A Word on the Nigerian ‘Activist’

18^th August, 2019

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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hen renowned columnist Mohammed Haruna was appointed INEC National Commissioner from North Central in 2016, he wrote a farewell article which was published in some national dailies. In that article, he reflected on what it took to become a newspaper columnist when they began writing in the late 1970s and what it took now; he also discussed the future of writing columns. One critical and interesting thing I understood from his submission was that the business of writing columns was no longer prestigious these days as virtually anyone with averagely good writing skills can become a columnist and with the rise in the popularity of social media, publishing and publicity was not much of an issue.

When I was done reading that article, I concluded that quackery had taken over the business of writing columns and opinion pieces. Until some ten to fifteen years ago, newspaper columns were written by patriotic, informed, experienced and privileged experts who have a full grasp of the past, a clear understanding of the present and insight into the future. Before now, many people buy newspapers only to read back page columns and some opinion pieces inside the paper. Today, as Haruna asserted, everyone with average understanding of issues can write on virtually anything and publishing is not his problem. This had led to the proliferation of our media spaces with heaps of debris that have helped in compounding instead of addressing issues.

The case of activism appears to be worse. While writing requires some basic and sometimes thoughtful skills even by Nigerian standards, activism appears to be a vague activity down here. You can hardly define what actually constitutes activism or what it takes to become an activist. This is why despite some decent efforts; we are still struggling to bring out significant and impacting relevance out of our different non-governmental struggles to change the course of events in this country.

While activism is conventionally used to refer to any direct or indirect action employed in attempts to bring about social or political change in a society, but for the sake of analysis in the Nigerian context, let’s just consider it to refer to any activity employed by people who have any cause or belief to express disagreement with government or its activities.

The lack of a defined framework for what activism should be has made virtually any anti-government activity irrespective of how silly to pass as activism these days. This is the reason why the boundaries between partisanship, opposition, advocacy, struggle, criticism, character assassination, abuse, irresponsibility and even treason is very blurred and indistinctive. The conflicting methods of carrying out all these are even more unclear, confusing and indistinguishable. This perhaps may be partly responsible for the reason why government find it so easy to declare groups as terrorists and dissenting voices as enemies.

In another clear and apparent inadequacy of government responses and attempts to have control over these activities, today invitations, arrests, kidnappings and abductions virtually look the same. People are arrested without warrants, sometimes in the most bizarre of circumstances in the name of holding them accountable for things they wrote, causes they advocate for or against and groups they align with, making government suspicious whenever any critic gets missing or harmed.

We cannot deny the fact that the position of activism in our society today is more of an avenue to get fame, relevance and money rather than the desired change it appears to be yearning for. The patriotism and sincerity required to change a country is simply lacking in our brand of activism. This is why everyone with a substantial following on social circles, no matter how ignorant or uninformed will quickly declare himself an activist and begin to see his opinion as an authority which attracts strong rebuke when challenged.

It is also glaringly clear that many of our so-called critics are using activism as a platform to make inroads into politics especially when the conventional way of doing so is dotted with so many barriers which they don’t have the financial and political power to overcome. This is why we see many so called activist accepting positions in governments that are clearly at variance to what they claim to stand for. It is also not unconnected with why so many of these activists failed in government when called to serve. For these reasons, we see activism working and leading to change of regimes in many countries including Africa, while it is close to insignificant down here.

Despite all these lapses, people in power should have no justification to harass and indiscriminately attempt to silence activists. It would be better to look inwards and attempt to correct or to take care of those issues which give the activists the avenue to rant and express disagreement. If leaders can have the attention to notice criticisms and critics, they should have the courage to address issues raised rather than attempt to suppress those criticisms. If politicians can accept praises unconditionally even if they don’t deserve them, they should have the bravery to tolerate criticisms.

I once received a call from an associate asking me to take down an article I circulated online. The article was a brief reaction around early 2016 when a State Government in Northern Nigeria published the extracts to one its weekly State Executive Council meetings and my attention was drawn to the approval of the council of hundreds of millions of naira to train selected youths on social media skills. I refused to take down the article. What I did instead was to reread the article severally and see if there was anything written that warrants even an apology, but I couldn’t find a single one. That associate of mine later opened up that my arrest was contemplated before they asked him to talk to me. It’s very sad that rather than digesting the suggestions I offered in that article, those responsible chose to indirectly threaten me. It is very wrong and unthinkable to attempt to suppress ones God-given rights to react to issues within the confines of the law.  

The big mistake of people in power is wanting leadership without responsibility; they want to enjoy the privileges and paraphernalia of office but they don’t want to endure the burden and criticisms that comes with it. The best way to avoid too much criticism is for a government to play by the rules and deliver effectively. However, even the best of administrations never escape criticisms. A government that doesn’t obey the laws of the land is the biggest threat to the progress of any nation and the public officials that seek to enjoy the privileges of leadership without wanting to endure its burden of responsibility are the biggest liability to any government.

While government must trade with justice and tolerance in dealing with criticisms, activists must also operate with caution and responsibility. Governments are populated with human beings like you who have feelings and families. It is only natural if they get disturbed when you spread falsehood and half-truths against them. People must be well informed before they discuss issues. This, in addition to Mohammed Haruna’s wise words is the reason why for about seven years I have been very reluctant towards fully accepting the offer of becoming a regular columnist for many news outfits. When you are compelled to write every week, even if you may not have anything substantial to say in certain periods, you may end up going against the ethics just to produce something for the readers, especially if your knowledge of issues isn’t as deep as others might have been expecting.

For activists to make any significant progress in influencing how things are done in this country, they must do away with the bad eggs among them; those who are all out to abuse and assassinate the character of responsible people just because we have freedom of expression or because such people are in power or politics. We must never stand or support activist who area clearly unethical or whose motive is confirmed to be self-centred and self-serving. We must not continue to cheer people when they are busy spreading abuses against leaders only to start trending for their release when they get arrested. Critics must also be ready to tolerate and accept criticisms.

Another important thing is to adhere to international best practices in advocacy and campaigns for social and political change. We shouldn’t praise and criticize blindly; we should learn to agree with government and support it when it is right. Our obsessions should also not be on government and politicians alone. We have so many anti-people tendencies perpetrated in the private sector as well as many social community ills which we are largely ignoring.

Activism must also have some discipline, organization and focus as well as sustainability and non- political alignment to make meaningful impact. Nigerian activists don’t seem to have much synergy within their ranks; their activities are disjointed, uncoordinated and short-lived. When they occasionally come together, their incompatibility due to individual biases becomes irreconcilable. In this regard, we have a lot to learn from the proponents of the Bring Back our Girls Struggle which is by far one of the most organized, impactful and sustained non-partisan struggle in recent history. It had its own lapses during and after the struggle, but as a whole, it was spectacular and enduring.  

Government and people in government are the biggest stakeholders in almost everything. If a government doesn’t have the endurance to tolerate criticism, how on earth does it think it has the competence to deliver? Public officers must look at the substance of criticism and not the critics, and this with the intention of addressing issues. When you are presiding over peoples’ common wealth, you must be ready to hear them out. If it is inevitable that activists or critics must be arrested, it should be done within the confines of the law and people’s offence must be clearly defined, and offenders or suspects must be properly charged to court rather than kept for days under secret custody.

All in all, no activism can change a society if its basic tenets are not laid on a solid foundation. For example, how do you make progress in a country which its constitution empowers leaders to become criminals without consequence?

I was recently introduced to an online forum of African discussants on how to influence and change the focus of governance in the continent and I was surprised when someone from far away Uganda asked me whether it is true that Nigerian leaders are so corrupt that they openly stash dollars in their pockets? I was thinking of an appropriate answer when another discussant from South Sudan quickly chipped in and said, he read somewhere that some people were recently arrested for organizing a revolution to change that situation. After some few laughs, many wondered if certain things reported about Nigeria are actually possible in such a powerful country. Referring to me, the moderator asked but where are you, the activists. I jokingly replied, I am not an activist.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

INEC: Beyond the Postponement

17^th February, 2019

INEC Chairman: Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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he first person that came to my mind when I was given three lengthy ballot papers to vote in the 2015 Presidential and National Assembly Elections, was the typical uneducated Nigerian voter. While I cast the votes, I had many thoughts; how will the average unsophisticated voter sort out and know the difference between each ballot and what time will it take each voter to locate the party he wants and vote for it without spoiling the ballot? How can we guarantee the credibility and integrity of an election largely decided by the bandwagon effect? Why will INEC ignore the nature of the Nigerian voters and combine many elections together just because it apparently wants to save cost?

True to my thoughts, when the results for that polling unit was made available later in the day, close to 10% of the votes were invalid. Apart from APC and PDP, the two leading contenders, no party was able to secure more than five votes out of a possible 1000 in that polling unit.

Sometimes, you sit down and wonder why we deliberately do certain things that are neither useful nor necessary? Why do we need to add to our logistical burden by having close to 100 useless parties that are not serving any purpose? Will Nigerians still not have abundant reasonable options in five to ten parties? How has the political system improved with the continuous registration of these briefcase parties? Now, imagine the printing, organizational and other logistical costs that INEC will significantly cut if it were dealing with only seven parties? Apart from cost, the time and energy that will be saved is too huge to be ignored. Imagine how less confused will the voters be and the few post-election litigations that will be involved.

This makes it imminent for all stakeholders in the executive and the legislature to make sure the Electoral Act and Constitution are amended to accommodate only a manageable size of performing political parties. While winning elections is not the only function of political parties across the world, in Nigeria it seems to be the determining factor not only for recognition but for meaningful existence. With the general lack of ideological basis in the Nigerian Political Party System, only winning elections can be used to determine the strength of the political parties. For instance, the APC may be ruling Imo and Borno State, but almost nothing in terms of policies will show that the two states are being governed by the same party.

When Professor Attahiru Jega’s tenure expired as INEC Chairman in June 2015, it took President Buhari up to late October to appoint his substantive replacement; many National Commissioners and State Resident Electoral Commissioners were appointed several months after the tenure of their predecessors expired. Some states were without RECs for more than a year. These things may look inconsequential over four years, but the truth is they are the kind of issues that accumulate to mar painstaking preparations of several months.

Many Nigerians never expected the 2019 General Elections to take place without an amended, comprehensive and reforming Electoral Act in place. Unfortunately, the bad politics between the presidency and the National Assembly had greatly ensured that we are deprived of one. How does it feel to go into an election under an act that doesn’t even properly recognize the card reader which is currently the most important electoral instrument? How about operating under a system that doesn’t even have decisive punishment for election riggers?

We are all witnesses to how the 2019 Election Budget presentation and consideration was deeply politicised. We clearly saw how selfish interest superseded national interest in broad day light. We all saw how INEC got its funding very late because some people who love themselves more than their country also double as our leaders. Given circumstances like these, we must start thinking of a more reliable funding mechanism for the commission in the future. Let us not even talk of the lingering judicial battle over election sequence between the Presidency and INEC and the National Assembly on the other. In general, politicians have not been helping matters for INEC. The Zamfara and Rivers State APC cases are clear testimonies to this.

This is not to absolve INEC of all blames. However, it is to acknowledge the fact that the dilemma the commission found itself was caused by so many other stakeholders whether directly or indirectly. One of the shortcomings of INEC is that it has for long retained staff that are largely corrupt, dormant and incompetent. That election is a four year exercise doesn’t mean staff should abandon their duty posts for months until when the election is near. This has contributed in largely making INEC full time staff at some levels being little or no different from the Ad-hoc staff in terms of performance and readiness for the job. With such kind of staff, many of INEC’s problems are from within.

Historically, to be fair to INEC, the first time it really had the independence to prepare and conduct an election was in 2011. Not much can be said of 1999 when it was under the direct supervision of the military, but it is clear to all of us that in 2003 and 2007, results were apparently written even before the elections. During those days, INEC need not to care about any preparation or lack of it, nor of the consequences that comes with. Those elections had a predetermined outcome. Abel Guobadia and Maurice Iwu’s INEC apparently didn’t care of any credibility or legitimacy issue that will arise from the elections they conduct.

If we observe, any election post 2007, have seen INEC becoming gradually more independent and hence its preparations mattered. All the postponements and inconclusiveness of elections conducted in recent years are perhaps a testimony that the commission can now take decisions with little or no interference and that it is willing to do things right. In 2011, when we began to get a semblance of an election, the commission had to postpone the exercise after polling had begun. Therefore, as painful and costly as these postponements are, they represent some progress on the part of INEC. The only problem is when it keeps repeating them.

It is surprising that this government under President Buhari, who was a serial victim of Electoral fraud have done close to nothing towards electoral reform. One of the key attributes of periodic exercises is improvement upon past experiences until a certain level of perfection is attained. It is sad that the current INEC doesn’t represent a better one than 2015, even if it is not worse.

Already, this election is expected to witness a huge voter apathy even before the postponement and with the postponement, it can only get worse. How Nigerians are gradually getting disinterested in the voting and political process is a subject of discussion for another day. However, before we set to comprehensively address all these issues by 2023 General Elections, there are some issues the recent last minute election postponement by Yakubu’s INEC had raised that need to be urgently addressed.

Henceforth, INEC must consider postponement as the very last resort. Depending on the law, if conducting the elections can hold over three voting days in certain areas to take care of unforeseen problems, so be it. All ad-hoc staff should be recruited and trained at least two weeks before the election and then the postings may be delayed to avoid compromise. The commission can conduct a final review of its preparedness at least a week before the election and come out with a solid decision that will not change except in the case of a serious emergency beyond its control and not logistics.

With people risking their lives by travelling long distances to vote, INEC must consider making the PVC flexible enough to allow people vote anywhere they are at least in the presidential elections. It must also look at the possibility of allowing voting by postage from any location around the country and make arrangement for transparency in handling posted votes. With the amount of money INEC is gulping, it has no excuse in failing to do things as simple as this.

INEC can look into the possibility of taking advantage of technology to make room for online voting. A secured platform can be set up which a voter can log in, enter his PVC details and vote the candidates of his or her choice and find  a way of making the process effective, transparent and reliable. We are in the 21^st century; we cannot afford to be wasting lives and resources just because of a voting process whose outcome doesn’t even guarantee the safety and quality of those lives.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

2019: Another Opportunity for Hope

3^rd January, 2019

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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he death of Nigeria’s first executive and only Second Republic President, Alhaji Shehu Aliyu Shagari, GCFR few days ago, have taken many of us back into the history books and archives to refresh ourselves on events that shaped and defined the life, administration and other issues related to the ex-president. With the death of Chief Alex Ekwueme, Shagari’s Deputy last year and the man himself as well as many others before them like Ummaru Dikko, the major and leading stakeholders of the Second Republic are all but gone.

One of yesterday’s main men who is also a leading Second Republic political figure, now a nonagenarian and still alive, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai was once reported to have said that all the current Nigeria’s political and socio-economic problems have their genesis from the 1983 coup, a coup that didn’t only toppled President Shagari but truncated democratic rule that was just over four years old, established after about 14 years of military dictatorship.

One may easily dismiss Alhaji Yakasai’s claims as those of someone who was a personal victim of the coup, however probing further; there is a lot of substance in it. One, Nigeria was never better off in the long run after the coup. In fact what is happening today is far worse than what hypothetically led to the coup. General Muhammadu Buhari who took over may have made visible significant attempts towards stabilizing the situation in bis own way, but generally speaking, the post-coup era which ushered in the military quartet of Buhari himself, Babangida, Abacha and Abdussalmi never made the nation better than the pre-coup era.

Secondly, history has shown that democracy is about learning and maturing over time. Truncating it after six years like in 1966 and after just four like in 1983 denied it of the adequate time and opportunity it required to thrive. Many have argued that the problems of democracy can only be solved by more democracy. The inadequacies we are seeing in our polity today would all have been experienced, solved and learned from thirty five years ago and today we will only need to be reflecting and reaping from the benefits of the past experience, if democracy had been allowed to thrive.

The year 2019 is significant in different respects; it is not only an election year, it represents a democratic milestone of 20 uninterrupted years that had witnessed five (and potentially six in few weeks) elections that ensured power changed hands between civilians. By African standards, this is a big reason to be hopeful, for if this can be sustained, our challenges would be overcome in due course.

From the general break down of internal security to territorial defence threats, massive corruption to electoral fraud, unprecedented poverty to social challenges, the journey has been very turbulent from 1999 to date. Nonetheless, the solutions are still within if the system and process can be sustained and improved with deliberate attempts through policies and reforms sincerely, consistently and diligently implemented while also doing away with the one-step-forward and two-steps-backward disease that have been bedevilling us over the years.

For example, in due course every region, tribe and religion will get the adequate opportunity to rule. No region will rule or call the shots forever just like none will remain marginalized till eternity. No one thought in the near future, a minority like Dr. Goodluck Jonathan will defy all odds to emerge and remain president. Therefore, a time will come when all regions must have ruled and people will realize that all that matters is good governance and not who the governor is. This is evident from the fact that Nigeria’s current president and commander in chief is from the North, about 90% of the heads of the nation’s security and para-security architecture he appointed are northerners, but the region is now the insecurity capital of West Africa or perhaps the whole of Africa.

Despite having enough dose of it, democracy alone even if sustained is not going to solve our problem. It must be accompanied with many conscious and deliberate efforts. The attention is traditionally always towards government, but the truth is that the bulk of development worldwide has never directly come from government. In fact, relying on government for development is a major sign of underdevelopment. Looking up to government for everything only breeds the culture of irresponsibility. The ingenuity of a people is what moves a society forward.   

One thing we need to address moving forward is the love for easy wealth and the shortcut to success syndrome prevalent among the current generation of Nigerians. Conservatively, three out of every four Nigerians do not only see money and wealth as the only guaranteed ticket to success or as the only true accomplishment, but want to acquire it easily and effortlessly. With this, the corruption mentality is always at its default settings, especially among our youths. This is why corruption does not only remain our way of life, but corrupt people remain our role models. Until and unless, we can build a society which there is a limit to what money can get you and what lack of it can deprive you, we can only dream of progress.

Some other things democracy cannot guarantee you are unity and cohesion. It may give you opportunity to establish unity of purpose among yourselves if you sincerely wish to, but cannot guarantee you anything. It is year 2019, 105 years after amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates and almost 60 years after independence, but to be a detribalized Nigerian is still a virtue. When notable Nigerians pass away, you will hear their eulogizers praising them as ‘detribalized’ as one of their top virtues. Is this not a huge minus in a century which there is probably no reasonable society left (except may be us) whose aspiration is to build a nation populated by people of the same ethnic group or religion only?

Democracy can only work when you allow it. Therefore, it cannot stop you from rendering it useless or helpless. It is quite surprising how average Nigerians have overestimated the relevance and power of the Permanent Voters Card (PVC). This is why they have an illusionary feeling that they can vote anybody out during elections. The truth is that our political process and parties have worked very hard to limit our electoral options. We have limited or no power over our choices and hence we are always left with bad options to choose from most of the time. As long as Nigerians will not summon the courage and wherewithal to back smaller parties and facilitate citizen’s candidacy, outrightly voting out nonperforming politicians and replacing them with competent ones will remain a mirage.

In all these, one last thing we have and must hold on dearly to is hope. Our current crop of leaders and stakeholders at various levels and capacities must do their best to make sure that citizens still have hope. If they can’t transform hope into substance, they must work hard not to kill it. This is not going to happen by allowing (under whatever guise) our universities to remain closed for over 50 days now or at any other time in the future. I don’t think even countries at war like Syria or those frequently under the threat of natural disasters like Indonesia will afford to keep their apex institutions of learning closed for reasons that are simply avoidable and then resort to blame trading in place of collectively addressing the problem.

In their different New Year messages, Nigerian past and present leaders have in various words and contexts encouraged us to remain hopeful, positive and optimistic. This is even when signs on ground and the realities facing us calls for so much pessimism and hopelessness. Within these few weeks of festivities, I had to personally counsel many young Nigerians to not give up and keep their hopes for a better country alive, even if I myself don’t have much of that hope left inside me. In a country where a huge scandal like that which exposed a state governor on video allegedly receiving bribe in dollars can disappear into thin air within weeks, how can you convince yourself and others to remain optimistic? All 2019 prophecies notwithstanding, I’ll go with our elders who will say, hope is the only reason why we are still alive.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez