ON GHANA & IWU: WHY WOULD ANYBODY TAKE GOWON SERIOUSLY

On Ghana & Iwu: Why Would Anybody Take Gowon Seriously

By: Wale Odusote

Some Nigerian newspapers of December 9 - 10, 2008 reported widely and loudly on Yakubu Gowon’s scathing attacks on Maurice Iwu and Nigeria after he returned from ‘observing’ the presidential election in Ghana. The kernel of Gowon’s see-no-good utterances was that Nigeria (and Professor Maurice Iwu’s 2007 election) pales in comparism to the ‘free and fair’ one he witnessed in Ghana; and because of this, Gowon went on to imply that Ghana is better than Nigeria. He didn’t say from where he did the observing: stationary in Accra or booth to booth.

Before going into whether Ghana has suddenly become more advanced than Nigeria just because someone did not like the outcome of Nigeria’s 2007 elections (or Maurice Iwu), let us examine the antecedents of the man – Gowon - to see whether we should even take his public utterances seriously. First was in 1966, during the second and bloodiest coup Nigeria ever witnessed. When Nigerians feared for what may have happened to their Head of State, General Aguiyi Ironsi, Gowon told the nation that the ‘whereabouts of the Head of State is unknown’ when he knew the General was already murdered in cold blood on his own plot. Then, a few hours later, he said that the Head of State was ‘arrested’ by rebellious soldiers in Ibadan. Since when did it become norm for ‘rebels’ to ‘arrest’ a de facto Head of State? Ask Gowon, not me. When the nation discovered that the Head of State has been brutally murdered, Gowon refused to officially and publicly acknowledge that. And when all his flip flops finally caught up with him, he then denied that he had any hand in the coup that brought him to power. And till this day, he has never even fully acknowledged it as a coup. Puzzling and bizarre.

As the nation was about to burn in the wake of an unrelenting ethnic cleansing of his fellow Nigerians, Gowon was gain at his best (or worst) elements. The only thing he could say as ‘Head of State’ sworn to protect the lives of his fellow citizens was to tell the Northerners to ‘calm down’ because power has returned back to the North. No arrests, no law enforcement; just some heady talk about ‘power returning back’. Then when it appeared that the nation was about to come around to some calm, it was vintage Gowon again that stated emphatically that: “There was no basis for Nigerian unity”. It was on the strength of this statement and others like it that Ojukwu went to Aburi and demanded confederation and got it, only for Gowon to return to Nigeria and repudiate the pact. That was not surprising because that was Gowon - wishy-washy, half-believing in Nigeria, half-fighting for Nigeria. In one breathe, there was ‘no basis for unity’. In another breathe, he translated his name to “get on with one Nigeria’. Today, Ghana is better than Nigeria. Yesterday, ‘Ghana Must Go’. Tomorrow, let us defame Nigeria. Count me out. Call in your Gowons.

Then the war came – the mother of all civil wars, an act of tremendous violence and aggression, but which Gowon called ‘police action’. The whole world called it war because there was real war raging on the trenches but Gowon denied it all and still called it ‘police action’. Police action indeed, with all the starvation of children, economic blockade, Russian Migs and pilots, jailing of Wole Soyinka and the Asaba Massacres. That’s Gowon for you, prevarications personified.

After the civil war, Gowon declared: ‘no victor, no vanquished’. As if that was not enough Gowonism already, he stated again that he would pursue his three famed Rs – reconciliation, reconstruction, rehabilitation. In reality, Gowon appointed a civilian, Upkabi Asika as administrator of East Central State, meaning that it was a territory ‘vanquished’ in war. He vigorously pursued abandoned property policy against his fellow Nigerians, down on their luck. Where is the ‘reconciliation’ in that. He gave every Igbo-Nigerian who had deposits in Nigerian banks Twenty Nigerian pounds, regardless of whether you had millions in deposits, ante bellum. That, again, was clearly in opposite to ‘rehabilitation’. Then he began his massive highway constructions and white elephants, and saw fit to exclude the East Central State that needed the ‘reconstruction’ most.

Gowon was at it again when he promised to return the nation to civil rule three times, and three times, he reneged until his fellow 1966 coupists got tired of his flip-fops and gave him a taste of the same medicine he gave to Ironsi in 1966, only this time he was lucky to be out of the country. But before then, it was a Yakubu Gowon who had said that Nigeria had so much money that it didn’t know what to do with it. Then he began to give the money away in the millions and in hard currency, including to Jamaicans when he took on the enormous responsibility of paying their entire civil service salaries. Why didn’t Gowon conduct his own elections when he had all the chance and then compare? Obasanjo conducted three elections to Gowon’s zero. That’s statesmanlike. And the Maurice Iwu Gowon wishes to vilify conducted one that produced a landmark transition without being a ‘General’ which Gowon was while he was in-charge.

And now we have a Gowon who said nothing when Jos was burning just days ago. His own Jos, his own Plateau state was burning because of an election, and all he could do as a former ‘Head of State’ was to travel to Ghana to observe another election. Jos burned because of a local election and one that should have been more important to Gowon because it was being held in his own State, in his own country, and most importantly, in his own immediate neighborhood – Jos. Gowon kept silent while over 400 of his fellow citizens were butchered for something they had nothing to do with. He kept silent while Muslims killed Christians and Christians retaliated, and this is while he still prances around the country claiming to be heading an organization that calls itself ‘Nigeria Prays’. Haba Gowon: What went wrong with you in 1966 that you still can’t get over today in 2008? Is it Banquo’s ghost or Aguiyi’s ghost? What is so special about Ghana that would have driven you to ignore the problems of your homeland to go elsewhere and wax statesmanlike?

Now this: Any reasonable person in Gowon’s position should be comparing Maurice Iwu’s 2007 election with what went down in Jos, circa 2008. That is apt; that is comparing oranges with oranges because it is the same Nigeria, to be judged by the same standards. Comparing Ghana and Nigeria is like comparing apples and oranges because the conditions are not the same. First, Nigeria is large and federalist; Ghana is small and unitary. Second, Rawlings killed all the military politicians to pave way for a better Ghana; Gowon spared them all in 1966 and they are still lurking around causing troubles especially of the Lantang, Jos and Zaki Biam genres. Third, Ghana has fewer and well organized parties primed to fight and win elections; Nigeria has over fifty political parties dwarfed by one giant one called the PDP. Fourth, Ghana has principled opposition party leaders that cross no carpets; Nigeria has opposition folks like Atiku who is rumored to be angling to return to PDP; and now an ANPP Governor in the far North who just recently decamped to PDP. Fifth, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence; and a few Nigerians like Gowon always felt inferior before Ghanaians just because Ghana gained independence before Nigeria did and that is part of the reason Nigerian military followed suit with several coups after Ghana.

Most importantly, the issue of endorsing or censuring elections in emerging democracies has since become a matter of national security, foreign investments and diplomatic stature. Let me explain this to Gowon and others that are continuing to defame Nigeria. First, a lot of nations feared that Nigeria will garner all the foreign investments from the West unless someone discredits her electoral democracy. So, somewhere in some smoky rooms of the counterintelligence hideouts in the West, some guys, versed in strategic public information management, got retained to discredit Nigeria’s make-or-break 2007 elections. They are not mere spin doctors, not propagandists; they are worse. They figured that the most effective means to begin to chip away at Nigeria was to first discredit the umpire, Maurice Iwu. So, Iwu’s hithertofore unchallenged works in neo-pharmacology began to be questioned for the first time; and then they began to intimidate him to turn over the biometrics of Nigerian citizens to Western nations. Iwu waxed patriotic and fought back. That was when the battle line was drawn in the sand to totally diminish Nigeria, her umpire and electoral regime at such an important moment in our transitional democracy that also held the key to how our growing foreign reserves would be spent (or unspent). Under settled public international law, your foreign reserves escheats to the Western nations that held them in their vaults once you become a failed state – like Somalia or even post-Shah Iran, even not failed but nearly failed. Gowon missed that totally, and he still doesn’t get it, ‘statesman’, ex-this, ex-that, warts and all.

Second, Nigeria is in competition with the rest of the powers in Africa for a greater space in the world diplomatic community. With our oil, we attract a lot of envy and fear but with our elections and pesky politicians with a bad attitude, we remain vulnerable. So, something gotta give; someone gotta find a way to discredit Nigerian elections. Someone, well-honed in the cannons of counterintelligence by public (mis)information, went for the jugular, and that jugular is Professor Maurice Iwu, the gutsy umpire for Africa’s most populous and complicated electorate. You couldn’t do that to Ghana, not with people like Rawlings that have understudied these techniques and work from behind the scenes to keep their country insulated. Post-Rawlings Ghana knows too well how to keep its military at bay; and they know how to compete for FDI. Check out their fine statistics.

Therefore, it is a matter of national security for Ghana to get the word out in real time that her elections were credible, her umpires saints. The military would then have no reason to strike. It does not matter that they got some busy-body ‘foreign’ (read: white and assumedly counterintelligence) election monitors or some naïve Yakubu Gowon to do ‘counterintelligence information management’ for them. All in all and in ‘comparism’, Nigeria suffers for it because a helluva of foreign investors get scared away, our diplomatic stature suffers setbacks, and our President keeps looking behind his back for some military opportunists (of the Gowon genre) that are wont to capitalize on discredited elections to seize power. That explains some harried deployments of security brass that happen like a thief in the night, if not stoking the notion of institutional gridlock in government. Discredited elections encourage frivolous legal challenges that constitute a drag on an emerging nation’s quest for stability. That’s Nigeria’s present lot. Sad.

Considering all these, why would anybody then take Gowon and his ilk seriously on this boring ‘Ghana’s election is better than Nigeria’s Maurice Iwu 2007 election’. Blah blah blah. My mum’s soup is better than your mum’s soup. Boring old tales by the moonlight. Please let us get serious and patriotic for once and talk about Jos (or even Kano) and how that compares to the near-zero violence Nigeria experienced in her 2007 general elections. Poser: In 2007, was it that Nigeria just got lucky or was it because of a smart and gifted professor of world renown named: Maurice Maduakolam Iwu - the Gutsy Umpire?

Wale contributes from USA waleodusote@yahoo.com

MAURICE IWU NATIONAL RECEPTION: AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT

Maurice Iwu National Reception: An Eyewitness Account

By: Ibrahim Danlami

When Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States of America wrote that ‘the qualities of a great man are "vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character”. He did not have Professor Maurice Maduakolam Iwu in mind. But the saying aptly captures the essence of Iwu, the gutsy professor and umpire extraordinaire of our generation.

There is no arguing even amongst his most ardent critics that Prof. Iwu, during the period leading to the 2007 elections and after, has demonstrated vision of what to do to take Nigeria a notch up the democratic ladder. He put his integrity to bear; exhibited sheer courage in the face of obvious risks of the grander kind and danger to his person and family to deliver on a crucial national assignment. All these combined marked Iwu out as someone who possessed a deep understanding of the peculiarity of the Nigerian situation when it mattered most, besides his power of articulation and profundity of character.

Iwu’s place in the annals of Nigeria’s history is assured given that in the Nigeria’s near 48 years existence as an independent nation, it is the first time that the country has witnessed a successful transition from one civilian government to the other. A fact even his critics cannot deny. As Americans would say: Like him or not, you gotta respect the man. Back in the United States where I live, the man Iwu is seen as a rare phenomenon in America’s desires to see to the success of electoral democracies in Africa and there is yet a whispering campaign to have Iwu honoured by democracy watchdogs in North America.

As a man of vision and understanding of the times, Iwu had strenuously canvassed for an electronics voting system in tandem with modern electoral practices. His argument was and remains that the system would reduce electoral fraud especially in the areas of ballot snatching and stuffing and multiple voting, but it was apparent that the country or rather those who had profited from the manual procedure would have nothing to do with this and they rather preferred business as usual. Two years down the line, those who had repudiated the introduction of modern voter system are now seeking to introduce the same system they had previously opposed.

While it cannot be taken away that the 2007 elections had some lapses, attributable mostly to logistics and entrenched perception by politicians that elections are to be won at all cost, credit should be given to Iwu and his team at INEC, for their courage to deliver on that crucial election and proceed to declare a result that gave Nigeria a transition. One cannot but agree with Vice President Goodluck Jonathan when he observed that, "Nigerians should not expect 100 percent in the conduct of elections in the country, but to support the electoral processes in order to achieve a maximum level of success”.

The Vice president was speaking at a reception in honour of the INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu. I was there from my location in the United States and I saw it all first hand and I felt proud of my country, Nigeria. The Vice President urged Nigerians to support the Justice Mohammed Uwais-led Electoral Reform panel, saying that it is the only way to appreciate Professor Iwu's good work in the 2007 elections. He added, "Nigerians must appreciate Maurice Iwu, the National and State Commissioners, and other staff of INEC for what they have done. They would say, well, I am a PDP Vice President, I must commend INEC. "Let people go and examine elections that are being conducted by the various state electoral bodies (SIECs), the states that are controlled by PDP, ANPP, and other parties, most of them have conducted elections, if you now compare the elections and that conducted by INEC, I believe you will still put INEC over any other electoral commission."

The Vice president could not have been more poignant in his observation given that long before Iwu, there have been no less than eight past chairmen of the commission and it can not be said that they all did any better than what Iwu has done for the country. The problem of understanding the Iwu matrix perhaps stems from the fact that after over a decade of military dictatorship, Nigerians are in dire need of the redeemer without blemish or wrinkles. They expect that things, elections inclusive, should be like that obtainable in the mythic Eldorado, forgetting that perfection belongs to the heavenly.

So, despite some lapses here and there, Nigerians should still be thankful that the 2007 election, against the expectation of some skeptics and no-do-gooders, did not lead to serious political crisis that would have derailed the entire process of nation building. It is in this light that the December 1, 2008 National Reception and Thanksgiving in Honour of Prof. Maurice Iwu is instructive. The ceremony which held at the Immaculate Conception Dioceses in Okigwe is a testimony of the gratitude Nigerians should have shown for a man who defied personal family tragedy and danger to his personal safety to give service to fatherland.

Considering the obstacles placed before Prof. Iwu, men of lesser courage would have chickened out and resorted to either postponing the election or even resigning from office. Either of these options would have denied Nigeria a golden opportunity to make history. But Maurice Iwu would have none of that. Thus, with a profound sense of history and character, he put aside his personal worries and tragedy to undertake an assignment he knew held the key to Nigeria’s place in the comity of nations.

Today we are all beneficiaries of that epochal transition. Therefore, when eminent and other well-meaning Nigerians from all ethnic groups joined with his home diocese to gather and say ‘thank you’, it was hailed by many as something long overdue. A few months ago, what Iwu gave to Nigeria in 2007 was called a ‘landmark transition’ by Bruce Fein, former assistant attorney general of United States, writing for the famed Washington Times.

By the sheer crowd of people that gathered-big and small; the great and the not-so great; the governed and the governors; clergy and traditional institutions; the influential and the commoner; home-based and Diasporan, there was no mistaking that at last the nation was beginning to realize the enormous contributions Maurice Iwu has made to a country he loves no less than those who find all fault and no good in what INEC achieved in 2007.

Therefore, considering everything else and Maurice Iwu’s never-say-die attitude in the face of the difficulties he and INEC overcame, it is time for other Nigerians to join those who honoured him in celebrating the man’s contributions to our democracy (and to society as a whole). And we can even go beyond that to take the public discourse to the man’s long history of stellar achievements. From a humble background, Maurice Iwu dared many odds to become a world-acclaimed scientist, with many patents to his name. This and the many other achievements he attained should form the next discourse. It is only when we do this that we can also begin to see the true Maurice Iwu, a man who, at his age, still has a lot to offer Nigeria at a higher calling. My Nigeria, our Nigeria needs to reap from this man’s great talents.

Danlami writes from the United States ibrahimdanlami@yahoo.com

MAURICE IWU AND THE GAMES IGBOS PLAY WITH THEIR MOST FAMOUS SONS

By: Dr. Yakubu Tsav

Before Nigeria gained freedom from the British, the Igbos of Nigeria were known to be the most dominant and united tribe in comparism to the Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani. The Igbos were so united that the party they led, the NCNC, was deemed to be the only one with some national spread. It came to pass that when the British left, the Igbos were still the most united and prepared group to dominate national affairs in Nigeria. Their unity of purpose helped them a great deal in controlling the pre-1967 Nigerian armed forces, national commerce, and even the federal civil service. I don’t believe that it is the same great Igbo, one of whom I am happily married to, that have lately turned upon one another in an ending frenzy of political self-cannibalism. They did it to Zik (NPN sell-out); did it to Ojukwu (by getting one Onwudiwe to ‘defeat’ him); they betrayed Ekwueme in Jos; produced too many Senate Presidents; and now they have turned their self-destructive gunsights to Professor Maurice Iwu, a man who much of Nigeria sees as Igbos’ most powerful son of the moment, like or not.

It is troubling that the Igbo bask in scattering into smaller groups that quarreled amongst themselves while other Nigerians are pulling together. They forget that the Yorubas faired better because they always stuck to Awolowo and the Hausa/Fulani stuck to Sardauna, even in death. Instead of banding behind Ojukwu when he returned, the Igbo conspired to procure one unknown Onwudiwe to ‘defeat’ the charismatic Ikemba in the Nnewi senatorial election. Since then, Nigerians have never heard of that Onwudiwe again, not to talk of while he was in the Senate. A disunited Igbo forgot that they would have gained a lot more if they had united to send Ojukwu to the senate at a time when other Nigerians either respected or feared him. It therefore goes without saying that the Yorubas would have never imagined rubbishing Awolowo in any contest that held national implications and the Hausa/Fulani would have done likewise for the still-revered Sardauna.

This whole sad drama knows no bounds, as it is now being extended to Professor Maurice Iwu, Igbo’s highest political office holder in Nigeria. If you doubt the vast reach of Professor Iwu’s power and influence, remember that he continues to retain a privileged access to the President and commander-in-chief. His access to the highest levers of federal power is guaranteed by his constitutional position as head of INEC. That means that he gets to see the President anytime he wishes. And under the constitution and the Electoral Act, the office Iwu occupies is imbued with a lot of authority. This is besides the intimidating international stature and access to the highest levels of power in the United States Iwu had attained before he accepted to serve in INEC.

Recall also that Professor Iwu was appointed by Obasanjo and being that Obasanjo was our last President, Iwu can still indirectly wield lots of power and influence through him. I don’t believe the self-delusional hype that Obasanjo is suddenly no longer in reckoning in political decisions of the present day when a vast number of powerful federal officials owe their emergence to his political patronage. Except for overthrown, deceased or impeached ex-presidents, a nation’s politics continues to be influenced awhile by its ex-president, especially one like OBJ whose political machine produced much of Nigeria’s current leaders, top to down. So, whether you like or not, Obasanjo is still a force to be reckoned with, and through him, Professor Iwu can, whenever he chooses, flex lots of political muscles of a national scale.

Other ways Professor Iwu can exert his influence and power is to turn to members of the National Assembly, all of whom owe their tenure to the transition Iwu midwifed (or eked out) in 2007. Same is true of the Governors and members of the Houses of Assembly in all the states of the federation. If you think about it, you will agree that this explains why those who sought removal of Iwu relented because they got feelers from the Senate that it would have been impossible to muster the majority the constitution required for removing the Professor.

It is as if the Igbo don’t know what other Nigerians have since known and that is: Professor Iwu is their supremo of the moment, possessing plenty of goodwill and national stature the Igbos can deploy to some political advantage. It therefore beats me why Igbos have chosen to continue to be blind to Iwu’s high potentials in favor of this bewildering pre-occupation with Iwu-rubbishing. You can see this from the so many anti-Iwu media reports sponsored by the Igbos themselves, especially some Igbos of Imo State where Iwu hails from. They seem not to have read the handwriting in the wall that Professor Iwu alone can muster the most power and leverage to reach across Nigeria to ensure that the additional state they crave so much will be created.

Take the constituency delineation exercise for instance. Last month, some group (from Ideato in Imo State) said to be comprised of mostly retirees, awaiting for their pension in the village and with no clue of current trends in national affairs were procured by a bitter, a non-Ideato ex-governor to sponsor anti-Iwu articles and paid advertorials. Their write-up was devoid of any concrete facts to support their position but was instead laden with rambling personal attacks on the person and office of Maurice Iwu. Many Nigerians I spoke with didn’t see any justification for blaming Iwu for a delineation plan that was long endorsed by Ideato’s elected representative in the federal house and its two members in the state house of assembly, besides other civic groups from Ideato which have since published their own more credible reasons in support of the new delineation plan.

Under the constitution, INEC (which Iwu heads) is empowered to carry out this exercise after every ten years. Professor Iwu is doing it almost two years late because, as I gathered, he did not want to overheat the polity so close to before or after the 2007 elections. The delineation exercise is a serious national affair that is not limited to the said Ideato constituency or even Imo state alone. But any uninformed observer reading the newspapers recently will believe erroneously that Professor Iwu singled out Imo State alone and its Ideato for delineation. So, it is puzzling that a small portion of Imo State is getting personal with Iwu on a matter upon which he has the constitutional duty to act and over which other sections of Nigeria have accepted his authority.

The technical committee Iwu set up on delineation made recommendations that affected the entire federation in terms of which federal constituency gains or loses LGAs. This comports with the constitutional requirement that federal constituencies be as equal as possible in population and number of LGAs. The rest of Nigeria similarly affected has since come to terms with this. Why is Imo State alone roiling and hauling unnecessary insults on Professor Iwu? Why is Ohaneze silent when Igbo’s most famous son of the moment is being harangued by all sorts of unknowns? Why the Imo Governor, a product of Iwu’s courageous umpiring of the Imo elections, is silent while his citizens are unleashing vituperations on Imo’s most highly placed federal official? Why is the Imo House of Assembly too cowed to pass a simple resolution to condemn this perfidy? Why are Igbos continuing to embarrass themselves in front of their fellow Nigerian compatriots? Why?

Dr. Tsav is a public affairs analyst ytsav@yahoo.com

IGBOEZUO STATE BEST REPRESENTS THE PARITY NIGERIANS INTENDED FOR SOUTHEAST

IGBOEZUO STATE BEST REPRESENTS THE PARITY NIGERIANS INTENDED FOR SOUTHEAST

BY: ALOY EJIMAKOR

Creation of a new state has always been a hot-button issue since the inception of Nigeria. The very first – the creation of two protectorates of North and South was by sheer colonial fiat and it was easier because the British did not care to have any local input. They figured it was not necessary anyway since they did it mainly for their own administrative convenience and to drive the colonial agenda of ‘divide and rule’.

The second, which split Nigeria into three large regions of East, West and North was done in some recognition that Nigeria comprised of three major nationalities (Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani). The British reckoned that the smaller nationalities will have to make do with co-existing with their larger neighbors. What emerged was a mixed federal-unitary system that mimicked the Union of England, Scotland and Ireland in the British homeland. That stuck for awhile despite the agitations by the various minority groups for their own separate regions.

The third, which led to the birth of the Midwest region (after independence) was largely driven by the then dominant NCNC which wanted to contain the Action Group through the creation of a region out of the Western Region. Some called it the Welsh of Nigeria – a fourth dimension of sorts to complete the mimicry of the ‘three-plus-one’ arrangement of the British homeland that included the Welsh as a fourth region.

The fourth creation of states (not regions anymore) was by Gowon in 1966 and it was targeted against the monolithic (read: separatist and feared) Eastern Region and their allies in the Midwest. Simply put, it was just meant to defeat the gathering secessionist drumbeats. To Gowon’s credit, the balance of power between the North and South was maintained in a 12-state structure.

The fifth by Murtala was meant to correct the imbalances and inequities (rightly or wrongly) of the harried creation done by Gowon and also to break up the regional power hegemons. Thus, greater considerations were given to balance between the large tribes and neo-minority enclaves; yet, somehow, the Igbo were left marginalized. That concluded the first wave of state creations by military fiat. The coming of Shagari brought a lull due to the constitutional restrictions on creation of more states. When Buhari came, he did not care, but Babangida and Abacha succumbed to political expediency by creating additional states. In both exercises, an attempt was made to reward the Igbos for past injustices, yet both regimes did not go far enough, thus resulting in the present persisting imbalance where the South East has the least states out of all the geopolitical zones in the country. Suffice it say that state creation, even when done on the basis of administrative convenience or political expediency, still tried to capture some common elements, mostly bordering on considerations of large populations and linguistic/ethnic homogeneity (South East, South West, and Far Northern States); minority self-determination (The Middle Belt States and the South-South); and parity of regions (North-South divide, tripod theories, and now ‘geopolitical parity’ or balance). Intra-cultural affinity/identity and some fuzzy considerations of contiguity are merely ancillary.

But most tellingly, there is no clear evidence that previous creation of states occurring within and amongst a homogeneous Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa/Fulani was based on any notion of intra-cultural affinity or separateness from the whole (as argued by promoters of Adada, Orashi, Aba and Orlu/Njaba). The reason is because these three major ethnic groups are assumed to be possessed of a single (undifferentiated) cultural identity. Any opposite postulation is a fallacy and bound to be divisive, if not unconvincing to the larger Nigerian community that must approve the request for a new state. The only two groups that had advanced such arguments in the past, with some marginal success, were the Okun Yoruba and the Ika Igbo; and even then, both have not succeeded in selling it as a compelling reason to be created as separate states. The Okuns are still in Kwara and Kogi States with others; ditto for the Ikas in Delta State. To now accept that Adada, Aba, Orashi or Orlu/Njaba deserve a separate state because they are suddenly culturally different from the rest of the Igbos will inflame the Okuns and Ikas to competition. And if they renew their demands, they will do so with reasons more compelling than the best arguments advanced yet by promoters of Adada, Aba, Orashi and Orlu/Njaba. In the end, ‘geopolitical parity’, which was the sole reason that swayed other Nigerians to agree for the Southeast to get one more state will be submerged under a plethora of many new demands from other sections of Nigeria, all to the point of gridlock and the certitude that in the denial of all, the Southeast will again be denied.

Therefore, the creation of an additional state in the South East will succeed only if it set aside considerations of ‘intra-cultural affinity’, flimsy stretches of differences from the whole or other sectarian arguments in favor of the more persuasive and sensible ‘geopolitical parity’ theory, best represented by the compelling case that the new state will comprise of swats of territories from all the existing states of the South East. Reason: This is (again) the only agitation in the history of state creation that is propelled by the collective desire of Igbos as a whole for an additional state and it was endorsed by the rest of Nigeria for that reason alone. That means that it is the only one that fits the current national temperament on state creation and thus stands ready to pass the difficult legislative muster of all the State Houses of Assembly in the federation.

To be sure, the demand was for one more state in the Southeast and it was never propelled by any of the ‘cultural affinity/contiguity’ arguments now advanced to justify the sectarian demand for Orashi, Adada, Orlu/Njaba or Aba state. What was presented was a pan-Igbo collective request for an additional state to bring South East to some par with the other geopolitical zones. And that was the single rationale that persuaded other Nigerians to sign on. Thus, to now allow some sectarian group to take the bacon home and keep it only for themselves will be tantamount to some sort of political fraud on the larger Igbo, if not the larger Nigeria that had contemplated otherwise.

The polarizing demands dusted up from closed history by patchy groups of Igbos, so desperate to be now recognized as culturally distinct from the rest of the Igbos, has long been deemed inferior to the greater force and merits of the ‘geopolitical parity’ theory. Reason: All well-meaning Igbos everywhere fear (with some historical justification) that if allowed to proliferate, the purveyors of this ‘we are separate’ arguments will again frustrate what was initially a ‘one-Igbo’ effort, split Igbos into bitter groups against one another and eventually create the scary situation where other Nigerians may withdraw their universal support and deny the Igbo while pointing to their famous (or infamous) disunity as the sole reason. Thus, the only viable option is to push for a new state that will be neutral and not one that will appear to be recognizing and rewarding the selfishness found in the demand for the creation of Adada, Aba, and Orlu/Njaba or Orashi states.

Ejimakor writes out of Washington DC alloylaw@yahoo.com

BEYOND 2007 ELECTIONS: FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINING DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA

Presentation by Honourable Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Maurice M. Iwu at the Department of Political Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. August 28, 2008.

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka has a proud record of contributions, both of ideas and human resources, in the development of the Nigerian state through the years. It was this University that successfully pioneered the concept of liberal studies as a component of scholarship and training in the Nigerian higher education system. The Institution has remained faithful to its founders’ vision that Universities must have an intellectual and social purpose by fostering creativity and responsiveness to change. The Department of Political science of the University, in particular, has given enviably of its intellectual and administrative capacity to the nation in the specific realm of nurturing electoral democracy as well as in the general sphere of building up the principles and practice of political development.

An invitation to me from the Department of Political Science of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka to speak at its 2008 annual lecture is indeed an honour. I am very appreciative of the invitation. {May I also thank the Vice Chancellor and the leadership of the University for the warm and fraternal welcome accorded me and my team on our arrival to the campus.}

For me, of course, an invitation from this University presents an opportunity to return once more to a community that I will always be a part of. I am happy to be back here. I should always be happy to be here in the fold of academia and intellectuals within the university environment, for this very community, in every wholesome and memorable sense of the word is and will always remain a home for me.

This very fact comes with an inherent implication; a home is not only where the heart is, it is where candour reigns. Home is where one speaks from the heart and harbours no fears of meanings being read into comments. Even for the quintessential diplomat home is usually not the place for the practice of diplomacy. Home is where we speak with kindred spirits, with the family. Home is where we confront reality and the truth. And this, my friends and colleagues is what I have come back home today for us to do; to face reality and speak to ourselves with candour.

In the last three years I have intermittently returned to the universities to raise critical issues about our state of being as a society. I have done so consciously, not only because I feel naturally free and at home within the academic community, but also because I appreciate the depth of the fountain and repository of multi-disciplinary knowledge that can be found in the campuses, knowledge and ingenuity that our society is yet to tap fully from; brilliant faculties and minds that have over time being pushed by neglect and relegation into developing doubts about their very potency.

I return home to the universities to discuss because of my abiding belief that the academia must, as of necessity, be drawn into the full dissection of our national problems and the quest for meaningful solutions to these problems if we are to post any real progress.

The need for the academia and the intellectual guarding lights of the Nigerian society to face the reality of the contemporary society and undertake a profound review of the state of the nation with a view to altering and rechanneling the ethos, the energy and the popular tendencies in the society has become urgent and imperative. We can no longer afford the luxury of waiting for the usual knowledge spill-over from academia to the larger Nigerian society if the universities must continue to play its part in contributing to the vision of a cultured and competitive Nigeria in the post-modern era. My dear colleagues, I have ventured out there in the wilderness of Nigerian politics, the hydra-headed monster does indeed exist and could consume us all.

This need is not informed by any record of diminution in the varied talents and vibrant spirit of enterprise in the Nigerian. Indeed, in terms of enterprise and creativity, the Nigerian spirit remains aloft. The prospects of the Nigerian state rising in due course to attain its full potentials as a political and economic giant remain substantially bright. As a matter of fact, in the last decade, with the return to the path of democratic governance, Nigeria has recorded monumental strides and incremental progress in various spheres of its national life. With more policy stability and avoidance of the temptation to perennially pull down what is already in existence only to commence similar new projects, there is no doubt that the nation will be on a firmer foundation for systemic development.

However, even with this recognition of the resilience of the Nigerian spirit and enterprise which has resulted in some growth in some sectors of our national affairs, the reality on the other hand is that the predominant values and thrust of social relationship and conduct within the Nigerian society are at the moment too wayward for the common good.

Our society is presently being sucked into a maelstrom of social and political disorientation and worse still, there does not seem to be any appropriate concern or response for stemming the grave tide. If we cannot have an underlining political ideology, we should at least strive to nurture and ensure a body of social principles through which the society can have order and regenerate itself.

The declaration that “today, we must choose what aspect of our way of life we will defend, modify or jettison”[1] seems very apt for the Nigerian situation against the backdrop of the value disorder and excesses which adversely affect our politics and every other aspect of our social relationship. The need to build a new framework for sustainable social growth in our nation is indeed apparent.

Pulling a society away from destructive existential tendencies and pointing the way to enduring values and philosophies of human enhancement have always being the forte of the academia and the intellectuals - “mind managers” in such focused and sober settings as the universities and research institutes.

Alas, the present within the Nigerian society seems progressively disengaged from the past and all that which used to offer hope for a future worth looking forward to. Thus has it become that in place of studied supply of new ideas and solutions to problems that retard the advancement of the society, even the community of academics and intellectuals have found themselves succumbing to the easy penchant for finger pointing and name calling, tendencies which hardly ever elevate, either the individual or the society. Meanwhile, the problems we perennially bemoan remain unaddressed.

It is very doubtful that any modern society can post real progress in a setting in which thinkers and the academia have been consigned to neglect and despondency, with their place hijacked by sundry charlatans and poseurs who reduce everything to gratification of material desire?
Unfortunately, many in the rank of the academia have resigned to a fate of dormancy and repudiated as it were, the inclination to rigour in appraising issues which is second nature to their calling. In place of the profundity that used to be the hallmark of the academic in interpreting issues, quite a number from this class have jumped strangely into the same wagon with the tribe of the base and the uninformed, known more for parroting unsubstantiated stories and recycling banalities more than looking at issues beyond the surface.

Such a setting leaves the society poorer in the general appreciation of real meaning and undercurrent of crucial issues in the public domain. How far can a society go in an environment in which the line between the intellectual and the mundane is getting increasingly blurred?
In returning home today for this discussion, I come for us to reflect and appreciate the challenge of the moment for the academia in Nigeria and for the larger Nigerian society.

The academia and the community of thinkers in our society presently stand at a juncture where they must have to ask themselves a basic question, not about any esoteric subject but about their very essence in the scheme of Nigeria’s struggle to find meaning and order in its national existence.

The notion that the reign of ideas is in the past and that the present belongs to crass mercantilism, to speculators and to carpetbaggers speak not of the tragedy of the moment but of a most worrisome future for our society. Such a notion must be countered most vigorously. But to do that requires commitment and a return to rigour of analysis, to critically looking at issues and event beyond their facade, and to having the strength and honesty to stand even alone if need be, to counter falsehood and propaganda often foisted on the society by individuals with selfish motive.

The 2007 General Elections lifted Nigeria to a pedestal it had never attained – that of a stable democracy, even if to a degree. Having for the first time achieved a successful transition from one democratically elected government to another – something that had eluded the country for so long, but is now easily dismissed by some as nothing - the nation can now move with confidence to address the crucial matter of developing a framework for sustainable democracy.
Almost a decade now after the nation returned to a system of democratic governance with the freedom and space that offers, the academia and the intellectuals must regain the confidence to play the lead role of articulating and enunciating the principles and values standards on which the wheels of social conducts must revolve. The academia must hasten to overcome the hangover of decades of dictatorship imposed on the land by military regimes.[2]

It goes without saying of course, that such a discourse on how to build an enduring framework for sustaining democracy would not have arisen in the first place if the nation had stumbled once more and failed to meet the crucial test of viability of its democracy which the 2007 elections presented.

Now that it can be said with a measure of confidence and assurance that democracy has returned to stay in Nigeria, the critical question is; where do we go from here? What should be the character and underlying structure of democracy in Nigeria? What social values does it articulate at large? How should it function organizationally, legally and behaviourally? How can it be an effective social process? As Professor Lumumba-Kasonga puts it[3]: ‘What kind of democracy can be socially and economically progressive, philosophically and ideologically relevant, and technologically appropriate in Africa? And, how can such a democracy be produced?

The most worrisome feature of the contemporary Nigerian society is not so much the shortcomings in policies and lapses of institutional operations, but a rather strange incapacitating inability of the society to take meaningful steps to address perceived problems and subsequently erect better foundation for a different and better future.
Nations as living organisms must experience problems, what defines a nation in the face of difficulties is what it does and how it responds to problems.

A resort to finger pointing and name calling such as has become common in Nigeria when confronted with a problem often speaks of lack of imagination and will to tackle problems.
At the beginning of the second quarter of 2007, Nigeria went to the polls in a scheduled General Election that presented a major test to the country’s capacity and readiness to sustain a democratic system.

The 2007 elections as is well documented were confronted with serious problems that were at once political, legal, environmental, structural and logistics.[4] But the nation met the challenge of the elections and pulled through in spite of monumental odds.
Among the problems that confronted the 2007 elections, there were;
(a) The question of the right of the Electoral Commission to vet the documents of candidates for the various elections and determine who did not meet the Constitutional requirement for standing for an election in Nigeria. The Constitution is very clear on the criteria under which a citizen will not qualify to contest for an office. The Electoral Commission which administers the elections of course has the responsibility to verify the claims of the candidates to determine who met the standard or not.

In the 2007 elections, the right of the Commission to perform this line of duty was challenged in the court. The Court of Appeal upheld the right and responsibility of the Commission to continue along the line of duty. On April 16, 2007, four days to the Presidential election, the Supreme Court countered the ruling of the Appeal Court and declared that the Commission did not have the right to determine who was qualified to contest in an election.

As at the time of the Supreme Court ruling, state elections comprising governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections had been conducted and it was barely four days to the presidential election. With the Supreme Court ruling, if a foreigner submits papers to contest an election in the country in the future and no one goes to court to challenge the candidature, the Commission will be in no position to do anything even if it knows that the aspirant is a foreigner.This, however, should be left for the future to tackle.

The immediate implication of the April 16 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court was for the Commission to embark on the printing of a new set of 64 million ballot papers for the presidential election in four days. The Commission had intended accommodate the image of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the logo of his party by pasting them on the already printed ballot papers, but in the heated and suspicion-infested atmosphere leading to the election the Commission had learnt, including from some of the so-called foreign observer groups that such adjustment will be considered an uneven playing ground. Thus did the Commission embark upon and succeed in printing 64million brand new ballot papers in four days.

(b) Successfully printing 64million ballot papers is of course, one thing. Distributing them across the over 200,000 polling units across the country is another matter entirely. Here, arose another major challenge for the election. But thanks to the various services of the Nigerian Armed Forces, with the kind approval of the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, President Olusegun Obasanjo, the ballot papers were distributed. The enormity of this task can better be appreciated perhaps in the fact that some patriotic service men perished in an air crash in the early morning of the election day while setting out on the assignment to distribute the election materials.

(c) There is, of course, the matter of the political parties and the internal democracy or lack of it within them. The process through the parties select their candidates as the law provides it, are outside the control of the Commission. These processes constitute what is referred to as internal affairs of the parties.

Within the ambience of these internal affairs as it turned out, not few undemocratic things were done. The primaries through which the candidates were picked were in many instances subverted and replaced with rather hazy and contentious parameters which relieved those who ought to have won of their prospect and hoisted some who could not have won.

In an effort to avoid the chaos which had marked the substitution of candidates by political parties in previous elections, the Commission had succeeded through the new 2006 Electoral Act in having a clear and definite time line for such substitution. Even at this, many of the party leaderships could not bring themselves to comply with the law without seeking even surreptitious means to substitute candidates after the expiration of the deadline.

In a nutshell, party administration in the country in the period leading to the 2007 elections constituted a no mean problem for the management of the election. In many of the parties also, there were serious internal divisions and wrangling which boiled over from internal affairs to potential threats to the smooth flow of the electoral process.

Although the political space had been amply expanded, with fifty political parties being in existence as at the time of the election, many of the parties still had leadership tussles .These tussles often stemmed from personality conflict and struggle for control of party machinery and resources rather than disagreement over issues or ideology.

As is apparent, ideology and underpinning philosophy have little or no place in the politics and political parties of the present era. The parties are either personality tied or interest-based, no more no less. This situation presents its own problem for the political system and the electoral process, as no party could claim before the electorate that it was offering any manifesto distinct from the next party.

It is not difficult therefore to see why and how the politicians kept floating from one party to another without qualms. It is, afterall, a matter of where a politician is able to negotiate a better patronage for himself and “his people” – a euphemism for a politician and himself.

(d) Because the parties did not have distinct beliefs and ideologies, they found it difficult to have selling points before the electorate. This affected voter education – a duty assigned by the Electoral Act to political parties and the Commission. Now, if the electorate did not have any clear idea of what one party represented as distinct from the other, it is obvious that the parties did not expect to win by convincing the people.

This situation presents a clue to the foundation of the subversion of elections through either material inducement or deceit which many of the parties and candidates can be accused of. A framework for a new and sustainable democratic order simply has to repudiate this old order and replace it with a more wholesome system that will place premium on what a party is offering and that which makes it different from the rest. Fifty political parties just cannot believe in the same thing. If they do, then there is no logic for the multiplication of one into fifty, our belief in liberalizing the political space notwithstanding.

(e) As crisis within political parties go, that in the fold of the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP) presented the biggest threat for the nation and the preparations for the 2007 elections. The split between an incumbent President and his Vice had never been experienced in Nigeria’s eventful political history.

The irreconcilable difference in the Presidency which saw the exit of Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar from the government and the ruling party was bound to present additional burden to the management of the 2007 elections. Although Alhaji Abubakar had earlier been indicted by a government White paper, a development which automatically excluded him from contesting for president, his determination to contest all the same raised further challenge in managing the election. Could the Commission have ignored the Government White Paper and the reminder from the relevant law enforcement offices in the land concerning the provisions of the Constitution on those who were barred by law from contesting for public offices?

Was the Commission also in a position to pick and choose which Government White paper it should comply with and which one it should ignore? Put in another way, when is a Government White paper not qualified to be what it is meant to be? It was, of course, up to the judiciary to decide on the issue and the Supreme Court eventually gave Alhaji Abubakar the leave to contest which he did.

(f) The externalization of the 2007 general Elections for reasons that were more selfish than patriotic presented another major challenge for the management of the process. Even before the actual election commenced, a legion of foreign groups parading themselves as observer teams had been procured and arrayed, breathing down the Commission and seeking literally to point the way they prefer for the elections. One group had the temerity to ask for a copy of the national register which in its new format contain the finger print and biometrics of all registered voters in the country.

Yet another offered a heavy sum to the Commission to assist it in conducting the election. When this kind offer was not accepted, because we insisted that Nigeria has the resources to pay for the conduct of its elections, the good Samaritans took offence and never forgave the Commission.
Side by side with the army of so-called foreign observers were their local equivalents, a motley crowd of emergency civil society groups and programmed non governmental organizations whose primary mandate was to tackle the Electoral Commission and present the electoral process as flawed even as it was still fine-tuning the process for the elections.

How far can citizens go in undermining their own country for the sake of wining power? Where should the quest for personal gratification end and the consideration for national interest take over? Who was paying for the hordes of so-called election observers that thronged to Nigeria for the 2007 elections and what was the motive? The dynamics of the 2007 elections and the peculiar problems that confronted the conduct of the elections present clear outline for the foundation of a new framework for sustaining democracy in Nigeria. There were various other structural and environment problems which managing the 2007 elections contended with.

There was, for instance, the issue of timely release of already appropriated funds for the elections. For a long time in the course of preparing for the elections, the Commission was engaged in an awkward battle with the agency in the Ministry of Finance which in the name of ensuring due process was determined as it were, to delay every procurement schedule for the election. The larger society did not seem to care while the wrangling went on about the import of such delay in meeting the logistics plan of the exercise.

Then there is the far reaching structural issue of the relationship between the Commission and the Resident Electoral Commissioners. These key officials in the management of the electoral process in the country are appointed by the President to whom they owe their allegiance.
The Resident Electoral Commissioners operate within the Commission, but strictly speaking they are independent of the Chairman and the Commission. They are at the helm of affairs in the offices of the Commission in the states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. They conduct elections in the states and an election result announced by them cannot be altered by the Commission or its leadership. Only an Election Tribunal can tamper with an already declared election result. But these officers who represent the Commission in a most critical dimension cannot be sanctioned or relieved of their office by the Commission.

The worst that can be done to a Resident Electoral Commissioner is that he will be moved from one state to another. However, the Commission and its leadership are held responsible for whatever the performances of Resident Electoral Commissioners are in the conduct of election across the states. Such is the curious structure. In the months leading to the elections in 2007, the Commission had repeatedly called attention to issues it identified as problems in the environment of elections in the country. These issues were categorized under four broad heading;
(i) Excessive use of money in politics. This phenomenon has continued to subvert both the will of the people and efforts to establish a level playing field in electoral contests.
(ii) Threat and actual presence of violence in elections
(iii) Gender inequity in effective political participation and
(iv) Badly skewed mindset of Nigerians about elections.

Did these factors both collectively and individually exert adverse impact on the 2007 elections? The answer is of course, yes. Indeed, much of the problems which dog elections in Nigeria whether in 2007 or prior to that are hinged on these identified environment problems.
But how have the society and its various social observatory groups and institutions such as the media, the civil society groups and the academia perceived and responded to the existence of these negative factors in the political environment?

There is very little evidence that there is yet any concerted concern for these issues, not even from the larger society that is often bearing the brunt of the problems. When the situation exerts adverse impact on elections as they are bound to do, however, the society tends to express surprise and disapproval. Sooner or later as it often turns out, the Electoral Commission is held responsible for not ensuring a flawless election. How far can a society go with such insensitivity to core problems confronting its aspiration for development?
The Declaration on criteria for free and Fair Elections as articulated and adopted by the Inter-Parliamentary Council at its 154 Session in Paris in 1994[5] is quite clear and was not in any material sense breached by the conduct of the 2007 elections.

One year and four months after the 2007 elections, contentions and counterclaims pertaining to the elections still constitute major subject of public discourse in the country. Viewed from a positive perspective, it is well that the citizenry is interested enough and engaged in the system to keep alive an election of almost one and a half year ago. Viewed critically however, much of the discussions till going on about the 2007 elections are as shallow and bereft of analytical depth as they are unhelpful to a better future for the country and its electoral democracy. It is not a matter of keeping a matter in public focus; it should be a matter of what is being discussed and how these address the core issues and problems that have consistently impaired the progress of the nation in the scheme of development.

The temptation for democracy to be seen as a seasonal event and for elections to be viewed as periodic opera staged intermittently to enthral the society till the next round of public performance seems to inhabit much of the present discussion on the 2007 election.
Nothing can be more unhelpful if not dangerous for the long term sustainability of democracy in the country than the present proclivity to deny glaring problems and resort instead to finger pointing and bandying of propaganda lines thrown up by partisan groups.

Now that Nigeria has broken the jinx of democratic transition from one elected government to another, the challenge of developing a grounded framework for sustaining democracy in the country should commence with candour and sincerity of purpose. This is a national undertaking that will be as embracive as it should be thorough and gradual. It is not a task for one session of law making or for one workshop. Today it can be said with renewed confidence that democracy has recorded remarkable progress with the success of the 2007 elections. To appreciate the basic challenges that must be met to set democracy on a solid and sustainable foundation in Nigeria and to move thereafter to evolve a new set of values and norms on which the wholesome new order will rest should now be the focus.

One of the good features of liberal democracy as the scholar Antonoio Codeville postulated is that “it depends on the character of the people” and “the people’s character depends so substantially on how they freely choose to mold it”[6].That is to say, the character of Nigeria’s democracy depends essentially on what Nigerians want it to be. The pretension by some that the character of the present democracy in Nigeria is different from the character of the society or that a select few super humans have the capacity to twist the character of the Nigerian democracy is at best an attempt to avoid the reality.

The total absence of ideology and principle in contemporary Nigerian politics; the abdication by the citizenry of their primary responsibility of choosing the best candidates and sticking with them even when they are not handy enough to distribute money and material inducements during campaigns; the awkward institutional arrangement that still finds the Electoral Commission arguing and pleading for its funding to be released for its operations; the unrestricted ceiling of expenditure during campaigns; the ready willingness of individuals and groups to be recruited by foreign interest for the purpose of undermining public institutions; the mindset of an average Nigerian politician and even voter that election cannot be won unless it is bought; the corrosive corrupt tendency that manifests in ad-hoc electoral officers seeing elections as opportunity to rake in money from unconscionable politicians; the practice of public officers in government using the resources and might of the public station to advance their political interest; the apparent willingness and readiness of a broad section of the media to be bought over during election by the highest bidder, whatever the source of the money may be, the continued perception and indeed actual interpretation of political offices as easy source of wealth – these are still prevailing expressions of the character of democracy and elections in Nigeria. These represent the character and dominant tendencies within the Nigerian society of the day. These are the factors that informed the description of the Nigerian situation as ‘Voting without choosing’[7].

A new framework for sustaining democracy in the Nigerian society must methodically tackle these tendencies that adversely affect the process and system of electing leaders and governments. For the society to accommodate and often promote glaringly unwholesome values and inclinations in its citizens and social conducts and turn round to expect that its democracy will have a different texture is the worst form of delusion. The legal framework for the conduct of elections must as of necessity change. The rules guiding elections; who should contest and who is not qualified to contest must be clear and firm. While the outcome of an election must not be certain before the polls, the rules for the contest must be clear and well known ahead of time.

With the benefit of the experience of re-run elections in the wake of the 2007 General Election, the time may have come for Nigeria to adopt the system of staggered elections. Such an arrangement not only ensures better focus and optimal application of standard in the conduct of elections, it reduces the logistics challenge attendant to the conduct of a general election at fell swoop in a country as vast as Nigeria.

Above all, a new value system and sense of civic responsibility must consciously to nurture to propel the framework that will sustain democracy in Nigeria. This is not a matter of establishing new and parallel structures of state. It is a matter of sincerity of purpose that will take a combination of forces and initiatives; of government, the academia, the media and sundry institutions of change, acting on an accepted plank of re-orientation and genuine determination to make sacrifice and build a new order.

Creativity has no boundary. If Nigeria is blessed with the spirit of enterprise and determination, it can turn this to positive end. It is my belief that deconstructing and restructuring electoral democracy in Nigeria must not stop at the paradigmatic and policy assumptions and analysis, and even of their implications but should lay the framework of inventing alternatives. It is for this reason that INEC established The Electoral Institute to underscore the need to train professional election administrators; this is what has informed our introduction of technology in our electoral process, and it is the same reason that has encouraged the Commission to embark on a project that will lead to a fair and equitable delimitation of constituencies. The achievement of the 2007 General Elections has released a fresh verve and opportunity that must not be lost. This is the time to raise a new framework for the better future we yearn for. There is no segment of our society that is better equipped than the universities to reconstruct the road map for the new Nigeria. That is why I am here.

Thank you.

Nsukka, August 28, 2008.

[1] Codevilla Angelo M. (1977); The Character of Nations. Basic Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers
[2] Iwu Maurice(2006);Democracy and Constitutional Governance in Nigeria: Paradox of the excluded Middle. 5th distinguished faculty of Social Science Public Lecture, University of Benin



[3] Lumumba-Kasonga Tukumbi (2005) The problematics of liberal democracy and democratic process: lessons for deconstructing and building African democracies. In: Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasonga (Ed.) Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa. Dakar, CODESRIA Press. P.1-25.
[4] The Official Report of the 2007 General Elections. INEC,Abuja.Page 10
[5] Goodwin-Gill (2006);Free and Fair Elections.Inter-Parliamentary Union, Geneva
[6] Codevilla Angelo M. (1977); The Character of Nations. Basic Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers
[7] Alade Fawole, W. (2005), Voting without choosing: interrogating the crisis of ‘electoral democracy’ in Nigeria In: Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasonga (Ed.) Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa. Dakar, CODESRIA Press. P.149-171.

MONITORING THE ELECTORAL REFORM DEBATE FROM WASHINGTON

By: Ibrahim Danlami

Contrary to the misconception held by some of our home-based compatriots, it is not true that the Nigerian Diaspora is clueless on events unfolding back home in Nigeria. Some of us have had to argue to the contrary each time this popular (or is it notorious) misconception is offered as reason to shut the Nigerian Diaspora out of the Nigerian public discourse, especially of the political kind. Notwithstanding the quantum evidence to the contrary, however, the misconception persists and is wont to succeed sometimes in actually caging some Diasporans from daring to make any public contributions to many of Nigeria’s public debates. But if you go to the Blogs or other internet media, you will see a robust interplay of ideas spewing from many Diasporans of fine intellect and depth. Lately, one of the many issues that seemed to have attracted much talk amongst many in the United States where I live is the one dealing with electoral reforms in Nigeria.

Yes, electoral reforms and their garden varieties came to the fore recently in Atlanta USA in mid-July when Maurice Iwu was there to address a symposium of Diasporans of differing political hues. I was there to listen, observe and gauge the Diasporan pulse. I am aware that others present have written on it, including accurate and objective accounts by a Wale Odusote, Seyi Oduyela and a live presentation by Professor Okafor, all of whom have covered topical issues like the vexed matters of ‘Diaspora voting rights’ and ‘Diaspora set-asides’. But the two subject areas that continue to predominate have to do with ways and means of getting our politicians to play fair – for once; and making the current crop of electoral commissioners (or the INEC leadership) a valuable and practical part of the reform process. In plain terms, it means that anyone still hounding Maurice Iwu and INEC as if they are the problems Nigeria has with her electoral blues is missing the point. And what’s the point? The point is that Nigerian elections will surely become better when politicians decide that it is time to truly respect the rules of civilized political contest; and for Nigeria to reduce the overriding influence of money in our politics – as Maurice Iwu has been recommending.

For most of us who continue to observe how this whole drama is playing out, there is no escaping the plain truth that the singular corrupting influence on elections comes from politicians (especially the overambitious moneybags), not the hapless umpire, who unfortunately becomes the fall guy for all manners of trumped-up ills with the electoral process. Blaming the umpire is analogous to purveying the fallacy that River Niger now flows from the direction of the South to the North instead of the settled scientific truth of the otherwise. On the electoral pedestal, the place of the Nigerian politician is, metaphorically speaking, northerly while that of the umpire is southerly. Simple as that. Electoral umpires everywhere (not just Nigeria) are simply not empowered by any means, whether by any lapses in the current law or any vaunted capacity for mischief, to just decide who prevails or fails by sheer fiat. Though in plain view, Maurice Iwu took pains to make this point in Atlanta when he charged that prominent politicians made aggressive moves to buy the elections before the first ballots were cast but that they were rebuffed. One newspaper had untruthfully reported that Iwu had said that the elections were bought - lock, stock and barrel. I was present in Atlanta and I never heard any such thing coming out of Iwu’s mouth. He added though that he had warned the nation about it at the time. After the symposium, I took time to research back issues of Nigerian newspapers and I found that Iwu was rock solid credible on all fours. Now, when a nation’s top electoral umpire says such things, all well-meaning Nigerians (not just the fabled ‘stakeholders’) are supposed to take a pause and do a re-think. He wore the shoe and he sure knew where it pinched.

Therefore, I find it illogical to believe that our national umpires might have gone round the country plotting with some politicians to cook the results. To believe that they did, then you have to also believe that Maurice Iwu and INEC (as a whole) ‘conspired differently’ with PDP, ANPP, AC, PPA, etc and ‘delivered’ their candidates piecemeal in the different precincts where each party had prevailed, including some isolated anti-PDP ‘conspiracy’ to deliver Senator Osakwe against the all-powerful PDP Chairman Ahmadu Ali for whom Maurice Iwu and INEC were alleged to be working for. Incredible. If any such moves were made, it is plausible that it was the politicians themselves (who had so much at stake) that might have gone wild jockeying to corrupt the umpires. It must have been so because it comports with the natural order of (warped) human political behavior – the sort that compels men to try to win at all costs. Think of all the revelations of match fixing, whether in the sphere of Nigerian or any international sports. What we know as true wherever some fixing was alleged is that some team or its manager went around at night trying to corrupt the umpire or referee; or that some rapacious bookmaker peddled some undue influence in order to make a buck or two through some corrupt means of distorting the natural odds. I have not heard of the other kind where some soccer referee was the one looking for takers for his grand designs to sell a game. Again, think of the direction we all know River Niger to be flowing.

It is time we Nigerians began to tell each other some home and unpleasant truths. One truth is that it is becoming harder to believe that Maurice Iwu alone sat down and ‘rigged’ all the winning politicians (of different parties) into power. If he did, surely one of his commissioners would have by now become rattled enough to turn whistleblower, all with the quaint prospects that such a person will certainly become an instant Nigerian (and international) celebrity. I believe Nigeria currently has twelve national electoral commissioners and thirty-six Resident Electoral Commissioners (at the executive level); and several hundreds of top civil service grade electoral staff (permanent and ad-hoc). It strains credulity, therefore, that all these fine folks will continue to remain silent and protect what is not supposed to be a secret anymore had such a plan been hatched for real. Come on, give me a break. How can anyone hatch an iron-clad secret amongst thousands of fidgety and harried electoral officials and expect that it will forever remain a secret even when a small group of soldiers (trained to keep secrets) cannot even maintain the secrecy of a coup plan. Unbelievable.

The Nigerian Diasporan that I know continues to have confidence in the Uwais-led effort to reform the electoral process. But I must hasten to state our disappointment with the bizarre contributions coming from some of the members of the committee who continue to miss the point of the whole exercise by abusing the hallowed halls of the Committee to be witch-hunting INEC and Maurice Iwu. As a nation, Nigeria is a continuum and so are her institutions and systems. To illustrate, you cannot reform the Nigerian judiciary by throwing out the entire judicial leadership. You can only do that in a revolution, though the military didn’t even try. The same is true for the many other national institutions of cohesion and continuity such as the armed forces. Why are we not calling for the firing of the service chiefs because of some perception that the militancy in the Niger Delta persists; or why are we not also accusing them of even procuring the militancy? We are not - simply because it is not reasonable to do so; yet in the realm of elections, we can count on disgruntled and duplicitous politicians to point us to the wrong direction – smoking mirrors and River Niger suddenly changing course to flow from the South to North. Don’t believe the hype.

So, for many of us in the Diaspora, it comes down to these. INEC is an institution of national cohesion, continuity, and stability. Thus, it should be one of the few institutions that deserve some stability in its leadership cadres and urgently so. Nigeria has experimented with this ad-hoc chairmanship arrangement for far too long and it is not working. That is one of the reforms we need. Experience counts for something and whether anyone of us likes Maurice Iwu or not, three more things you can never take away from the lanky professor are guts, patriotism and the most credit for keeping Nigeria on an even keel when it mattered most. Further, we need to be mindful of the ignoble place of Nigerian politicians in the whole scheme of things and tell them to get their act together; or better still, tell them off. Maybe, it is time for our politicians to start talking of fielding fewer parties that will be big (and serious) enough to take on a dominant party like the PDP. Or, Nigeria may have to change the laws to statutorily sunset any political party that fails to return a victory at the polls.

Bruce Fein, a former assistant Attorney General of United States, writing in the Washington Times of July 15, 2008, called the 2007 elections ‘landmark’; and he ably contradicted the crass celebration of tribunal nullifications as some indictment of Iwu/INEC by referring to the bizarre verdict in the Abia governorship case. I agree with Attorney Fein and also with the proposition that Nigeria gained lots of mileage in 2007. Therefore, those that made it happen must be made part of any process designed to make it better the next time around.

Ibrahim Danlami wrote in from the US ibrahimdanlami@yahoo.com

IN ATLANTA, IWU CARRIED THE DAY WITH HIS CONSTITUENCY DELIMITATION

By: WALE ODUSOTE

I have had cause to write about Maurice Iwu of INEC but I have never met him in person. Normally, I would not write about a subject or a person with whom I have never had a personal contact of some sort. But in Maurice Iwu’s case, I broke custom and wrote about him anyway because the issue at the time concerned me as much it concerned any other Nigerian out here in the Diaspora. The issue had to do with the legal challenge to Iwu’s tenure based on the notion that he lost his rights to hold high office in Nigeria because of his status as a naturalized US citizen. My main theme of my essay, which was (generously) published in the nigeriavillagesquare.com and other Blogs/Newspapers, was that the suit against Iwu held serious negative legal implications for the entire Nigerian Diaspora. If Iwu had lost, all Diasporans would have been collectively imperiled. But the man fought back and hard; and just about a few weeks ago, the verdict came down in favor and I breathed a sigh of relief – for myself, my fellow Diasporans and for our children.

Now I have cause to write about Maurice Iwu again and this time I am doing so after actually meeting him in person for the very first time. Meeting the man was not by happenstance but by design. This is how it happened. Just a few days ago, I got a mail from one Nigerian group out in Atlanta bearing the missive that Maurice Iwu is in town – in Atlanta, and would be a guest at a Symposium to discuss Diasporan input in the ongoing electoral reforms (including issues relating to constituency delimitation and Diasporan voting rights). To cut a long story short, I contacted some airlines and was able to get a re-eye booking that took me to Atlanta in time enough for me to attend the event at the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead, suburbs of Atlanta on July 15, 2008. The event started around noon and several Nigerians were present, including the Consul-General of Nigeria in Atlanta, members of NIDO-A, US-based Nigerian Journalists, etc. Presentations were made by several folks, including ones by Professor Okafor and Professor Maurice Iwu himself. There was talk that a certain Femi Ajayi was billed to be present to make a presentation but he never showed up.

Professor Okafor did talk of the pressing need for general reforms in Nigeria’s electoral regime but, by and large, he seemed to have a special passion for Diaspora voting rights. On this, he suggested many novel means and I had a feeling that he researched his subject well and the audience came out better informed on the finer points of the topic. After him, Professor Iwu proceeded with the keynote presentation of the day – mostly speaking without prepared notes which made him appear very credible and conversant with all the issues he touched on, ranging from the challenges INEC had to face, the misunderstood role of tribunals in the electoral process, constituency delimitation, affirmative action for women in politics, the need for journalistic balance in reporting Nigerian issues in international media (Blogs especially), Diaspora voting rights, etc. Professor Iwu was very clear on many things he said but one issue upon which he appeared to be most passionate was the one dealing with constituency delimitation or redistricting. His unambiguous postulate that the constituencies in the Federation of Nigeria must, as far as possible, reflect equal or proportional representation captured the imagination of all present. And it is not abstract because other democracies like the United States are known to do the same. Distinguish that from gerrymandering which carries the prospects of political disadvantage; and some people have even argued that constituency delimitation of the past was some sort of gerrymandering – in the sense that proportional representation was least considered, if at all.

After their presentations, questions and comments were allowed from us in the floor. But due to pressure of time and the sheer number of those who wanted to ask questions/make comments, not everyone was able to get a slot to make his own contribution. But those who did pretty much reflected the common and general views of those who didn’t get recognized to speak. I figured this from gauging the demeanor and expressions of many who either nodded their concurrence with points made or just vehemently shook their heads in disagreements. All in all, Nigerians were in their best elements as everyone made clear attempts to be constructive and avoid unnecessary forays into irrelevancies and personal attacks. Much to the credit of the organizers, the moderator – Udejiofor and Maurice Iwu’s engaging personality, the general atmosphere was very intellectual, serious-minded and patriotic.

The first floor speaker praised Iwu for his evident (and thankless) hard work in delivering on the 2007 transition; the second speaker marveled at the difficult conditions and inadequate institutional arrangements under which INEC had to operate and deliver on an election without which Nigeria could have lagged; the third (a young lady from Southwest Nigeria) thanked Iwu profusely but wanted to know more on what concrete steps are being taken to assure participation of women in the political process; the fourth (a US-based Nigerian journalist) who confessed that he had been critical of Iwu/INEC in the past ventured that having met Iwu for the first time and listening to him speak is now likely to get him to change his mind. He was bold and objective and he promised to expand on his thesis on electoral reforms and forward to Iwu/Reform Panel in due course. This journalist also advised Iwu to carry his message to the Nigerian people at the local levels in order to properly inform and counteract any negative stereotypes that may have been spun on Iwu/INEC.

Just like the journalist, I too was meeting Iwu for the first time and I also experienced a sort of baptism of fire – in the sense that Iwu was able to (finally) convince me of his sincerity and the hard work INEC brought to bear in Nigeria in the past year. His thesis on constituency delimitation was unassailable. Iwu is right that the last constituency delimitation by the military did not reflect the true physical distribution of population densities across Nigeria. And it seemed that minority nationalities, metropolitan areas and women may have been robbed. Some political justice and fair play beckoned – thanks to Iwu’s pioneering work in these regards. He even ventured a set aside for women – to assure that their greatest numbers possible is captured into the process. He was also right that after twelve long years, Nigeria was ripe for constituency delimitation and the Constitution even mandated as such. In this season of constitutional amendment, there couldn’t have been a better time for Iwu to bring this fundamental issue into the fore.

Finally, Maurice Iwu’s openness to suggestions and criticisms was admirable and his patriotism was ram-rod and clear. He also exuded lots of creativity and real-world smarts that Nigeria needs if we are serious about taking our democracy to the next level.

Thus, I came out of the symposium hugely enriched, better informed, and less critical of a man who has worked so hard for Nigeria but seemed to have been misunderstood by many who never took the time to go beyond the barrage of negative press that was unleashed on Nigeria’s 2007 historic transition even before the first ballots were cast. Lessons: I will rather have a Maurice Iwu running our elections for now and in the future instead of certain other umpires who either don’t declare their results or recanted on the results they declared; and I will rather now be talking of electoral reforms that make sense – like constituency redistricting and Diaspora voting rights instead of over-flogging men and women of INEC who braved odds to accomplish an all-important national assignment at a critical time in our history. And now that Iwu has vicariously overcome the burden of dual citizenship for all Diasporans, I can see a brighter future in Nigeria’s political firmament for us all – Diasporans and home-based alike.

Wale wrote in from USA waleodusote@yahoo.com

YAR’ADUA HAS SEPARATED THE REALITY FROM THE SLOGAN ON RULE OF LAW

By: ALOY EJIMAKOR

Since the inception of organized constitutional democracy that brought government by dialogue and consent, nations and their leaders have tended to deploy plain old hypes, clichés or slogans as selling points aimed at igniting and sustaining the tempo of public consciousness. Repeated often enough, slogans or the like help to psyche lackadaisical citizens and prepare them to accept difficult public policy shifts necessary to making a clean break from business as usual and priming the nation to embrace new cultural paradigms that she must pass through to endure and prosper. Slogans worked, primarily because the message they bear is so hip and commonsensical that any coinage contrary to the message can only be laughable, if not downright bizarre.

Another reason is that the nation or locale must have come to such a sorry pass in that particular stage in its history that it can boast no other option than to embrace the radical message embodied in that slogan if it must thrive as a dynamic entity. The key does not lie in the slogan but in measures employed to making it a reality. In motherland Nigeria of today, President Yar’Adua is making sure that Nigerians will not as soon forget that ‘rule of law’ is not only the slogan of the moment but a real policy choice upon which Nigeria can no longer afford any further hesitation. History indicates that Yar’Adua is right and Nigeria stands to benefit to boot. And world history is on Yar’Adua’s side.

From pre-Emancipation America to Africa’s struggles against colonialism, sloganeering (of the positive kind) was the new art form that propelled societies to act and engage on a course that changed national attitudes for good. Slogans were legion, attractive, and they often worked wonders. Desegregationist newspaper proprietors in America known then as ‘pamphleteers’ screamed the libertarian catchphrase: ‘desegregation now or never’ to whip up and sustain America’s wavering interest in President Lincoln’s arduous anti-slavery or desegregationist agenda. It also carried a subliminal incitement to African-Americans in the Jim Crow South to rise against white slaveholders and resist racial supremacists.

Later, Lincoln’s war effort against the Confederates succeeded more on that slogan than on any other that may have stressed the simultaneous need to prevail against rebellion and unify the colonies. Imagine the derision that would have greeted any opposite attempt by the rebel south to coin the counter phrase: ‘segregation now and forever’. So, at the end, President Lincoln and his fellow Unionists carried the day with what most Americans had been psyched to see as the only sensible thing to do in that era.

I figure that out of the many slogans bandied around at that time in America’s history, what might have helped most to change America for good was the one that held the best prospects of a desegregated continental United States, free from slavery and crass inequality between blacks and whites. A close second was the other one emanating from the first Continental Congress that declared that all men are created equal – a sort of Yar’Adua’s ‘rule of law’ in so many words. Slogans or not, the important thing is that America did not rest on her oars on the vaunted temerity of slogans per se but actually went to war (or took other tangible measures) to prove that she meant business in taking them from mere public policy clichés or expressions of the popular will to making them a reality and a way of life for generations to come.

Back home in colonial Nigeria, the rallying slogan of the time was ‘self-government’. It was so quaint that even songs were written with it and it ultimately prevailed against any colonialist slogan that purveyed the opposite connotation. Our nationalists made it real when Enahoro made a motion on the floor of the House for Nigeria’s independence, much to the admiration of Nigerians who have been successfully psyched by a robust anti-colonial media not to accept anything less or in opposite. Today, an ordinary run-of-the mill but highly effectual slogan has been brought to bear on the mainstream polity by President Yar’Adua. Besides his many policy rollouts, mostly couched in simple slogans, the one that Yar’Adua loves most and which has taken most root is ‘Rule of Law’.

There is hardly any important public forum the President addresses without him lacing his speech with some reference to his iron-clad commitment to getting Nigerians to love ‘rule of law’ again. And he does not do so with undue levity but with much gravity and poise. If it is the President’s intention (as a scientist) to psyche Nigerians to get used to this new order, he is succeeding because it is now hip for a vast majority of Nigerians to talk about rule of law as the most fundamental path to Nigeria’s redemption and match to modernity. From the talking heads on our morning television talk shows and Nigerian Diaspora internet discussion boards and Blogs to the sidewalk parliaments or legislative chambers, one can see this admirable tendency on the part of Nigerians to be well disposed to the President’s vigorous postulates on rule of law. It is a win-win situation that is fast rising to a national groundswell, with the Supreme Court and sections of the judicature also rising to the occasion.

This is not the first time Nigerian leaders have expressed some commitment to rule of law. But this is the first time Nigerians have seen a credible and noticeable presidential effort geared to converting the doctrine from a mere populist slogan to a cultural revolution of sorts. The difference lies in the fact that previous attempts failed to take hold because they remained mere slogans, sadly lacking in any bonafide and concrete measures on the party of the government of the time to make it a way of life for Nigerians and our institutions. Today, President Yar’Adua seems to have departed from that tradition as amply demonstrated by some of his actions to date.

Think Yar’Adua’s executive order that compelled immediate enforcement of the court rulings in the states where a few elections were upturned; the President’s ram-rod reluctance to intervene in, not to talk of manipulating the House ‘failed’ contracts hearings; and the many other hot-button issues of the day where the President left no one in doubt that he preferred to let matters play out within the procedural framework. In all of these situations, the President never pussy-footed and you don’t have to look far to notice the gathering diplomatic windfalls for Nigeria, coming from even the most cynical and hostile of nations. Here in America, Yar’Adua’s sincerity on rule of law has sunk in and is credited with an extraordinary degree of respect Nigeria is known to now enjoy at the highest levels of the Bush administration, and amongst congressional circles.

Those who are wont to belittle the President for his bold strides on making rule of law a reality may be doing so on a misreading of a history that demonstrates that there are precedents everywhere to support Yar’Adua’s proactive mien. Again, in America, during the civil rights struggle, President Kennedy ordered the National Guard to enforce the controversial judgment of the US Supreme Court declaring segregation inherently unequal and unconstitutional in the United States. Kennedy used the National Guard because under the 11th Amendment to the US Constitution, Kennedy had no authority over the white-led police establishments in the states, most of which were at that time pathetically resistant to the new order. A non-serious or merely sloganeering Kennedy would have done nothing and still be able to take umbrage on some stretch of the constitutional restrictions found in the said 11th Amendment. And I reckon that Kennedy’s eagerness to enforce federal court orders energized conservative US judges to begin a systematic dismantling of an entire body of laws – mostly comprised of America’s half a millennium legalization of racism. Yar’Adua’s immediate order to the Inspector-General to enforce the judgments in the governorship elections nullifications is in pari materia to Kennedy’s rapid deployment of the National Guard to enforce his desegregationist agenda.

Better yet, my guess is that Yar’Adua’s focused leadership on adherence to rule of law may be the new tunic that will as yet embolden a Nigerian judiciary that sadly stagnated under over three decades of martial rule. There is nothing that ignites a court on an irreversible path of gutsy and well-reasoned rulings on difficult questions of law than an executive branch led by a President standing at the ready to enforce those rulings even when some may be clearly detrimental to his narrow partisan or strategic interest. In other words, Yar’Adua must be praised for his courage and patriotism in following a path that is known to be strewn with prospects of self-endangerment.

When Trent Lott, the powerful Republican Speaker of US House of Representatives strained the boundaries of free speech by using racial epithets, the nation was in uproar and demands for his resignation crossed party and racial lines. Resisting the tempting prospects of reaping a political capital, the President of the United States spurned every pressure to be drawn into the matter much like Yar’Adua risked alienating PDP apparatchiks by refusing to intercede on Etteh’s behalf. The more extreme example was when Kennedy courted danger to his personal safety by ordering his younger brother - Robert, the Attorney-General to crack down on the Mafia despite America’s duplicitous and bewildering romance of sorts with the Mafia. Kennedy took such bold step because he believed that, until then, America had merely paid lip service to riding itself of organized crime and he found that laxity to be inconsistent with the country’s avowed commitment to rule of law.

To be sure, President Yar’Adua courts danger of alienating the establishment ranks who remain unaccustomed to the President’s consistency on rule of law. In other words, taking the doctrine of rule of law from a mere policy slogan to an everyday reality requires mettle and can sometimes be unpopular and dicey, but as above examples indicate, it also takes focus and exceptional presidential temperament to stay the course. Yar’Adua seems to possess them all. Thus, by his actions so far, there is no doubt that the President understands that separating the reality from the slogan on rule of law is the only option when you are serious about building a new and well-ordered society. He deserves a pat on the back from any one or nation that wants to see Nigeria succeed.

Aloy Ejimakor is Law Group. Washington, DC alloylaw@yahoo.com