Public Affairs Analyst

The June 21, 2014, governorship election in Ekiti State offers some useful lessons for students of politics. A lot has been said about why the incumbent governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, lost signally in the contest in spite of his sterling performance in office. His ‘sins’ are legion. According to reports, he lacks good human relations by not socialising with the populace; he allegedly surrounded himself with eggheads or technocrats who have little or no electoral value and who are equally not in touch with their constituents. They call them Ekiti in the ‘Diaspora’. He is accused of not empowering local contractors as most of the contracts were said to have been awarded to vendors from outside of the state. Also, the insistence of his administration to make teachers write competency test which is wrongly perceived as a ploy to downsize or right-size the work force; the increase of the tuition of Ekiti State University and the enforcement of no payment, no examination as well as the palp...

The All Progressives Congress concluded the ‘election’ of its national executive officers at a national convention held at the Eagle Square, Abuja, on Friday, June 13. At the end of the exercise, a former Governor of Edo State, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, emerged the new party chairman. It will be recalled that after the merger of the Big Three (The Congress for Progressive Change, Action Congress of Nigeria, and All Nigeria Peoples Party) last year, interim executive officers had been running the affairs of the party. At the 9th Interim Executive Committee meeting held in Abuja in March, the party announced that its congress would start on April 5 and end with a national convention on May 24. Specifically, the party announced as follows: “The Ward Congress will hold on April 5, Local Government Congress on April 12. State Congress on April 23 and the National Convention on May 24.” A change in date however led to the national convention being postponed before it eventually held last we...

“A free press is the conscience of a nation and a practical means of achieving good government” –A former UN Secretary General, Dr. Boutrous Boutrous Ghali. Last weekend’s attack on the Nigerian media by the military High Command is unwarranted, condemnable and shameful. The Nigerian media fought for the democracy we currently enjoy and no amount of “scapegoatism”, threats and molestation will be successful against it. The media survived Decree 2 and 4 of 1984 and all other draconian legislations promulgated by the military junta. They endured proscription, molestation, incarceration and assassinations of journalists. If they did survive under the autocratic regimes of the military, they readily will outlive the current siege on their businesses and practice. What really happened on Friday, June 6 and Saturday, June 7? In a Gestapo-like fashion, newspaper distribution vans were ambushed by soldiers across the country. The vehicles, their drivers and other staff accompanying the ...

It was neither my first time out of Nigeria nor my inaugural international election observation mission. I had twice been privileged to be on such missions to Ghana in December 2008 and the United States of America in November 2010. My third time out on election observation duty was in Egypt in May 2014. Each of these missions holds their peculiarities. My recent trip to the land of the Pharaohs was an eye-opener; a momentous and epochal event. As rightly observed by Zahi Hawass, an Egyptian archaeologist, in his foreword in the book, “Wonders of Egypt”, “Egypt’s greatest wonder is the magic of its archaeological sites…Egypt is a land of many, many wonders – the great historic (and beautiful) city of Cairo, with more medieval monuments than any other city in the world; the spectacular desert landscapes of the Gilf Kebir, the White Desert, or the high mountains of Sinai; the majestic, life bringing Nile and the rich green fields that are its gift”. I was ecstatic experiencing some of...