22112022

More documents

Recommendations

Info

18 — Vanguard, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2022 UNDERAGE voters have been part of our electoral system for quite some time. Even the 2015 general elections, which were perceived as "free, fair, and credible," featured thousands, if not millions, of ineligible kids who freely registered and cast their votes. Child voters are minors who are not up to the voting age of 18 years and above. Children and foreigners their false claims of being of age. register and vote freely in our They don’t demand proof. They just elections in the North East and North, register them and allow them to vote, in particular. Attempts to question the in blatant contravention of the presence of voter’s card-wielding Constitution and the Electoral Act. children at the polling stations are met After the Kano State local with belligerent stares and threats of government elections in 2018, photos violence by adult members of the and videos of child voters as young communities. as eight went viral on social media. Even the law enforcement agents The INEC's spokesman, Oluwole posted to maintain the law, fail to Uzzi, then distanced the commission remove them from the lines for fear from it, claiming that the election was of their own safety. conducted by the Kano State The Independent National Electoral Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, officials never Commission, KANSIEC. bother to question the children on The Kano State Commissioner for INEC and underage voters Information, Mohammed Garba, also denied that they came from the local poll, alleging that they were taken from the 2015 general elections. INEC formed a panel to look into the matter. Nothing came of that effort. Yet, the same underage children surfaced again, even after the Professor Mahmood Yakubuled INEC claimed to have "cleaned" the voter’s register with their homemade technology known as the Automatic Biometric Identification System, ABIS. They were neither able to remove the kids' registrants nor knock off their double or multiple registrations. Instead, the INEC delegated responsibility for removing ineligible prospective child voters to the public, asking them to identify the perpetrators "with concrete proof." Shouldn’t INEC summon their officials who enrolled these children to justify their actions? They could easily ask the children to bring proofs of their eligibility or have their names struck out, and appropriate sanctions applied to prevent re-occurrence. After all these rigmaroles, it is most likely that those children will still vote in 2023, thus rendering all efforts by the Commission to conduct a credible election with technology a mere pretence. They will be complicit in prerigging the election with child voters, along with the unexplained invalidation of millions of voter registrants in the Southern zones. OF all the mistakes made by the military, none is greater than the 1975–1976 assault on the bureaucracy in this country. It was termed "the great purge" by the media at that time. But that action destroyed the robust civil service system, and since that time, this country has lost its way. In any national development, there is no substitute for a strong civil service system. Tampering with the bureaucracy is the foundation for the total collapse of the government itself. The military indulged in treating the civil service like a sporting event without knowing that it would lead to the decay and rot we are witnessing now. Bureaucracy means "the civil servants, the administrative functionaries, who are professionally trained for the public service and who enjoy permanence of tenure, promotion within the service-partly by seniority and partly by merit." The meticulous bureaucracy is also professedly apolitical. This basically insinuates that a bureaucrat is not to have a political agenda of his own but, preferably, to faithfully implement the policies of the government of the day. It also has another and presumably more important meaning, namely, that a civil servant's allegiance and adhesion should be to the constitution of the land and not to any political party, politician, etc. Public bureaucracy is a very invigorating element of the development process. Bureaucratic capacity adjudicates what will get done, when it will get done, and how well it will get done. The more dexterous the bureaucracy is in implementing labyrinthine economic and social development plans, the higher the development potential of that society.“Bureaucracy epitomises the most OPINION Undeserved assault on the bureaucracy consummate and rational way in which one can codify human activity, and methodical processes and standardised hierarchies are indispensable to maintain order, maximise efficiency, and eliminate favoritism.“A bureaucracy appears to be impersonal. This predominantly, means that a bureaucrat is anticipated, to be guided by objective premeditation while enforcing rules and regulations in the scheme of implementing opaque policy measures and directives. In other words, a bureaucrat, a civil servant, or a government official, regardless of the name we choose to call him by, is not supposed to be guided by his idiosyncratic whims and fancies, biases, and prejudices in the dispensation of his official duties." These are what we are told that bureaucracy stands for, according to Dr. V. Pardha Saradhi. In spite of the purge of 1975, what positive things have we achieved since then? Discipline erring officers, but don’t collapse the system. In an attempt to discipline certain officers, the system was brought to its knees in 1975-1976. We fought a civil war between 1967 and 1969, and we fought that war without borrowing a kobo, but the success of that war could be traced to the robust civil service that was in existence at that time. No doubt the military officers went to war as foot soldiers, but the backup energy was provided by the bureaucracy. In case we forgot, Mr. Nowa Omoigui wrote a comprehensive report on bureaucracy's efforts before and after the civil war. He wrote that "for the ten months of the Gowon regime, there was no federal cabinet. Permanent secretaries, who dealt directly with Gowon, headed federal ministries. In the confusion of the weekend of July 29, 1966, the birth of his government at the Ikeja Barracks had been partially mediated by a group of federal permanent secretaries. These included Abdul Aziz Attah, A whole variety of trade dispute emergency decrees were also promulgated to settle wartime trade disputes Phillip Asiodu, Allison Ayida, Musa Daggash, Ibrahim Damcida, HA Ejueyitchie, Yusuf Gobir, BN Okagbue, and others. Other prominent federal public servants included the Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Alhaji Sule Katagum. Along with others, as well as the British and Send Opinions & Letters to: opinions1234@yahoo.com American envoys, these men counselled caution in the heat of the events that were unfolding. “These pre-war grand strategic and political machinations aside, the federal civil service played a complex role during the war, alternately being viewed as an ally or an irritant by the front-line military. Civil servants suggested the establishment of security and civil defence organisations in various states, tapping into logistical resources provided by various ministries. They counselled the promulgation of many war-time decrees, such as the Public Security Decree (No. 31 of 1967), which outlawed the private possession of weapons and ammunition, and the Military Courts (Special Powers) Decree (No. 4 of 1968), designed to enforce discipline among federal troops. A whole variety of trade dispute emergency decrees were also promulgated to settle wartime trade disputes. Mr. Gray Longe, who later became the Head of Service, recalls that initially there was an Armed Forces Committee on the procurement of supplies. This committee included the Deputy Permanent Secretary at the MOD, along with the Army QMG, Air Force Logistics Officer, and specialised differences between service needs. This committee gave way to a purely military Joint Supplies Board to reconcile competing requests. Then, in October 1969, apparently in response to abuses in the system as well as competition between Army divisions (who were each doing their own thing), Gowon created a central procurement committee that would make recommendations to him on the basis of input from the Joint Supplies Board. To be concluded
government Vanguard, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2022 — 19 As intemperate language, fake news, judicial rascality threaten 2023 elections THE 2023 elections in Nigeria bring with them hopes and fears, expectations, and optimism for a better future. However, forces are fighting inadvertently to truncate the elections, imperil our nascent democracy, dim the light, and bring all our political calculations to nothing. These seemingly imperceptible forces are powerful, subtle, and distinct but not mutually exclusive. They include the use of intemperate language by candidates, the preponderance of fake news and judicial compromise. Except for those who study historical patterns in our clime and other jurisdictions, you may not take note of the gathering storm. These unholy triune forces are powerful enough to cause mayhem and destroy our electoral process come 2023 if nothing is done. They can truncate our 2023 elections and our democracy. The first of these forces fighting to escalate violence, deepen distrust in the political process, and truncate the election, though not the most important, is use of intemperate language by politicians and their supporters. This has no party colouration and is beginning to define the nature and character of the 2023 elections. Politicians in this early stage of the campaign are resorting to personal attacks, vilifications, bickering, insults, and abuse of their opponents. Name calling, ethnic and sectional expressions have replaced any form of serious engagement. Recently, presidential candidates of all the political parties have been using direct insulting or derogatory statements or innuendos to vilify each other. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, BAT, has been a bout of jokes and caricature because of his perceived ill health. Peter Obi recently jibed at BAT by claiming that some candidates have good health, verifiable classmates, certificates, and easily provable history alluding to the controversy regarding BAT’s early years’ history and educational attainment. BAT, on his part, accused Obi of having IPOB supporters who have been vilifying him and spreading rumours about his health status and ability to function as a president. Obi has been accused of being agent of fake statistics. On the other hand, Atiku boldly asked northerners in a gathering in Kaduna not to vote for presidential candidates of Igbo or Yoruba extraction. These divisive and derogatory expressions by presidential candidates are more than mere attacks that candidates make on each other during campaigns, as seen in mature democracies. The volatile venomous nature of these expressions is seen in the offensive attacks using ill health, human frailties or ethnic and sectional sentiments, which often are no-go areas in decent debates and are anti-culture. Often these intemperate words and innuendos breed contempt, disrespect, and calumny among politicians and more often, one intemperate statement elicits a response that is also intemperate, fuelling an unending vicious circle of hate, hurt and ultimately violence. Section 97, Subsection 1 of the Electoral Act prohibits candidates or parties from campaigning on religious, tribal, or sectional reasons to promote or oppose a particular political party or the election of a specific candidate. Subsection 2 adds, “Abusive, intemperate, slanderous or base language or insinuations or innuendoes designed or likely to provoke violent reaction or emotions shall not be employed or used in political campaigns.” The big elephant in the room is: has any political candidate or party ever been punished for breaking this law? The clash of and preponderance of fake news, especially in social media, is the next deadly force mitigating a successful 2023 election. Increasingly, fake news is lethal, can wreak havoc on victims and can lead to violence, especially when it goes viral. Deliberately spreading fake news as a political campaign strategy is wrong and immoral. The proliferation of misinformation and weaponising phoney news threatens our democracy. This trend is one of the biggest threats to the peaceful pre-election and postelection conduct of the 2023 elections. And it has the potential to fragment the country and skew electoral outcomes. This calls to question the legitimacy of the electoral process and the leaders that emerge from it. Recently, there was a forged INEC letter claiming that the commission is investigating the APC presidential candidate, and no one has been prosecuted for that forgery and twisting information to achieve negative outcome. The third force is judicial compromise or rascality. That the Judiciary is the last hope of the ordinary person is an accepted norm in a democracy. The Judiciary interprets the law, and we rely on the impartiality of the Judiciary for the system to work. One of the crucial jobs the Judiciary does is dealing with pre-election matters, electoral petitions and lawsuits. However, during elections, some judges pass anti-democratic judgements beyond any sane person’s imagination. Such intervention is inimical to our democratic progress. When judicial compromise happens, democracy suffers, and people lose faith in the system. Some parties and candidates depend on judicial compromise to hold onto power. It is a doomed political strategy which is tainting the hallowed image of the Judiciary. Democracy is about the choice of the people. Court-induced political wins outside people’s franchises are a slap on our democracy. In recent times, PDP in Rivers State has directly and indirectly instituted multiple suits against all the other major parties seeking to disqualify The leadership of the Judiciary must stand up to its responsibility to tackle judicial compromise or rascality their candidates for all elections with the hope that the party can cruise to victory without serious challenge. This worked for the PDP in 2019, and they are pushing to repeat a similar destabilising deed in the 2023 elections using. Similar scenario is playing out in other states that bothers on internal affairs of political parties. The judiciary cannot replace the democratic choice of the people. The leadership of the Judiciary must stand up to its responsibility to tackle judicial compromise or rascality. It must commit to being more organised and hold judicial officers accountable for decisions that bother on internal affairs of political parties and the democratic choice of the people. The CJN and National Judicial Council must intervene and save our democracy from the hands of undemocratic people using judicial rascality to steal people’s mandate. Many Judges are actively executing sound judgements for the benefit of society, and I highly commend them for their work in protecting our democracy. However, they should weed out the bad elements among them, especially at the state level where the executive arm exerts undue pressure on the Judiciary and use judges as puppets in a puppeteer’s hands. It must be the aim of all stakeholders to tackle the problem of intemperate language, fake news and judicial compromise during the pre-election and postelection periods. All political parties and candidates for elections and their supporters must commit not to engage in hate speech, foul language, false accusations, and ethnically charged statements and any found doing so must face the full wrath of the law. The unintended consequence of using intemperate language, fake news and judicial rascality is promoting violence and the truncation of the 2023 elections. The truncation of the 2023 elections will be the catalyst for Nigeria’s collapse and disintegration. Therefore, we must all play our roles in persuading and punishing politicians against inappropriate language, engaging all regulatory authorities to act against fake news, and appealing to our judicial officers to consider national interest above narrow personal interest. History beckons as Peter Obi hits Ibadan BY SOLA EBISENI ANATION is a living thing and has all the characteristics of a living organism that we were taught in elementary biology. For the purpose of our discourse herein, permit me to say that a nation moves, breathes, excretes, grows, responds to or is sensitive to its environment, reproduces, and dies ultimately. The most scary attribute of a state, as with humans, is death. Such was the case with empires, of which we learned in history, but which are no more today. Do not misunderstand me. The living attributes of a nation must not be confused with those that it acquires from the aggregates of the attributes of its human inhabitants, from which its identity is derived, a plausible postulation, no doubt. However, my thesis is that, while the actions of its inhabitants, both humans and other living and non-living creatures, can and do cause a nation's attributes to wax, those attributes are inherent in a state, even as a mere geographical expression. No wonder, a state or nation, used interchangeably but not exactly the same, is in law a juristic or legal personality with the capacity to sue and be sued. Nigeria, still by and large a geographical expression, is in perpetual search for an arrangement that guarantees a sense of belonging and unity among its constituent groups, through which a nation is built where no group or man is truly oppressed. While no effort has been spared at various stages and by different generations to build a nation that its inhabitants, Africans and the black humanity, can be proud of, such efforts have been and continue to be thwarted by the political and military elites. By tomorrow, Wednesday, November 23, 2022, Mr. Peter Obi, the Nigerian political rave of the moment, will hit the ancient city of Ibadan, the political capital of the Yoruba of Nigeria, in continuation of his campaigns for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obi, whose bid was originally dismissed as a child’s play following the enthusiastic support of the youths for him, who were scorned as mere social media tigers, has since become a political phenomenon. At one time, Obi was portrayed as an unrealistic political adventurer whose chances were foreclosed because he had no structure. Even when he said the people remained his structure, those who have always considered the people irrelevant or electoral commodities for purchase on election day received such declarations as mere political amusement. Undaunted, Peter Obi trudged on. Nothing has come to him through traditional channels, he recently told some of us who support ethnic nationalities groups that back him. He spoke of how he was presiding over a board meeting when news came that he had been declared governor of Anambra. He instils hopes and confidence in those who believe him and captures his adversaries, a legion of them, with disarming humour. For instance, when it seemed Professor Charles Soludo, one of his successors as Governor of Anambra State, had finished him, as SOLA EBISENI they say, Obi’s seemingly harmless two minutes response took care of Soludo's lengthy and winding diatribe in a way that got public sympathy for Peter and opprobrium for Charles. Obi’s Ibadan visit is contemporaneous with a public lecture on nationalism and nation building in Nigeria at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, delivered by Professor of History and diplomat Jide Osuntokun to a distinguished audience of eminent Nigerians carefully drawn from all the geopolitical zones and walks of life. It was strategically hosted by Ohaneze Ndigbo on Monday, November 21, 2022, the day the apex Igbo sociocultural organisation finally unveiled its endorsement of Peter Obi as its choice of presidential candidate for the Nigerian 2023 elections. First, I must confess the high tutorial content and masterly pedagogical delivery of the lecture, where, for instance, I was able to correct my earlier knowledge or impression of the origin and authorship of the Nigerian six -zone structure, which, according to Osuntokun, was a brainchild of a group of scholars, including himself, assembled by military President Ibrahim Babangida. The lecturer and all discussants agreed that it was sheer bunkum to suggest Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable, but indeed being perpetually negotiated. The 2023 presidential election they all agreed would be the defining moment for Nigeria. From the President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Professor George Obiozor, the Afenifere Leader Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Director of Communications, Northern Elders Forum Baba Ahmed, Pan Niger Delta Forum PANDEF), led by Chief Edwin Clarke. Chief Ayo Adebanjo, as usual, was not only there to listen to a lecture but to lecture us all about happenings in Nigeria, most of which he witnessed. He seized the momentum of the lecture to reiterate the Afenifere's decision of endorsing Obi. He insisted that it would be sheer hypocrisy to invite contestants for interviews when his group has already endorsed and announced its choice. While not ruling out the need for candidates to meet with stakeholders across the country, he did not subscribe to the idea that one part of the country was dictating to others. These were in response to Baba- Ahmed's position in his group's interview of six presidential candidates, as well as the need for Ndigbo to unite and seek alliances across the country in order to sell their candidate and make the South East conducive to others campaigning. The Obi, whose bid was originally dismissed as a child’s play has since become a political phenomenon President of the Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Bitrus Pogu who spoke through a representative, minced no words about regional equity being the way to go. Ditto for the representative of PANDEF. The four-point concluding paragraphs of Professor Obiozor’s opening remarks most suitably captured the communiqué at the Conference, the mood and expectations of the nation from the 2023 presidential election. 1. Nigeria needs a system of shared power, bearing in mind that political decency flourishes best in societies in which stable, peaceful, and just political institutions make it difficult for reckless and lawless political adventurers to thrive. 2. Coercive integration, or integration by force or intimidation, has failed all over the world, including in Africa. Events in Sudan, for example, are indicative of the reality that no matter how long you hold people by force against their will; eventually the people’s quest for freedom, liberty, or voluntary association will prevail. 3. As I have often said, "Throughout history, those denied justice have had no interest in peace. People need peace, not the peace of the graveyard, they need unity, but not the unity of masters and slaves. Our national unity must not interfere seriously with our freedom and liberty, or it will be interpreted as tyranny of the majority or minority, none of which will be acceptable." 4. The most crucial of all the above is good leadership. History has shown that the destiny of leaders is closely tied to the destiny of their respective nations. In fact, it is not easy to imagine India without Gandhi, the Republic of Turkey Mustafa Kendal Atartuk, South Africa without Mandela, Ghana without Nkrumah, etc. Whither, my beloved country. Nigeria! We hail thee. •Ebiseni is the Secretary General, Afenifere.
Page 1 and 2: I’ll wipe out B/ 9 Haram, revive
Page 3 and 4: Vanguard, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 202
Page 5 and 6: 2023: APC, opposition parties bicke
Page 13 and 14: VANGUARD, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 202
Page 15 and 16: THE BIG INTERVIEW Why the Kano-Mara
Page 17: Vanguard, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 202
Page 23 and 24: 2023: Choose competence, capacity o
Page 25 and 26: CHANGE OF NAME ADEOLA I Formerly kn

22112022

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?