Politics
As Nigerians enter another perpetual cycles of hope and despair, many concerned patriots and organisations have tasked the new administration on the need for national reconciliation, inclusiveness and the engagement of experts in the rough road of rebuilding a divided nation and its battered economy.
By Goddy Ikeh
THE inauguration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the new President of Nigeria on Monday, May 29, 2023 is the climax of the series of activities for the inauguration of the principal officers of the new administration, which kicked off on Thursday, May 25, 2023 in Abuja with the conferment of the National Honours on the president-elect and the vice president-elect. President Muhammadu Buhari on that auspicious occasion, conferred the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) on president-elect, Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Grand Commander of the Order of Niger (GCON) on vice president-elect, Alhaji Kashim Shettima.
In his acceptance speech, Tinubu promised that he would not disappoint on the trust bestowed on him by President Muhammadu Buhari and millions of Nigerians.
“I understand the magnitude of the honour conferred on me today and the task ahead. Nigerians deserve no less.
“You (Buhari) have charted the course and I shall not disappoint you,” he said.
The conferment of the national honours was followed by the Inauguration Lecture on “Deepening Democracy for Integration and Development” delivered by former Kenyan President, Uhuru M. Kenyatta, on Saturday May 27, 2023. The Children’s Day Programme, which involved a parade and a party for children followed, while an Inter-denominational Church Service was held on Sunday, May 28 at the National Christian Centre, while an Inauguration Dinner/Gala Night took place later on Sunday at the State House Conference Centre, Abuja.
And on Monday, May 29, 2023, the Inauguration Parade and Swearing-In exercise will take place at the Eagle Square and it will be followed by a Post Inauguration Luncheon.
While millions Nigerians await the inauguration ceremony in Abuja on Monday with all sense of excitement and nostalgia, Mustapha has assured that adequate arrangements had been made for the safety and security of all people throughout the inauguration period.
As the nation begins another perpetual cycles of hope and despair after eight years of failed promises, widespread insecurity and battered economy and a broken and divided nation, many stakeholders are still hopeful that the incoming administration may turn around the fortunes of this nation which is endowed with huge oil and gas reserves and large deposits of yet to be exploited solid minerals.
Already, many prominent foreigners and Nigerians as well as organisations have sent in goodwill messages to the new administration and tendered their advice on how best to heal the wounds inflicted on Nigerians by the last administration and return the nation on the path of growth, which they believe is hinged on fixing quickly the broken nation and its institutions.
In his inaugural lecture on “Deepening Democracy for Integration and Development” on Saturday May 27, 2023, former Kenyan President, Uhuru M. Kenyatta, admonished Tinubu to build a prosperous nation for all Nigerians, irrespective of ethnic, religious and political tendencies.
Kenyatta urged Tinubu to “learn to lead those who do not love you”.
In his congratulatory message to Tinubu, the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, tasked him on inclusive leadership that represents all Nigerians. Blinken, in a telephone conversation with Tinubu emphasised his continued commitment to further strengthening the US-Nigeria relations with the incoming administration.
According to the spokesperson of the US Department of State, Matthew Miller, Blinken noted that the US-Nigeria partnership was built on shared interests and strong people-to-people ties and that those links should continue to strengthen under Tinubu’s tenure.
Speaking on the incoming administration, the former Deputy Governor of Sokoto State, Mukhtar Shagari, expressed optimism that Tinubu can achieve greatness as president of the nation if he surrounds himself with the right people.
Shagari told Channels Television in an interview on Thursday, May 25, that Tinubu would be successful if he has the right team. “Very easily if he has the right team. If you are talented and you are the captain of a football team, if you are the only person that is talented and good, you don’t have strikers, you can hardly win any competition.
“But if you have the right people, in fact, it is the right team and strikers that will help you score the goals. So, if Bola Ahmed Tinubu does what he did in Lagos at the national level, that is expanding what he did to achieve success in Lagos, then bring in the right calibre of people,” he added.
For the International Monetary Fund, IMF, the incoming government should take steps to increase the country’s revenue base. The Resident Representative of the IMF in Nigeria, Ari Aisen, said during a virtual forum on the Nigerian debt situation, that the incoming government should drastically reduce dependence on debt to fund expenditures. According to Aisen, to resolve the debt issues of Nigeria, you need to concentrate on revenue and expenditure.
According to him, the debt situation deteriorated because the federal government was spending more than it was actually getting in revenues.
Aisen said that the critical thing to do was for countries to be able to rely more on their own revenue to finance their own expenditure.
“That is the autonomy and the Independence that we like to see our member countries rely on,” he said.
Speaking in the same vein, Vahyala Kwaga, a Senior Research and Policy Analyst at BudgIT, urged the incoming government to address the distortion between fiscal and monetary authorities.
According to Kwaga, there is a lot of money being pumped into the economy and this has its impact.
The Media Rights Agenda, MRA, in a statement on Sunday, May 28, called on incoming President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make transparency and accountability the cornerstone of Nigeria’s democracy and accused outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari of monumental failure in the implementation of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, which it said had resulted in a legacy of secrecy after his eight years in office.
In a report titled “A Legacy of Secrecy: The FOI Act under the Buhari Administration”, issued by MRA to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the signing into Law of the FOI Act by then President Goodluck Jonathan on May 28, 2011 as well as the end of the Buhari Administration on May 29, 2023, the organization noted that “governance during the Buhari Years was characterized by blatant violations of the provisions of the FOI Act by the vast majority of public institutions and willful disregard for their obligations under the Law.”
According to Mr. Ayode Longe, MRA’s Programme Director, “Over the last eight years, scores of public institutions spent millions of naira engaging lawyers to defend their refusal to comply with the provisions of the FOI Act and disclose information to members of the public requesting such information even when there was clearly no legitimate basis for withholding the requested information. Not in a single instance did President Buhari or anybody in his Administration express disapproval for this widespread practice or reprimand any of its institutions engaged in the practice.”
He called on the incoming government of President-Elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take proactive steps to ensure the effective implementation of the Act and allocate adequate resources for this purpose in the Federal Government’s annual budgets, saying good governance cannot be possible without transparency, accountability and citizen participation in government, which the Act can help to engender.
But following the post-election crisis and the anxiety surrounding the inauguration of the resident-elect, Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, called on Nigerians to remain calm and law abiding. Obi said that a peaceful and quiet Nigeria was needed where the government would concentrate on caring for the sufferings of the people. Speaking on the sidelines of an event in Kaduna State, Obi stated that the unity, peace and security of the country was paramount than any other interest and urged all citizens to be law abiding and work for the progress and development of the country.
However, worried by post-election crisis in the country former President Olusegun Obasanjo had in his post-election appeal to Nigerians, called for national reconciliation. Lamenting on the deteriorating state of the nation, Obasanjo noted that Nigeria “is presently more divided and corroded than what leaders of thought had in mind”.
Speaking at a public lecture series tagged, “From Elections to Governance and Performance” recently in Abuja, Obasanjo said that with the current situation on ground, it would not be out of place for a national reconciliation, which would assuage the feelings of aggrieved Nigerians, particularly the youth population.
He criticised the growing debt profile and spending spree of government at all tiers, especially those at the helm of affairs currently, likening the situation to “spending like a drunken sailor”.
According to him, the trend of thinking has become inevitable for Nigeria in the face of dwindling fortunes in oil revenue, huge foreign indebtedness and the urgency of diversifying the country’s neo-cultural economy. He, however, suggested the following:
On the worsening divisiveness of the country, he suggested that the new administration should urgently facilitate the process of national moral rearmament and national reconciliation that will assuage the youths of the country.
This, according to him, must be done in sync with the imperative of national value orientation that Nigeria requires to build a collective sense of enduring and local values and national belonging.
He stated that governance in Nigeria now calls for thinking outside the box, in terms of development financing, this has become inevitable in the face of Nigeria’s dwindling fortune, in oil revenue, Nigeria’s huge foreign indebtedness and the urgency of diversifying Nigeria’s neo cultural economy.
“All of these and more are necessary to correct and not to repeat the sickening and painful show of shame that the elections of 2023 generated.”
In the same vein, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah, had earlier said that Nigerians were ready to reclaim their country, “as God guides President Muhammadu Buhari in his retirement at the end of his second tenure on May 29, 2023.”
In his 2023 Easter message, the clergy also told the president-elect, Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that the most urgent task facing Nigeria was not infrastructure or the “usual cheap talk about the dividends of democracy, but the most urgent mission of embarking on the psychological journey of making Nigerians feel whole again and cutting off the chains of ethnicity and religious bigotry and placing the nation on the path to our greatness, of exorcising the ghost of nepotism and religious bigotry.”
Kukah also urged the Supreme Court of Nigeria to remember that they have their conscience and God to answer to as they decide on the cases arising from the 2023 general elections.
“I am hopeful that you (President-elect) will appreciate that the most urgent task facing our nation is not infrastructure or the usual cheap talk about dividends of democracy.
“These are important but first, keep us alive because only the living can enjoy infrastructure. For now, the most urgent mission is to start a psychological journey of making Nigerians feel whole again, of creating a large tent of opportunity and hope for us all, of expanding the frontiers of our collective freedom, of cutting off the chains of ethnicity and religious bigotry, of helping us recover from the feeling of collective rape by those who imported the men of darkness that destroyed our country, of recovering our country and placing us on the path to our greatness, of exorcising the ghost of nepotism and religious bigotry.”
To the Supreme Court judges, Kukah stated: “We are saddened that your sacred temples have been invaded by the political class leaving the toxic fumes that now threaten your reputation as the last hope for all citizens.
“It is sad that your hard earned reputation is undergoing very severe stress and pressure from those who want justice on their own terms. Nigerians are looking up to you to reclaim their trust in you as the interpreters of the spirit of our laws.
“The future of our country is in your hands. You have only your conscience and your God to answer to when you listen to the claims and counter claims of Nigerian lawyers as you decide the future of our country. We pray that God gives you the wisdom to see what is right and the strength of character and conscience to stand by the truth.”
On the outcome of the general election which has continued to generate tension in the land, he stated: “We are all angry and we all want Justice. Yes, we have the right to be angry and we should be angry.
To the youth of Nigeria, he stated: “I salute your energy and courage. You fought a good fight across party lines. Your engagement and involvement substantially changed the contours of our politics. Things will never be the same again.
“However, the youth do not belong to any single party, no matter the temptation. You must look at the mistakes of the past and avoid them. Note that your actions today will shape tomorrow. Learn the rules of good sportsmanship, no rules, know your roles, know when to fight.
While the nation celebrates the inauguration of the new administration, it is important to address the issue of disposing of all election petition cases before the inauguration of a new administration because of the challenges posed by the ongoing post-election petitions to the perception and credibility of the new government.
Speaking on this development, the former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, stated recently that the tension in the polity would reduce if the Presidential Election Petition Court could give judgment before the inauguration of a new president on May 29, 2023.
According to Agbakoba, the tension around the touted call for interim government was built around the fear that the judgment could drag on for months.
“The tension around the call for an interim government is that the presidential election petition may not conclude before the inauguration of a new president on May 29, 2023. But it’s very possible to conclude these petitions, provided that the court systems are very proactive,” Agbakoba said in a statement.
He stated that under arbitration matters, procedural orders and or directions issue peremptorily to resolve sometimes very complex jurisdictional and procedural issues. “The presidential election tribunals are urged to adapt the procedures very familiar with speedy conclusion of arbitration matters,” he said.
“I set out three issues in the Presidential Election Petitions that are resolvable by application of procedural orders and or directions which may peremptorily decide some of the Jurisdictional and procedural issues, stated in the petition as follows:
“Interpretation of Section 134 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as to whether securing 25 (percent) of votes in Federal Capital Territory Abuja is compulsory to be president.
“Is a candidate permitted to stand for presidential or vice presidential election when he is at the same time a senatorial candidate?
“Issues relating to qualification of candidates to stand for presidential election,” he added.
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Tags: Bola Ahmed Tinubu Goddy Ikeh Mukhtar Shagari President Muhammadu Buhari Uhuru M. Kenyatta
