Public Affairs Analyst

Public funding of political parties has been very contentious in Nigeria. The 1999 Nigerian Constitution in section 228 (c) and Electoral Act 2006 in section 91 contain provisions that enable the National Assembly to make grant available to the Independent National Electoral Commission for distribution to registered political parties. However, with the coming into effect of the Electoral Act 2010, as amended, the provision for public funding of political parties was removed. It was therefore curious to read in the newspaper that River State Independent Electoral Commission has sustained the tradition of public funding for political parties operating in Rivers State. A news item in Vanguard of October 12 reported that some 45 political parties under the aegis of the Rivers State Association of Frontline Political Parties have called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to investigate the state’s Independent Election Commission, RSIEC, over the N4.7 billion grant by...

The presidency and the National Assembly (Senate and House of Representatives) have embarked on a strange move to collapse Nigerian prison system. How do I mean? An executive bill seeking to amend the Transfer of Convicted Offender (Enactment & Enforcement) Act Cap. T16 LSN 2004 (Amendment Bill 2001) is currently being processed at the National Assembly. Once the amendment sails through, the consent of convicted Nigerians serving various jail sentences abroad would no longer be sought before they are repatriated home to continue to serve their respective jail terms. This is because the prisoners’ swap legislation seeks the removal of “consent” and “verification procedure” from the Act. I find this move which is said to be a request from British authorities curious because the situation of Nigeria’s prison system at present is heart-rending. According to a report in Thisday of October 2, 2010 titled ‘Nigerian Prison’s Rising Population’: “The Nigerian Prisons Service derives its ope...

I do the best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the end brings me out all wrong, what is said against me will not amount to anything. – Abraham Lincoln. When Dr. OBC Nwolise of the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan charged students in the Advanced Level Extra Mural Class at Emmanuel College, Agbowo, Ibadan in 1988 to use media advocacy to demand for better society, many heard but only few heeded his advice. I am one of the few who chose to take up the challenge. However, I couldn’t bring myself to communicate to the public through the media until 1990 because I had low self esteem having failed to get credit pass in ‘O’ Level English and Mathematics to enable me move to tertiary institution. This went on from 1985 – 1990. Secondly, being the era of military rule when freedom of speech was severely curtailed with several media houses proscribed by the ruling junta, it was suicidal expressing anti-government opinion then. A...

On September 21, I attended a memorial lecture organised by a coalition of youth groups in honour of 10 National Youth Service Corps members killed in Bauchi State in the wake of the post-elections crisis that greeted the April 16 presidential election. The lecture with the theme ‘Youth and Election Security’ was put together by Youth Action Initiative Africa, Centre for Public Policy and Research, CAFA Foundation, Nigerian Youth Manifesto Project, Network of Civil Society Organisations on Voter & Civic Education, Digital Peers International and Y-Count Campaign. The guest speaker at the event was a renowned Professor of Criminology from the University of Jos, Etennibi Alemika. The ten martyrs of Nigerian democracy were Adewumi Seun (Ekiti); Teidi Olawale Tosin (Kogi); Adowei Elliot (Bayelsa); Okpokiri Obinna (Abia); Gbenjo Ebenezer Ayotunde (Osun); Ukeoma Ikechuwku Chibuzor (Imo); Nkwazema Anslem Chukwuonyerem (Imo); Adeniji Kehinde Jehleel (Osun); Akonyi Ibrahim Sule (Kogi) and t...

Nigeria’s general elections were held from April 9 – May 6, 2011. The elections started with the National Assembly (Senatorial and House of Representatives) elections on April 9, followed by the presidential elections on April 16 and gubernatorial elections on April 26. Gubernatorial elections in Bauchi and Kaduna State were postponed and held on April 28 as a result of post election violence that trailed the presidential election in which Human Rights Watch claimed in a May 16, 2011 report that 800 lives were lost and property worth billions of Naira were destroyed. A political logjam ensued in Imo State as the April 26 gubernatorial election in the State was declared inconclusive. A supplementary election was thereafter held in four local governments and one ward on May 6 before the governorship election was concluded. Thereafter, observer groups have taken turns to release their final reports on the polls. The European Union Observation Mission (EU EOM) presented its final repor...