Clay Richie

Hundreds, if not thousands, of lawyers who converged on Abuja on Sunday for this year’s Bar conference may find themselves discussing something other than transition, transformation and sustainable institutions, which the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had previously advertised.

He has remained a thorn in the flesh of the All Progressives Congress (APC) since his emergence as the President of the Senate in June 2015. He happened on the scene in the manner of a coup-plotter. Whereas the leadership of the new ruling party was still luxuriating in its victory song, Saraki went a notch higher. He already saw tomorrow. And he confronted it early. That was his point of departure with the ruling establishment. He was not programmed for the office he now occupies. But like a smart Alec, he pulled the rug from under the feet of those who had a different plan of action.

Since the beginning of Nigeria's fourth republic in 1999, the present administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by President Muhammadu Buhari is unarguably the worst. The failure of the incumbent administration to live up to expectations, within and outside Nigeria, relegates every measure of the towering hope that welcomed it.

When I arrived Washington DC last Friday from Abuja, there were two major newsbreak in the United States. The first, a statement from the family of Senator John McCain that he had halted treatment for brain cancer, 13 months after being diagnosed of the illness. “In the year since, John has surpassed expectations for his survival. But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict,’’ the McCain family said. The second story had to do with the prosecutorial immunity granted the Trump Organization executive vice president and chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, apparently in exchange for information to Special Counsel Robert Mueller about alleged pre-election hush money payments made to some women with whom President Donald Trump reportedly had affairs in the past.

The news, early this week, that President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to assent to the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) and has returned it to the Senate,struck me like a thunderbolt, not because it shattered my professional forecast that the bill will come into force before the end of this administration, but because it has set back the petroleum industry reform by at least 2 years.

President Muhammadu Buhari has been getting raps for asserting that his government would continue to place the nation’s security and national interests above the rule of law. He reportedly argued that the individual rights of suspected offenders would not be spared when national and public interests are threatened.  According to him, “Rule of Law must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s security and national interest”. Buhari claimed that his government took the position on the basis of subsisting decisions of the Supreme Court. He made the declaration while flagging off the 2018 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association in Abuja on August 26 2018.

In one of those rare moments of intense activity with the Muhammadu Buhari government, an agency is attempting to breathe life into a soulless organ of government. Not sure many will remember who headed the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) before the current head, Tunde Irukera, he is as dynamic as they come. But we must all ensure that in a bid to justify the agency’s mandate and ensure Irukera’s legacy is well secured, things are done within the confines of the law.

Mr President Sir, This memo is necessitated by issues of urgent national importance not unconnected with your statement at the Annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association where you told a gathering of eminent judges and lawyers that the rule of law is not supreme and could be set aside in the interest of National interest and Security.

The 27th of August 2018, marked an ignoble anniversary — 33 years since a brutal military cabal ruling Nigeria with an iron fist was ousted from power by its brothers-in-arms. The failures of leadership the coupists highlighted then, as contained in the speech read by Brigadier Joshua Nimyel Dogonyaro, are eerily similar to the failures Nigeria is struggling with today — a lethargy in the execution of government policies, an absence of cohesion and a lack of direction, the hijack of government by a greedy cabal, the pursuit of perceived political opponents, and the wanton waste of scarce resources on unproductive ventures.

Dateline: 14th April 2007; Time : 3.45pm; Location: INEC State Collation Centre Asaba, Delta state. There was apprehension in the Hall. Field reports that were trickling in showed that the DPP candidate, Great Ogboru was giving the PDP’s candidate, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan a run for his money. I shot a glance at the PDP’s Chief Returning Officer, Patrick Okowa, and saw anguish written all over his mien. Then the NTA’s live broadcast of the INEC National Situation Room came up. The Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu was about to announce some results. For us at the Centre in Asaba, we were non-committal about the appearance for we knew that elections were still taking place in a few areas in Delta and that just a few results that were yet to be sorted had been brought to the collation centre. However, we watched.

Every man dies but not every man really lives”, says William Wallace. Some people only stroll through life as faceless passengers, appendages, fence-sitters, or simply part of the landscape. The world doesn’t miss them when they expire.

It is unfortunate that the most important statement made so far at the on-going Annual Conference of the Nigeria Bar Association, an outright derogation of the supremacy of the rule of law, has not yet generated any coherent response from either the Bar or the Bench. President Muhammadu Buhari was guest of honour on Sunday at the NBA Conference and he had the additional responsibility of declaring the conference open. In his address, he told the gathering of eminent lawyers and judges that his administration will prioritise national security over and above the rule of law.

As Nigerian politicians jostle for winning pedestals, an outlandish reality has sneaked into town. The country is sliding from an opportunity to build liberal democracy towards an Illiberal democracy and, I am afraid, even an outright populist autocracy.

Kofi Annan, who passed away on August 18 at the age of 80, can be situated within the select group of aspirational Africans of his time. Within their generation, the group was imbued with huge dosages of hope, logic and grit. They had numerous wishes but only few were met.

With a 400-word post on Facebook last Wednesday, deputy Senate president Ike Ekweremadu has set the Nigerian media buzzing. Though he said nothing new – he renewed a proposal for a single term of five or six years for president and governor to reduce the “feverish political climate” that always precedes elections in the country – he has received mainly knocks from commentators who have taken it personal. But I have no difficulty in giving him kudos for queuing behind us in the pro-restructuring clamour.

The present situation of the Nigerian state as we find it is one not in the least reassuring. Even after seeming commitment by previous administrations all along the years to improving upon the great inherent prospects and the most recent efforts by the current administration of President Buhari to fighting corruption considered our sapping monster, the country seems yet to be dawdling in pervasive coma.

We all complain (mostly justifiably) about the failings of the political class in working purposefully together to provide dividends of good governance to a disenchanted citizenry. Whereas they have failed woefully in the discharge of their primary responsibility, they have kept us tuned in to an overdose of constant drama of varied plots, themes and actors. In fact, even a common undertaking like a road trip from Abuja to Lokoja, is dramatized by a detour featuring a senator clambering up an iroko tree and only climbing down after eleven hours, only to turn back rather than complete the journey. The drama is also not short on irony or perhaps hypocrisy. The common sense senator, well dressed in immaculate white at 6 am (despite going for battle) and who has stridently accused the President of oppressive tendencies, was on record directing foreign embassies to revoke visas, close businesses and undertake all manner of oppressive actions against his newly declared enemies and al...

The electrician told me something that shocked me to my bones. “Oga, I can help you connect all your air conditioners and water heaters to power without going through the meter,” he said. “I will bury the cables underground and connect them directly to the electric pole. Nobody will know. I have done this for a lot of people in Lekki and other parts of Lagos.” This happened when I was building my house in 2010. He thought he was making me a great offer. I was devastated. How much is electricity bill that these billionaires would not want to pay? I told the electrician straightaway that I would never do such a thing in my life. He laughed it off as if saying I was a fool.

A strange thing is going on in our land while we all watch helplessly. How come Nigeria within a very short time has turned into a nation of absurdities? Can you imagine the level of steps Nigeria has taken aback? Miyetti Allah Cattle herders warning the President of one of the arms of government to resign or they will force him to resign. What impunity! What gut! My heart bleeds with tears for this country. Where is this country heading to?

The recent comments by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that the administration of which he is a part of has achieved much more than the Jonathan government is another in a long line of lies that the Vice President has come to be known for.

Fellow Nigerians, I flew out of Nigeria two days ago on one of my latest preferred airlines, Rwandair, with some of the Ovation Crew of seasoned photographer, TV cameraman and interviewer and TV producer to attend Jimoh Ibrahim’s latest venture, the International conference on Infrastructure Development for Africa, taking place in Dubai between 25 August and 27 August 2018 at the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel. The long journey to Dubai through Kigali gave me time for some deep reflection and I came to the conclusion that we must change our negative attitude urgently or collapse Nigeria totally. As soon as we took off and gained some altitude, a video was played showing the awesome beauty of Rwanda and someone was shown marketing the country so passionately and admirably. I can’t remember his exact words but he went thus, “my name is Paul Kagame, I’m the Chief Tour Operator on this journey through a country that suffered some of the worst tragedies in human history but through genui...

I was once a fan of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. They don’t come to office better prepared. And he lived up to the billing. And then he did not, and then he did…..Enthused the BBC ‘A former law professor, the vice-president comes across as quiet, unassuming and hardworking. But he is an eloquent and jovial person, who is usually seen with a smile on his face. Last year when Mr. Buhari went on medical leave, his deputy took some far-reaching economic measures to prop up the country’s currency, the naira. There was a scarcity of US dollars at the time, which is needed by importers. So he asked the Central Bank to inject millions of dollars into the market to help stabilise the naira on the foreign-exchange market’.

Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State is increasingly becoming the Rochas Okorocha of the south-west. With very little effort, he might surpass the latter, the self-acclaimed exponent of iberiberism (an Igbo slang which roughly translates as “the act or state of foolishness”).

Judgement day is fast approaching and injustice is already being unleashed on Nigerians with ferocious aggression, yet those who are desirous to see a great Nigeria in 2019 look on with sealed lips, as though they have been totally overwhelmed by the spate of irregularities from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), a supposedly ‘independent’ body with the statutory obligation to conduct free and fair elections and announce results of same in Nigeria.

In the bid for the 2019 presidency, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his supporters have created an English word that does not exist and gone ahead to define it. In strategic places on the streets of Abuja, there are billboards bearing the campaign photograph of Atiku with the bold inscription ‘Deservation!’ and the rider: ‘Project 774 for Atiku 2019’.

Last week Thursday, more than 300 U.S. newspapers ran editorials promoting press freedom to counter President Donald Trump’s attacks on the media, in a move coordinated by The Boston Globe. The newspaper said the move was to denounce “the war against the free press” asking that editorial boards take a stand against Trump’s words regardless of their politics.

While experts may quarrel on statistics of poverty, the poor themselves are never in doubt that their condition is getting worse. In the last few months, some international organisations and foreign think tanks have made grim projections about the poverty rates in Nigeria. The World Bank has said that Nigerians are getting poorer. Subsequently, the Brookings Institute released a report indicating that 87 million people live in extreme poverty at the end of May.  Nigeria is now the home of the largest number persons living in extreme poverty. India used to be so described. According to the think tank, about six persons get into extreme poverty every minute in Nigeria. The report is, of course, disputed by government.

The fitness of the future president of Nigeria has nothing to do with trekking, covering 800 metres because that cannot solve any problem for the common man in the 21stcentury. It is not going to put food on the table of the common man. And it is also not going to get back to school, several millions of our children—who are daily hawking to stay alive. The president of Rwanda isn’t trekking for hours, yet he is truly changing his country and the lives of his people.

Perhaps the biggest single indicator that Nigerian democracy is making slow and steady progress along the road to nowhere, is the registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of an additional 23 approved Political Parties. The total number of Parties qualified to contest the 2019 elections is now 91. The trending joke about INEC is that it is easier to register and obtain approval for a Political Party than to register and obtain a Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC)! Not surprisingly suspicions have arisen that the reasons for Party new registrations six months to the upcoming national elections not be altogether altruistic.

New nomenclatures have come into the national political lexicon since the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as president of Nigeria. Two that come to mind here are Buharimaniacs and Buharideens. There are other variants of these but they largely refer to the same set of people; those whose job is to insult, disparage and malign anyone who dares criticise the president and his policies.

A nation can and should be judged by its elected leaders and their actions. A simple evaluation of poor conduct, policies, and actions of Governor Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State portrays the governor as arrogant, self-seeking, proud, and unpolished public servant.

“Baba is back, we thank God” “You have started your mischief again. Baba said he will be back in two weeks, and he is back, so what is special about that?” “You know sometimes when the President goes to London like that, we may then be told that his doctors have advised that he should spend another week or more. But we thank God this time oh.”

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.” - Potter Stewart The mandate given to the newly constituted executive management of the NSE post-Ndi Okereke-Onyuike was to develop, grow and implement an exchange driven by, and able to hold itself to the best possible standards of governance and to exercise extreme caution where any appearance of or circumstance may present itself.

National chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has been at his vocal best in the past week, dishing out orders to Senators of the APC to remove the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki. He had also fired a notice to the Senate President, declaring that whether the Kwara Senator likes it or not, he will be impeached as Senate President.

I have had an interesting week reading the different shades of social-media reactions to my piece classifying President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election supporters into nine groups. The most popular shade is that there are people supporting Buhari just because they still believe him; people in this self-created set argue that they belong to none of the nine groups. I see them quite easily, though; they’re the ninth group: the naivetés. They support the President because they honestly cannot see the red flags; if they could, they would ditch him.

It was former President Olusegun Obasanjo that, in recent history, touted the doctrine of a third force in Nigerian politics. In a fiery open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari last January, he shredded the incumbent’s performance credentials and pitched in against his seeking another term of office. Obasanjo, however, sensed he was up against a brick wall with his gratuitous counsel as far as it pertains to the president and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC); but he also foreclosed a return to the old path of nationhood when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in the saddle. And so, he threw up the idea of a third force as his proposed alternative.

It is now a common fact to the world that Nigeria is broken! Since 2015, under the current presidency of Muhammadu Buhari, the nation has managed to trudge on, not forward as would ordinarily have been expected, but backwards. Her condition, which probably needed mild analgesics to properly guide her track on the continued path of progress, has been made worse since the All Progressives Congress, APC, took over power in 2015, and she is in a very serious state of coma that it would take a highly qualified surgeon with the humanness of a mother, heart for the people, and a verifiable track record, to reverse, stabilize and put back on the path of recovery, growth and development.

This piece is a dialogue with Nigerian Leftists—and all those who feel they share essential attributes with Leftists (socialists and pro-people radical democrats) but, for one reason or another, reject the “label” Leftists. The dialogue is driven by current political happenings and is here presented in form of notes, observations and propositions.

Some years ago, I was at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra state, for a public lecture. An obviously popular lecturer was invited to the podium to make his contributions. Students went gaga, screaming his nickname and giving him a standing ovation. In the euphoria, he posed elegantly in front of the microphone and started making a proposal on how to tackle unemployment in Nigeria. Wait for this: he said all federal ministries should be directed to employ one million people annually for the next five years “to wipe out unemployment from the land”. The students jumped on their feet, clapped frenetically and screamed his nickname again. I laughed until I forgot my name.

The recent victories over dictatorship in Nigeria is an attestation to the oncoming revolution that will engulf the country. Whether the ruling elites who have perpetuated themselves in power since independence like it or not, it is inevitably going to happen.

Though one isn’t so naive as to assume that Nigeria’s sovereignty is uncompromisable, yet the obvious tendency of a typical Nigerian holding a position of authority to unnecessarily concede it is particularly disappointing.

Fellow Nigerians, it is truly tragic that the battle for who controls the commonwealth of Nigeria has brought our dear beloved country to standstill. It seems no one seems to care about the myriads of gargantuan issues confronting our country. The economy is in tatters. There is mass unemployment and it can only get worse. Our infrastructure deficit remains hopelessly disgraceful. Security of lives and properties continues to be precarious and dangerous. The level of disunity within the major tribes and federating units is nearly at the point it was just before the cataclysmic Nigerian Civil War. The quality of education has virtually collapsed to an all-time low. Workers’ salaries are no longer priority. The list of tales of woes is endless and seemingly ad infinitum. The saddest part is there is no visible sense of urgency on the part of our leaders to deal with any of these problems which now appear to be so intractable and obstinate.

For many years since the coming of the current democratic epochs since 1999, successive governments have managed to wriggle their ways out of very complex and challenging situations through a combination of politically correct policy pronouncements and outright deception.

My article published a fortnight ago titled: ‘Oshiomhole as Buhari’s Enforcer’, provided the background to the current political troubles. In the said article, I had stated inter alia: “The truth well-spoken by him (Oshiomhole) is that ministers, heads of parastatals and security chiefs owe their allegiance to these competing power cells. You see, Buhari runs a centrifugal government with no strong centripetal authority; he hardly knows what is going on in his government but appears to always be content when told certain actions have been taken in furtherance of his ethno-religious and re-election interests.” I must state here that I don’t have clairvoyant powers. All I do is to rely on historical records and behavioural pattern to draw conclusions.

There should be little or no surprise on the row over the need to recall National Assembly or not, to urgently debate the budget submitted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2019 elections. At the thick of it all is the assumption of the National Assembly leadership that that institution is aseparate and sovereign entity with which either to confront the executive or through which (National Assembly that is) to grab the tenancy of Aso Rock.

When South Korea crashed out of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia at the first round in June this year, the sight of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club of England star striker, Heung-Min Son in tears told a pitiful story. But many informed football followers knew why the young man was crying. By South Korean law enacted in 1957, a two-year military service is compulsory for all male citizens by the time they are 27. But the law also has a caveat: Sportsmen who win any medals in the Olympic Games or Gold medals at the Asian Games are to be handed exemptions from military service, though they still have to do four weeks of basic training. Son’s tears were therefore about a promising football career that could be abruptly ended because, were he to take two years away from the game, it would be difficult to come back the same player.

Corruption is fighting back! That is the constant refrain from the people in government and their supporters to criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari or opposition to his re-election ambition. If, for example, you’re a journalist and you believe the President hasn’t done enough to earn a second term, it is because brown envelopes have been in short or no supply. If you’re a politician and you feel this way, you stole while in office or you will if you get there. All of us who have opted not to say ‘Sai Baba’ ahead of 2019 have one thing in common: corruption.

In the past year, I have written at least three opinion pieces about Ibrahim Idris, the inspector general of police (IGP), and the Nigerian Police Force. If I did not know myself better, I may suspect that I have a personal issue with the former Kano commissioner of police. But I have no personal issues with him, I just have every issue with how the police force, under his leadership treats Nigeria and Nigerians.

The shooting war in Nigeria’s troubled North East is winnable in the long run. But the restoration of peace and order in the afflicted area will be a protracted and frustrating process. While the Nigerian military is experienced in fighting conventional wars with clear front lines, a known enemy and knowable objectives. I am not so sure about our capacity for unconventional, let alone psychological warfare. Even more tasking is a war that touches on some of the raw sectarian and cultural nerves that sustain our yet unsettled federation. With Boko Haram, a prodigal version of a major faith has been weaponised.

It is common among selfish people, when faced with the consequences of their inequities, to hold others responsible for their tribulations. Nigeria’s Senate President, Mr. Bukola Saraki, is one of those with acute disposition to hold people responsible for the crises they have caused for themselves. It is sad to know that whenever he sinks like sediment and is faced with nemesis, he likes to point accusing fingers at perceived enemies. To him, the Nigeria Police and, by implication, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim K. Idris, are his trouble.