Nigeria

By Zaharaddeen Muhammed

It is a general psychological belief that individuals tend to keep repeating things that benefit them and help reduce their suffering. In politics, too, citizens believe that the essence of participating in the political life of their country is to maximise their benefits through attaining improved living conditions, say, for example, security of lives and properties, food, a better health care system, more employment opportunities, stable electricity and so on.

You don’t need statistical data to conclude that, since 1999, when Nigeria returned to a democratic system, the sufferings of Nigerians coming out to vote for a better life increased. As such, many citizens choose not to exercise their franchise as it does not benefit their lives.

Abraham Lincoln’s definition of Democracy as a government of the people by the people and for the people seems irrelevant in Nigeria because some of the leaders who served political offices in the past were suspected to be products of statistical inflation during elections, not by choice of the majority. Thus, they are not by the people; our leaders are considered to serve themselves rather than the general populace. That is why they strive to get into power by hook or crook.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) reported that during the 1999 general election, out of 58 Million Nigerians that registered to vote, only 30 million were able to vote, 42 out of 61 million registered voters voted in 2003, only 35 million out of 62 million in 2007, 39 million out of 74 million cast their votes in 2011, 29 million out of 67 million in 2015, 29 million out of 82 million in 2019 and, sadly, in the recent 2023 presidential election we have witnessed the lowest turnout whereby of all the 93.46 million eligible registered voters we have, only 24.97 million came out and cast votes.

Though many factors like; lack of voter education, electoral malpractices and vote buying during primary elections, which produce uninspiring candidates in the general elections, rigging during the general election, and the activities of political thugs are contributing factors to political absenteeism during elections, the major factor that converts responsible citizens into political absentees is bad governance resulted by poor- performing elected officials and political parties.

To respond to this signal of “not having feelings” citizens about the political affairs of our dear country, resulting from a lack of efforts from the side of our political leaders to improve people’s situation, I see it that the best way to lure people back to the polls is to promote people’s welfare. Campaigns and sensitisations are less effective these days—only action matters.

Take, for example, the issue of vote buying. You can’t convince someone who lives from hand to mouth, similarly being denied the opportunity of going to market on election day to get what to eat, not to collect a bag of grated maize for a vote—relief materials matter.

Zaharaddeen Muhammed wrote from Azare and could be reached via zahmuhaza@gmail.com.

By Ismaila Academician

Nigeria’s 2023 general elections are the first many people would describe being free and fair without any other positive collocations.

Be that as it may, many would say it has no difference from previous elections we strongly condemned. But to be fair to the discourse, it was much better than the previous ones. Nigerians have witnessed a drastic reduction in vote buying, overvoting, and voter disenfranchisement, among many things.

We saw videos and pictures of election violations nationwide on election day. Some are real, and some are mere fabrications aimed at disrupting our peace – or in the popular phrase, to tire our patience than mislead our senses. However, some of these violations are just an act of immorality from urchins, and the rest are unlawful acts from unpatriotic citizens. Unfortunately, we may end up barking at the wrong tree once we separate the two above.

This is not the first time to hear that immorality is bad for you and your community. For example, one scene might have been where area boys scared off voters that they may steal from them. However, in this case, scaring off somebody is immoral, while stealing from him is unlawful.

As we know pretty well, there are no elections free from irregularities. There are people whose work is to rig elections. We could neither be able to stop them nor avoid them. But we could learn the possible ways to surprise them.

To make my points clear that we have had free and fair elections, we know that Tinubu is contesting for the ruling party. He is from Lagos, one of the most important states in the political calculation as per Nigeria is concerned. In addition, Lagos’s current governor is also from the same ruling party and complies with the presidential candidate, as many would say.

When you combine these protons, neutrons and electrons, a powerful nuclear weapon will statutorily emerge. APC would have won Lagos presidential elections against the Labour Party. But due to free and fair elections, Peter Obi surprisingly made it, and so it was.

In conclusion, for the first time, Nigeria has free and fair elections, though with few unlawful violations of electoral rules. Those denying it are mere victims of utopianism or those who lost it, and we know failure cannot be readily accepted. To date, Donald Trump is claiming to be the winner of the last American elections.

Let peace and unity reign!

Ismaila Academician can be contacted via ismailaacademician@gmail.com.

By Ishaka Mohammed

While some people are after the quality of leadership, others are primarily concerned about the identities or affliliations of the people in positions of authority. Anyway, democracy gives us the chance to participate in the process of choosing our leaders. The responsibility of the electoral body, therefore, is to ensure free, fair and credible elections. But can this body be graded excellent by all the electorate or citizens?

The answer is no. It’s impossible for an agency like the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), to avoid fierce criticisms. Provided some candidates lose elections, issues must be raised against the commission. However, this body can reduce doubts to the bare minimum if it scores high in terms of transparency. Sadly, it usually scores low in this aspect. 

INEC has rescheduled the governorship and state assembly elections to March 18, as against the initial date: March 11, 2023. That’s just a week difference. This decision comes with diverse consequences, but my main focus is on how it affects the suffering inflicted by the so-called cashless policy.

The Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled on Friday, March 3, 2023 that the old naira notes (N200, N500 and N1,000) remain legal tender until December 31, 2023. Many Nigerians celebrated the pronouncement, but I was unsure if President Buhari and the Central Bank of Nigeria would honour the ruling. Expectedly, it’s been almost a week since the judgment, but neither of the two has issued any statement about it. However, there’s been a sense of relief as many banks are reportedly paying and accepting the old notes.

As for the President and the CBN, I expected them to say something, maybe a few days after the governorship and state assembly elections, as they might consider the scarcity of cash as an effective measure against vote-buying. So, I was counting down to the end of our suffering—our struggle for cash—when INEC scattered my thoughts by rescheduling the elections. With this postponement, we’ll have to endure the suffering a little longer.

This cashless policy introduced by the Federal Government of Nigeria has been disastrous for the the country. Businesses and individuals are facing tough times due to the scarcity of cash in the economy. The stress of queueing at banks and POS shops, more hunger for the majority, transport costs to and from banks, a depressed market for traders (particularly those running small-scale businesses dealing in perishable goods), difficult in commuting to workplaces or schools, etc. — these are just a few of what Nigerians are enduring.

While I was preparing to go to the bank a few weeks ago, an elderly neighbour transferred N5,000 to my account to help her withdraw. It would been easier for some of us (Jaiz Bank customers) until that time. I went to the bank, fully prepared for long queues, but there was no cash. The woman’s money remained in my account for a few more days until one afternoon, when she called me on the phone (while I was at work) to send it back to her. She’d seen a POS attendant somewhere with some cash. She quickly sent her daughter home to get her debit card, but within a few minutes, the POS operator exhausted the cash by serving other customers in the queue. He charged N200 for every N1,000 withdrawn, yet the queue was long. The woman regretted leaving her card at home; she needed money to cook for her children. Before that time, she had, on two or three occasions, gone to queue at banks as early as 5 a.m. 

Talking about businesses, although some business owners have started acquiring POS machines and accepting bank transfers, bad network remains an obstacle. Besides, most business owners can’t afford such because of many reasons, including illiteracy and the smallness of their business scales. These are enough proof that Nigeria has yet to be ready for the cashless policy.

I can say that with the presence of digital financial institutions like Opay and PalmPay, multiple debit cards, and my little exposure due to education, I’m better off than millions of Nigerians in terms of the capacity to cope with the scarcity of cash in the country. Despite my obvious advantages, when a student of mine gave me N300 to buy a book for her a few days ago, I kept the cash in my pocket and transferred the same value to the bookseller. Yes, I needed the cash to buy items like onions, tomatoes, etc.

Back to the rescheduling of the elections, I don’t know if I’m being somewhat pessimistic, but this is just what I think. Neither President Buhari nor Godwin Emefiele may say anything about the Supreme Court ruling until after the governorship and state assembly elections. As a result, the postponement of these elections means that we may have to endure the suffering for another couple of days, say 11 or even more.

Ishaka Mohammed wrote from Kaduna State. He can be contacted via ishakamohammed39@gmail.com.

By Ishaka Mohammed

The Department of State Services (DSS) has launched its official social media accounts to enhance public and stakeholder engagements.

In a statement released on Monday, March 6, 2023, the Service publicised its presence on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and dissociated itself from any handles other than the ones listed therein.

At the time of filing this report, the Twitter handle, @OfficialDSSNG, has over 44,000 followers, notable of whom are the Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Pantami; the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), Human Angle Media, and APC Nigeria.

The statement also revealed the Twitter handle of the spokesperson for the Service, Dr Peter Afunanya. “Similarly, the PRO’s Twitter handle is @DrAfunanya_PNA. Hitherto, the Service did not own or operate these handles. Its decision to operate them with effect from 6th March, 2023 is to enhance public and stakeholder engagements,” part of the statement reads.

Below are the social media handles.

Twitter: @OfficialDSSNG

Facebook: OfficialDSSNG

Instagram: @OfficialDSSNG

By Nusaiba Ibrahim Na’abba

While the lack of financial literacy has dominated a greater part of our societies, the challenges of those who are financially literate are also never-ending. By the day, life in this part of the world is continuously being sabotaged by existential financial threats. Recently, government policies have exacerbated these crises further than easing them.

The earlier piece I wrote last year wouldn’t have required a sequel so soon, but the worsening financial situation has compelled me to do so. After the article I wrote about how an average Nigerian man fares to survive worsening financial crises, I experienced a ‘financial attack’ that swallowed my hard-earned money. It was indeed a terrible experience. Like many others who lost their savings due to alleged bank-related thefts, my bank had no cogent explanations to calm me down.

Instead, one of their staff tried to insinuate how one of my family members used my debit card without my knowledge to withdraw such a huge amount, literally proving the height of their incompetence and unkindness. The only statement I heard from another staff whom I presume to be superior was only an exclamation; “Ahhh! This is serious!” And that was it. I had to console myself when I went to enquire because another lady furiously came in to complain about how the bank couldn’t account for her ₦3 million.

Now I know better the fierce heightening kickbacks and the existing polarising debates about the naira redesign and cash mop-up as the country battles to transition into a cashless nation. Nigerian citizens are never at the forefront of making these policies. Until today, there hasn’t been a clear explanation or statement on how the government is implementing this policy amid a rising population of over a whooping two hundred million people, enlisting the country as the most populous black nation in the world.

This single policy fuelling the cashless transition has incredibly negatively disrupted businesses struggling to stay afloat, crashed many on medium-scale levels and destroyed the potential of start-ups. As a result, many shop owners have closed down businesses until the economy becomes more favourable. For instance, several POS points have closed shops, and the few others willing to keep up with the new development are only faring really hard.

On commuting, stories from tricycle owners are piercing as they struggle to support their families through the business. The chain of labour attached to the tricycle business is critical. With the breakdown of larger businesses, many people who have lost their jobs resorted to the tricycle business for some solace. It’s depressing to find out how about 4 to 5 shifts are being done with only one tricycle daily. The least shifts you could find cannot be less than 3 in a day, just to find a source of livelihood for families. Now this source of livelihood has been traumatised.

On health, patients and health workers are continuously pointing fingers at each other courtesy of delayed bank transfers. In addition, some deaths that occurred in Kano hospitals have been linked to the untrustworthy nature of the transfers. On the side of market transactions, the transfers have intensified customer trust issues – even destroying an age-long relationship of trust between shop owners and loyal customers.

The height of the financial insecurity has messed with the citizens’ psychological safety and other primary needs. People are left contemplating whether the policy is for positive development or not. People’s yearnings to meet their daily needs have only soared since the implementation of the new policy began. And the recently concluded elections that stopped some daily activities heavily contributed to the current cash struggle.

Nigerian public officeholders are notable for implementing new policies, particularly towards terminating their constitutionally allotted time in office, to either weaken election processes or transfer the bulk of work to new governments. This is hence, not unexpected. Maybe, the only surprising thing about the whole scenario is how fragmented even the ruling party was on the same issue. I’ve been unable to grasp the larger picture of the policy from the President’s perspective. Perhaps, this is not the right time for a financial rebranding in the country.

Even if the current government intends to rectify issues around election malpractices, particularly vote-buying, it degenerated into something worse. The steps weren’t expected in these desperate moments and didn’t halt rigging and other discrepancies during the general elections. Besides, spaghetti and sachet detergents became alternatives. The agitations raised against implementing the policy outweigh the commendations given to the president. It has only exposed the vulnerable citizenry to more financial battles.

At this point, I wonder whether the President has fulfilled his promise of lifting many Nigerians out of poverty. Maybe, he must’ve even forgotten some of the promises he made, which is why in a recent interview before the elections, he claimed he’d done all he could for the nation. Yes, the president initiated poverty alleviation programs, one of his administration’s priorities. Still, these unforeseen policies must’ve shattered the successes of the other programs in a way.

Like all past administrations, President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC government would be weighed appropriately in all aspects when he departs later in the year. Also, because of the lack of a clear-cut pattern of party manifestos, the country isn’t sure how the President-elect from the same political party may wish to tackle the financial challenges in the country. Whether or not he’s adopting the cashless system when he assumes duty is still unknown.

Minds presently should be geared towards financial literacy and intelligence. Understanding the critical roles of these in our lives as Nigerians will undoubtedly support us in curbing our financial difficulties. Meticulous calculations and short-term and long-term plans must be implemented daily. Economic hardships have badly hit a massive population in Nigeria after being forced to fight excruciating spikes in the prices of goods and services. These aren’t good times to be hopeful of delusional government promises.

The consequence of the financial breakdown in Nigeria is enormous, and we may not be able to quantify the level of degeneration it has caused in the coming years.

Nusaiba Ibrahim Na’abba is a master’s student from the Department of Mass Communication, BUK. She is a freelance writer and researcher. She can be reached via nusaibaibrahim66@gmail.com.

By Isma’il Hashim Abubakar 

I was primarily not comfortable with the idea and bid of a Muslim-Muslim ticket, which the ruling party APC had issued to Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as its presidential candidate and running mate, respectively. I held this view for several reasons, some of which were equally articulated by various analysts, commentators and opinionists.  

Like many thousands of Nigerians, particularly Muslims, I also believed that the Muslim-Muslim ticket was a necessary deceptive winning strategy rather than an intrepid move toward the triumph of Islam in a pluralistic country that has been suffering from the demographic competition. In 2015 when Muhammadu Buhari became the flag-bearer of the APC, there were indications that Bola Tinubu (a major stakeholder in the political merger that culminated in the sweeping victories of the APC during the 2015 elections) had a strong zest to be picked by Buhari as the latter’s running mate. But the old general refused to do so, obviously to carry along the Christians and canvass their support and secure their votes; no farsighted politician would risk hurting the sensibilities of even a small number of voters, let alone a big population that once claimed to possess demographic supremacy in the country’s entire population. 

The Muslim-Muslim presidency was thought by the Christian population but, in fact, to many Muslims as well to be a permanent impossibility in Nigeria’s political arena. Christians, who are a Nigerian minority as it has been proven now beyond the cobwebs of doubt, had been regarding Muslim-Muslim presidency as a unique Muslim utopian vision and a fruitless attempt of flying a kite either to see how high it would go in the sky or to gauge the direction of the wind.

Thus, Nigerian Christians never hid their opposition to the development and spared no effort to fight the bid. Churches became platforms for homilies on Christian unity and mobilization of support and strong, formidable religious support and solidarity in favour of the Labour Party’s candidate, Peter Obi, the only  Christian who contested against three Muslims in the race for the highest political office in the land.

The defeat of Peter Obi, as portrayed in the milieu of Christians, was akin to the fall of the rising Christendom and the failure of the Christian cause in Nigeria. Therefore,  not minding the huge irrecoverable costs of putting their eggs in one basket, Christians unanimously gathered their voting strength on their own candidate and wholeheartedly threw their support to Peter Obi. Although, like their Christian counterparts, Muslims had also used religious infrastructure to mobilize support for Bola Ahmed Tinubu and framed casting votes for him as a “political Jihad”, it was understandably impractical since Muslim votes must be inevitably divided between the three other contenders, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso of the NNPP and Bola Ahmed of APC.

After all, many northerners were yet sceptical of Tinubu’s nationalism and cosmopolitanism, and he was certainly viewed as an ethnic champion and a pursuer of Yoruba’s agenda. Added to this, the fact that Tinubu’s wife (and an acclaimed pastor, for that matter) and the majority (if not all) of his children are said to be Christians, some northern Muslims felt that Tinubu’s victory should in some form be considered as the triumph of Christians. As such, Muslims believed that the influence of these important organs around Tinubu must be beyond imagination. 

In the runoff to the 2023 presidential election, the Muslim society in northern Nigeria, which, as always, largely relies on the homilies of the clerical establishment in the region, became extremely divided as to which of the three candidates Muslims should support. Scholars who were loyalists to northern governors, some of whom were/are among their political appointees, had preached in favour of Tinubu and showed his election as a necessity that Muslims must wholeheartedly work for. Other scholars, most of whom were independent and largely young scholars, openly campaigned for Atiku Abubakar and warned northerners against voting for someone outside their region. The majority of scholars, however, seemed to take a neutral position and advised that Muslims could vote for any of the three candidates since each of them is a Muslim.

Despite the respected Jos-based cleric Shaykh Jingir defied this order, it was the position popularized and voiced loudly by the outspoken Izala, the proto-Salafi group which in the past used to explicitly campaign for Buhari and make it a religious obligation upon all Muslims to vote for the old general. It appeared that the group decided this time not to openly side with any of the candidates since some people had been launching attacks on the group for asking them to vote for Buhari, but then the group failed to criticize Buhari’s leadership failure. It was even argued that Izala (whose top figures are friends and loyalists to some northern governors) was inwardly supporting Tinubu’s candidature, but it was afraid of the protest and condemnation of its followers and the larger Muslim public. Thus, it decided to exhibit outward neutrality. 

Whatever the case, the Muslim-Muslim ticket has, despite these binaries, scaled through and Muslims in the North had already accepted the development as a valid testimony of their numerical supremacy in the country. And here is why.

Out of 23377466, the total valid votes cast, 17275933 represent the voting strength of Muslims who divided their votes for the three Muslim candidates. No analysis of the results of this election can ignore the possibility of overlaps of votes between Muslims and Christians in favour of each of these three candidates. But since this was very minimal, the outcomes of the elections have solidly reflected the religious affiliation and sociopolitical orientation of the voting population. After all the mobilizations in churches and social media platforms, including the voluminous circulars disseminated to all chapels and chapters by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and sister bodies, the results of the election show that Peter Obi had merely scored 6101533, fewer than 27 per cent of the whole valid votes cast. 

Of course, a case cannot be made on fixed and exact statistics on Nigeria’s population through the results of polls, but some circumstances, like elections, are yet crucial in arriving at some useful hints.  A lot of factors have combined to contribute to the rapid increase of Muslims and give them a numerical edge over their counterparts.

The Muslims, who still retain the age-old culture of growing extended families, have a prevailing polygamous lifestyle and have not, to a large extent, assimilated to the western childbearing orientation. Research has shown that Muslim women have a higher fertility rate than non-Muslim women.100 According to the data of Nigeria‘s National Population Commission, as of 2008, birthrates per woman in the North West and the North East stood at 7.3 and 7.2, respectively, while in the South, it was less than 5 children per woman (available on https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/fr222/fr222.pdf).

Although democracy is a game of numbers and it depends on the principle of “the majority carries the votes”, Nigeria’s democracy has since 1999 been characterized by zoning and rotation between the two major regions and religions  (North and South and Islam and Christianity). And although many politicians have adopted zoning and rotation in the spirit of carrying everyone along, there are places where rotation based on faith is an impossible matter. For instance, Muslims in Gombe State account for about 75 per cent, yet the state has been electing a Muslim and Christian governor and deputy governor for over two decades.

In Kaduna State,  until 2019, when Governor Nasir El-Rufai chose a Muslim deputy governor, the state has been pairing a Muslim and Christian for these two powerful ranks. Other examples can be confidently cited, and it is Muslims who make the most concession. In states like Plateau and Benue, however, which although having a sizable population of Muslims ranging from 40 per cent to above in the case of the former and about 25 per cent in respect of the latter, no Muslim has ever been selected as deputy governor since the return of the present democratic dispensation in 1999. 

Politicians do not toy with the matter of votes irrespective of who the voter is, but the 2023 presidential election will go down in history as a solid testimony establishing the fact that Muslims can determine their political fate and can win the election of the highest political office in the land without the votes of the Christians. And going by the case study of Plateau and Benue states, one may be justified if he alleges that had it been that it was Christians who possessed similar numerical strength to Muslims, no one could guarantee that they would concede the position of vice president to the Muslims.

Whatever the case, it is now clear that propaganda and powerful and frequent presence in the media is not and can never be the practical elements with which to substantiate persistent claims of being half of Nigeria’s population. 

Despite the foregoing arguments, a question that may yet beg for an answer is, does the faith of a president necessarily ensure that his coreligionists enjoy the dividends of democracy better than those with whom he does not share his faith? No clear-cut answers can be supplied to this question. But the attitudes of some presidents since 1999, starting from Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’adu’a, Goodluck Jonathan and the outgoing Muhammadu Buhari, testify that some presidents may be too partial to members of their faith to the detriment of others. 

The Muslim-Muslim presidency may benefit Nigerian Muslims through the pleasure they will derive, which is inherent in sharing the same faith with the commander-in-chief and his deputy, but also in putting an end to the fact of their disputed majority. Meanwhile, it is likely that Christians, who will henceforth restrategize to launch further onslaughts on the presidency, and of course, consistently cry wolf where there may be none at all, will, in the long run, be the greatest beneficiaries of Tinubu’s leadership. The justification for this assertion is obvious; Christians recorded bigger gains from his two terms as a governor of Lagos State and perhaps even in the succeeding years.

And despite that it is now clear that there is a wide numerical margin between Muslims and Christians, this may not be radically reflected in the constitution of the presidential cabinet; out of the 40 (or thereabout) ministers that the new president will be appointing in the next few months, it will be hard if he will summon enough courage to appoint 11 Christian ministers which is the proportionate numerical representation of Christian population supplied to us by the 2023 presidential election.

During my childhood, I used to hear Muslims say that Saudi Arabia had a diplomatic policy of raising or lowering the flag of each country according to the faith of its president. I could remember vividly when after Muslims were tired of the Obasanjo administration and Umaru Musa Yarauda, the unfavourable candidate had defeated Buhari (the saint as of then) when some people, despite the dark outcomes of the election results, expressed delight and commented that at least Nigeria’s flag would be raised in Saudi Arabia after it had been dumped on the ground for about eight years. If this diplomatic principle in Saudi Arabia is true and still valid, Tinubu’s victory will now mean that Nigeria’s flag will at least spend twelve uninterrupted years flying in the Saudi sky, and only God knows when it may be lowered. 

In a different essay I penned more than a year ago. I argued that if the situation would warrant that Tinubu’s victory would only be guaranteed if he embraced Christianity, he might end up becoming a Christian just to realize his lifetime ambition. Based on the goings-on of the present political season and the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, it is also safe to argue that despite being admittedly a nominal Muslim as shown by his self-orchestrated  Fatiha recitational suicide, Tinubu had, by picking a Muslim as his running mate, audaciously accomplished what many Muslim politicians could never mull over not to talk of giving it a try.

Ismail wrote from Souss, Southern Morocco, and can be reached at ismailiiit18@gmail.com.

By Muhammadu Sabiu 
 
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, has drawn criticism for congratulating Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the winner of Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election, on his victory last Saturday.
 
Zelensky expressed his country’s readiness to collaborate with Nigeria to address global concerns, particularly risks to food security, in a tweet on Saturday.
 
Zelensky’s tweet reads, “Congratulations @officialABAT on the victory in the election of the President of Nigeria. I look forward to close cooperation. I am convinced that the two-way interaction 🇺🇦 and 🇳🇬 will strengthen. Ukraine is determined to work together to overcome global challenges, including threats to food security!”
 
Criticising the Ukrainian president, some Nigerian Twitter users expressed their dissatisfaction over the tweet, as can be seen as follows:
 
@IjeleMela, “Corrupt people always know how to align with one another. This guy is probably very corrupt.”
 
@WeriseB, “May Putin never leave Ukraine!! Amen!”
 
@TheOliviaMead, “You will not get any money from Nigeria! Get out!”
 
“Our democracy was invaded and you are congratulating the man … on behalf of Ukrainians,” @aai_austin claimed in reply.”

A few other users have also raised Mr Zelensky for the congratulatory message to the President-elect.
 
 

By Dr Raji Bello

Nigerians are not known for their ability to figure out the long-term consequences of their actions. This is a major national handicap since some choices which produce short-term gain could lead to long-term pain. For instance, in 1999, the governor of Zamfara state introduced a new social order in the state in defiance of the authority of the Federal Government of Nigeria. The new order spread across the northern states along with a strong wave of triumphalism. 

In the years that followed, groups of non-state actors across the country learnt something from what happened in Zamfara – that a group of determined people within a defined geographical area could defy the Federal Government and impose their will without any consequences. Inspired by this knowledge, a new Islamic militant group soon appeared somewhere in Yobe state, which later grew into Boko Haram – and the rest is now history.

Militants in the Niger Delta, who were also observing developments in the North, concluded that the Federal Government was indeed weak and its authority could be challenged without consequences. An insurgency soon took firm roots in the area. Many years later, young herdsmen around the country and secessionists in the Southeast also decided that it was time to take on the government and Nigerian society. Over 20 years later, long after the triumph of 1999/2000 has faded, we are still living with the pain of the chain of developments that it had sparked.

Once again, there is palpable triumphalism in the land. Our newly-elected Muslim-Muslim presidency has elicited exuberance in the Muslim community and foreboding on the Christian side. Prominent Muslims are already lining up to claim ownership of the president-elect and his religious identity. The Muslims are glad that the apparent consolidated Christian vote for Mr Obi has failed to achieve its aim. Christians, on the other hand, see their voting preference as justified because of the sheer brazenness of the APC in coming up with a Muslim-Muslim ticket right at the end of the two terms of a Muslim president who was not even known for respecting diversity in his appointments.

The 2023 elections will mark the time when the religious cleavage in Nigeria deepened to dangerous levels. In fact, the frontlines of the religious battle have already shifted to some upcoming gubernatorial contests. In Taraba state, the CAN has allegedly circulated a statement alerting Christians in the state of the impending battle while Muslim clerics all over the North have united in charging Taraba Muslims for the solemn task ahead.

Also, in Nasarawa state, there is a fear that the Labour Party could repeat its earlier presidential election feat and elect a Christian governor for the state. Other states like Plateau, Gombe, Adamawa, Kaduna, Niger etc, may also witness more hardening of intercommunal attitudes going forward. 

There will be even more foreboding on the Christian side when the practical elements of the Muslim-Muslim presidency begin to manifest. For example, media coverage will show both the president and vice-president of Nigeria at Eid prayer grounds while only the SGF or senate president will be left to lead the celebrations of Christmas and Easter.

The other multiplier effects of this new paradigm can’t even be fully imagined now. I expect that in the fullness of time when all the predictable consequences are playing out, the few discerning ones among us will ask, was Bola Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket really worth it in the long run?

Raji Bello writes from Yola, Adamawa State.

By Muhammed Tukur Gwarzo

After all the series of controversial letters you wrote, which almost all Nigerians have lost count as well as interest, you have now unveiled your personal agenda towards the whole country. You have for long turned into more of a comedian than a real Statesman.

You do not seem to love Nigeria Sir! And this is a fact! You did all your best to kill everything during your tenure, every good work initiated by our Heroes Past, you either damaged, manipulated, changed or even destroyed it completely. You don’t have anything to tell Nigerians. Therefore, it would not be surprising when someone who is drowning and totally oblivious of the current realities of the country, perhaps due to old age, motive or both, displays such divisive comments at this critical moment in the history of the country. We are not surprised. If you don’t know, now you should know that you have lost all the Moral Rights of an Elder/Statesman, to even think of coming out to advise anyone. You are already partisan. You publicly supported a candidate. Why would you now turn and act as if you are neutral? The respected statesmen of your caliber did not openly support any of the four leading candidates, but you did. Many Nigerians believe that you are acting a script of a hidden agenda.
History will be just to list you as someone who meddles into the affairs of each government since Shagari Administration to date. There is no Nigerian leader you didn’t belittle in the eyes of Nigerians and the International Community, in order to make them look bad, including those that brought you out of jail. They have really made a mistake of taking you out of prison. Their biggest mistake was how they promoted and supported you to be President. And instead of being grateful, you became disrespectful and rude to all of them.

One thing that you think that Nigerians haven’t noticed from you is your attitude of arrogating to yourself a messianic charisma. You always portray yourself as someone who has the full grasp of Nigeria’s problem, not knowing that YOU are the problem! You are among the top three problems of Nigeria and you should know that. You look down upon all the
Nigerian leaders, past and present, simply because you wrongly feel you are better than them all.

Furthermore, it is obvious that you are envious of even someone from your tribal and ancestral extraction. Then who do you think you Obasanjo can spare? Now that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a fellow Yoruba Man from the South West is accepted by Nigeria to be its President, you feel that you are now seconded. You feel: why should Tinubu second you? This is the reason you started spewing divisive commentaries and calls for cancellations of the election, so that another Yoruba cannot be sworn in.

You want it to be on record that you are the only Yoruba man who made that record.
You are even lucky that due to the Esprit de Corps known within the military, most of the well-meaning gentlemen of the military respect you. You mistake that as fear and you do not reciprocate that respect to even General Gowon and likes, who happen to be your seniors.

Another point which you are wrong is on the issue of this public show of self-importance, which is part of you. As someone who studied Theology up to PhD level, you ought to have known that it is religiously wrong to advise a leader in such an open manner. You have direct access to all the leaders but you always choose to tar them in the market place.

As a citizen, and more so a former leader, you have the right, 100%, to make appeals and give advice to government and citizens alike, provided they are unbiased and do not infringe on the unity and stability of the country as you always do.

The way you think that the 2023 general elections results are manipulated defies logic. Lagos was taken by LP, Buhari’s Katsina went to PDP, and many other PDP/APC states were lost to LP. Serving and former APC Governors lost their bids for senate seats; Kano is lost to NNPP; but still, you questioned the results.
During your semi-dictatorial reign, you supervised the most rigged and questionable elections, especially in 2007 when Maurice Iwu was the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Even the elected President, the late ‘Yar’adua of blessed memory, accepted and admitted that the process was flawed. Before then, you were widely suspected to have sought for a third term, which was unconstitutional. When that attempt failed, you then almost truncated the electoral process through a “do or die” politics.

When you were in power, nobody dared advise you for a better cause since you arrogate to yourself wisdom, and never accepted whatever was not from you, even from those that made the mistake of bringing you back to power. They brought you back not because you were the most qualified, but in order to appease the South West over Abiola’s June 12 saga. By then, Olu Falae, a politician and a tested technocrat would have been a better choice but you still cannot reason and remember all these. You are now clearly bereft of ideas in the polemics you wanted to present during your latest presentation. You look like someone entering into a boxing ring, very certain of your defeat. You know that Nigerians will never fall into your trap again. You should not have talked at all!

Sir, you should know that Nigerians are wiser now. They have known all your antics and antecedents through your utterances. What you did can cause an uprising and breakdown of law and order. It is something that borders on National Security, which should not be taken lightly by any serous government.
I advise the present and future governments not to allow such a situation of national security breach from you again and you should be tamed. But if you continue, the government should have an ideal way of dealing with you and your likes decisively!!!

Muhammed Tukur Gwarzo write from Kano, Nigeria.

By Abubakar Suleiman

The period preceding the presidential elections was greeted with intense and unrestrained emotions, outright bigotries and zingers from political opponents and supporters alike, so much that discussing issues that really matter was out of the table.

Public pundits who tend to raise their voices or pen down their thoughts on the challenges ahead got their ideas or pressing questions drowned amidst fierce online arguments. Discussing the manifestoes of the parties of the major contenders took the back seat while bickering on variables like the contestants’ age, health, religion, region, and ethnicity became the front burner across many platforms.

As the wave of the electioneering is beginning to disappear and the elections have been won and lost, I think we can start to ask the president-elect, where do we go from here? His job has been well cut out for him. And it will definitely not be an easy ride, and we need to be realistic.

Contextually, should subsidy finally go or stay? Should education at tertiary institutions be subsidised or commercialised? How do we push the country towards a knowledge-based economy? How will the poor access quality basic and tertiary education? How do we fund deficits in the power sector to make industries wake up? Can we change the security architecture? Should state police be created? Should we continue to maintain two chambers in the National Assembly? And how do we source the fund to run the government? To what extent should we play politics with governance? Can all these and many more be done in 8 years? The questions are many.

The election and its aftermath exposed the fragile unity between the regions and religions that made up this geographical space called Nigeria. Therefore, as a matter of urgency, the President-elect should hit the ground running by reaching out to aggrieved regions and their leaders by assuaging their real or imagined fears and grievances.

The problems of the country are too enormous to be dragged back by agitations and the feelings of being left out. Therefore, an inclusive government and approach to governance have never been this necessary.

Security

Just when President Muhammadu Buhari was about to claim victory over Boko Haram and insecurity in the North East, unprecedented spates of killings, kidnappings and banditry reared their ugly heads in Northwestern Nigeria.

A huge swathe of land became inaccessible, many major roads were deserted, farming nosedived, and a humanitarian crisis ensued. With these problems, many people found themselves in the yolk of poverty. Others became homeless, and fangs of hunger rendered many others dead.

The security structure is in dire need of an overhaul. Community policing, intelligence gathering, using a non-kinetic approach and the continued procuring of more weapons cannot be over-emphasised. The procuring process of these weapons should be monitored to evade financial abuse by unpatriotic elements in security management.

Personnel on the front line serving the country should also be motivated. A situation where underperforming service chiefs are rewarded with tenure extensions or a slap on the wrist should end with President Buhari.

Furthermore, I think decentralising the Police Force is necessary to curb the spread of insecurity across the country. State police is an idea that could be floated and established while strong laws preventing sub-national governments from abusing it should accompany such establishment.

Successive governments have failed to face and address the epileptic power supply problem headlong. A humongous amount of public funds have been infused into the power sector only to purchase more darkness for Nigerians. We had intermittent national grid failure with President Buhari. Many Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) depend on the power supply to fester as many others have yet to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and cashless policy shocks and effects.

The state of the economy is scary. Unemployment has increasingly become high; inflation rates are biting hard; economic growth is sluggish; the country’s debt burden upsurged; the gap between the poor and rich has widened; and the conservatism of the Central Bank was thrown to the dogs by Governor Emefiele thereby making monetary and fiscal policies blurred.

These indices have been detrimental to the security and well-being of the citizens and their businesses. Therefore, the President-elect has a considerable responsibility to close the gap between the rich and poor through job creation, effective wealth distribution, social protection programs with measured outcomes and strengthened fiscal policies.

Subsidy

Only a few among the unlettered in Nigeria don’t know this word. Even those who cannot speak English have a name for it in their language. It is obviously no longer sustainable, as we even borrow to close budget deficits. However, oil is the most critical ‘social safety net’ for the poor in Nigeria; a tweak in its price is greeted with snag, suspicion and impoverishment.

The distrust between the leaders and the led has reached a crescendo, and the oil sector is marred with irregularities so much that we are not even sure of the amount of our domestic oil consumption. Therefore, critical infrastructure needs the money channelled into the subsidy to enhance economic diversification and gradual departure from over-reliance on oil.

And an excellent way to allay the masses’ fears that the money derived from the lack of subsidy might be squandered is through involving vital stakeholders like the Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, civil societies, sub-national governments, community leaders, and other relevant bodies. A comprehensive Key Performance Indicator or milestone should be developed and tracked by these stakeholders, and a project implementation and result delivery unit on the side of the Federal Government.

ASUU-FG Debacle

Another problem the President-elect will carry forward from President Buhari and even presidents before him is the ASUU-FG debacle that has refused to succumb to any pragmatic solution. Fake promises and insincerity on the side of the Federal Government and dogmatic or unbending approach on the side of the Academic Staff Union of Universities have made it impossible for the two to reach a sincere, realistic and practicable solution on the way forward.

Corruption

Plus, we are still battling corruption. Padding in the budget, red tape in the civil service, inflation of contracts and other forms of abuse of public office for personal gain are still with us. Corruption has basically been cancer eating up the already meagre and dwindling resources meant for economic growth, nation building and stability.

Corruption will not disappear overnight, but with the help of technology, building strong institutions and strengthening existing ones like the Judiciary will go a long way in minimising it.

The issues mentioned above and many more are parts of the conversations we should naggingly keep having with the President-elect, who will be sworn in as the President come May 29, 2023.

We should be less tendentious in doing so, but we should never relent in holding our leaders — presidents, governors and other elected or appointed public officers —accountable as humanly possible. The era of lack of communication and the body language that being our President is like doing us a favour should end with President Buhari.

I wish the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, successful days in office. May Allah grant him firm political will and a competent team to drive good policies and push the country towards greatness. Let the conversations continue.

Abubakar Suleiman writes from Kaduna and can be reached via abusuleiman06@yahoo.com