Browsing: Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim

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. 

In his valedictory address to the Senate, “distinguished” former member, Adamu Bulkachuwa, has confessed to influencing the decisions of his wife, Zainab Bulkachuwa, while she was serving as a judge and President of the Court of Appeal. Mr. Bulkachuwa, an 83-year old chieftain of the ruling APC, who represented Bauchi North senatorial district in the 9th Senate, confirmed infringing on: “My wife, whose freedom and independence I encroached upon while (she) was in office, and she has been very tolerant and accepted my encroachment and extended her help to my colleagues,” he said. The former Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, realised the old man was making dangerous revelations of their secret practices in public and stopped him saying: “Distinguished, I don’t think this is a good idea going this direction. It is not a good idea, please.” It would have been great to hear examples he might have given on how they perverted the course of justice.

One of the clearest symbols of the failure of the Buhari Administration was former Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika trying to pool the wool over the eyes of Nigerians presenting a hastily repainted Ethiopian Airline plane chartered for the trick at high cost to claim that he had delivered on his mandate of delivering Nigeria Air before the end of his mandate. The tragicomedy was not funny because Nigerians knew about the billions spent on the project with nothing to show for it. Maybe the big question was why was he reappointed to deliver on this mandate when he had been given the opportunity in the first term of the Administration but had failed miserably? For his failure, he was promoted from junior to senior minister in 2019 and his “empire” carved out of the Ministry of Transport so that he would have sole authority on the matter. The signal was clear, the reward for failure under Buhari was promotion.

In his inaugural address on Monday, President Bola Tinubu announced the end of fuel subsidy as it would no longer be an item on the budget. On Wednesday, Government announced a drastic rise in the prices of petrol from 185 to up to 557 Naira a litre depending on location. It was a shock to the Nation and immediately, labour was up in arms demanding for a complete withdrawal. The shock was due to expectations based on government announcements that palliatives would be negotiated and offered to poor Nigerians who would be impacted negatively by the new prices expected to come into effect in July this year.