For a single tenure without dictatorship

By Ilobi Austin

Arguments  for and against, some acidulated, have poured-in, ceaselessly, into the public space since the new media adviser to Mr. President made public the desire and intention of his principal to have the tenures of office of Governors and the president either reduced to a single term, collapsed into a single term or in-between, made an extended  single term. For reasons, he gave the cost, which includes security and economic, of running an election every four years and the need to focus government at each level on the development of the country which entails taking tough decisions which in most cases are left until second term is in the bag. 

But for some of those opposed to the idea and which happens to constitute the virulent group, the above reasons are only a smokescreen for an attempt at tenure elongation, by the president. This the president has personally debunked and, early too, unlike what used to be the case in the immediate past by stating in unmistakable terms that this regime would not benefit from the proposal.

 Even though he did not say what would become of governors still in their first term, I will submit that I am not bothered about this elongation angle of the argument as all such previous attempt had always experienced a crash-landing that took life out of such projects. Remember Gowon, IBB, Abacha and more recently, Obasanjo.

So rather than dwell on a suspicion that is built on a tenuous chain of assumption, since a draft bill to this effect has not been presented to the National Assemble to enable the pubic know what is what, I would rather focus on some of the known consequences of the proposal should it become law, putting forth proposals for their mitigation.

The two main arguments against single tenure are its high probability of creating dictators or absolute rulers and complacency, as there would no longer be incentives for these public officials to be either even-handed or fair-mined in their dealings with either the larger public or other arms of government like the legislature; or to develop stronger appetite for making a difference in their immediate constituencies as would have been the case if there was a second term in view.

As a first step towards addressing these challenges, one suggests that the immunity clause in the constitution be reviewed to allow for the prosecution of the governors and president while still in office by  any member of the public, and not just the EFCC, ICPC or CCB, with the locus standi, which is to be determined by the plaintiff’s registration as a voter for the elections.

Apart from this section on immunity, that which deals with their impeachment should equally be diluted. To this end, the amendment should make it possible for impeachment proceedings to be initiated by any citizen, including the NGOs, in a law court as well as with the legislature.

              

With the Freedom of Information Act any member of the public, particularly the NGOs and activist, with grievances against either a governor or the president for either corrupt enrichment or non implementation of the budget, a law, as passed by either the state or national assembly as may be applicable could either approach, in the form of a petition,  the EFCC, the ICPC or Code of conduct bureau to seek assistance in investigating the purported breach of the public officer which they deem to have contravened the provisions of  the constitution.

Where the agency so approached has concluded investigation, it is to communicate its findings to the petitioner who would be at liberty to cause the assembly concerned to commence the process of impeachment but where the petitioner believes the   legislature concerned to be one and the same with the governor or executive arm, he will be at liberty   to seek amongst other things, for the vacation from office of the officer through the courts.

There is no doubt that a single term without safe-guards against the likelihood of an imperialist or sole administrator emerging on the scene remains a high possibility. And unless the process of removal or impeachment is made less cumbersome and the inalienable rights of both the legislature and the citizenry, the emergence of a Gadaffi and Mubarak rolled into one would be a matter of time.

A Gadaffian leader on the block could very easily conspire with sit-tight minded Governors to intimidate and harass the legislature at every level to endlessly alter the constitution to meet their selfish ends.

To get to our promised land therefore, there is no doubt that we will have to part our very own red sea using methods that are sometimes, indigenous for any form of government that does not provide a means for the citizenry to reward and punish it key operators, timely and effectively, is anti-people in the main. 

Ilobi Austin, an analyst writes from Lagos.

Deregulated zoning

Ahead of the  inauguration of its new government on May 29^th the PDP, still Nigeria’s dominant political party in spite  of the re-sizing of its spread during the last general elections, came out with a template that was to guide it in “ equitably and fairly” distributing the remainder, out side the office of the president,  of the most corruptly sensitive and influential offices amongst the “geo-political zones” of the coun

This template was like non before it: unlike in the past when those offices were allocated on the basis of  a North-South and vice verse arrangement, this one seemingly focused exclusively, in spite of the overall  performance of the party in the zones,  on rewarding arrow-heads or rather, lead arrangers of the GoodLuck for President campaigns in the respective zones.  

So David Mark, the most successful Chairman of the National Assembly since the creation of Nigeria, retained his senate president duty post alongside his deputy,  upon their  re-election; unlike was the case from 1999-2007 where the office had gone to southerners consequent upon the election of another  southerner as president with a northerner as Vice. In the house of representative,  the same pattern was re-enacted as the speakership, thanks to Obasanjo,  was allowed to remain in the south-west even though, Bankole did not make it back to the house and the entire zone produced just three members from the party.

In the south-east, the lead arranger of the campaign was no doubt the Oha N’ Eze and was therefore rewarded with the position of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation since they were not, before now, having any of it loyal members in any of the top most jobs. The elected representatives from the zone protested but was told in unmistakable terms by the party owners that the new formula was sacrosanct. They, the south-east representatives, temporize with the party owners while working with their northern colleagues for a better deal. Their plot triumphed, ultimately and they were rewarded with the position of deputy speakership post as against their desired position, the speakership. 

Enter PDP with the initial idiotic gesture of not recognizing or rather refusing to congratulate the speaker and his deputy but rather pontificating  about zoning and the need to respect same within the party. A visit to the party head office by the speaker and his deputy coupled with the president’s public message to the house suspended the proposed lecture series by the party.

The truth be told, neither the party nor the presidency had an attack nor defense weapon against the action of the house as they could not have expected to make their brand of omelet after smashing the egg long ago. Any argument against the house would have seem like a monologue since they would squaring up against their anti-zoning argument of not too long ago.

For one, if they argue that they had absolute control of the house, the house could have rejoined that the party even had firmer control of the party membership and therefore, delegates to the national convention to have ensure the respect of the party constitution as it applied to zoning and still could not enforce the position of the party’s constitution but rather allowed individuals to voter according to their “conscience”. 

The zoning dam has already been broken and the PDP cannot hope to sweep back the content with the broom.  The president said it himself that zoning was only applicable where the party had control in other words, the party by virtue of his emergency has control in the executive and can therefore, zone or regulate appointments in that branch to carter to  interest holders.  

With David Mark and Tambawal emerging in the National Assembly, they can now go ahead to apply zoning in distributing chairmanship and principal officers positions in both chambers.

Going forward, it is more going to be survival of the best negotiators. The party’s carrot and stick tactics has finally been put to rest and it was deployed against the member s who defied same and went ahead to vote their “conscience”  no future primaries of the party would be decided solely on the feelings or position of the  party leadership or that of the most ranking political office holder from the party.

 Ilobi Austin, a commentator on National issues writes from LAagos

Delta re-run: re-run truly it was

All hope about a possible free and fair election—the Prof. Humphrey Nwosu model—under professor Jega ended yesterday 6^th January when his INEC conducted a re-run gubernatorial election in Delta state, as ordered by the Court of Appeal.

Re-run it truly was, in all ramifications, as nothing of the unwanted occurrence of the Iwu era, for which both improved laws and funding had been provided to mitigate, was absent: ballot bag snatching, violence, interception of electoral materials, kidnapping and beating up officials, murder, figure joggling, late arrival of materials, omission of names of voters from the register of voters and all what-not.

And all this irregularities was witnessed in an election, in just one state, where security coverage had been provided or supposed to have been assured by a combination of over twenty thousand policemen drawn from neighbouring states, the three arms of the military: the army, navy and air force, special forces like the Anti terrorism Squad, the Joint Task Force, the civil defence corp, the customs and even the religious groups like Christians, Moslems and idol worshippers.   

But the truth be told, neither Jega nor the security services or even the politicians surprised me with their shameful performances and conduct. This is irrespective of Jega’s much vaunted integrity and sing-song determination to plug the leaks in our electoral system and meet the expectations of Nigerians on free and fair elections.

Getting rid of the corrosive effects of the Obasanjo brand of politics which he forced down on Nigerians, particularly in the periods between 2003 and 2007 requires the services of a man who will not only fight with Nigerians but equally fight for them in those dark places where the future of the country is mortgaged for a plate of hot jollof rice.

And I have never seen this Prof. Jega as the John the Baptist of that messiah let alone been the messiah. I don’t even consider him to be a barjesus. He spends too much of his time making promises, harassing the national assembly and attending seminars and workshops even when he complains about lack of time to do the job for which he has been given all necessary support.

If what happened in Delta state is all that Jega and his mouthy INEC can boast of then Nigerians had better prepare their minds for a worst scenario than was the case with the much discredited 2007 elections. Over twenty four hours after the end of the election at about 4pm Jega’s INEC could not announce the results of the election and when they were ready with the results at about 6pm the following day the ordinary people of the state knew that something had gone wrong when combine teams of the army and anti-riot policemen started taking up positions in strategic positions across the state.

According to the result, the PDP scored almost 300,000 votes to return Dr. Uduaghan to the government but the same PDP could not find enough courageous supporters to celebrate their victory when it was announced. Not even in Koko where the results showed that the PDP had garnered almost 40,000 votes.

it certainly must be  efficiency taken to another level for INEC staff, with the late arrival of material, to have been able to accredit such a high numbers of voters that actually turn up for the exercise, within the stipulated time.  Remember that some of those accredited might have missed taking part in the voting proper for one reason or another while some more would have thrown their weight, by way of voting, with other candidates. At the end, Uduaghan was able to, according to INEC, score as much as two hundred thousand plus votes. Miracle!

For starters, let it be known that the re-run election that was conducted in Delta state was, in more ways than one, not loyal to the new electoral act. But that is not the subject of this piece as the candidate of the Democratic Peoples Party candidate, Chief Great Ogboru, is already in court to prove this. 

According to the result of the election, Ogboru won in 10 local government areas of the state while the incumbent governor of the eon in 12. This gives a difference of two local government areas and it was from the this two that a whooping vote figure of a hundred thousand and more was garnered; and for a government that has performed to the annoyance of the majority of the people of the state—whether indigenes or otherwise.  

 

The nose knows best when it come to judging the fish; and this fish called INEC is as rotten as it can be. It is going to be business as usual, as far as the elections are concerned. 

 

 

Ilobi Austin is available on face book, twitter and niger villagsquare

       

Fifth columnists as supporters

By Ilobi Austin  

It is very difficult for this writer not to believe that majority of the minders of the Goodluck for president campaigns are not actually secondments from the camps of fellow aspirants for the same position or even fifth columnists working independently to thwart his come-back.

This submission is against the back drop of series mudslinging campaigns so far carried out by them on the person of Atiku Abubakar, former Vice-president of the country and a leading contender for the ticket of the PDP, but which has ended up achieving the opposite amongst objective followers of the campaigns messages from both camps.

One of the campaign messages was the one on his well known unfortunate but inevitable decampment from the PDP to the Action Congress on whose platform he contested the 2007 presidential election. According to them, this action of his and his subsequent return to the PDP showed him to be a man of unstable character and to use their words, a flip-flop.

Though, Ambassador Yahaya kwande has already provided a comprehensive rejoinder to this, one would like to know what the people responsible for such message makes of the personality of the current national chairman of the PDP, Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo state or Orji of Abia state, Sen. Chukwumerije and the members of the Abia state House of Assembly, who like Atiku, are returnees to the party; perhaps, flip-flops as well.

And they are all flip-flops for doing what? For seeking relevance in other political parties after being de-registered by the agents or linkmen of Obasanjo from a party in which they had, individually and collectively, invested time and resources hosting meetings across the country in private homes and expensive hotel to put together indefinitely for Obasanjo who, to all intent and purposes, is a usurper who is not known to have invested his personal resources in keeping the party together, even as an aspirants? I think not.

He has a bigger share than virtually all the reigning persons in the party, today, particularly, Obasanjo and therefore, deserves not just to return but a prominent place amongst the elders of the party.  Dwelling on his movement out and back to the PDP as a means of denigrating his person is to say the least amateurish politicking born out of the near lack of critical thinking on what constitutes damaging information on him or laziness on the part of the research team. Rather than sway public opinion against him this would even aggregate it for him as it only serve to remind the public of the recent past under Obasanjo, a seemingly Jonathan supporter.

And their efforts at portraying him as a corrupt politician, the Obasanjo created formula for tackling opponents, has equally not being as rewarding as they would have love to, as his explanations on the US senate investigation ,which the pro-Jonathan camp had vigorously tried to pass off as a judicial trial and conviction ,virtually took the wind off their sail. Ironically, the same corruption challenge: Ribadu’s testimony to the senate involving their principal and the fact of his being the shy-investor in some hospitality business back in Bayelsa state and attempting to bribe with 50,000$, thrown at them by Pastor Tunde Bakare of the SNG has all been unconvincingly responded to.

Pastor Bakare is a Man of God, notwithstanding his meddling in political issues; if he says there was an attempt at bribing, then, there must be an element of truth in his statement and it behoves the EFCC ascertain the veracity of his claim. Reviewing Pastor Bakare’s allegation one gets the feelings that the people responsible for the bribe only wanted to smear the image of the president, considering the amount involved and the calibre of persons that makes up the Save Nigeria Group that Pastor Bakare leads.  

An interesting aspect of the word-war is in the rejoinders to every assault from either camp. For instance, when one of the supporters of the president claimed that the former VP was dismissed from the Nigeria Custom Service, the VP camp replied with documented evidence to prove that he resigned voluntarily from service. When the camp of the president pronounced pompously that zoning was illegal, the other side went to court to prove wrong.

Then they fired that Atiku was desperate and the other camp retorted that the President was actually the one desperate with attempts to change the ordering and method of the primaries for the party and trying to change the electoral act to recognise ministers  and aids as delegates. In the midst of these, Wikileaks came to town with reports that portrayed the president to be less than honest with Nigerians in his admission of zoning. They are even telling Nigerians that Atiku is not the North consensus candidate in PDP but they have not told us why there is no formidable candidate from the North in the race under the same party as him.

When they decided on politics of issues they ended up exposing the lack of originality of their team as their attempt at proffering solutions to the myriad of challenges confronting the nation ended up being, in  part, an undisguised admiration and endorsement  for the policy document of Atiku, from which they copied verbatim thereby, putting more ammunitions in the hands of the supporters of Atiku to portray them as a pack of pseudo intellectuals with no original solution or even creativity in reinterpreting other people’s ideas.  

Atiku, like every other human has, no doubt, got his quirks and kinks but unlike most, particularly politicians of the Nigerian variety, did not allow himself the brazenness and unconsciousness of the future that has made corruption charges or allegations against them look like red wine stain on a snow white material.  At least, he is not known to have blinded-trusted himself into billions of naira from just less than few hundreds of naira nor does he raid his home front for pleasure.

President Jonathan had better review the activities of his so-called campaign minders to be sure it is not a Trojan horse. I am not his support but as an academic Dr., I want to be sure he is not been taken for a ride. By virtue of his education, he should be able to assemble a better team than is currently the case. This team blunders that are avoidable like pirating particularly the efforts of your strongest opponent. 

Disband them even if their replacements are those who will harp on: G: God is for us; J: Jesus is for us and E: everybody is for us and A: alleluia, alleluia . It is better than these crops of campaigners that throws mud at opponents only to plant political landmines and graves around the president. As for Atiku, he is lucky to have some of the best at what they do, work for him.

All they do is keep their gun powder dry waiting for the neophytes in the other camp to raise a topical issue like corruption and they simply fire from all cylinders.  He does not need A: ALLAH IS FOR US, A: almighty God is for us, AA: amen amen. He does not.  Ii is too elementary but good for the other side. 

 Ilobi Austin,  an  event analyst lives in  LAGOS

Dora needs a job

By Ilobi Austin

The Information and Communication Ministry is the worst place for somebody with Prof. Dora’s kind of patriotism, crusading spirit and definition of achievement. This easily showed itself when the late president Yar'Adua moved her from NAFDAC where her achievements were easy to quantify, into her current information creation and dissemination post; were achievements requires amplifications to distinguish and acknowledge, by the  populace.

All the same, she was went to the ministry determined to out-do her NAFDAC achievements. She consequently, took on the internationally acclaimed Ernest Nduke led NCC accusing it of under-hand dealings in the sales of a telecom license. It only took the intervention of the presidency to calm troubled waters and return team spirit to the fold. When this NCC kite failed to fly, she refocused:    launched the re-branding Nigeria initiative, that was designed to improve on the quality lies that the country had been trying for years under different regimes, without tangible results, to sell to the rest of the world: that we, particularly the leaders, are good people that have no special qualification or talent for mindlessly breaching public trust in the areas of the law, it observances and public finance.

That the white-washing project failed comes as no surprise in many quarters, for the people who should have made the effort worth the while remains consistently persistent in law-breaking acts that tarnish the image of the country around the globe. For instance, since it launch, there has been no letting-up in acts of corruption or ethnic-based disorder  across the country, from Ebonyi to Bauchi not forgetting Plateau or Abia and the sign-post or vignette for them all, the Niger Delta area.

Probably not satisfied with the returns on her effort, so far, she picked the opportunity of addressing youngsters seeking fame and fortune, the big brother way, to launch an attack on the hip-hop inspired name for the country, naija describing the coinage as an unpatriotic act. She there and then, declared an offensive on all corporate organisations using it as part of their promotional theme. She equally admonished the youths to crusade against the name everywhere and anywhere it is being used to represent the country.

What Dora did not do or failed to do, was to tell the youths and Nigerians the premise of her submission. Unpatriotic acts or comments are supposed to mean such actions and comments that are deemed inimical or injurious to the continuous existence of a united Nigeria. This is scarcely the case with the coinage, Naija; which is not known to be responsible for the irresponsibility of Nigeria leaders who are known, home and abroad, to have scant regard for their own words—promises— nor the docility of the led who, to be fair to us the ordinary masses have been impoverished as to, lean on very words of the leaders just to keep hope alive otherwise madness follows.  

Instead, this argot of the youth has proved it usefulness in bringing the creativity of the Nigerian youth to the fore in an environment where all they have been fed over the years by the country’s leaders have been tales about the potentials of the nation which with the passage of time has not been translated into reality, by the leaders, for the common good of all.

Is it then not possible that the youths of the country, suffering so much lack in the midst of abundance decided just like Jabez, in the bible,  to have the country re-christened for a more user and commercially –friendly name? And since it became the in-word amongst them have we not noticed a dramatic change in the fortunes of those who have appropriated it, particularly, in the entertainment industry far more than was the case under the steam, Nigeria?

The word, naija has got creativity and a kind of punch or energy that is lacking in the name Nigeria to it and to my mind, Dora should push for it to be adopted as the official name of the country so that what it has done for the youths it can re-enact for the entire country rather than this her current wasteful exercise of attempting to sweep back a surging ocean with a broom.  

Ilobi Austin writes from Lagos and is available on www.facebook.com , www.twitter.com  and www.vibratingaustin.blogspot.com