Public Affairs Analyst

Merry Christmas everyone! What a year 2019 has been. It opened with preparations for the sixth general election in this Fourth Republic being at fever pitch. From November 18, 2018, aftermath of the candidate nomination process campaign commenced in earnest. From January to March 2019, politicians continued to mount the soap boxes to woo voters. Of course, severe cases of violence were recorded across the country. Political opponents, party secretariats, campaign vehicles were primary targets. Not even the election umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission, was spared, as some local government offices of INEC in Plateau, Osun, Anambra and Imo states were torched by unknown arsonists. Logistical challenges made INEC to postpone the February 16 elections by one week. Eventually, the elections –presidential, Senate and House of Representatives– were held on February 23, while the governorship, state Houses of Assembly and Abuja Area Council polls were held on March 9. Though t...

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) on Tuesday, December 17, 2019, while marking his 77th birthday, signed the 2020 Appropriation Bill into law. Buhari had on October 8, 2019 presented a budget proposal of N10.33tn tagged, “Budget of Sustaining Growth and Job Creation” for the Federal Government at the Joint Session of the National Assembly in Abuja. The Senate and the House of Representatives had on December 5, 2019, concurrently passed the budget, raising the total estimates from the proposed N10.33tn to about N10.6tn. The National Assembly had put a clause in the bill that the budget should run from January 1, 2020, bringing Nigeria back to a long desired   January-December budget cycle. Of the new total sum of N10,594,362,364,830, the parliament raised statutory transfers from the proposed N556.7bn to N560,470,827,235; raised debt service from N2.45tn to N2,725,498,930,000; reduced recurrent (non-debt) expenditure from N4.88tn to N4,842,974,600,640; and in...

Nigeria is a very religious society no doubt. Churches, mosques and shrines dot the country’s landscape. The atheist population in Nigeria is very insignificant as many of the citizens are adherents of Christianity, Islam or African Indigenous Religions.   Our religiosity reflects not only in our modes of worship but also in our names and ways of dressing. Religious festivals are commonplace here. The Osun Osogbo Festival holds every August in Osogbo. There is the Olojo Festival in Ile-Ife. The Ojude Oba Festival is celebrated in Ijebu-Ode on the second day of the Eid el Kabir festival. Easter and Christmas celebrations are observed annually by Christians. These are apart from the annual church congresses and conventions. Last Saturday, December 7, I was one of the guest speakers at the Abuja Christian Youth Parley on anti-corruption organised by the Arojah Theatre Group. There, I presented a paper on “Diminishing Corruption in Nigeria”. In the course of the programme, the Dire...

Last week, a letter written by ex-Governor of Zamfara State, Abdul-Aziz Yari, to the incumbent, Bello Matawalle, demanding the payment of his N10m monthly upkeep allowance sparked public outrage and caused the state governor to sponsor a bill for the abrogation of the law making it mandatory for the payment of such mindless sums of money amidst the misery of the people of the state. Matawalle has deservedly been receiving accolades for this bold step. Imagine a state like Zamfara with high cases of poverty, unemployment, insecurity and infrastructure deficit paying N10m each as upkeep allowance to its ex-governors, deputies N5m each, ex-speakers N3m while their deputies laugh home with N1.5m each every month. There were also other privileges embedded in the obnoxious pension law, including two vehicles to be replaced every four years, free medical treatment for a former governor and his immediate family, vacation within Nigeria and outside and a five-bedroom house in any location o...

“Corruption is the cause of many major problems in our country. It is a catalyst for poverty, insecurity, weak educational system, poor health facilities and services and many other ills of our society. This government is working hard to overcome such ills. Corruption generally and public sector corruption, in particular, inhibits the ability of government to deliver infrastructure and basic services to the people… It is on record that in the past 10 years, N1tn has been appropriated for constituency projects, yet the impact of such huge spending on the lives and welfare of ordinary Nigerians can hardly be seen.” –President Muhammadu Buhari Again, as it happens from time to time, another can of worms on corrupt practices was opened by President Muhammadu Buhari last Tuesday, November 19, 2019. It was at the National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in Public Sector, which was organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, in conjunction with...

Background and preparations Ahead of the November 16, 2019 off-cycle governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa States, the Independent National Electoral Commission had assured and reassured the voting populace and the Nigerian public about its readiness to conduct credible and peaceful elections. The commission’s optimism stems from the fact that it had done all it needed to do in preparations for the four elections holding in the two states namely the Kogi governorship election, the Kogi West court ordered senatorial election rerun, the Bayelsa State governorship election as well as the Brass 1 State Constituency poll.   In preparation for the elections INEC hatched an Election Project Plan (EPP), published Timetable and Schedule of Activities, set up the Election Management System (EMS), activated its Inter-Agency consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES), distributed Permanent Voter Cards for those who are yet to collect their PVCs from September 2 – 30, 2019, ...

On Saturday, November 16, 2019, the Independent National Electoral Commission conducted four elections across two states. For the first time, INEC held two off-cycle governorship elections on the same day. In Bayelsa, the governorship election was held with the Brass 1 State Constituency supplementary election in six Polling Units with 2,076 registered voters in Cape Farmosa Ward. In Kogi State, the governorship election was held with the court-ordered rerun election in Kogi West Senatorial District. The District has a total of 432,515 registered voters. In the last one week, I have been on different broadcast media platforms to preview and review the polls. I was on the Nigerian Television Authority, Arise News TV, African Independent Television, Independent Television, Nigerian Info 95.1 FM, Kiss 99.9 FM, Raypower 100.5 FM, Kapital 92.9 FM and Love 104.5 FM. Ahead of the elections, I was at several policy dialogues and stakeholders’ meetings held to discuss how to have credible...

The Niger Delta Development Commission is one of several interventionist agencies established by successive governments in Nigeria. According to the information gleaned from the website of the agency, the “NDDC was established in 2000 with the mission of facilitating the rapid, even and sustainable development of the Niger Delta into a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful.” What a tall order! The NDDC was mandated to carry out the following functions by the Act setting it up. They are:   “Formulation of policies and guidelines for the development of the Niger Delta area; conception, planning and implementation, in accordance with set rules and regulations, of projects and programmes for sustainable development of the Niger Delta area in the field of transportation including roads, jetties and waterways, health, employment, industrialisation, agriculture and fisheries, housing and urban development, water sup...

On October 30, 2019, the Supreme Court panel of seven led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, dismissed the appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, challenging the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 23, 2019 presidential election. The CJN said the reasons for the decision of the court would be made known at a later date. This judgement has once again polarised the polity with the ruling party lauding the verdict while a section of the opposition political parties castigated Their Lordships for failing to give victory to Atiku and the PDP. Well, congratulations are in order to the President and his party, the All Progressives Congress, for winning the legal challenge. The long-drawn legal fireworks had begun immediately after Buhari’s re-election in February. For six months, the Court of Appeal, serving as court of first instance in a presidential election petitions, had heard the PDP’s and ...