This week, the controversial Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died when his plane was blown off the sky. He was a man of many talents said the Russian President, Putin, his friend/enemy. Indeed, one of his greatest talents is developing elaborate and sophisticated ways of weaponizing the genuine and deep history of Francafrique terrible maintenance of its colonial grip on the governments and resources of Francophone Africa for its interest while pretending to propose liberation. The purpose has been to introduce in its stead Russian neo-colonial control of the said territories through the instrumentality of installing military dictatorships. His method has been through deliberate and sustained manipulation through the social media.
Browsing: Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim
This week, the innocent sounding term: “All Eyes on the Judiciary” appears to seriously irritate the Tinubu Government, I wonder why? The anger is seen in the decision of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) to remove “All Eyes on the judiciary” billboards sponsored by a group known as the Diaspora’s for Good Governance. The hashtag is an excellent description of the state of mind of ALL Nigerians wondering, fearing, hopeful, frightened of the expected verdict of the judiciary on election cases currently in the tribunals. The main focus is on the presidential election tribunal which will soon deliver its verdict on the petitions challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the general election. Is someone afraid?
The ECOWAS emergency summit yesterday started well. Chairman Bola Tinubu in his opening remarks called for a focus on the use of diplomatic channels and negotiations. As I was writing this column to commend the new approach, news broke out that ECOWAS, has ordered its standby force to restore constitutional order in Niger Republic. The President of ECOWAS, Omar Alieu Touray made the declaration while reading the resolutions of the meeting. He also called on the African Union, partner countries and institutions to support the resolution taken by the sub-regional body. ECOWAS said all efforts made to dialogue with Niger Republic military junta have been defiantly rejected by coup leaders as they condemn continuous detention of President Mohamed Bazoum and his family members. They then directed the committee of the Chiefs of Defence Staff to activate the ECOWAS stand-by force with all its elements immediately to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. The path taken is that of escalation.
This type of threat worked effectively in ousting President Jammeh of the Gambia in 2017 because there was unity of purpose in the entire region and the military threat against such a small country was credible. The situation in Niger and in West Africa today is significantly different after a fourth coup in the region. It is important to think carefully before taking a risky path. I am however confident that it is possible to reverse the current trend of the return of the military.
The Wednesday coup in Niger finally succeeded at midnight with soldiers announcing on national TV the dissolution of the Constitution, Parliament and Government. Sigh…. This makes it the sixth country in the West Africa region to experience a coup since August 2020. Adding Chad makes it the seventh. Early on Wednesday morning, it had been reported that President Mohammed Bazoum had been held in the presidential palace by his own presidential guard. It appeared the guard then had to negotiate with the regular army while shooting in the air to keep anti coup protesters at bay. President Bola Tinubu sent a strong message to the putschists warning them that West Africa was no longer willing to tolerate coups. He also consulted with President Patrice Talon of Benin Republic who is acting as mediator with the military. The US, France, UN, ECOWAS and African Union also condemned the coup calling for a return to status quo.
At the ECOWAS Summit in Bissau on 9th July 2023, President Bola Tinubu was elected Chairman of ECOWAS. In his acceptance speech, he warned that the threat to peace in the region had reached an alarming proportion with terrorism and an emerging pattern of military takeovers that ECOWAS must take concerted action addressing with the urgency the matter demands. Shortly after, he was in Addis for the African Union Summit. His first action point as ECOWAS Chairman was establishing the Presidential Troika + 1 (Talon – Benin, Embalo – Guinea Bissau and Bazoum – Niger + Umar Tourray, President of ECOWAS Commission to develop an immediate action plan to address terrorism and coups d’états in West Africa. The four presidents met in Abuja on 18th July and drew up plans to engage Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea on expeditious return to constitutional rule, credible and inclusive elections. They also proposed a pathway to an expeditious OPERATIONALISATION of ECOWAS Revised Plan of Action for the eradication of terrorism in West Africa. This action-man approach by President Tinubu is raising hopes that Nigeria is now ready to assume once again its traditional leadership role in West Africa, which the country has abandoned for almost two decades.
In these strange times, the story of the Nigerian State is daily written in the crime pages of our newspapers and broadcasts. One set of stories that is emerging repeatedly is the dismantling and theft of the country’s infrastructure. This week, it was reported that thieves have removed and stolen the recently installed airfield ground lighting systems at the domestic runway (18L/36R) of Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos. The runway lights are critical because they help pilots to do landing and take-off safely at night, or in low visibility conditions. As these are highly specialized lights with specific use on runways, the thieves must have access to security zones and band have knowledge of where they can sell them. It was only in November 2022 that the runway was reopened for 24 hours flight services after the successful installation of the ground lights.
Last week, some of the road fittings installed on the newly inaugurated Second Niger bridge were vandalized by robbers. Specifically, the metal expansion joints are removed and sold as scrap metals by the robbers. This problem has been on-going in Lagos for years where similar joints and metal reinforcement for bridge safety are regularly removed and sold compromising the integrity and safety of the bridges. Railings and crash barriers from manholes meant to reinforce bridges from vibrating, as well as protect vehicles from falling from the bridge are also removed and sold.
I doubt that the judiciary would be able to settle the deep disagreements between Nigerians about the outcome of the 2023 elections, especially the result of the presidential election. For some, Bola Tinubu proved his mettle of being a great political actor by securing a nomination where the odds were stacked heavily against him and obtaining sufficient support among political gladiators and citizens to win the presidency. Others think the evidence is clear that Peter Obi won but the results were changed and the evidence is found in the non-transmission of results on the IReV portal because had the process been followed, the evidence of the Obi victory would have been clear. Poor Atiku Abubakar who came second in the race as shown in the official results is largely missing from a lot of the on-going passionate debate and is assumed not to be a factor for reasons that are not clear to me. Every day, there are widespread public debates on the unfolding case at the election tribunal on how the evidence shows clearly that Tinubu or Obi won. Both lawyers and non-lawyers are engaged in the production of the running bifurcated narratives.
For longer than Nigerians can remember, successive governments have been making promises of cutting Nigeria’s huge cost of governance in the face of dwindling resources beginning with reversing the epidemic of multiplication of governmental agencies. In 2011, former President Goodluck Jonathan set up the Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies, under the chairmanship of Steve Oronsaye. The Committee submitted an 800-page report on April 16, 2012, which recommended the abolition and merger of 102 government agencies and parastatals, while some were listed to be self-funding.
Now that there is a new government, my bet is that Nigerians would be asking themselves the question of whether there would be a new cabal in power and its possible composition. This is because there is a passionate and widespread belief that for each regime, there is a powerful informal group outside the government that pulls the strings acting as puppet master. Such groups are usually known as cabals. The most famous cabal in Nigerian political narratives is the “Kaduna Mafia”, which was said to have been the power behind the throne under military rule.