Clay Richie

Some few days ago, the Independent National Electoral Commission declared the current Nigerian President, for another four-year tenure. Controversial as the election that ushered him in maybe, the tasks before Mr Muhammadu Buhari remains very huge. During his 2015 campaigns, he premised his ambition on the need for change, while many have faulted his performance during the first time, others picked positives from it. 

As the final results of last week’s presidential poll were released, three broad groups emerged: Those genuinely surprised that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, lost; those in pretentious denial of his defeat; and those in a quandary because they hoped to profit from a stalemate.

By the time I left Ilorin, capital of my beloved Kwara State on the 6pm Arik flight last Friday to vote in Abuja the next day, the sense of excitement was palpable. Men and women who hitherto believed they had no power were buoyant. ‘O to Ge’ (enough is enough), the slogan of the main opposition party in the state (ruling party at the centre) had become an anthem on every lip.  I spent only 24 hours on the visit, but I left feeling that whatever happened at the polls, it would be good for our democracy that people had become conscious of the power they wield with their ballots.

Nation-building is not perfunctory; it is deliberate, planned and decisive. A country as enormous, diverse and delicate as Nigeria cannot evolve organically when a part of it is marooned and confined in the fringes of political exclusion. The argument has always been, “the Igbo are not ready”, and “they are not playing the right politics”. But this argument is classically insipid and hollow.

The outright rejection of the results of the 2019 national election by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), even before the final votes were counted, is very discouraging. The action departs from the two principles that ought to have guided the 2019 polls.

Each time we are having elections being conducted in Nigeria, it usually puts me off, because everything is by and large sent to bed, by those in the corridors of power. And the political-thugs they employ in order to retain themselves in power are very good at enveloping the country with fear. As an effect of the fear of being killed by stray bullets, schools are closed; offices and markets are placed under lock. These and more constantly happen in a nation that professes to be 21st century compliant.

Those who have been following my writings and social media activities will know that I had long called last Saturday’s presidential election for President Muhammadu Buhari. You may be partly right if you conclude that I was able to do so because I am a long standing fan of President Buhari. They also know that in 2015, I emphatically called the election for Buhari and he won. Baring any delays, President Buhari will soon be announced as the winner of last Saturday’s election. From all exit polls, he has comfortably coasted home to victory in an election that exerted lots of wasteful toll on his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar and his party, the PDP. As to how I rightly called these two last elections, they are topics for a more detailed future report.

Dynasties rise and fall. It is a natural order. But there are factors which precipitate the declension of dynasties. For example, the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties was influenced by changes in weather conditions such as drought and famine. When the people are starving and dying of thirst they revolt against their emperors.

Several hours before the winner of the 2019 presidential polls would officially become known, Fela Durotoye was already being treated to a feast of hi-fives and fist-bumps. Prior to the sermon Sunday morning, worshippers at the House on the Rock temple in Lagos were intimated of the presence of the presidential candidate of Alliance for New Nigeria by presiding Pastor Paul Adefarasin.

The untold story of the February 23, 2019, presidential election violence in Abonnema Abonnema is my home town and my community, Rivers State is my State. The narrative of the violence and the killings of the indigenes of Abonnema that took place the headquarters of Akuku Toru Local Government Area is different from the narrative been pushed out by the media since Saturday the 23 February 2019.

Last Saturday the presidential poll finally took place in Nigeria after having been postponed controversially for one week. The crucial presidential and legislative election for a new President and federal legislators respectively went relatively well despite minor hiccups and hitches here and there. In a vast federation like ours it was not unexpected that some minor incidents would be witnessed given the volatile nature of our national politics.

Now that we have cast our votes in the presidential and National Assembly elections, results trickling in in droves and we patiently await their final outcome, what next? This is a question that should agitate the mind of every Nigerian this hour. This particular election has come and gone but it leaves in its trail indelible imprints that have very consequential implications for us as a people.

Believers in God, especially Christians of the Pentecostal persuasion, of which yours truly is an apologetic member, would consider this headline near heretic and that is understandable.

If you ask me, I would say there are three critical stages of elections in Nigeria — and each is potentially explosive. The first is pre-election, where campaign rhetoric is usually a major trigger for tension. There could be episodes of violence, although they are not usually widespread. The second is the election day. It could be peaceful in the main, but we hardly avoid the skirmishes, voter intimidation and ballot-snatching. And there is the third stage: the post-election. That is usually where all hell is let loose by the losers. We have now navigated the first two stages and anxiously await the third. We can, at least, breathe a bit until the final results are announced.

Nothing unites citizens like a prosperous commonwealth. A country without prosperity is a country at war with itself.

Let me start by being upfront about my biases/feelings so no one’s time is wasted Sai Bye Bye, hopefully

I am Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, please spare some time out of your busy schedule to read this article with an open mind, as we are preparing to vote this Saturday I wrote it for you.

In the attempt to prepare the ground for the unraveling of the ulterior agenda of the present administration, the cat was appropriately let out of the bag by the Minister of information, Lai Mohammed about a month ago. He surpassed himself in a characteristic belaboured insincerity and infantile affectation. For readers to get a full measure of the mendacious capacity of this government to mislead and deceive the Nigerian public, I have taken the liberty to refresh our memory with excerpts from the minister’s press statement and for authentication. The question then arises, why would any government construct an elaborate make believe conspiracy of armed insurrection-made singularly deficient in logic by its attribution to a demonstrably militarily incapable opposition?

Prof Mahmood Yakubu should not resign nor be removed. He has to deliver free, fair and credible elections to Nigerians as his way of compensating us for the disappointment and pain caused. The support he has received from his colleagues in the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC) should provide a much needed confidence boost in the days ahead. When the dust is settled, it is of utmost urgency that we stop playing games with electoral reform if we do not want a repeat of this in 2023.

Political observers in Nigeria will not have any difficulty in noticing the similarities between former Governor of Akwa Ibom State and former Senate minority Leader, Chief Godswill Akpabio and the former Governor of Lagos State , Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Still Waiting for Buhari’s War on Corruption I have been an activist on quite a few social causes, but I confined most of my activism in United States. However, as I observe deterioration of situation of things in Nigeria, last year 2018, I decided to prepare to take my activism to next level. First, I decided to travel to Nigeria to do voter registration. And last week, I arrived Nigeria to exercise my voting rights by participating in the national decision on who should lead this country.

Anxiety has always been part of the tradition of elections in Nigeria. But the tension arising from the postponement of the presidential and national assembly elections which ought to have held last Saturday is troubling. All of a sudden, those who ordinarily should urge restraint are not only scare-mongering but also sowing seeds of discord and violence. In a development that has divided the polity, President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday threatened that anyone planning to snatch ballot boxes during the rescheduled polls will be doing so “at the expense of his own life.”

Last week, when I described the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, as one of the most frequently executed men on social media, I had no idea what was coming. About 48 hours later – and after weeks, if not months of repeatedly assuring the public that the commission was ready – he unexpectedly announced a one-week postponement of the elections. He set himself up not just for a fresh round of execution but also to have his remains burnt at the electoral stake.

Despite the fact that he has broken all his campaign promises, failed the three key pillars the All Progressives Congress (APC) advertised in its mission statement – security, fighting corruption, and rebuilding the economy – and has been unable to defend the abysmal record of his government, President Muhammadu Buhari wants to preside over Nigeria for another term of four years. I am truly alarmed that any right-thinking, sane human being would actually want Buhari to continue to misgovern Nigeria for another four years on the spurious claims that he has integrity and he is fighting corruption.

Before unawareness is by any chance given credence, let it be sacrosanct that ignorance of law excuses no one (Ignorantia juris non excusat) and be made the resonating highpoint in the realest sense of this ballot SnatchAndDie directive against the Nigerian people by the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

One must really pity the Independent National Electoral Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, these days. The professor of political history and international studies must surely be finding it tough to sleep at night as the elections draw nearer. What must have tipped the scale of sleeplessness further was the postponement, in the early hours of Saturday, February 16, elections scheduled for the same day.

Nothing in the recent history of Nigeria has shocked the entire country like the postponement of the long awaited general election in the morning of February 16, 2019, just three hours to the elections.  It is unprecedented anywhere in the world; and it is only in Nigeria that such bizarre incident could happen, no other place. Only President Buhari and the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, knew exactly what happened and why the poll was cancelled that day.

Not until Muntader al-Zaidi’s act of suicidal daring was the world jolted to shoe-throwing as a form of Arab expression of deep social anger. Visiting President George Bush was only beginning to warm into a joint press conference with the Iraqi leader in Baghdad in the winter of 2008 when the shoe missile came rocketing from the Iraqi journalist in the gallery.

There was something unsettling, destabilising and embarrassing about the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission that the long-awaited 2019 elections were postponed by one week.

By virtue of section 26 of the Electoral Act, an election may be postponed if a serious breach of peace or violence is likely to occur or on account of natural disaster or other emergencies. To prevent any abuse of power, the reasons for postponement of any election must be cogent and verifiable.

For any democracy to succeed, free and fair elections must be guaranteed. To ensure free and fair elections, our Constitution established the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). An independent electoral commission must be insulated from political pressures and executive influence. The commission must be free from external pressures from the party in power or executive of the day – the president.

The sudden postponement of the 2019 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, came to Nigerians as a very rude shock and triggered justified anger against INEC and the APC which many Nigerians accuse of being the invisible hand behind the postponement following fears that Nigerians were ready and eager to vote them out at the polls. They therefore opted to use their advantage as the party in power to further inflict needless and avoidable hardship on Nigerians, hardship that has become their signature project for the past four years.

“No, no, no. We cannot continue! We cannot Proceed. Mr. Chairman, you have been compromised”- Elder Orubebe

I woke this morning and my wife told me the elections had been postponed. I replied her by saying that must be another piece of fake new because we have too many misleading and false stories in circulation these days. After I checked several news outlets, it turned out my wife was right.

When your wife is pregnant and gives birth at the end of nine months, you cannot claim you were caught unawares and so you couldn’t buy items for baby delivery ahead of time. Since 2015, we had known that we were going to hold another general election in 2019. It is every four years. It is there in the constitution. We knew we would need ballot papers, ballot boxes, ink pads and result sheets. We knew the geography of Nigeria. We have meteorologists who forecast the weather all the time. We knew that some locations have peculiarities at a particular time of the year. We knew we would need to fly materials earlier for ease of distribution. We knew. There is nothing new under the sun.

Something is very wrong with us. Like we have been condemned eternally not to be able to do anything right.

Fellow Nigerians, how time flies indeed. About four years ago, we went through this very ritual, though the election was shifted by six weeks, for reasons we believed was an excuse to get the ruling government better prepared to consolidate its grip on power. Before long, the six weeks arrived, and there was no hiding place. Even as I write this, many doubting Thomases still believe the APC government is not sincerely ready for today’s Presidential election and that it may still spring a surprise on us. Thus, there have been unconfirmed stories of the elections being postponed for a matter of days because of logistic problems. For my own part, I doubt that the authorities will act in such a cavalier manner, particularly as there are numerous local and international observers and world media around. All eyes are on us.

Liberty is rarely lost overnight. The wall of tyranny often begins with benign building blocks of safety — each one lying on top of a predecessor — eventually collectively constituting an impediment to the exercise of free choices by free people, often not even recognised until it is too late Andrew Napolitano

There is something baffling about the fascination of Nigerians with the lesser of two figurative evils. In fact, the twin-devil concept is popular in Nigeria beyond politics, as exemplified by the widely-applied saying: “The devil you know is better than the angel you don’t.”

I am deeply grieved to hear of the purported arrest warrant issued against the Bona Fide Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Walter Onnoghen by the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

Today Nigeria spends 66% of its revenue on debt service. With this, is has become increasingly difficult to service and still have enough money to spend on government’s capital investments. Without equally growing the country’s revenues in proportion to its domestic debts, the country is approaching national debt crisis.

If President Muhammadu Buhari figuratively rode on a horse back to assume office in 2015, as at today, he barely rides a three-legged donkey. A wobbling government has frittered away the goodwill of the expectant millions who brought him to office.

If you walk by sight you cannot help approaching Saturday’s presidential election with a heavy heart. The candidates of the two major parties, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have been presented in the worst light possible.

That both the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the court can now hold political parties to account in the manner they nominate their candidates may not seem like progress to some people. But what happened to the All Peoples Congress (APC) in Rivers State is a significant blow to impunity. Meanwhile, against the background that never in the history of electioneering in Nigeria has the ruling party been denied opportunity to field candidates because of the manner it conducted its primaries, there is a lot to say for President Muhammadu Buhari in that regard.

The day of reckoning is here. The die is cast. The stage is set. The much-awaited judgment day has arrived. Those who thought that hiding Buhari in the Villa; shielding him from Nigerians could cover his incompetence to provide leadership, have been finally disgraced, stripped naked before the daylight. They have been caught in their own web of conspiracies. Buhari’s cluelessness has been laid bare to see. There’s no where to hid again. The world can see that Nigeria has been left without adequate political leadership in the last three and half years. If the APC is in tatters, imagine what the entire nation has been through.

In six days, Nigerians of voting age will clarify not only whom they are, but whom they wish to be. Four years ago, I helped bring to the leadership of Nigeria a man I had equally endorsed at the 2011 election: General Muhammadu Buhari, as President.  In 2015, there really wasn’t much of a choice.

Five intersecting developments have occurred in this long election cycle that, taken together, and regardless of who wins or loses in Saturday's presidential elections, can only be good for our fledgling democracy.

Two months ago, this column warned that Governor Ibikunle Amosun should be called to order as his actions in bifurcating the All Progressives Congress in Ogun State did not bode well for the party’s future. I’m no clairvoyant, but the piece was based on interviews and analysis of the politics in the home state of President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Nigeria’s brand of democracy looks like a HIV/AIDS patient. Its health deteriorates with each round of elections. The incidence of violence before, during and after polls has risen steadily from 1999. Vote-buying is the new name for bribe-for-vote democracy.

For the benefit of those who may not know, I am the deputy gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun state. A day will come when I will tell the story of the role played by certain persons in the politics of Ogun State, and the complete failure of leadership at the highest levels of the party, the belly-face-front machinations of certain individuals, the inner intrigues, insincerity and hypocrisy of those who should be led by principles rather than ego and smallness, but this Is not the right time for that: we have an election to win, beginning this weekend, and we have in the majority in our party, good people, ordinary people, who want to make a difference, and who should be given the chance to move this country forward beyond the stasis and the frightening incompetence of the last four years that Nigeria has witnessed.