Opinion

“That’s him, that’s him,” the two old women, wrinkled and bent with age, exclaimed. You could see wonderment and fulfillment in their eyes. And as if on cue, they both began to cry.

I have always believed that returning to a parliamentary system would offer us an opportunity to practise a more robust form of democracy. I like presidentialism, which we currently practise, but I love the parliamentary system.

On Monday December 17, 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari who is seeking re-election for a second term of office will be marking his 76th birthday and, in his own words, “still going strong.”

These valid statements, in my mind, summarize the true state of the Nigerian situation, from which all our leaders should pick some valuable lessons.

Exaggeration is the most common strain of fever at election period. Politicians make voters – and the general public – believe that the world might end on ballot day, when in fact what they are playing for is their own survival.

The INEC boss noted further that “vote-buying is illegal, undemocratic and morally poignant and a threat to the sanctity of the ballot.

Though the tell-tale signs are there, considering the unusual electoral malpractices in Ekiti, Osun, Kwara and other places where voters have allegedly been brazenly intimidated, disenfranchised and disillusioned.

That withering creative madness was the tipping point. Over 500,000 people have now viewed the body double video and perhaps the 500,001thviewer was Bishop David Oyedepo, leader of one of the largest Christian evangelical denominations in Nigeria.

“Only a redeemed media can redeem the nation from drowning in the turbulence of malicious misinformation and hate-mongering that is already gathering,” – Prof Ayobami Ojebode on Thursday, November 29 at the Radio Nigeria 2018 Annual Lecture in Abuja.

In order to defeat terror, Nigeria needs a well thought out anti-terror plan and one thing that must be central to that plan is the buy in of the people because terror can only thrive where there is local support. Take that local support structure away and the terror architecture will collapse like a pack of cards.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has injected over $10.97bn, into the Forex Market between January and October this year, to defend the Nation’s currency, the Naira, against other major currencies, including the dollar.” (See Punch Newspaper report of November 18th 2018 titled “CBN Defended Naira with $11bn in 10 months”).

The notorious rumour in circulation on Nigerian streets sounds every bit like a citation from a James Hadley Chase. Chase had a pleasant notoriety with his crime fiction novels that hold you spellbound. With a gloating slide to it, the rumour is trending, with celebrated gusto, about the “death” of the man Nigerians elected into office in May, 2015.

A document in circulation, from the resolutions of a retreat in a foreign country by one of the parties makes no pretences about their plan to cause tension between various communities. They have dramatically begun actions to destroy the integrity of the election process.

It matters a lot to our politicians what the foreign press or agencies say about them, especially about their electoral chances. If foreigners, particularly those in London or New York, say something nice, our politicians take it to heart and repost as far and wide as they can. If not, they get mad.

The National Assembly (NASS) – Senate and House of Representatives – are persisting in their season of delusion. They continue to have an over bloated sense of the powers the Constitution confers on the legislature.

Many years ago, I was in Abuja to attend an international workshop on one of those human development issues that used to engage a lot of attention in those days: sustainable development goals, maternal mortality, maternal morbidity, adolescent sexuality, women’s political representation, the Beijing declaration, HIV/AIDS reporting

The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, Friday, said the controversy concerning President Muhammadu Buhari’s school certificate is embarrassing and felt a sense of duty to produce and deliver to him a confirmation and attestation of his results, in form of a duplicate certificate.

No matter what the Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police Force say in the aftermath of the latest face-off with members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, this country cannot justify the measure of force its agents have continued to unleash on this religious group.