Synopsis of Nigeria, Africa and world in 2023
It’s about 96 hours to the end
of 2023. A lot of remarkable things happened in the outgoing year. The popular
axiom says charity begins at home. Let me start the chronicle with a hearty
congratulatory message to Punch newspaper which clocked half a century of
publication this year. I am at present
reading “Our PUNCH Years”, a book edited by veteran journalist, Lekan
Otufodunrin. It was an eyewitness account of 38 former staffers of the
newspaper. The book offered a great insight to the topsy-turvy challenges of
newspaper publishing in Nigeria. I have been contributing to The PUNCH for 28
years. My first article in this newspaper was, “Saving our universities”
published on Friday, November 3, 1995. I became a columnist with this medium in
October 2012. Happy golden jubilee to The PUNCH, the most widely read newspaper
in Nigeria!
2023 is a peculiar year for
Nigeria. The country has two presidents, two sets of governors, two sets of
House of Representatives members, two sets of senators, and two sets of House of
Assembly members. What accounts for this is the seventh general elections that
was held this year by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Remember,
elections fall due in Nigeria every four years. Thus, since the beginning of
this Fourth Republic in 1999, and the return to civil rule, INEC has conducted
seven general elections in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023. So, at
the beginning of this year, President Muhammadu Buhari held sway until the
change of power on May 29. In the same way, Dr Ahmed Lawan was the President of
the Senate until the inauguration of the 10th Senate on June 13 when Godswill
Akpabio took over from him. Also, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi
Gbajabiamila, stepped aside on June 13 to make way for Dr Tajudeen Abass as the
Speaker of the 10th House of Representatives.
The 2023 general election was
fractious, divisive and contentious. Over 1,000 pre-election matters were filed
in various courts across the country arising from the messy party nomination process
of 2022. This year’s general elections were held mainly on February 25 and
March 18 with supplementary polls held on April 15. INEC also conducted three
off-cycle governorship elections in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa on November 11. This
is the first of its kind. Most of the polls were won on the first ballot.
Opinions are divided on the
credibility and integrity of this year’s elections. While the young voters and
opposition candidates claimed the election lacked credibility, many other
experienced voters and political analysts believed that the elections, though
not flawless, were conducted in substantial compliance with the country’s
electoral laws, especially Section 135 of the Electoral Act 2022.
Indeed, in what appears like
chest-thumping, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, in a speech during an
extraordinary meeting with chairmen of political parties on December 18, 2023,
said inter alia that, “So far, the Election Petition Appeal Tribunals have
ordered the commission to conduct re-run elections in 34 constituencies made up
of one senatorial district, 11 federal constituencies and 22 state Assembly
constituencies. However, the 34 constituencies constitute 2.8 per cent of the
1,191 petitions filed by litigants. Significantly, out of the 34 re-run
elections, it is only in three cases that the commission was ordered to conduct
elections in the entire constituencies. In the other 31 constituencies,
elections are to be held in a few polling units.” Only four out of the 31
governorship elections held in the outgoing year have been nullified by the
tribunal or Court of Appeal. They are those of Kano, Nasarawa, Plateau and
Zamfara states. Out of these four, only one of the All Progressives Congress,
Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State is affected.
In terms of governance, there
have been new sets of ministers and commissioners at the federal and state
levels. President Bola Tinubu took appointments of ministers a notch higher by
having a 54-member cabinet comprising 48 ministers, the President, Vice President,
Secretary to the Federal Government, Head of Service, National Security Adviser
and the Chief of Staff to the President. This, to me, is unwieldy.
Popular agitation is for the
cost of governance to be reduced. That’s not what is currently happening both
at the federal and the sub-national levels. Early this month, Nigeria has a
delegation of 1,411 that went to the United Arab Emirates for the COP28 Climate
Change Summit. Although only 422 of the delegates are purportedly sponsored by
the Federal Government, such a huge delegation is needless. Many compatriots and I want the cost of
governance reduced, and the cost of living, which has exponentially risen as a
result of the removal of subsidy on petrol, should be tamed.
As the year ends, inflation in
Nigeria is at 28 per cent. Global audit and tax advisory firm, KPMG, projected
that Nigeria’s 2023 unemployment rate is expected to rise to 40.6 per cent as
compared to 2022’s 37.7 per cent. This may have come to pass given the number
of micro, small and medium enterprises that have shut down in 2023. In January
this year, Transparency International released the Corruption Perception Index
for 2022. According to TI, “Nigeria scored 24 out of 100 points in the 2022
CPI, compared to 24 points in the 2021 CPI. There has been no change in the
country scoring between 2021 and 2022. In the country comparison for the 2022
CPI, Nigeria ranks 150 out of 180 countries compared to 154 on the 2021 CPI
results.” This is not an enviable position to occupy.
Nigeria still faces
existential challenges such as insecurity, high cost of living, poverty,
infrastructural deficit, bad governance and restiveness in the critical social
sectors such as education and health. The new sets of political leaders have
made commitments to fix these problems. However, despite the ‘Renewed Hope
Agenda’ of President Bola Tinubu, many more Nigerians are ‘voting with their
feet’ as they flee (japa) legally or illegally in search of greener pastures
abroad.
Shortly after his inauguration
as the 16th President of Nigeria, Tinubu was elected as the Chairman of the
ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government at the 63rd Ordinary Session
of the Authority held on July 9, 2023, in Guinea-Bissau. Since then, there had
been additional two coups in Niger Republic and Gabon. It will be remembered
that Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso have been under military rule since 2022.
Sudan, since April 15, 2023, has been plunged into a full-scale war due to a
power struggle between General Abdel al-Burhan and his erstwhile deputy,
Mohamed Daglo.
According to the Centre for
Preventive Action’s Global Conflict Tracker of November 2023, “Sudan’s two
warring factions remain locked in a deadly power struggle after more than six months
of fighting. The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced 5.6
million, 80 per cent of whom are internally displaced and hundreds of thousands
of whom have fled to unstable areas in Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan. Nigeria
had to evacuate over 5,000 of its citizens from the war-torn country. Very
heart-rending!
At the global level, while the
war between Russia and Ukraine is yet to abate, on October 7, 2023, Hamas
militants attacked Israel, killing over 1,200 of its citizens and holding over
200 hostages. As the year winds down, an AP report of December 23, 2023, says,
“Israel’s war to destroy Hamas has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians….
Israel’s aerial and ground offensive has been one of the most devastating
military campaigns in recent history, displacing nearly 85 per cent of Gaza’s
2.3 million people and levelling wide swaths of the tiny coastal enclave. More
than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are
starving, according to a report from the United Nations and other agencies.”
This is quite devastating!
There is no gainsaying the fact that the world is in dire need of good governance, equity, justice and fair play. Rule of law, due process and selflessness are among the ingredients that will help silence the guns and bring about global peace. As we look forward to a better 2024, may our leaders govern with fear of God and law as well as kind consideration for ordinary citizens. Happy New Year in advance!
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