictionary says, is to fail to function correctly. It also means to fail to act in an acceptable way; it means to behave badly. By now the president must have realized how ironic his statement was. So he knew misbehavour deserved consequences? You saw how Twitter, in its characteristic irreverence, buried its claws in our president’s pride? The president is angry now because Twitter gave him a slap on the wrist. He is teaching Twitter a lesson no black man has ever dared do. His lion is prancing from the forests of the south east to the south west thickets feeding his rage with the fundamental rights of all. Alaafin Sango at the height of his misrule did same. He complained of everyone’s behaviour. He emitted fire and fury; he silenced both city dwellers and the yokel on the farm. His dazed people, in helpless anger, watched as he worked his way to Koso, his place of hanging, derisive rest.

APC sold Nigerians a manifesto of peace, prosperity, freedom and justice. It promised that it would “restructure Nigeria to achieve devolution of power.” The authors of APC’s manifestoes knew what they wrote was not an article of faith. They knew it was an article of fakery, a Ponzi scheme. And they got the unwary to invest in the hollow pledge of their scam. The promiser got what he wanted; he has now turned his AK-47 at the scammed for whining and grumbling at the point of redemption. The APC and its operatives now criminalise all acts directed at making the ruling clique to pay their debts of restructuring and good governance. The bangle is firmed fixed on the wrist of the chief priest; who will remove it now? Our Federal Government is also insisting that it is doing well; that only blind wailers would not see how great it had performed since Muhammadu Buhari happened to Nigeria six years ago. A friend was angry and wondered if “these people think we have sawdust as brain.” I laughed and asked if he had forgotten the ‘Ali and the Angel’ story (and other Ali stories) in the New Oxford English Course story book we used in primary school. Sinners (and wailers) are forbidden from seeing angels and their performance.

Meanwhile, who really is the sinner here? Between the northern Araba (separation) headmasters and the Igbo secessionist students that are being given the civil war treatment, who is better in behaviour? Let me cite a case. Because the political north lost power in 1999, very early in year 2000, its famished leaders contrived a religious (sharia) crisis in Kaduna in which more than 2,000 people were murdered. The damage was so much on the Igbo that a flickering Emeka Ojukwu had to come out in anguish. He wept and wailed and said: “we are now forced again, to ask, how much more sacrifice do we have to make before we can be embraced as equal citizens of one Nigeria.” But the leaders of the north basked in the sun of their working strategy. They tightened the noose and the orgy of killing continued. It was a whole month of mayhem. President Olusegun Obasanjo did not send any python to dance in Kaduna. He avoided the trap. Instead, the police were used to quell the riots. Obasanjo’s Federal Government soon felt there should be a nationally acceptable solution to the crisis. He summoned a meeting of the National Council of State for Tuesday, February 29, 2000 with him presiding. The meeting resolved to go back to the Penal Code and put implementation of sharia on hold. And it was so announced with all the northern governors and leaders, including General Muhammadu Buhari in attendance. The following day, the north made a U-turn, denied ever discussing the matter at the meeting and invoked the principles of federalism to query where the Obasanjo Federal Government got the powers to suspend laws validly made by the northern states. Alhaji Shehu Shagari came out from retirement that day to issue a statement on behalf of the north attacking the Federal Government. He said the decision undermined the federalist character of the constitution. Shagari wrote: “in the democratic system which we now operate, the federal government has no right to direct the state governments to suspend or rescind any laws which they have enacted through the normal democratic processes of the presidential system of government.” General Buhari was even firmer and more frontal in his own offering. He told the BBC the same day Shagari spoke that “if we as Muslims want amputation or death penalty, we said we want it because it is our religion and the constitution of the country has agreed that everyone has the right to practise the religion of his choice.” Yet, another frontline northern leader, Datti Ahmed’s federalist answer to the (political) sharia question was that under our constitution “If any individual feels too uncomfortable with any setup established by the majority in any state, the person has the right to choose another state.” All these northern leaders had no word of sorry to console the victims. So, again, let me ask: between today’s very bad boys of the east who kill and maim and the very bad elders of the north who killed and maimed, who is clean? The one who should be sold to raise money to buy a lantern must not be allowed to praise-sing himself as the ultimate bearer of light.

With the Twitter ban and the other misbehavours of our government, Nigeria will soon become a leper. The appropriate word is ‘pariah’ in international relations. A pariah is the unsanitary somebody who is rejected soundly by the community of good people. He is an outcast; someone whose ways bought for it disgust and disdain. He is that person who is despised and avoided because of his bad ways. Dirty Nigeria wore that horrible garment before May 1999. It had no friend, no lover, no suitor. One of the early gains of this democracy was the Obasanjo government curing the country of the pariah status Abacha bought for us. Now, is Abacha back? I ask because we are almost there again with the sad, shocking events of the last few days. The whole civilized, democratic world now slaps us with one rebuke and/or the other because of the autocratic, Internet-restricting choices our government is making.

Yet, the magisterial president asked if he was not ruling us in accordance with the constitution. From what you and I know of how we are being governed, should we not just ask what language the president himself understands? We need to know the language so we use it to “treat” and persuade him to let us live as a civilized people. Buhari heads a Federal Government that is anything but ‘federal’ and ‘government’. A government that deplumes the peacock of others to beautify his vulture. He presides over a one-sided behemoth with no redeeming contrition; a system which administers pain, and even death, as medicine. A system that misbehaves with impunity. And he and his court and courtiers say: “So what?”

Government is a relationship – between the leadership and the governed. A democratic government, in particular, should not operate in vacancy of citizens’ imprimatur. A government needs the trust, support and goodwill of its citizens. Legitimacy is the reward for good governance. Any government, which by intransigence severs the funiculus that links it with the citizens, is taking the highroad to oblivion.

Really, most people will not remember the infrastructure and extraordinary projects executed by an administration. But they will remember how secure they felt and the freedom they enjoyed under that government.  General Abacha is reputed to have executed some of the sterling infrastructure projects in Nigeria. In fact, some of the roads his regime through PTF built are still sturdy to date. But how is he remembered today? He is remembered as a murderer and a violator of human rights. 

Our leaders should learn from the ruins of others before them. Power is situational. What we do with it when we possess it will live with us, and even with our relics and generations to come. At this point, what I believe should be elemental for President Buhari is his legacy. He should not let ‘’power hawks’’ carnivorise what is left of his substance. 

The suspension of Twitter by the Nigerian government is a jackboot experiment. It cannot be defended, rationalised or excused in anyway. Internet freedom is as basic as the right to life and the right to freedom of expression. 

Naturally, some notable Nigerians and organisations have condemned this insidious attempt at absolutism. The Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN) led by Kabiru Yusuf said lucidly ‘’the suspension of Twitter’s operation by Nigeria is wrong and an overreaction’’. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of

Lagos state, and member of the APC – the president’s party – is of the opinion that the federal government should have managed the situation better. 

“The federal government can handle this a lot better — because of the number of ecommerce; the number of youths doing digital stuff on the internet, and we cannot throw that away and say it’s not happening. I believe there could be a lot of restraint and better management from both sides,” the governor said.

Nigeria is said to lose N2.18 billion per day owing to the Twitter shutdown — according to NetBlocks, a data-driven online service. We do not need an Okonjo-Iweala to divine for us the cost of this folly. Many youths and businesses rely on Twitter for oxygen. And the federal government just pulled the plug — in a country with 40 million unemployed people, blistering inflation and insecurity. 

Toiling Nigerians lose more in this dogfight between the Nigerian government and Twitter. Twitter loses nothing in the short and in the long run. So, who offended Buhari and who should be writhing from the economic perils of his ban? Well, if the government is deploying this as a gambit to asphyxiate dissenting voices on social media it will be a futile performance. Only good governance can silence the noise on social media. 

Citizens from all strata have been giving the government a dressing down in the past few days. As expected, the US, the UK, Canada and EU did not equivocate in expressing disappointment at this punitive approach to an issue that could have been resolved through other channels. The condemnations are in order. 

What is very annoying is the threat by Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, to arrest and prosecute anyone circumventing the ban to gain access to Twitter. This is farcical. Why is this man making a spectacle of Nigeria in the public square? I think we have enough comedians in the country already. 

However, there is the pesky issue of hate speech, fake news, misinformation and disinformation on social media — particularly on Twitter and Facebook? How do we address this problem? We cannot look away and pretend that this creeping monster does not portend enormous danger for Nigeria. 

Some countries like India, even the US and the UK, have set these tech leviathans to task regarding sanitising their social media space. We cannot suspend our hands and watch Nigeria burn. 

As Kadaria Ahmed, top journalist, said while reacting to the ‘’decree’’ of the National Broadcasting Commission to broadcast stations to deactivate their Twitter accounts, ‘’the government (must) go back and engage with experts many of whom abound in the country on how to fight hate speech, misinformation and disinformation while respecting and upholding the rights that are fundamental in a democracy’’.

The Buhari government must redeem itself. Nigeria is still a democracy. 

Twitter @FredrickNwabufo