Osinbajo: The Face of National Unity by Ahmad Abdullahi

 

17^th April, 2022

By: Ahmad Abdullahi

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bout eight years ago, the All Progressives’ Congress (APC) appeared to be in a huge dilemma over the selection of a Presidential Running Mate who will fly the flag of the party alongside its candidate General Muhammadu Buhari who just won the party’s primary election. APC’s dilemma was justifiable as they were trying to bring on someone credible that will balance the ticket and make it acceptable enough to stand a strong chance against the mighty PDP.

After so many intrigues within some intense and eventful 48 hours, Professor Yemi Osinbajo got the Vice-presidential ticket to the surprise of many Nigerians. Many expressed fears on whether he carries the political capital strong enough to help the ticket deliver. Little did many knew of the Professors’ charming simplicity and intelligent technicality alongside his mass appeal that saw the ticket going all the way. The rest is now history.

Like in 2015, today, we are again witnessing a period when Presidential candidates are being profiled based on their ethnic affiliations instead of their pedigrees. We are having candidates getting attacked desperately on sentiments and arguments that bring nothing to the table except confusion and division. Being a front-runner for Nigeria’s number one job, the Vice President is one of the most prominent victims of these ethno-religiously motivated attacks

As expected, the build-up to Osinbajo’s presidential declaration has been greeted by so many criticisms, many of whom are targeted towards tarnishing his image and rubbishing his candidacy through lies, character assassination and carefully tailored misinformation. Osinbajo’s attackers are hell-bent on bringing down his candidacy even before it gets started. This goes to tell how significant he is in the political equation of 2023 despite many trying hard to dismiss his impacts over the last seven years.

The Vice President has been accused of being a religious and ethnic bigot. Some have gone as far back as his pre-political life to try to convince people of what many facts has proven him not to be. If we are to be fair to Osinbajo, the man is solely building his presidential campaign on the strength of his adventures of the last seven years in which opportunity has entrusted him with a national assignment that requires him to be fair to all Nigerians. As such you cannot use any other criteria to judge him.

In his first five years in office, he has supervised and presided over the initiation and implementation of the largest Social Investment Programme in the history of Contemporary Africa. A program that has been transparent, just and detribalized. No body can prove that he has used his position to skew the benefits of the social investment programme towards favouring any religion or region. It is one of the rarest programmes that tricked down to the door steps of the poor and downtrodden across all states of the federation.

In mid-2017, Nigeria almost plunged into a national ethno-religious crisis when the Biafran agitators were at the peak of their renewed call for separation. The Federal Government under the wisdom and initiative of the then Acting President Professor Yemi Osinbajo conducted series of consultative meetings with various groups of leaders and people of societal influence across the country to make sure that the situation is tamed and controlled. Osinbajo tirelessly interacted separately with leaders of thought from the North and the South East, traditional and religious leaders from the same regions as well as all 36 state governors. This was no doubt a big positive step which even the opposition Peoples Democratic Party commended.

In their first tenure, Osinbajo’s same Christian constituency which some believe he is favouring accused him of working with President Buhari to Islamize Nigeria. The outcries became so worrisome that Osinbajo made a public clarification. He said that, one day, he woke up around 6:00am in the morning and saw a text message on his phone sent by a renowned Christian leader who said to him that one day he will account for his actions of allowing Muslims to dominate and take over the government of Nigeria. The Vice President has passed through all this only now to be labelled a Christian bigot.

He further said that, he wondered what informed that sort of message while statistics show that there are two more Christians than Muslims in Buhari’s cabinet as at then. He cited an example of a time when a Northern Senator visited President Buhari in his presence and complained bitterly on marginalization of his people. He however left with the embarrassing information that North West, his zone was leading in the number of heads of government parastatals with 47, followed by South West, South South, South East, North East and then North Central. Why didn’t this senator do his homework before complaining? Misinformation.

I remember in one of our interactions with him in the last two years, he said if Nigeria disintegrates into smaller countries that can be run over at will by powerful ones, every region will be disadvantaged in different proportions. He therefore said our strengths lies in our diversities, number and size. He gave the example of Lagos State’s economy being six times bigger than that of Rwanda despite all the so-called giant strides recorded by Paul Kagame over the years. He emphasized that the country needs not disintegrate into smaller parts for people to have the opportunity of holding public office and if it is his face or that of President Buhari you dislike that you want secession, then know that, their days in office are numbered but Nigeria can live forever.

As Acting President, he made one of the most diplomatic and yet authoritative efforts to save Nigeria from untimely disintegration in 2017. He brought together all political, traditional and professional stakeholders in Aso Rock to further boost their confidence in the Nigerian Project. Therefore, no one can question his resolve for national unity and integration.

I think the Vice President can be accused of anything but not religious, regional or ethnic bigotry. If anything, he is perhaps the most qualified Nigerian among those seeking for the Presidency. He is the first and only Professor to become President or Vice President in Nigeria and has so far adequately demonstrated why the most educated among us need to be allowed to serve at the highest level. He is the most adequately educated and professionally inclined Presidential hopeful among the very top living Nigerians today.

The Vice President has delivered within the limit of authority, opportunity and responsibility at his disposal. He has spent seven solid years serving Nigerians and the President with uncommon patience, dedication and humility. He has never disappointed on any task assigned to him. Unlike many Presidential hopefuls who are planning to run from regional, religious, political and selfish motivations, the VP plans to become a true Nigerian candidate and a president for all Nigerians.

That he has been to almost every Local Government in Nigeria is not and cannot be an exaggeration. His long-life push for justice reform in Nigeria have taken him to so many nooks and crannies in the country, The trader and market Moni social investment programmes have seen him monitor and visit rural and remote areas that even ward councillors may not fancy going. The same people who were accuse him of show-off and pretence when he was making such visits are now the ones denying he ever embarked on such visits.

That he has declared to continue from where the President Buhari has stopped is a diplomatic way of saying that he is the man who understands all the successes of this administration and is in a better position to build on them, and also the man who understands all its shortcomings and is in a better position to make up for them. However, some are hell-bent on twisting the narrative.

Those accusing him of political betrayal are tactically telling Nigerians that the Presidency is the birth right of some mighty individuals and it is therefore a crime for ordinary people like Osinbajo to make an attempt on it. What some people are having it very difficult to swallow is that why will an ordinary teacher and lawyer who is not even a former governor or ex-minister and having become Vice president just become President? Who is he? But they forget, power belongs to God.

The 2023 presidential election would have been won and lost by this time next year. It may be Osinbajo or anyone else. However, it is clear even to his worst enemies that the Vice President has all the required credentials to make a good President. Deploying arsenals of calumny campaigns to stop him will not work, only divine destiny can do that.

The writer is the Team Lead of the Osinbajo-Face of Hope Project.
www.ofaceofhope.com            info@ofaceofhope.com

A Personal Tribute to Bashir Tofa

 6^th January, 2022

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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e have begun this new year on a very sad note following the death of one of Nigeria’s finest individuals, Alhaji Bashir Othman Tofa. Aged 74, he died in Kano at a hospital after a brief illness. The demise of Tofa in the first week of 2022 means we have to carry on with this turbulent journey of returning Nigeria back to sanity, this time without one of its strongest pillars. But most importantly, it is another reminder to all that our days on earth are numbered and there will be a day to account for all our actions.

Late Bashir Othman Tofa, the former Presidential Candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) will easily enter the list of the top 100 greatest Nigerians of all time irrespective of the criteria employed to make up the list. The only people that will argue against this are those who do not really have knowledge of the type of life he lived and the diverse nature of lives he touched and then of course the young people who don’t know much about him.

In Kano, Tofa sits top in the hierarchy of past and present most influential people in the history of the state. Kano has had many elders, politicians and great men, but none was as unique as Tofa. When Late Yusuf Maitama Sule died in July 2017, I had one major fear of who will replace him and the calm wisdom he represents, not until I remembered Bashir Tofa. Today both are gone; May Allah have Mercy on them. Before he died, Tofa was the Chairman of the Kano Elders Forum.

Unlike many Nigerian statesmen, Bashir Tofa’s political journey was modest. His profile is not filled with government positions and appointed portfolios. In fact, I can’t think of any other politician who managed to reach the peak of the ladder without riding on the back of so many government positions. During the Nigerian Second Republic, Tofa was at various times the secretary of the Kano branch of NPN before he later became the party’s national Financial Secretary and was a national member of the Green Revolution National Committee.

During the Third Republic, he was part of the Liberal Movement which metamorphosed to Liberal Convention when it was not registered as a political party. He joined NRC in 1990. In 1993, Tofa was elected the presidential candidate representing Kano and later defeated Pere Ajunwa, Joe Nwodo and Dalhatu Tafida to clinch the NRC ticket. His running mate in the election was Sylvester Ugoh, an Igbo and a former governor of the now defunct Central Bank of Biafra and an ally during the NPN days.

Indeed, his character, humility, and love for one Nigeria stood him out. This is reflected in his utterances. He preached peace, love, justice and tranquility. In 2011 when President Goodluck Jonathan was declared winner of the Presidential elections, Kano was one of the places where hell broke loose. Hooligans and hoodlums were busy destroying everything that looks elitist irrespective of political affiliation. Some of these hoodlums attacked and burnt a section of his house, reportedly destroying some of his properties in the process. He ordered that np body should maltreat the attackers.

Bashir Tofa was only concerned with the future of those youths and how they could be reformed as he blamed the decay in societal values for their actions. He said, if the society had done its job properly, these attackers would probably be in school or work places, therefore, he pardoned them. He was a known inspiration to the youth and always advised everyone on the need to maintain peace, law and order. Being a man that always strived for orderliness, he set up the Bureau for Islamic Propagation in the mid-80s that helped to unite Muslim scholars in Northern Nigeria, narrowing the differences that characterized their relationships.

I have for long had fears over the longevity of Bashir Tofa, although God has preserved him for much longer than my fears. I can’t really say why, but since after the deaths of two Principal June 12 actors, MKO Abiola and Shehu Musa ‘Yaradua over 25 years ago, my worry was that Tofa will also go home someday, a reality I had never wanted to come to terms with. He survived much longer, but I wished some of his other June 12 compatriots had also lived long enough to witness the type of Nigeria we live in today. When we met in early 2021 at the funeral of his youngest brother, Alhaji Abba Tofa, I had a reoccurrence of those fears.

Many people have misunderstood Tofa for long and some had only gotten the chance to truly know him from 15 years ago to date when he had focused less and less on politics and business to rather shift his attention to private life, authorship and philanthropy. Though he has been combining all throughout his life, but as he became an elder, he focused more on guiding the society to the right path.

It is unfortunate that many people never had the opportunity to have a taste of his wisdom and calmness. But it is more unfortunate that some who had the opportunity of doing that did not utilize the opportunity. In the wake of the balkanization of the Kano Emirate, Tofa made a last-minute attempt to save our heritage even when the Governor will not listen to elders. It was reported that the Kano State House of Assembly suspended plenary session to see him when he visited. It was said that they received him quite well and treated him with utmost respect while he appeals to them to ditch their plans. As destiny will have it, they went ahead to pass the law that disintegrated the long-standing emirate shortly after he left. After that, he said he has satisfied his conscience by doing his part.

Tofa is the type of elite you can only find in the most developed countries of the world. An elite in the class of Abraham Lincoln and the likes. He was the most organized Nigerian elite I have ever come across. A renown politician, A social and family leader, a successful entrepreneur, a vastly knowledgeable gentlemen, an erudite scholar, a formidable stateman and an intellectual author. Who will fill this vacuum? Perhaps there will never be another Bashir Tofa again.

Standing on his grave where he was buried in between his late father and mother, I held back tears severally while thinking about the complexity of life and simplicity of death. Even such a great soul had to eventually succumb to death; we must be careful with this life. Every other person around the cemetery not only wore a sad look, but also an image of an uncertain future. This great man will be mourned forever.

Bashir Tofa has had a successful life which impacted on society at every stage. He is indeed a hero and role model for all generations. He understood society quite well, he acknowledges its rot and the task required to fix it. I still remember Bashir Tofa’s simple campaign slogan when he ran for president; Tofa is the Answer. There was so much wisdom in the slogan; whatever are the problems, past and present, Tofa is the answer.

In Primary school, we had so many MKO Abiola and SDP sympathizers in my primary six class. However, some weeks before the June 12 Presidential elections, my classmates came to realize that Bashir Tofa was my Grand Uncle. Since that day, whenever I come in the morning, the routine chanting praising Tofa will fill the air. My class teacher enquired about the new development, when I explained to him, we laughed about it. He was supporting Abiola though, but whenever he sees me, he’ll jokingly say Tofa is the Answer.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

Certificate of Survival

8^th July, 2021

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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ome weeks ago, I was caught up in a debate involving some people who were trying to justify the Federal Government of Nigeria’s ban of Twitter and those who were opposed to it. To be fair to all, every side had some very good points strong enough to sway a neutral person to their side. However, one thing remains fundamental and clear even to the debaters; the twitter ban is not going to solve any of our short and long-term problems, including the very ones for which the Federal Government used to justify the ban.

For any critical observer, it will not be difficult to note that the Buhari Administration had not taken lightly any action that will or is capable of undermining official state authority or that of the President since its coming in 2015. This is perhaps why over 1000 Shiites were alleged to have been killed in the early days of the administration for blocking the way of the Chief of Army Staff among other things. It may be also the reason why IPOB and End SARS protesters were not treated with the kid gloves with which bandits and mass murderers of ordinary citizens are apparently treated with. Twitter had not offended ordinary Nigerians as much as it had offended the Presidency and hence the ban. Regardless, at least the ban is a strong message that not everything can be tolerated by Nigeria, especially the sort of highhanded arbitrariness on the part of the social media tech giant.  

Some few hours before the ban came into effect, I was surfing the platform to catchup with the day’s national and international news when I came across an interesting statement credited to ex-Senator Dino Melaye.  Melaye was reported to have said that any Nigerian that survived this APC’s administration to its end alive deserves a certificate of survival. I don’t know whether he actually said that or not, but the statement is typical of him. Besides, the truth is that ordinary Nigerians are currently receiving the suffering of their lives.

According to the Consumer Price Index report, recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria's inflation rate for May, 2021 stands at 17.93%, a slight drop from April, 2021 which was 18.12%. Food which is the most critical item recorded an inflation rate of 22.28% in May. This is the highest since April of 2017. Nigeria ranks 13^th in the global inflation table and 7^th in Africa, making it among the worst worldwide. At less than $80 per month, Nigeria’s minimum wage is one of the poorest in the world. A substantial percentage of the Nigerian population has been reduced to begging. The crime rate in almost every state of the federation is on the increase; income is static, expenditure is growing, no jobs and opportunities.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the change over time in prices of 740 goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living. The index weights are based on expenditures of both urban and rural households in the 36 states. How good a measure it is to quantify our real suffering from this hyperinflation is another question of its own.

Our real problem is that these figures are only giving us an idea but not the true picture of the cost of living in the country. We all know that these figures are mainly hypothetical; we have essential goods and services that have recorded 100% increase in prices within weeks. Another concern is that, other countries facing inflation are somehow doing well relatively. For example, the twelve countries worse than Nigeria in the global inflation ranking are better off in terms of peace and security (with the exception of may be Syria) and prosperity (with the exception of may be Sudan and South Sudan).

The country is faced with multiple, unprecedented and overwhelming security challenges from all fronts. With no clear end in sight, many people in some parts of the country live everyday in uncertainty while helplessly waiting for the worst. In places like parts of Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger States, people live to tell the daily stories of tragedy while hopelessly waiting to be consumed like their brethren. Survival has become a privilege these days.

The government is overwhelmed and had resorted to foreign debts to keep the collapsing economy working. Nigeria’s External Debt has reached $32.9 billion US Dollars as at March 2021. Roughly, each and every Nigerian is indebted to the tune of 65,000 to 70,000 Naira at official exchange rate of dollar to Naira. We have not stopped borrowing; a substantial amount of our current and future budgets still depends on external borrowing. We are not talking of internal debt.

Ordinary Nigerians are finding life unbearable. Are these sufferings temporary? What are we doing to stop this? Why is every previous year better?  How does the future look like for ourselves and children? How many of us will survive this? Is survival our emerging national culture and priority? People are employing any available means to survive thereby gradually turning the society into a jungle where everyone wants to thrive even at the expense of others.

What is the overall implication of all these? Now here comes the real danger. When a greater majority of a country’s citizens are preoccupied with how to survive, no one will be left to create and add the value that will take the country to the promised land. When most people spend 75% of their time trying to fetch for their families amidst rising costs and harsh conditions, they can only spend the remaining 25% to rest against the next struggle, leaving them with zero time to think and create anything. When almost everyone is living to attain Dino Melaye’s certificate of Survival, we will have no other aspirations other than food and shelter. The result will be a backward nation that will remain static for only God knows when.

We cannot say that the current government is doing nothing about all these challenges, but they are doing nothing revolutionary. Measures like N-power, Conditional Cash Transfer and the likes are cosmetic, inadequate and unsustainable. Even their effects on the short term are too minimal to reflect on the general quality of national life. First and foremost, the country must have a comprehensive and exhaustive national development plan with inputs from local, state and federal stakeholders. This plan must be well developed, implemented and not politicized. If needs be, it should be backed by legislation. Government appointees at any time must be people that understand and can implement that plan religiously irrespective of their demography and political affiliations.

The development plan should be able to strengthen sectors like manufacturing, power, infrastructure, security and justice because such sectors have the potential of automatically creating and consolidating direct and indirect development. For example, if there is adequate security and power supply, independent businesses would run for 24 hours. When some people who conduct businesses during the day are asleep, some others who were resting during the day will conduct businesses during the night. Nigerian businesses will work for 24 hours with no valuable time to waste thereby hugely increasing productivity. We should be able to produce most of the goods we import.

When power is available, thousands of jobs would be created both directly and indirectly. Therefore, advisably, rather than invest in providing direct jobs which cannot satisfy all, let the government strengthen security and power.  We have seen what the telecommunication and entertainment industries have done to our economy through direct and indirect jobs creation with ripple effects and I think that success can be replicated in many other sectors. When this is done, governments will rely on its happy and self-employed citizens for taxes rather than the other way round.

It is unfortunate that we are being unable to implement basic solutions offered every now and then because politics has been our number one national priority since 1999. This has made many people to lose interest in providing any meaningful input to the Nigerian development discourse. I have received countless messages over the last eight months, including from some newspaper editors over my long break from analytical writing with some enquiring on what must be responsible. I usually didn’t have any consistent answer, sometimes I’ll just compose any reply that comes to mind.

Whatever will be said, has been said many times before, we just lack the will as a nation to take the bull by the horn. Just some days ago, a reader reminded me that it has being a year since I wrote an opinion piece asking why. I doubted and quickly went to my personal online blog only to confirm what he said was indeed true. I was surprised myself, but what the reader didn’t know is that I am currently battling to obtain my own certificate of survival.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

The Return of Electoral Robbery

6^th July, 2020

 

By: Amir Abdulazeez

D

uring this lockdown period, I managed to read significant parts of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s book, ‘My Transition Hours’. I have been trying to avoid the book like others similar to it, simply because I don’t believe in the sincerity of politicians telling their own stories. But, what other ways can you cope under a three-month lockdown? One conclusion I reached was that the former President’s memoir was a tactical expression of his self-convincing feeling that he never lost freely and fairly to General Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 presidential elections. All other things in the book were in my opinion more or less secondary to this. The more pages I read in that book, the more I found it difficult to disconnect President Jonathan and his henchmen with the Orubebe incident that largely placed huge question marks over his subsequent democratic heroics. 

There was one thing I however liked in the book and it was the provision of more insight on Jonathan’s commitment towards electoral reform. I don’t know what was his motivation, but what I understand, he badly wanted his government and the Ruling Party under him to represent a stark contrast from the garrison and cruel electoral style of the Obasanjo era. Jonathan apparently wanted to win the 2015 elections at all costs, but he wanted it to look clean and the inability to combine the two was what probably led to his downfall. But whatever his shortcomings were, the former Bayelsa State Governor must be given the credit of single-handedly ushering us into a new era from which free and fair elections should become a standard.

Most Nigerians have been wondering whether the credibility of our elections is improving, static or declining. One critical debate that will give an insight into this is finding out which election is better between 2015 and 2019, our two most recent national elections. In terms of the actual elections, 2019 appeared to be a bit better, except for those being carried away by the fact that an incumbent lost is the highest mark of credibility in elections. This is because, we are quite not used to such things in Africa, but that notwithstanding, an incumbent losing is not a global benchmark for credible elections.

In 2015, at least five state governors sat on clearly illegal mandates as compared to just one in 2019. Form the huge volumes of electoral reports and analyses I studied; I can comfortably hypothesize that about 25% of National Assembly members across all parties in 2015 were illegally elected as against about 5 to 10% in 2019. For the presidential elections, the results of about ten states can be said to be truly questionable in varying degrees against the five for 2019. These are not facts. However, on the preliminary and postliminary activities that constitute the electoral process, 2019 is by far the worse; the primary elections that produced candidates were one of the worst in history. The judicial proceedings that decided electoral cases were also one of the most unfortunate in Nigeria’s history.

All of these is by the way. Our concern now should be about how the current APC government is handling the electoral system and how it intends to continue handling it. There have been many allegations of electoral fraud during the 2019 elections, but what was witnessed in the Kano so-called re-run elections has been a subject of discussion. The brutally fraudulent and violent nature with which Kano was taken was not only a sad reminder of the peak Obasanjo days, it was an indication of how APC’s new winning formula. The National Assembly by-elections in the same Kano as well as the Kogi State governorship elections that followed is a practical testimony to this. The mistrust and misgivings of the electoral process by the electorates is back, the 2015 confidence have been destroyed and Nigerians now have serious doubts over the 2023 electoral process.

Though political parties in Nigeria are mere alphabets and acronyms, but the main elements that call the shots within the APC have been the major victims of electoral fraud from 2003 to 2011 and ironically the main beneficiaries of fairly acceptable elections between 2015 to 2019. They are the ones most expected to further reform the electoral process and make it better. No one expects what we witnessed in Kano and Kogi states to have happened under this president who was rigged out several times. Before that, we have seen what happened in Osun State in 2018. The return of full-fledged electoral fraud is imminent.

One will think certain things are beyond the control of the president and the APC. But, how do you explain the party appointing the Kano State governor as leader of its campaign council in Edo state?  The party is well aware that since the infamous dollar saga, Ganduje is gradually becoming the new reference point of corruption in Nigeria after collecting the baton from former Delta State Governor, James Ibori. Furthermore, the fiasco that returned Ganduje to Kano State Government House on March 2019 is the new national reference point for electoral mandate robbery in the country. With APC appearing not to care about all these, we can only conclude that it’s new message to Nigerians, that it no longer pretends, it no longer cares about free and fair elections.

Out of all these, none is the most dangerous. What represent our most critical danger is the attitude of the judiciary towards the electoral process. The courts especially at the highest level have become the new graveyards of electoral mandates. We are yet to recover from how the judiciary stamped its approval on the anomalies of the 2015 elections especially with regards to gubernatorial elections. It takes one of the most morally bankrupt consciences to rig an election, but it takes even a more morally bankrupt one to legitimize and affirm it.

Irrespective of the technical judicial processes, the various verdicts particularly from the Supreme Court were greatly detrimental to the well-being of the electoral process. With this development, everybody will now try to win election at all cost, knowing so well the judicial process is less than likely to unseat him. It has gradually become very clear that once you were not declared winner after the polls, you stand virtually no chance of reclaiming your mandate in the courts. First, the tribunals give much emphasis on flimsy technicalities and often dismiss several petitions on such grounds. Secondly, they often summarize all arguments and evidences brought before them as having failed to prove the case ‘beyond reasonable doubt’- an ambiguous phrase now so popularly and notoriously used to dismiss many competent cases.

Another source of concern is how INEC is tactfully returning to partisanship after a brief journey away from it. Before then, the electoral umpire has always not been forthcoming in preventing electoral malpractices, many of its actions even encourage it. Before and after elections, multiple alarms of foul play are being raised in different quarters and during the course of the elections, many candidates usually complain of rigging, violence, manipulation and oppression, but all INEC could do was to tell them to head to court if they were not satisfied. Is this all that the law empowers INEC to do?

Talking of the law, this brings us to the issue of the Electoral Act. The 8^th National Assembly did well in comprehensively amending the 2010 electoral act only for President Buhari to refuse his signature for reasons yet to be clearly justified. Lest we forget, the deficient electoral act of 2010 was what gave the Supreme Court the technical window to affirm the hugely questionable gubernatorial elections of Rivers, Akwa-Ibom and Abia states in 2015 on the grounds that the card reader is not recognized by the law. This was what empowered politicians with more impunity into 2019. To date, the 9^th National Assembly which is the darling of the administration appears not to have started any move regarding the Electoral Act. Let’s not begin to talk about the performance of local government elections under this administration.

The bottom-line now is that the electoral reform which had begun to make some progress since 2007 has gone back to square zero. Nigeria, courtesy of her leaders is a nation that is famous for taking one step forward and then two or more steps backwards. Whenever one step is taken in the right direction, several other steps would be taken in the wrong one. This is probably one of the major reasons why we have failed to make a lasting and permanent progress in a lot of things.

I have closely and critically observed elections at all levels since 2003 and I have researched fairly on the histories of past elections in Nigeria. Inspite of the sham we went through in 2003, 2007 and to some extent 2011, now represents the most disturbing moment in our contemporary electoral history. We use to have credible opposition that fights all these evils, now we don’t; we used to have some courts that deliver justice on electoral matters, now we don’t; we used to have majority of Nigerians fighting the menace, now almost everyone has given up.  

Elections appear to be the only potent weapon available to Nigerians against their oppressive leaders. All other constitutional options like impeachment, recall and freedom to protest are either suppressed, too bureaucratic or ineffective. Being aware of this, leaders now misbehave with impunity, use our own money against us with rascality and when it is election time, they rig with authority thinking that they will live till eternity.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

Malaria: Nigeria’s Annual Pandemic

26^th April, 2020

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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hen the decision was reached to spare a date for the observance of ‘World Malaria Day’ in May 2007 by the 60^th session of the World Health Assembly, which is the World Health Organization's decision-making body, there were about 100 countries and territories that have eradicated Malaria, set the path for eradicating it or have reduced the disease to the barest or negligible level. In spite of this, Malaria was still regarded as a global disease, perhaps not for its spatial coverage, but for its high prevalence among a significant number of the global population mostly domiciled in Africa.

The World Malaria Day itself was an offshoot from the Africa Malaria Day, an event that had been observed since 2001 by African governments. The first World Malaria Day was held on 25^th April, 2008 with the theme ‘Malaria: a disease without borders’. The day was established to provide education and understanding of malaria and spread information on annual implementation of national malaria-control strategies, including community-based activities for malaria prevention and treatment in endemic areas. Its observance served as a time to assess progress toward goals aimed at controlling malaria and reducing its mortality in affected countries.

A review of different reports suggests that globally, 3.3 billion people in 106 countries are at risk of malaria. In 2012, malaria caused an estimated 627,000 deaths, mostly among African children. Asia, Latin America, and to a lesser extent the Middle East and parts of Europe were also affected. According to the most recent World Malaria Report, the global tally of malaria reached 212 million new cases and 429,000 deaths in 2015. The rate of new malaria cases fell by 21% and death rates fell by 29% globally between 2010 and 2015. Children under 5 years of age are the most vulnerable group affected by malaria; in 2018, they accounted for 67% (272,000) of all malaria deaths worldwide. Malaria is the 3^rd leading cause of death for children under five years worldwide, after pneumonia and diarrheal disease.

According to the latest World malaria report, released in December 2019, there were 228 million cases of malaria in 2018 compared to 231 million cases in 2017. The estimated number of malaria deaths stood at 405,000 in 2018, compared with 416,000 deaths in 2017. African continues to carry a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2018, the region was home to 93% of all malaria cases and 94% of all malaria deaths. Malaria transmission is more intense in places where the mosquito lifespan is longer with the parasite getting adequate time to complete its development and having preference to bite humans rather than other animals. The long lifespan and strong human-biting habit of the African vector species is the main reason why approximately 90% of the world's malaria cases are in Africa. Thirty countries in Sub-Saharan Africa account for 90% of global malaria deaths.

How has Malaria been faring in Nigeria? In 2018, six countries accounted for more than half of all malaria cases worldwide: Nigeria (25%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12%), Uganda (5%), and Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique and Niger (4% each). With this, Nigeria is the World Malaria Capital constituting a risk for 97% of Nigeria's population. The remaining 3% of the population are reported to only be relatively safe because they live on the highlands. According to the United States Embassy in Nigeria, there are an estimated 100 million malaria cases with over 300,000 deaths per year in Nigeria. This compares with 215,000 deaths per year in Nigeria from HIV/AIDS. Malaria is a major public health problem in Nigeria where it accounts for more cases and deaths than any other country in the world. This explains why the World Malaria Day is an important event in Nigeria.

Malaria is not the only deadly health challenge in Nigeria. According to various reports, the top causes of death in Nigeria are; malaria, lower respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, diarrheal diseases, road injuries, protein-energy malnutrition, cancer, meningitis, stroke and tuberculosis. The Nigerian office of the International Center for Disease Control and Prevention listed the top 10 Causes of Death in Nigeria as at 2018 to be lower respiratory infections, neonatal disorders, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, diarrheal diseases, Tuberculosis, Meningitis, lschemic heart disease, Stroke and Cirrhosis. Researches have suggested that Malaria accelerates other diseases, including some of the ones mentioned above.

In most cases, malaria is transmitted through the bites of female Anopheles mosquitoes. According to WHO, there are more than 400 different species of Anopheles mosquito; around 30 are malaria vectors of major importance. All of the important vector species bite between dusk and dawn. The intensity of transmission depends on factors related to the parasite, the vector, the human host, and the environment. Anopheles mosquitoes lay their eggs in water, which hatch into larvae, eventually emerging as adult mosquitoes. The female mosquitoes seek a blood meal to nurture their eggs. Each species of Anopheles mosquito has its own preferred aquatic habitat; for example, some prefer small, shallow collections of fresh water, such as puddles and hoof prints, which are abundant during the rainy season in tropical countries.

Transmission also depends on climatic conditions that may affect the number and survival of mosquitoes, such as rainfall patterns, temperature and humidity. In many places, transmission is seasonal, with the peak during and just after the rainy season. Malaria epidemics can occur when climate and other conditions suddenly favour transmission in areas where people have little or no immunity to malaria. They can also occur when people with low immunity move into areas with intense malaria transmission, for instance to find work, or as refugees.

No matter how severe Malaria has become, it is time to eradicate it in Nigeria and all other places. Doing it is not rocket science provided sustainable and dedicated efforts are put in place. Globally, the elimination net is widening, with more countries moving towards the goal of zero malaria. In 2018, 27 countries reported fewer than 100 indigenous cases of the disease, up from 17 countries in 2010. The WHO Framework for Malaria Elimination (2017) provides a detailed set of tools and strategies for achieving and maintaining elimination. From 1999 to 2019, if Nigeria had a solid and implementable vision against Malaria, the disease may have been history by now. This would have eased the pressure on our health facilities and saved billions of Naira spent on drugs.

Countries that have achieved at least 3 consecutive years of 0 indigenous cases of malaria are eligible to apply for the WHO certification of malaria elimination. Over the last decade, 10 countries have been certified by the WHO Director-General as malaria-free: Morocco (2010), Turkmenistan (2010), Armenia (2011), Maldives (2015), Sri Lanka (2016), Kyrgyzstan (2016), Paraguay (2018), Uzbekistan (2018), Algeria (2019) and Argentina (2018). Some of these countries do not have half the resources that Nigeria commands.

Fighting and defeating Malaria even in advanced countries has not come without challenges. But the key issue is that prevention is always better than cure. Over the years, hundreds of millions of Insecticides Treated Nets have been distributed and used in most parts of Nigeria, yet the problem still persists. Sometimes, mosquitoes that transmit Malaria bite their victims before the bed time in which they might have been inside the nets. Therefore, they major way out is comprehensive town and environmental planning which will rehabilitate slums, poor unplanned settlements and stop the emergence of new ones. Government must rise up against the disease-breeding shanties we call settlements. Drainage network planning and rehabilitation is also essential.

One key control measure is vaccination. RTS,S/AS01 is the first and, to date, the only promising vaccine against severe malaria, in young African children. It acts against P.falciparum, the most deadly malaria parasite globally and the most prevalent in Africa. Among children who received 4 doses in large-scale clinical trials, the vaccine prevented approximately 4 in 10 cases of malaria over a 4-year period. This shows, even the vaccine is not a permanent ultimate solution. The WHO’s top advisory bodies for malaria and immunization have jointly recommended phased introduction of the vaccine in selected areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Three countries – Ghana, Kenya and Malawi – began introducing the vaccine in selected areas of moderate and high malaria transmission in 2019.

Eradicating Malaria can best be achieved first by individual and then community efforts. It is not a coincidence that the themes for the 2019 and 2020 World Malaria Days have been "Zero malaria starts with me". If we all make a resolve to take good care of our environment and personal hygiene, we stand a chance to defeat Malaria. Community efforts towards regularly sanitizing the environment and getting rid of stagnant waters through clearing of drainages and water ways is equally important. Community contributions for the periodic spray of insecticides will be far be better than sticking to the individual mosquito coils that drain our micro-economy. It is also far better than waiting to be infected and then spend hundreds or thousands on treatment.

The current efforts to defeat Malaria and other diseases by various stakeholders, even if inadequate yet, must be commended. Alongside the World Malaria Day, the WHO has dedicated days for seven other global public health campaigns; World Health Day, World Blood Donor Day, World Immunization Week, World Tuberculosis Day, World No Tobacco Day, World Hepatitis Day and World AIDS Day. With current developments, we may soon have World Coronavirus Day.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

Conditional Cash Transfer

17^th April, 2020

By: Amir Abdulazeez

I

n 2001, the Nigerian Government created the ambitious National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP). The population then was estimated to be well above 120 million with over 63% of it living below one dollar per day which as at then exchanged for between 99 to 105 naira. NAPEP may not be declared a major success even if it fairly represented an improvement over previous attempts. A 2008 analysis on African Poverty reported that the programme was able to train about 130,000 youths while engaging 216,000 beneficiaries.

There were three main problems with NAPEP; its impact was too minimal considering the large population, there were widespread allegations that many of the beneficiaries were politically selected and hence not poor and thirdly, the programme was not organized to be sustainable. Since NAPEP, the Federal Government had initiated other cosmetic initiatives like YOUWIN, SURE-P empowerments, N-Power, etc directly and indirectly aimed at reducing poverty and unemployment. Equally, many state governments have invested heavily in vocational programmes. Since the APC government came in 2015, it has also introduced Conditional Cash Transfer where vulnerable Nigerians are paid N5,000 monthly.

Will this kind of initiatives end poverty in Nigeria? I believe, the major question we should be asking as Nigerians is not about the need to fight poverty, it should be about why do we have growing poverty? Should Nigeria have any significant business with poverty? Do the current and past leaders actually understand the level of poverty in the land as well as the right strategies to fight and defeat it? Are we fighting poverty from its roots or are we only selectively relieving its symptoms? Will conditional and even unconditional cash transfer reduce poverty significantly? What is the sustainable way of defeating poverty?

Times like this pandemic are the trying periods when all that have been said about Nigeria’s poverty which hitherto appear theoretical is now experienced in real and practical terms. The main clog in the wheel regarding fighting coronavirus in Nigeria is poverty. Locking down 200 million people, out of which about 50% or more are very poor can come with dire consequences. While many modestly developed and truly developing countries are concerned mainly with the micro-economic dimensions of this crisis, Nigeria is dealing with both the micro and the macro. In fact, the micro is more critical as this is the main reason why the government appear to be giving much priority to conditional cash transfer which it apparently lacks the capacity to execute intensively and extensively without macroeconomic consequences.

In 2017, Nigeria with 94.5 million extremely poor people representing 47.2% of the population, was declared the world’s poverty capital overtaking India with 70 million poor people or 5.1% of their population. Carried away with its ‘largest African economy’ status, the government instead of reflecting and getting back to work immediately, rather went on denial. Today, what the authorities denied verbally, they have been forced to accept practically as it is obvious that the government is facing more headache from the consequences of measures taken to fight Covid 19 than the actual disease itself.

For example, how do you ask a people you have deprived clean drinking water to wash their hands with running water frequently or a population in which a significant percentage are either homeless or semi-homeless to practice social distancing? It is evident therefore, ever since majority of Nigerians have been fighting with a bigger virus, much bigger than corona. How did we get here?

Just yesterday, the Daily Trust reported that the Nassarawa State Government spent over 500 million naira to procure ‘official’ vehicles for the state law makers. According to the paper, the 24 vehicles cost about 21 million naira each. This is happening amidst the coronavirus pandemic in which the state is reported to have no single government-owned ventilator which cost between 9 to 18 million. The picture on the paper’s story showed the Speaker of the State House Assembly and his crew shamelessly and satisfactorily inspecting the vehicles as they wore face masks that give the false impression of their concern towards the current predicament.

The Nassarawa story is a summary of how governments at all levels had been behaving towards poor Nigerians since 1999. The trillions of naira wasted on irrelevant priorities while peanuts are budgeted for the so-called poverty alleviation initiatives over the past 20 years is the major reason why majority of ordinary Nigerians are becoming poorer and poorer everyday.

Before 2017, I was of the habit of reviewing federal and state government yearly budgets; I even volunteered to translate some of them into local languages for the benefit of other readers. One general conclusion I reached was that majority of these budgets are mere recycled documents that will probably change nothing positively as far as development is concerned. As the representatives of the people, the legislature which supposed to vet these budgets and make them pro-poor end up making them more anti-people by manipulation, rubber stamping the corruption-motivated projects proposed by the executives and insertion of self-servicing fraudulent constituency projects.

If Nigeria is truly serious about alleviating poverty, it must take some solid, sincere and long-lasting measures against the cosmetic and rhetorical ones it keeps packaging regime after regime. First, it has to guarantee its citizens security at all cost. Insecurity is perhaps one of the biggest sources of poverty. Only God knows the amount of monies and sources of livelihood lost by poor and ordinary Nigerians to terrorism, armed robbery, political thuggery, kidnapping, farmers-herders’ conflicts, religious riots and ethnic unrests over the last 20 years. Many have had permanent disabilities and lost the very health they can otherwise use to stay out of poverty.

Government must provide power at all as it is the most critical sector that has the potential of automatically creating and consolidating direct and indirect jobs. For example, if there is adequate security and power supply, industries will be revamped and businesses will run for 24 hours. When some people who conduct businesses during the day are asleep, some others who were resting during the day will conduct businesses during the night. Nigerian businesses will work for 24 hours with no valuable time to waste thereby hugely increasing productivity. When power is available, thousands of jobs would be created both directly and indirectly. The idea of banning the import generators is just a laughable way of diverting attention from government failures.

Massive and not cosmetic investment in agriculture is required. As at 2016, I counted about 109 major dams and reservoirs that can support irrigation but largely underutilized across the country. I want to believe they are much more than that.  A particular state with about 26 major and minor dams that cut across almost each Local Government are among those complaining of poverty. The governors have vandalized the state resources on white elephant projects that are not only useless in terms of revenue generation, but adds burden to state finances for their maintenance. A survey conducted revealed that a 4-billion-naira investment in the irrigation scheme will generate over 2 million jobs for poor people, but no, the governors prefer straight-forward projects in urban centres that come with high returns on kickbacks. Shameless and wicked.   

Government must re-establish peoples’ trust by ensuring equity and transparency. Over the years, virtually only rich sons and daughters can secure white collar jobs while the poor are left with crumbs or nothing. While lucrative opportunities are reserved for the rich to make them richer, palliatives like Npower are established for the poor to save face. With this, national resources are channelled towards making others richer, while the poor remain poorer. A poor university graduate that can secure a job with NCC, NNPC, CBN or FIRS can gradually pull the whole of his family out of poverty. But he can’t dare get such opportunities unless on rare occasions.

The Local Governments are major shock absorbers in terms of poverty reduction. For the past 10 years, everyone concerned had folded their arms and watched while the state governments have massacred them and rendered them useless through hijacking their responsibilities as well as withholding and siphoning their funds. Many of the states consume their resources and expend them on political projects that yield no financial dividend for the future. We hardly hear states investing in agriculture, industrialization and tourism.

The absence of a national development plan has given way to the politicization and inconsistencies of government activities at the federal and state levels. Government projects are not initiated along any short or long-term development plan but rather based on political sentiments. At the states, hardly, can you find a state with any long-term development plan which is continuous and consistent; even states that have been governed by one party since 1999 experience planning inconsistencies and policy summersaults. Right from 1999, if the states had made it an objective to truly eradicate poverty, many would’ve achieved significant progress by now.

Right now, Nigerians are part of the global community being held hostage by this pandemic. Many poor people are likely to be affected in high proportions. The post-pandemic period will likely come with additional economic challenges. After all these, we must return to fighting against our main virus which is the poverty that was artificially imposed on us by people who called themselves our leaders.

It is unfortunate that we have reached a level where we cannot get the most basic things right in this country and nobody is held responsible. At different levels, we are governed by heartless leaders who can maim and kill their own people with impunity to stay in power while the constitution grants them immunity. In our country, truth has been reduced to a mere opinion. Under these conditions, it is only a matter of time that every Nigerian become vulnerable and then eligible for conditional cash transfer.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez