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PAGE 14—SUNDAY VANGUARD, NOVEMBER 29, 2020
Senate screening of INEC
chairmanship nominee
For the first time in
Nigeria’s recent
political history, the
Senate of the Federal
Republic appears to have
placed commensurate
premium on the importance
of screening nominees of
the President for certain
positions. The assignment is
indeed crucial because it is
a constitutional
requirement which is
designed to ensure that any
such nominee is a fit and
proper person to occupy the
office for which he/she has
been nominated. Last week,
the Senate committee on
INEC was busy screening
the former chairman of the
Independent National
Electoral Commission,
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
who has been re-nominated
for another term as INEC
chair. From media
coverage of the screening,
it is observed that some of
the issues bothering the
general public about free
and fair elections were
interrogated. The benefits
derivable from the
screening are many. To start
with, if the nominee scales
through the exercise, the
issues he had to explain
would to a large extent
serve as a veritable guide to
his conduct in office.
Secondly, the exercise
would also sensitize all
other nominees in future on
the need to be conscious of
the essence of
accountability in office.
One can therefore conclude
that if Yakubu is given
another term of office, one
of the things he would
guard jealousy would be
postponement of elections.
The high level of remorse
he exhibited during the
screening over the
postponement of the 2019
general elections by one
week depicted a man who
learnt a major lesson. We
hope he would extend that
to all elections irrespective
of their nature, scope or
level. Bearing in mind that
there were cases where
election postponement was
foisted on INEC, like the
2016 Edo governorship,
Yakubu will have no option
than to acquire greater
strength and foresight to be
up and against big men in
the corridors of power who
can use their connections
with security agencies to
contrive postponements. It
is also hoped that INEC
would no longer be
pressurized into indulging
in the game of plotting
inconclusive elections.
Against this backdrop, we
commend the Senate for
presenting an ending signal
to its obnoxious ‘bow and
go’ approach which it
normally invokes when the
person concerned is well
known to many senators. As
we have always argued
here; that approach is more
or less an abuse of office
because a constitutional
assignment is not expected
to be subjected to a
discretion that cannot stand
the test of time. For
example, to excuse a
particular nominee from
screening on the ground
that he or she was once a
legislator makes little sense
because the new office
necessitating a screening
exercise, is different from
lawmaking. An outstanding
former legislator may not
be a good minister or
chairman of a sensitive
agency. Therefore, every
nominee ought to be
thoroughly screened and
found to be satisfactory
before approval. It is only
under such circumstance
that the senate can acquit
itself creditably as working
in harmony with the
executive for the public
good. Whenever it acts
otherwise, the senate is
usually seen as a mere
stooge to the executive. But,
if the senate establishes
empirical criteria for
screening nominees, the
idea of a group of lobbyists
often in the form of ‘rent a
crowd’ as we saw last week
purporting to be canvassing
the successful screening of
Prof Mahmood Yakubu as
INEC chair would become
superfluous.
There are many
Nigerians who are opposed
to the continuation of Prof
Yakubu as INEC chair.
Many of them may have
strong reasons for their
position. But it would be
wrong to assume that the
man does not have his own
strong points. One of the
things Yakubu did
admirably in his first
As events have
shown, our
desperate
politicians can
tempt angels and
make them falsify
election results
tenure was his ability to
resist pressures from the
ruling party on the fake
party primaries which she
claimed to have held in
Zamfara in preparations
for the 2019 elections.
Many politicians and their
political parties must have
realized from the tough
stance of the INEC chair
that election rules and
guidelines are not meant to
be experimented upon.
Thus, this writer and other
Nigerians who are neither
for nor against Yakubu’s
reappointment, should
commend him on that and
call on him to endeavour to
remain so and in ALL cases.
In other words, our position
is to be positive at all times
and expect Yakubu to
surprise those against him
by putting forward a
superlative performance if
reappointed. With a
previous 5-year tenure, the
learned professor would
come into office for the
second term with a
quantum of experience to
turn around our electoral
fortune.
What we have said so far
suggests that he has to be
quite innovative as he
cannot afford to do the
same things he did before
and expect different results.
For instance, it is not
enough to recruit vice
chancellors and university
professors as returning
officers and assume that
all will be well. As events
have shown, our desperate
politicians can tempt
angels and make them
falsify election results. This
is why all efforts must be
made to fortify the system
with modern methods of
election management.
Hence, the most enduring
pledge Yakubu made
during his screening was his
determination to
meticulously follow the
incremental introduction of
technology to the conduct
of elections during his
tenure. We have no doubt
whatsoever that Nigeria is
overdue for that. Already,
we have seen how the
introduction of the election
viewing portal transformed
INEC performance in the
recent governorship
elections in Edo and Ondo
states. The numerous
experts in election rigging
sent packing by that piece
of technology is a pointer
to the fact that INEC needs
to progressively discard the
old analogue election
monitoring system of
gathering thousands of
security operatives who
often further complicate
our election process.
Accordingly, in the next set
of elections well before
2023, INEC must embrace
the use of Z-pad and never
again allow anybody
including legislators to
distort her well-organized
template
Such a template must no
doubt include a greater
assertive attempt at dealing
with the issue of election
offences. While we
recognize that INEC may
not have gotten all the
support, she requires from
the law enforcement
agencies and the judiciary,
we are not convinced that
she has on her own evolved
a uniform robust platform
for the subject. This is the
only way to interpret the
trend whereby the only
place where some work
appears to be going on now
is Akwa Ibom where the
indefatigable Mike Igini is
in charge. What about other
areas where many election
officials were found to have
colluded with politicians to
obstruct free and fair
process? If the prosecution
of election offenders going
on now in Uyo is also
happening elsewhere, it
needs to be publicized for
effect. If not, INEC officials
in all the states must rise up
and adopt a zero-tolerance
approach to election
offences to dissuade those
who believe in winning
elections through rigging.
As more and more people
continue to point accusing
fingers at our politicians for
leading those frustrating
free and fair elections in
Nigeria, we join Prof
Mahmood Yakubu to
appeal to our legislators to
without further delay, give
INEC a better Electoral Act
to operate with.
PhD,Department of
Philosophy,
University of Lagos
08116759758
opuruiche2000@gmail.com
Futility of shaming the
shameless
That the creation of
Nigeria by imperialist
Britain is founded on a grossly
flawed moral foundation and
that perpetuation of the
colonial amalgam entails
prolongation of one of the
grossest historical instances
of British political
gerrymandering in Africa is
beyond dispute. One does not
need to be an erudite historian
like Kenneth Onwuka Dike,
J.F.K. Ade-Ajayi or Tekena
Tamuno to arrive at that
conclusion after reading
historical source materials
containing details of how
British colonial officials
assisted by efulefus and ndi
iberibe in the local
populations treacherously
brought together multiply
plural ethnic nationalities to
form the unwieldy amalgam
initially called Niger area. On
that basis, it is largely correct
to claim that the intractable
problem of transforming
Nigeria into a united, strong
and prosperous country is
traceable to the faulty
foundation on which she was
constructed. Again, just as the
rustic Islamic education
introduced into what later
became northern Nigeria by
the arch jihadist, Usman Dan
Fodio, and the one brought
into the south by European
missionaries were intended to
keep the indigenous peoples
mentally enslaved, Britain
created Nigeria to serve the
interests of the British Crown.
The ugly situation has
remained relatively
unchanged after she attained
what is essentially a flag
independence more than sixty
years ago. To bring this point
into prominent relief,
remember that the United
States of America was a
British colony until July 4,
1776 when the thirteen
American colonies defeated
Britain and regarded
themselves as sovereign states
no longer under colonial rule.
Presently, Britain is behind the
US in terms of power,
influence and prestige at the
international stage whereas
Nigeria, still battling with the
teething problems of nationbuilding,
is tied to the
exploitative neo-colonialist
apron-strings of her former
colonial master to the extent
that the Nigerian ruling class
dominated by Fulani
caliphate colonialists and
their lackeys from the south
continuously take dictations
from number 10 Downing
street, London. Therefore, it is
not surprising that the current
federal government of the All
Progressives Congress (APC),
like a child with severe
congenital abnormalities,
relies a lot on the British
establishment for protection
and support, which partly
explains why Nigeria has
It is largely correct to
claim that the
intractable problem of
transforming Nigeria
into a united, strong
and prosperous
country is traceable to
the faulty foundation
on which she was
constructed
regressed considerably since
2015 when the ageing retired
soldier, Maj. Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari,
replaced Dr. Goodluck
Jonathan as President. It must
be mentioned in passing that
under Buhari the APC has
almost mutated completely
into what the Northern Peoples
Congress (NPC) represented
in the First Republic, that is,
the undisputed champion of
northern interests above all
else.
Unrelenting leadership
blizzard in Nigeria was the
focus of the little but forthright
book, The Trouble with
Nigeria, written by the late
distinguished African novelist,
Prof. Chinua Achebe. In that
book, Achebe placed the
problem of arrested
development in the country
squarely on the doorstep of
successive incompetent
political leadership whose
principal actors were
motivated primarily by the
craving for selfaggrandisement
and
primitive accumulation. Prof.
Achebe reiterated the same
theme very briefly in There was
a Country, but it appears that
key players in Nigerian
politics either have not read
Achebe’s works or merely read
through them for reading
sake without seriously
engaging and internalising
the serious points he raised
therein considering that the
quality of leadership has
grown progressively worse
since Achebe’s books were
published. I suspect that
amongst those occupying top
political positions at the
moment President Buhari is
not the only one that does not
read, as the loquacious
Rotimi Amaechi unwittingly
revealed in a video footage
that went viral last year or so.
On the contrary one can
safely bet that from the
President through the top
leadership of the three arms
of government down to the
local government level none
of them have read from cover
to cover any great book on
political philosophy and
leadership written by
transformational leaders
such as Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe,
Chief Obafemi Awolowo,
Julius Nyerere and Lee Kuan
Yew. In other words, at the
highest levels of governance
Nigeria is ruled by men (and
few women) whose minds are
bereft of deep knowledge and
wisdom derivable from great
literature, of relevant
pragmatic ideas, policies and
efficient implementation
strategies that can transform
the country from the poverty
capital of the world into
Africa’s version of Japan or
the United States.
It is evident to any
discerning mind not
beclouded by the deadweight
of ethnicity, religion and other
intellectual toxins that
members of the ruling elite at
all levels of governance are
shameless. Now, the word
‘shame’ describes the
uncomfortable feeling one
experiences when he (or she)
knows that he has done
something wrong or
embarrassing, or when he
knows that someone close to
him has. When someone does
not feel ashamed of a wrong
or immoral act either
committed by himself or
someone close to him, the
person is rightly described as
‘shameless’ which, in the
relevant context, is the
opposite of ‘shame.’ It is clear
from the foregoing that the
feeling of shame is connected
to the capacity for self-censure
derived from the innate
human capacity for morality
activated and given practical
significance in the course of
socialisation within the
family, educational and
religious institutions etc. This
means that the feeling of
shame, when genuine, is an
inward acknowledgement
that one has fallen short of
expected standard of
behaviour which is a
prerequisite for sincere
remorse. On the other hand,
anyone that is incapable of
feeling ashamed or habitually
pretends to be is a moral
degenerate who cannot be
relied upon to act in
accordance with the
fundamental principles of
right and wrong. This
becomes a matter of great
concern if the person in
question occupies leadership
position in any sphere of
human endeavour, especially
politics. Keep in mind that
shameless politicians are
enabled, aided and abetted by
journalists who, probably
because of bribes or are unduly
afraid of the repercussions for
reporting or publishing
unpalatable truths about
those in power, use their
vantage positions to suppress
such information.
In the months and weeks to
the presidential elections in
2015, there was a hurricane
of allegations against the
government of President
Goodluck Jonathan. Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo was at the
forefront of the anyone-but-
Jonathan crusade or jihad
(depending on whether you
are a christian or muslim),
which included prominent
Nigerians like Prof. Wole
Soyinka, Bola Tinubu, Sanusi
Lamido Sanusi, and a motley
crowd of senior academics,
the clergy, top players in
different professions,
celebrities, self-styled activists,
and a cross section of
Nigerians particularly in the
north and south-west. On top
of all this, the American
government under President
Barak Obama actively
supported Buhari to the
extent that Obama himself
publicly endorsed APC’s
propaganda of change,
refused to sell arms to the
Nigerian army to fight Boko
Haram, and David Axelrod,
Obama’s campaign
manager, served as a
consultant to Buhari’s
campaign organisation.
Even, prominent members of
Jonathan’s party, the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP),
decamped to Buhari’s APC all
in a bid to return power to the
north. And the shenanigans
worked, although there were
credible reports of massive
underage voting and failure
to use smart cards readers in
most polling units in northern
Nigeria. Let us be forthright
about this: Muhammadu
Buhari emerged President
through an election that was
marred by serious verifiable
allegations of voter fraud and
irregularities which became
amplified in 2019 when he
was re-elected for another
four years in office.
To be continued