Public Affairs Analyst

I have a warning for the Nigerian politicians: Take care not to scuttle this democracy. This Fourth Republic did not come on a platter. When Gen. Ibrahim Babangida annulled the June 12 presidential election, civil disobedience ensued. As the citizens protested, lives were lost, properties destroyed and many activists had to go on exile. Since the return of democracy in 1999, after the military interregnum, we have successfully had four general elections in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011. The quality of those elections is debatable but nevertheless we are making progress in deepening our democratic culture. We are at the threshold of conducting another general elections; the fifth in this Fourth Republic. However, the way and manner our politicians are going about their campaigns are discomforting. Once again, primordial sentiments are being raked up in order to get some political advantage. Religion, ethnicity, gender, social status and academic qualification are being projected as domin...

It is campaign season and the political gladiators have been gallivanting across the length and breadth of the country trying to woo voters towards getting their support in the forthcoming general elections of February 14 and 28, 2015. How I love the colourful and flambouyant dressing of the political juggernauts on their campaigns. It’s a new ‘ aso-ebi’ for each campaign venue. The musicians are having a field day and the Nigerian media are also having bumper harvest of cash. What with the countless live telecasts of campaigns; the political jingles and newspaper advertorials. The Public Relation firms and Advertising Agencies are also not left out of the cake sharing. Many of them are having swell time placing adverts on behalf of their clients, mounting political bill boards and performing sundry other services for their political clients.   It’s their season of boom and I am sure they’ll not want it to end. However, accompanying all the glitz and glamour of the campaign...

It’s no doubt election season as candidates have emerged and campaigns have taken the centre stage. The Nigerian Elections Debate Group just elected a new chairman in the person of the Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority, Mr. Sola Omole. He takes over from Aremo Taiwo Alimi. The NEDG has rolled out its timetable for the conduct of debates for some key candidates. I wish I would have a chance to ask the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Goodluck Jonathan, a question during the forthcoming presidential debates. That will surely be: Mr. President, why did you refuse to sign about 40 legislative bills duly passed by the National Assembly? In case I do not get to ask the question then, one of the distinguished panelists should help me ask the President why he has refused to sign the bills. It is preposterous that the efforts of the National Assembly at making laws for the good governance of this country are presumably being stalled or thwarted by the...

The December 20, 2014, Peoples Democratic Party fundraiser has expectedly generated heated debate. However, much of the anger expressed are borne out of ignorance of campaign finance laws in Nigeria. Even before the Monday, January 5, clarifications by Prof. Jerry Gana, who was the chairman of the fundraising committee, that the funds realised at the event were not for President Goodluck Jonathan per se but for the Peoples Democratic Party, newspaper reports had earlier quoted the President on the day of the fundraising dinner as saying that, “The money was for the PDP”, stressing that the amount generated would help to run the PDP better. For the reader’s information, even if all the N21bn were to be spent on the presidential campaign, the PDP will still not be in breach of the law. How do I mean? Whatever a political party spends on the campaigns of its presidential candidate is not factored in as part of the N1bn ceiling placed on candidates by Section 91(2) of Electoral Act 2010...