0704 Summer 2003.pdf - Friends of Nigeria

(Continued from page 3)And the Winner Is ... :The Nigerian Elections ....As for the Ige case, it still seems to be in go-slow mode, and thefamily has now withdrawn from the prosecution in disgust. Themain defendant, Omisore, was elected PDP Senator fromOshun. Can he still be prosecuted? Will he be?Whatever the causes, the AD is in tatters. At the postmortem,an AD zonal conference in Ibadan on April 23, theirlast man standing, Asiwaju (leader) Bola Tinubu, advised againstboycotting local council elections at the end of June and calledfor a national AD conference so that the party could begin toregroup. Since everyone but the PDP lost, coalition building willnow be the order of the day. In 2007, the agreement to zone thepresidency means that a new equilibrium will presumably beestablished. The next President will most likely be a northerner,but to which party, in which alliances, will he belong? And wheredoes the east, which got nothing this time, come in?In the nearer future, violence in the Delta continues.Everyone sees this situation as a grave threat to the Nigerianeconomy and polity. Peter Lewis, who attended the May 29inauguration and then interviewed the President and otherleading officials, believes in a carrot-and-stick solution. The stickwould be a heavily armed, amphibious government strike forcewhich, without torching villages, would be able to match theincredible fire power of the local militias who, in service to allpolitical factions, shake down the oil companies. The carrotwould be meaningful tripartite planning—Federal government,oil companies and local officials— to plan massive public worksprograms and create thousands of new jobs, finally repaying theregion for its extracted oil treasure. Lewis does not believe inwholesale constitutional reform, but he think the boundariesbetween the four Rivers states drawn in the last constitutionshould be changed back to what they were, since much of thecurrent turbulence is ethnic.Jumoke disagrees, asking how these ideas improve upon whathas already failed. With reduced emphasis, perhaps, he repeatsthe pro-Democratic mantra: sooner or later, there must be aconstitutional conference leading to a loosened federation andreversed revenue flow. More voices are lifted in this cause all thetime. For instance, a post-election editorial in West Africa spelledout augmented powers whichshould be reserved to the states.But is such a conference insight? Even Babangida has nowgiven his nod of approval, but hestipulates that nothing must weakenfederal power. Lewis points out thatmilitia thugs claim to represent theBola Ahmed TinubuGovernor, State of Lagos.rights of oppressed peoples in theDelta, and that carnage has beenwrought all over West Africa in theAfenifere leader and Alliance for Democracy chieftainChief Abraham Adesanya (left) chatting with veteranjournalist and first generation politicianChief M.C.K Ajuluchukwu.name of similar causes. A re-energized President Obasanjo maywant to leave his mark on history as the new improved Awolowoby reforming the polity, but, then again, he may not. It has beena year now since he ‘promised’ Pa Enahoro to move toward theconference.Where have the hopes of the Diaspora and pro-Democratsgone? Enahoro apologized to Igbo leaders for not supportingBiafra, and his small National Reformation Party (NRP) partywon some local elections in eastern states. (He described thevoting in his home state, Edo, won by the PDP, as the worst hehad ever seen —which says a lot.) His eldest son, Ken, whoseopinions about the election have appeared in the local press, maybe emerging as a possible successor. Ned Nwoko got 1.34% inDelta state (not Rivers, which I mistakenly quoted from WestAfrica in my last article.) The other last standard bearer of theDiasporan middle-class, “Toks Owo”—Dr. Owoeye of Dallas—won both the AD primary and caucus for House ofRepresentatives from Oshun, but the party fielded another,losing candidate, anyway.And Jumoke? Handing out election bribes? “I had made aresolve not to run away from the realities in Nigeria.” And, witha new mandate to enlist and organize an AD youth movement inOshun, he still plans to move back home. But things do change.As he says of the Diaspora, “Most of our ideas here are tooacademic, they don’t work in Nigeria. We must find a way toimpress on them that we are an integral part of the polity.”So once again we ask, “and the winner is ...?” We hope, ofcourse, that the winner is Nigeria. But, as Lawrence Ikechi says,the actual winner may have been “Better than Nothing.” Andwhat exactly has been won? Most likely, time.•Sources: West Africa, The New York Times, The Guardian of Lagos(on-line), and, especially, my primary informants: Professor Peter Lewis ofAmerican University, Lawrence Ikechi of United Committee to SaveNigeria (UCSN), and Jumoke Ogunkeyede of UCSN and (?) Alliancefor Democracy (AD).WINTER 2003 17 15