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OPINION

Nigeria’s Democracy, 20 Years After: Where lies the Hope of the Poor?

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Nigeria’s Democracy
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By Menyanga Abu

Democracy according to Yusuf Bangura ,is a system of government in which leaders periodically renew their mandates through free, fear and competitive elections. It is a system that acknowledges the right of expression, organization and collective actions of the populace.

These rights grant the citizens the powers to exercise political choice and
to hold leaders accountable for their actions, inactions, decisions and indecisions as the case may be.

Democracy can only produce dividends for the poor masses if only citizens or political groups that have strong ties to the poor exhibit that capacity to mobilize and organize or reconcile internal divisions to create structural links with the policy makers.
It is however very imperative to point out that in a situation where social movements or interest groups are weak coupled with defective and noncompetitive electoral system, the poor tends to surfer the more.

Democracy is considered as a powerful tool for meeting people’s aspirations as well as making them partners in decisions that affect their well-being. Functional and sincere democracy will alleviate poverty but where democracy becomes a charade – a capitalist tool or feudal instrument or an authoritarian institution, – it will end providing lip services.

That is a situation where overriding forces manning a sort of pseudo-democratic formations benefit themselves by exploiting the poor. No doubt, democracy in Nigeria has been elevated in public policy. I think we are yet to understand the type of politics and institutions that will make democracy to achieve growth and human wellbeing. Although our democratic process is participatory in outlook, it tends to be limited to few elected people without the involvement of such people like the informal workers, the artisans or the famers whose livelihood are directly  affected by many of the development policies.

For democracy to add values to the lives of the poor masses and economic growth, every democratic practice should put economic liberty and transparency on a par with every other democratic value such as regular elections, rule of law, human rights, freedom of association and speech. For the poor to feel the positive impacts and benefit from democracy, I appeal to the present administration and its agencies not to use superfluities and rhetoric of democracy as a façade while behind the scenes engaging in rent-seeking practices that can lead to systemic entrenchment of corruption as done by the past administrations.

The corrupt system will easily provide avenues for politicians to use political powers for economic gains and the economic gains could be used for buying political influence. In such a situation democratic dividends hardly reach the general populace.

This usually results in persistent poverty among a large percentage of the population coupled with poor social services in struggling and developing democracy like ours. The situation above can lead to declining in supports for democracy by the populace at large and may signify real threat to democracy because impoverished poor masses may not have the necessary tools to fight back and in most cases they are not familiar with/use to demanding government’s accountability and responses.

Democracy can never be sustained without persistent efforts to eliminate poverty and vice versa. Strengthening democratic governance is an indispensable component of the efforts to alleviate poverty.

Poverty is a big threat to democracy as it tends to deprive people of their political voices, preventing them from holding their government accountable and responsive thus eroding public trust in democratic institutions. Democracy can deliver outcomes that will be beneficial to the poor only if,

(1) the rights of the people are institutionalized that will allow the poor to exercise political choice, build alliance with others and hold leaders to account

(2) groups with strong ties to the poor develop capacity for independent organization  and mobilization as well as reconciling horizontal decisions and establishing structural links with the policy makers – social pacts – and

(3) lastly if there is high likelihood that the sitting government may likely lose office which  can serve as incentives for redistribution. It is believed in some circles that electoral competitiveness can produce redistributive outcomes but competitiveness without effective organization and contestation may
produce weak redistributive outcomes.

Reducing poverty needs power relations at the nucleus of development, as such any strategy put in place to reduce poverty and inequality must consider tipping the balance of power. Eradicating poverty requires an expansion of the bargaining power of the poor masses and those who might represent them.

1999 marked the foundation of the longest continuous democratic governance in the history of Nigeria after her independence in 1960.

Democracy, as expected and believed by many Nigerians supposes to provide the citizens with that opportunity to participate in governance which in turn promotes development. But the said democratic government seems to be working against the aspirations and interests of the poor masses because of the way the democratic system is being operated coupled with corruption in this part of the world.

Take a survey of our National Assembly for example, the Assembly is a major democratic institution in any functional democratic setting, but today
our representatives are not reflecting our views, take less of reflecting our modest lifestyle who they claimed they are representing. Many of them own about four to seven exotic cars, each costing not less than twenty five  to two hundred and fifty million naira in a country where about 130  million people out of the estimated 180 million are living in abject poverty and misery.

The irony of the whole thing is that, back in their villages, their closest neighbours and relatives are struggling to get some pieces of tiny tilapia fish (ibobo) of barely one hundred naira (N100) per a set of three or four just to give taste to their soups and not enough to eat. Yet these are the honourable members representing our interest that most cases pay us money to vote them to serve us. Nobody is asking why they should pay us for them to offer us services.

These show that these political elites have different motives that contradict the interests and aspirations of the general populace especially the poor masses. What I have observed in Nigeria today is that, that principle of value we cherished in the past no longer matter to our political elites as they can always use their ill-gotten money to get to public offices by buying the conscience of the poor masses. The highest bidders have takes on whatever is on the table.

The biggest enemy of democracy is poverty because when people are poor, they are in most cases reduced to destitute and a little money can change their minds. In such a situation that freedom of choice which is one of the beauties of democracy could be taken away from the poor masses by those who control the resources. Nigeria has no business with poverty because God has so blessed this nation with abundant resources.

We thought that with the advent of democracy in 1999, the gateway to development has been opened and bye to poverty sand misery. Little did we know that democracy as practiced in Nigeria is a gateway to corruption, individual enrichment resulting in abject poverty and misery instead of general development.

Democracy which is government of the people by the people for the people has tuned to government of the selected rich by the rich for the selected rich. Democracy to our political elites has come to mean government of the rich, making the rich richer and making the poor poorer. The permanent features of our democracy as experienced today are abject poverty and misery.

The first sixteen years of democratic governance in Nigeria was a complete
wastage though with some pockets of achievement that is nothing to write home about. Those years were marked with unprecedented corruption and wanton stealing of our common wealth by those entrusted with power. What we are experiencing today are no doubt the cumulative effects resulting from those years of mismanagement.

For example, sixteen billion dollars was said to have been spent on electricity provision, but where and what is the situation of power in Nigeria today and how was this huge amount spent, may be the details, as we are told are in a book written by one of our leaders. According to Brooking institute – 2018 world poverty clock – about 643 million people across the world are living in extreme poverty, which is below 1.9 dollars, about 540 naira per day. Out of this number, two third – about 428.7 million – of this population is from Africa.

On 26th June 2018, CNN reported that Nigeria is the new poverty capital of the world after overtaking India with an estimated number of 87 million
Nigerians extremely poor. We all know that the divine forces that drive democratic government to deliver anti-poverty outcomes are complex, but that does not mean that a functional democratic government cannot dismantle these complexities to provide the dividends of democracy to the poor masses that are always at the receiving end.

But then this takes time. Let us support the present administration in the fight against corruption and other of its programmes to bring about even development. I want to point out here that our problem as a country is most times the illusionary belief that we could change Nigeria over night by simply voting a different president into power believing that our problems start and stop with the president.

We tend to think that if we could just have the right person in power, then all of a sudden our numerous problems and Nigeria will be transformed forgetting that the person we are bringing as a new president comes from within Nigerian society and not from the moon or another angelic world or outer-space.

Nigeria’s problem is not just only the man in power but all Nigerians, our shared values and mentalities. Systemic rot and Nigerians are Nigeria’s problems and any day we realize this, we will no doubt get closer to finding solution to our complex problems.

The increasing level of poverty witnessed in Nigeria today results from many-sided problems that are traceable to our political elites/past leaders as well as us the followers because a country cannot good better leaders until it has better people.

Democratization in this country is often contested by the rich who sees it as a process or an avenue for making/stealing money and not for general development. To them democracy is viewed as a battle not of parties but of class and struggle between property and mere numbers.

This phenomenon is making democratization to lose its links between the political parties and broad social movements that define the interest of the poor. Poverty is on the rise as a result of failure of developmentalism; development in democratic setting according to Yusuf Bangura requires high level of continuous mobilization by political elites with development project who are ready to embrace open-led strategies of industrialization.

Any democracy without concerns for the welfare/wellbeing of the poor masses can never be said to be quasi-democracy no matter the colouration of the electoral processes and procedures.

Poverty alleviation in a democratic setting requires expansion of the bargaining power of the poor and those that represent them.

Menyanga Abu, is an Abuja-based Health System and Development Consultant.

OPINION

Politics as the Fourth Factor of Production

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By Majeed Dahiru

The advent of the industrial revolution in the 18th century in the United Kingdom, continental Europe and the United States of America, established land, labour and capital as the primary factors of production. While land included natural, mineral and water resources above and beneath it, capital essentially referred to money, the legal tenders or any other means of exchange, and labour was the work force deployed to till, mine and cultivate the land, as well as oversee the proper utilisation of capital.

But of the three primary factors of economic production, labour is the most important.

Although interdependent of each other, and with none dispensable, labour is needed to convert the enormous potentials of land to satisfy wants, just as it is the fruits of labour that is converted into capital, to keep the wheel of production grinding.

Labour is the most important factor of economic production because while capital and land are inanimate, labour is animate in its primary form as a human activity that utilises the other two factors to satisfy human wants and needs accordingly.

While the industrial revolution transformed the course of human economic activities for better, the invention of machines and its substitution of manual labour tended to undermine the importance of labour in the early stages of the industrial age. Armed with enormous capital and equipped with machines, the emergent class of industrial capitalists, like slave masters before them, exploited labour to the maximum, without commensurate benefit.

It was out of the chaos of the early stages of the industrial revolution, which was characterised by poor wages, exploitation, poor working conditions and everything that could be categorised as unfair and unethical labour practices, that the organised labour movement emerged.

As a means of collective bargaining, workers, traders and artisans organised themselves into unions to replace the pre-industrial era guilds, to engage with both public and private employers for better working conditions. Beginning in 18th century Britain, strike actions were embarked upon by workers to press home their demands for fairer labour practices and improved working condition by the organised labour movement.

Industrial disagreements between capitalists and their workers soon triggered a class struggle, with society being organised along the lines of the owners of capital – the bourgeoisie and the workers – the proletariat. It was this class struggle that incubated a new ideological framework for the political economies of the newly industrialised nations of the world to challenge what was being denounced as capitalism.

The proposed alternative framework was the ideology of socialism. It was this ideology that saw the labour movement transformed into social democratic movements and eventually resulted in the formation of organised labour backed political parties.

Beginning with the formation of the Labour Party in the UK from an amalgamation of the Trade Union Congress of England and Wales with other elements of the organised labour movement in 1900s and the rise to eminence of the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 1903, organised labour all over the industrial world no longer sat on the sidelines as perpetual spectators in the game of partisan politics of democratic leadership recruitment.

This was so because as the most important factor of production, labour could no longer concern itself with just negotiating for its slice of bread with butter. The organised Labour movement, as matter of self-enlightened interest, decided to get involved in the baking of the bread and the preparation of the butter, in order to be in a better position to get a more satisfying slice.

By 1917, the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin rode to power on the back of the Russian revolution and the Labour Party of UK formed its first democratic government in 1924, with Ramsay McDonald as Prime Minister when it won the majority seat in the British parliament.

These labour-centred parties and others like them all over the world, successfully incorporated the ethos of social democracy in the politics of their respective nations, and mainstreamed the charter of demands of the organised labour movement in ways very profound, and which have largely resolved the existential problems of the financial inadequacy, inequality and insecurity of their members.

A vital lesson to be learnt from the transformational experiences of organised labour movements into political parties was that whilst it is true that labour is the most important factor of production, politics as the fourth factor of production was far more important.

Bringing this nearer home, the organised labour movement can no longer seat on the side lines as mere spectators in the politics of democratic leadership recruitment in Nigeria. The time is right for the labour movement in Nigeria to stop agonising over its inadequate bread and butter and must begin to organise to get involved in the process of baking a bigger loaf of bread, from which it can get an adequate slice for its members.

The scope of labour as a factor of economic production transcends mining, manufacturing, academia and manning the military-industrial complex, to the politics of democratic leadership recruitment. Since the transition from military to civil democratic rule in 1999, the organised labour movement in Nigeria has remained largely aloof and detached from matters of partisan politics to the detriment of the course of good governance in Nigeria.

The reason for the existence of a modern democratic nation-state must be more economic than political – the economics of production and not politics of consumption. And for a democratic nation-state to be able to provide security and welfare to its people, its politics must be primarily driven by the economics of production. This is so because no nation on earth is really endowed with abundant human and natural resources.

At best, nations are only endowed with enough natural and human resources, and they must necessarily look beyond their borders to shore up their resource bases through developmental immigration and overseas trade and investment. The most export competitive nations are those whose internal political processes are predicated on the economics of production and not those who economies are predicated on politics of consumption.

Unfortunately, the democratic Nigerian state exists more for the politics of consumption and less for the economics of production. This is sadly so because its politics is primarily driven by ethnic and religious sentiments, rather than economic common sense.

This is also because at the inception of the Fourth Republic, the organised labour movement in Nigeria, which is the most important economic interest group in the country, left partisan politics to ethnic champions and religious bigots, who imposed identity politics as the major driving force of Nigeria’s democratic leadership recruitment process.

And with an elaborately corrupt patronage system as the main reward for identity politics, the attendant financial haemorrhage is what has driven Nigeria broke and unable to pay living wages to its workers, to provide health care and decent housing for its people.

To effectively transform Nigeria from a consumption economy into a productive one, the organised labour movement will have to step out of the side lines into the main arena of partisan politics by harmonising its charter of demands into a concise peoples manifesto for national rebirth and democratic redemption from identity politics, with patronage as the reward system for a privileged few, to an economics driven politics, with good governance as reward for all.

However, to effectively transform Nigeria from consumption to production economy, the government can no longer hands off the means of production to private individuals alone. The neoliberal concept that seeks to keep government out of the means of production under the guise of “government has no business in business” is a proven fallacy that must be rescinded if not repudiated by the organised labour movement and insist on a new political economic philosophy that states that “government has business in business” because the main purpose of government is doing business and any government that cannot do business has no business being in government.

Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through dahirumajeed@gmail.com.

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OPINION

The Battle Against Inflation the CBN is Losing.

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By Nick Agule

Video: These are cows after eating crops on a farm are crossing the highway between Nasarawa and Benue States to continue eating up crops on farms on the other side of the road. This is a major reason for food shortage in Nigeria at the moment which is spiking food prices.

We are feeding animals at the expense of humans!

But when the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) meets Tomorrow and next – 25th & 26th March 2024 – the members are likely to hike interest rates because they think food inflation in Nigeria is being caused by excess liquidity (too much money supply) in the economy and thus there is too much demand for food.

The textbook solution in a situation such as they think is to tighten money supply by increasing interest rates which will then make savings rates more attractive and thus people will prefer to save instead of consumption. The more they save, the more the liquidity is mopped up which then slows down inflation.

However, the MPC members seem to be oblivious of structural issues that are spiking food prices in Nigeria which have nothing to do with excess liquidity as follows:

Only 2.5% of Nigeria’s arable land is cultivated (figures provided by President Buhari in 2021). This means we have basically not yet started serious industrial agriculture in Nigeria.

The reason for the poor statistic of cultivation above is because farming in Nigeria is largely by manual labour and not much food can be produced without mechanisation and improved seedlings with fertiliser and other modern farming inputs.

Even the 2.5% cultivation is no longer happening because a large number of farmers have been driven away from their farms into IDP camps killer herdsmen and sundry bandits.

In areas where farming is still happening, the cows come and eat the crops as the video shows. 

 There is huge cost-push inflation in imported food prices because of the exchange rate crisis thus resulting in less food being imported.

All the factors above have contributed to low food output and availability in Nigeria.

From rudimentary economics, prices of commodities are determined by the forces of DEMAND and SUPPLY. But it appears that the MPC members think it’s only demand that is spiking inflation in Nigeria and they are not giving any consideration to supply deficits as a causative factor for inflation as well. Because dealing with supply deficit requires interest rates to the cut so that producers can access cheap credit to produce more! So far, the MPC is not thinking about this. When you increase interest rates in a stagflation (low output, low employment and high inflation), it makes the situation worse!

And to show the MPC is getting something wrong, the more MPR they hike, the more inflation goes up! In the last MPC meeting on the 26/27th February, inflation rate was 29.9% with food inflation at 35.41%. The MPC increased the MPR from 18.75% to 22.75% to fight this inflation. But instead of lowering, the inflation called their bluff and rose to 31.7% with food inflation spiking to 37.92%. Food inflation does not respond to interest rates hikes because even if interest rates are hiked to 100%, people will not save, they must buy food to feed their families!

If the MPC spikes the interest rate at this week’s meeting, the result can only be one way – inflation will spike further because this inflation is not demand-pull!

Going through the minutes of the last meeting of the MPC, there is a sense that the MPC members are spiking interest rate to equate inflation rate or interest rate to go higher than inflation rate. Members think this is what will attract foreign direct investments. But if we pay high interest rates on dollar funds we take in, where are we going to commit such funds and earn high enough returns to pay the interest and still make a profit? If Nigerian banks take deposits at high interest rates, where can they lend to earn enough to pay the interest rate and other costs? The monies will just be sitting in the banks! And here the MPC increased the CRR to 45% instead of lowering it to ensure lending to an economy screaming for growth!

It is high time now for the MPC members to change direction. There is no point pushing interest rates to go higher than inflation rate, this will hurt the economy even more. The MPC will better begin to cut rates so that the economy will start experiencing high growth that will eventually lower the inflation rate. This will be made possible if the MPC members rethink their conclusion that Nigeria’s inflation is resultant from excess liquidity in the system! MPC members must give due consideration to the other causative factors of inflation too.

Also, it is high time now for the coordinating minister of the economy to begin holding joint economic policy meetings of the monetary policy and fiscal policy authorities because the MPC alone cannot control inflation and boost output without the fiscal authorities also coming to the table and working together in harmony and with unity of purpose.

Bottomline is that it will be a bad day this week if the MPR is further hiked.  

Twitter: @NickAgule

Email: nick.agule@yahoo.co.uk

Facebook: Nick Agule, FCA

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OPINION

Edo, Ondo 2024 Reechoes Bitter Tribal Politics of 2023 Elections

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Mr Godwin Obaseki
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By Ehichioya Ezomon

In 2020, Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki fought the political battle of his life for a second term in office. Midyear, he’s disqualified by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), headed by Senator and former Governor Adams Oshiomhole as then national chairman.

In 2016, Oshiomhole had “imposed and installed” Obaseki as his successor.

But the godfather-godson relationship didn’t last, as Obaseki decried Oshiomhole’s “godfatherism,” and connived to have him suspended from his ward in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo North, and sacked by the courts as APC’s chairman.

Oshiomhole denying Obaseki a re-election ticket prompted Obaseki to defect to opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which granted him automatic ticket, with which he contested and won the September 2020 election.

But in the course of the campaigns, former Lagos State Governor and acclaimed “National Leader” of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (now President of Nigeria) called on the people of Edo State to vote for the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who’s chaperoned by Tinubu’s close ally, Comrade Oshiomhole.

It’s a wrong political move at a time Obaseki, his campaign and supporters alleged – with no concrete evidence, and yet believable – that Oshiomhole had carried out a script written by Tinubu, to disqualify Obaseki from the APC governorship primary.

When Obaseki’s still in the APC, he led a group of governors and party chieftains to Tinubu’s Bourdillon road home in Ikoyi, Lagos, to solicit his assistance to settle the feud between him and Oshiomhole, and Tinubu, short of shunning the parley, remained noncommittal, thus sending signals that he sided with Oshiomhole’s antic to deny Obaseki a second term ticket.

The backlash from Edo people against Oshiomhole for “instigating” disqualification of Obaseki from the APC primary, was also extended to Tinubu for his alleged “interference in Edo politics,” and hence the coinage: “Edo no be Lagos” – a reference to Tinubu’s stranglehold of politics of Lagos State.

So, “Edo no be Lagos” became an anthem, and the rallying cry for the Obaseki campaign, members and supporters of the PDP, and Edolites across party lines, who felt Oshiomhole (and Tinubu) committed a “political sacrilege” by denying a return ticket to Obaseki whom he’d backed for governor in 2016.

Thus, the Obaseki campaign adopted three strategies that worked for the governor’s re-election without a referendum on his “achievements” from 2016 to 2020: Deploy Oshiomhole’s “betrayal of Edo people” – particularly the Binis of Edo South, where Obaseki hails from; replay Oshiomhole’s campaign of calumny against Pastor Ize-Iyamu during the 2016 election, to denigrate and demarket him, and promote Obaseki’s candidacy that Oshiomhole sponsored; and harp on Tinubu’s “interference” in Edo politics.

Now to the 2024 governorship election in Edo State where another version of “Edo no be Lagos” or “Edo no be Yorubaland” – with a ting of tribalism – has emerged in the lead-up to the September 21 poll. But first, recall that the 2023 General Election in Lagos State witnessed an intense recline to tribal politics between the Yoruba and Igbo – the one trying to stave off alleged plans by the other to dominate Lagos politics by declaring the state as “a no man’s land” to be “captured” in the 2023 elections.

True to the fears of the Yoruba, the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) and former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi defeated Tinubu in his Lagos homestead in the February 25, 2023, poll. So, ahead of the following March 18 governorship election, alarmed conservative Yoruba resorted to whipping up tribal sentiments, telling liberal Yoruba that the intention of the Igbo wasn’t just to takeover Lagos – where they’ve an unverified 5m population – but also to bring the entire South-West geopolitical zone under Igbo domination.

Besides calling for “Yoruba Ronu” (‘Yoruba, Think’) – a phrase used by the legendary Hubert Ogunde “in his famous 1964 play,” warning about intra-ethnic divide among politicians in Yorubaland that could give way to external infiltration – the agitation for “Yorubaland for the Yoruba” culminated in rallying for Yoruba nationalism and supremacy in Yorubaland.

As noted by Yusuf Omotayo in a piece, “The True Meaning of ‘Yoruba Ronu,’” first published in The Atlantic of July 10, 2023, “Yoruba Ronu has recently become the anchor on which Yoruba politicians have championed calls for fanatic support. The original core message of the phrase, however, is unity rather than ethnic disrespect and Yoruba supremacy.”

The Yoruba agitators backed up their alleged “Igbo Agenda” with declarative statements and videos issued and posted by social media influencers, calling on members of the “Obidients Movement” – the mass of voters who backed Obi’s presidential run – to “vote massively” on March 18, for the LP to takeover Lagos State.

And for good (or bad) measure, the LP featured as its governorship candidate Gbadebo (Chinedu) Rhodes-Vivor, who’s a Yoruba father and Igbo mother and wife – and whose utterances and actions, even on the campaign trail, tended to play up his affinity to Igbo more than to his Yoruba heritage.

The Yoruba agitators dug into Mr Rhodes-Vivor’s social media posts – which some alleged were manipulated – in which he backed activities of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) – a group fighting for secession from Nigeria; his lead participation in the October 20, 2020, #Endsars violent and bloody protests in Lagos; and his intention, if elected governor, to dethrone the Oba of Lagos, and install an Igbo as replacement, declare an annual “Igbo Day” for Igbo to celebrate their traditional and cultural heritage, business acumen and dominance of the commercial and political affairs of Lagos, and give Igbo unfettered access to control all markets and commercial places in Lagos State.

These and other issues worked against the LP and Rhodes-Vivor’s ambition on poll day, giving the ruling APC and the amiable but assailed Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu a landslide victory, and crowning the “Yorubaland for Yoruba” agitators’ fierce campaign for “Yoruba Ronu” with defeat of the “Igbo campaigners” of “Na we build Lagos, na we own Lagos.”

Meanwhile – and sadly – the tribal politics of 2023 elections has resurrected in Edo and Ondo 2024 elections. In Edo, the LP candidate and former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata, had to do a hit music in Bini, to prove that he’s a bona fide “son-of-the-soil” from the prominent family of the Akpatas of Benin Kingdom.

Decked in traditional attire, Mr Akpata leads “the cultural troupe” in a Bini song and graceful dancesteps to trace his paternal and maternal roots to ages, and pleads with Edo people that he isn’t a stranger or a Yoruba, as his political traducers want to portray him in the intense mobilisation for the LP primary, and the governorship poll on September 21.

Amid lingering doubts as to Akpata being “truly” Bini and Edo, a tweep (a user of Twitter) posted “an advisory” on X (formerly Twitter) for Igbo residents in Edo State not to dabble in the local politics of who the parties field for the governorship, but to mind their civic duty of voting for their preferred candidate.

This stirred instant reactions from Yoruba netizens (habitual or keen users of internet), who reasoned that the advisory was issued to Igbo residents in Edo State because the LP candidate’s middle name – Olumide – is Yoruba, and hence anathema to the Igbo.

The Yoruba say what’s sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. If Igbo supported Mr Rhodes-Vivor with a middle name of “Chinedu” and Igbo mother and wife for the LP governor in Lagos, why should Igbo steer clear of canvassing for Mr Akpata with a Yoruba name of “Olumide” as candidate of the LP in Edo State?

Similarly in the PDP in Edo State, governorship candidate Asue Ighodalo faces scrutiny as to his Esan roots from Ewohimi in Esan North-East of Edo Central. In 2023, Dr Ighodalo, a Lagos-based lawyer and industrialist associate of Governor Obaseki, reportedly hired “an interpreter” to convey his aspiration for governor to his ward members in Ewohimi. Now, critics query his “Edoness” for “growing up and working in Lagos, and marrying a Yoruba.”

In Ondo State, lawyer and veteran politician, Chief Olusola Oke, has a primary huddle for marrying an Igbo named “Nkem” as a second wife, who’s reportedly “very close” to Mrs Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, the Igbo wife of the late Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN), who died from a protracted ailment on December 27, 2023.

Accused of being an “Iron” First Lady with a domineering streak – and allegedly advancing the interests of Igbo to the detriment of the Yoruba in Ondo State – Mrs Akeredolu’s ethnic relationship with Mrs Oke may cause Mr Oke the primary ticket of the APC, and ultimately the governorship if the agitators for “Yorubaland for Yoruba” deploy “Yoruba Ronu” in the APC yet-to-be-scheduled April primary for the November 16 election in the state.

This is the stage we’re in Nigeria’s bitter politics, in which tribe and state of origin of spouses and their parents, living permanently or for a considerable length of time in their states of origin, and ability to speak fluently the local language, and imbibe the traditional and cultural nuances of the people, now determine one’s ambition for elective political position(s).

It’s happened in Lagos, in the case of Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor failing the governorship in 2023 partly because – in the estimation of the conservative indigenous Yoruba – he’s not “Yoruba enough” for having Igbo mother and wife, and “displaying disdain” for Yoruba language, traditional and culture.

It also occurred in 2023 in Enugu State, where a resident of Ebonyi State origin was told by the locals that he couldn’t – as a “stranger” or “non-indigene” – become governor of Enugu. “A person from Ebonyi cannot be our governor in Enugu. God will not allow that” (to happen), one of the speakers – with members of the audience concurring – told the bewildered politician at a gathering to intimate the people about his governorship ambition, which ended thereafter!

On May 4, 2022, Senator Adeola Olamilekan (alias ‘Yayi’) (APC, Lagos West), gave in to emotions when his constituents in Ogun West gifted him nomination forms, to contest in the 2023 poll to represent the district. Pre-2015 general election when Chief Olamilekan wanted to represent Ogun West – his district of origin in Ogun State – there’s strong opposition that he wasn’t a Yewa man from the district. Some even claimed he’s from Ekiti State.

He’d to seek his political ambition in Lagos West (he’s Reps member from 2011 to 2015), which he won and represented from 2015 to 2023. But reportedly eying the governorship of Ogun State in 2027 that’s “zoned” to Ogun West, Olamilekan made attempts to switch from Lagos West to Ogun West, and met with the same resistance from APC members, three of whom filed a writ in court to stop him.

However, majority of his constituents – who’d heard about his political exploits in Lagos West – rallied for, and 71 of them purchased the nomination forms for him to contest in the primary and election, which he won, and now represents Ogun West in the 10th National Assembly.

There’re also instances of women, who weren’t allowed to vie for elective political offices by chieftains of parties in the states they’re married into, and asked to go look for slots in their states of origin. That’s how, for example, Mrs Daisy Ehanire Danjuma – wife of former Chief of Army Staff, and Founder and Chairman Emeritus of TY Danjuma Foundation, Gen. Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma (retd) – left Taraba, her state of marriage, to seek senatorial slot in Edo State and won in 2003 (PDP, Edo South).

Can this bitter tribal politics in Nigeria be reversed? It’s doubtful, as the 2023 general election that’s supposed to subsume the primeval cleavage actually accentuated it, as fears of domination by residents fueled anxiety and outrage among the local and indigenous peoples across many states of Nigeria!

Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.

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