Incurable, Dissoluble Nigeria: Now Tinubu’s Presidential Election Tribunal verdict’ll fasten dissolving Nigeria
By
Dr. Orefo Nnamdi Onochie
Watching and bidding the time since September 6, 2023, when the global television broadcast of the verdict of the Nigerian 2023 Presidential Election Tribunal was read, it has been deja vu all the way.
In all of it, only one thing has been easily discernible, that the ills of Nigeria are incurable: another, that by the actions of the elite of the country, it is an entity that is DISSOLUBLE : that particularly, the quantum and aggregation of the verdict of the 2023 Presidential Election Tribunal of September 6, 2023, has the huge capacity to set the country on a path of final dissolution. How is this possible?
Discontent and Disharmony
With the way and manner, the verdict delivery process went, it was clear that the Appeal Tribunal Judges were very much uncomfortable, embarrassed and not sure of their actions: it is already shown that the Tinubu legal team wrote and handed in the judgment that was read, to the Appeal Court judges. There was superfluous tension, that stemmed from the awareness that the actions of the major actors, the Judges themselves, were going to be against the natural and normal grain of the truth in the matter.
It was awkward, the manner of division of the reading of the verdicts, rather than a single reader, all five Judges, shared parts of the judgment amongst themselves. Then, the stages of verdicts of the three major political parties, the major claims of each Presidential Candidate against Tinubu, gradually and dramatically, all the misgivings listed against Tinubu were completely disproved and disavowed.
Except for the APC claim that Peter Obi was not duly nominated by the Labour Party, all the thirteen listed points against Tinubu were spuriously justified in his favor.
These justifications and acceptance of Tinubu’s past records of crimes, misdemeanors, and electoral infractions has bred infamous discontent in Nigeria: disharmony of the cadre that will persist for a long time to come, with many-sided unknown consequences. First in line is zero youths patriotism, followed by adults disowning being Nigerian, and lastly publicly avowed shame of Nigerian citizenship and judiciary.
Exact Proof and Listed Incidents of Rigging the 2023 Presidential election
Surely the most shocking and disheartening part of the September 6, 2023, judgment was the statement by the judges that though 18,000 incidents of rigging were listed, there was no exact names of places where actual rigging took place. The lack of honesty of the Judges was quite apparent. This incident revealed why after rejecting to televise the trial proceedings, very quickly and openly the Judges conceded to the televising of the Judgment. Incredulity and bare faced shame, was the main consequences suffered by the Judges, as the judgment was being read, same on the judicial process in Nigeria, on that day of judgement.
What other naming proof did anyone need, if there are 18,000 listed incidents of rigging: surely place names were there, but the preponderance and weight of numbers, is much stronger than the sought-after few names. That fact of very high rigging numbers alone, was sufficient proof that nullified the presidential election itself and disqualified the Candidacy of Tinubu and capsized the entire presidential election process.
Electoral Law 2022: Use of IREV, BVAS and Electronic Transmission of Voting
To imagine that Judges of that 2023 Presidential Election Tribunal had been practicing lawyers of more than 15 years each before being elevated to the Bench and being faced with their rulings, is hard to believe : that INEC had the prerogative to determine the process of transmitting election results. What was the point in enacting the Electoral Act of 2022 into law?
Can anyone forsake a Statute and follow another pathway order than the law? Having acquired IREV, BVAS and electronic transmission (voting data and instant storage and forwarding) devices at N50 Billion Naira, in 2022, then the judiciary, through the Presidential Tribunal, and the government, insist that INEC, even having regaled itself of having such high achievement, could decide not to use it. Nigeria is on a path of no remedy or cure, there is no way an entity of this genre can cohere and remain progressive, prosperous and insoluble.
1999 Constitution Inoperable after 2023 General Elections
The basis of governing Nigeria at this time is the 1999 Constitution, a legal document that has been severally amended, yet one that has been completely inoperable. It is on account of the lack of the capacity to work, of the Constitution that I have come to the inescapable conclusion that Nigeria is now DISSOLUBLE. It does not matter what governance efforts are directed towards her, the center can no longer hold, and the country is tearing up at the seams: the more the efforts, the deeper the damage, and the harder it will appear that no solution can stop the decay and dissolution.
Here are several of the indices:
1. Insecurities, Islamisation and Jihad – what started as multiple Islamic religious and ethnic uprisings in the North, from about the 1930s, 1950s, against Igbos, Christians and Southerners generally, well into the 1960s – 1970s – 1980s – up to the 2000s, has become hydra-headed, as Boko Haram, ISWAP, ISIS, Bandits from the Sahel, Fulani herdsmen imported to destabilize Goodluck Jonathan from 2014, now to the full scale Islamization-Arabization militarism that the Nigerian Military has not fully defeated since 2009 (15 years of war and still counting), and there is no hope or end in sight.
Any thinking that this Jihad of Islam in Nigeria will end or fizzle away, is to accept that paradigm constructed for those already slated for defeat, conquest and conversion to ISLAM; the only solution is the peaceful, negotiated dissolution and division of the country, to enable stable, uninterrupted peaceful development and prosperity of the other component parts of the country. Outside of this political and economic paradigm, the internecine wars, killings, maimings, decapitations, bombings in Christian and Animist communities of the Middle Belt, and the farther South, will continue sine die.
Only on September 8, 2023, Bandits bombed out a Catholic Church in Kaduna, killing a budding young Priest attached to the Church, a clear sign of what the future holds, especially with the Appeal Court verdict on September 6, 2023 lending newer legitimization of the illegitimate hoisting of another full blown Muslim-Muslim Presidential leadership of Tinubu-Shettima on the rest of the geographic area still designated Nigeria.
Those who first obtain blessing from Arabisation inspired pilgrimages to Mecca-Medina before, before and after “elections”, as they renew the vows to “convert” or decimate everyone, during tenures granted by an Islamic dominant 1999 Constitution, which can only be AMENDED to suit the yearnings, aspirations and objectives of the majority Northern States and their Muslim cohorts in the Southwest.
Early in 2022, two Northerners pretended to “install” themselves as Emirs of Benin City and Aba (Ngwa); were it not that they were stopped by the State governments and public uproar in the South. If Buhari had “protected” the pretender new Southern “Emirs”, more of such would have been scrambled in other Southern cities such as Onitsha, Yenagoa, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Umuahia, Abakaliki, Uyo (which is already badly bribed with a docile 2023 Senate President position), Asaba (where a pretender is also already stopped), and the fate of Ilorin and Yoruba Afonja would be replicated, as the Gambari dynasty has been installed now in Ilorin for more than 218 years, when Usman Dan Fodio’s Jihad was stopped by the deep forests and tse-tse flies bites on Dan Fodio’s horses, in the deeper South.
Newly constructed Expressways now and roads and British colonialism has clearly made both the approach and continuation of the Jihad objective easier to pursue. It is time to insist and negotiate the peaceful DISSOLUTION of Nigeria, to safeguard the lives and preserve ethnic populations of the non Muslim Peoples of the Southern Tropics, down towards the Atlantic Ocean.
2. Ruination of the Nigerian Economy – the new scramble of only Muslims to lead and govern Nigeria is bringing out the worst attributes of government and administration in Nigeria. The capacity and acumen to hold back economic ruination is not there. Policies to hold back inflation and rising cost of living, high electricity shortages, as well as other social hardships, is bereft of these persons who have maneuvered, overwhelmed and installed themselves to govern the country.
Buhari for example, in a space of 8-years elevated general economic inflation by about 520%, from May 29, 2015 – May 29, 2023. Tinubu in only 115 days of stepping into Aso Rock, drove inflation through “removal of fuel subsidy” and N920.00 per $1.00 USD, another additional 320%, and has been halted and not stopped, by coagulating social unrest, civil disobedience or revolt of the suffering population, threats and strikes of organized Labour, and the high anticipation of the verdict of the 2023 Presidential election Tribunal.
Upon his return from the just concluded G 20 Summit in Bharat, New Delhi, where his presence was clearly a nullity and embarrassment (on what basis is Nigeria aspiring for observer status of G20, 37 out of 172 position in the Global Poverty Index, and 103 out of 121 in the Global Serious Hunger Level?).
Tinubu as he returns to Nigeria, will be fighting for controls on the further diminution of the Nigerian economy, skyrocketing inflation and endemic social corruption. The DNA of this type of government is deeply woven into negative policies that deride the society, and there can be no clear national solutions to the grave problems confronting the entity.
Again parallels with Buhari are most apt for Nigeria: the more Buhari tried, the deeper he buried the country, economy and Nigeria’s sovereignty. The earliest invitation by Tinubu to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala brought no respite, because the ideological inclination for implementing the policies that will heal the economy is totally alien to him.
New pronouncements Tinubu will make in the next 60-days will be pinned on “palliatives” that are mere cosmetic deceits to confuse Nigerians , while he will be pleading for patience for his policies to bear good fruits: a trajectory of hyper inflation, (continually rising above 170% from when the last petrol price was increased, until it is surely increased again), insecurity, ethnic and religious agitations rising from his own faulty Yoruba -Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket and foundation and illegitimacy. These will further compound the political problems and space in Nigeria.
If Tinubu has any new economic wand or magic policies for the Nigerian economy, he is here and now challenged to espouse and reveal them for Nigerians to see, support and believe (seeing they say is believing……in addition, hearing it now from the horses’s mouth, will bring healing and salvation to the polity).
Short of these, any other policy efforts will be delays, buying time, pending the retribution that will come from social hardships, anger at the confusion and pretending…… it happened to Buhari, it will be worse with Tinubu, because the difference between both is very marginal. The agitations for ethnic new small republics, ushering social confusion and restive youths’ agitations will be near impossible to contain…… see how they handled # All Eyes on the Judiciary, and the Chicago State University credentials of Tinubu…… your guess will be better than mine, on what the future holds for Tinubu and Nigeria by March 2024.
3. Corruption and Politicians in 2023 and 2024 – the only way known in Nigeria, for the furtherance of governance is additional bad governance, corruption and bribery. Godswill Akpabio could not switch off his oratorical microphone when he informed Nigerians on global TV that Senators would be paid N2.2 Million Naira each for “their weekend”. It would be worse, and very well hidden, as the new Tinubu Ministers, adjudged by Nigerians as a breed of EFCC beckoned invitees with still dozens of skeletons in their cupboards.
Their aims now will be to kleptomaniacally prepare exits like Mrs. Deziani Allison-Madueke, purchasing foreign diplomatic passports and visas, for themselves and their families, already well and fully installed in bulletproof houses, cars and jeeps, in secluded countries and islands, around the globe. Nyesom Wike in his versatile political devilry, has just revealed how Mohammed Musa Bello, CON and Banker, Buhari’s FCT Minister, from 2015-2023, approved construction of 1-kilometer road, from Gaduwa Junction to NCDC Office, in the FCT, at the cost of N4 Billion Naira, and paid the full money amount, even before construction began, and without any due diligence prior the completion of the project.
That was a government that ran all Nigerian public Universties aground and closed, for nearly one year in 2022, and refused to fully fund the education budget for the fiscal year 2021-2022: now loans will be granted to Nigerian students by Tinubu, whose parents and guardians were educated FREE by Asiwaju Obafemi Awolowo, whose eye glasses and traditional title Tinubu has copied and converted for more than 50-years: when students fail to repay Tinubu’s University education loans after two years, they will be imprisoned.
How and why would an entity such as this be preserved? For whose benefit, and at a cost against who? A negotiated peaceful dissolution of Nigeria is still the only sure option, to permit the ethnic nationalities and indigenous peoples, to choose how to devolve, govern and prosper their territories; the crop of leaders of Nigeria of the past nearing 63 years, have failed Nigeria: it did not work in my own life time of more than 67-years, when will it work, how will it work, and who can and will they permit to perform that miracle?
4. Political Promises and Future Hope – to plead for public patience and to beg by politicians is easy and very deceitful. Do the promises pan out? None so far, in living memory, and Nigeria. All the promise of Buhari, as Sai Baba, turned into political and economic tragedy and nightmare! Tinubu has used money to overwhelm every body, and DOMINATED Nigeria: what will make him to be any better? How good has his commencement been for anyone to think or believe that his future will be better?
Has Aliko Dangote’s promise to sell a bag of 100 kg of cement been fulfilled? How much US Dollars has Nigeria and Emefiele granted at concessionary prices to Dangote, and what has come of that, and so many others of the same ilk in the private sector (BUA, Otedola, Alakija, Elumelu, etc the more they received, the less they gave?). Why and what are the indices that have worked in other political and economic entities, that are failing so brazenly in Nigeria? Unless the current brood of leaders and the political entity is dissolved into new more ideologically manageable entities, in spite of all the promises of Nigeria, it will get worse.
5. Religious and Ethnic Domination – based on these two indices, the continuation, sustenance and preservation of the Nigerian entity has become impossible. The opportunity of the 2023 General and Presidential Election, provided the window that reduced the rudeness of the 2021 agitations to dismember Nigeria, promoted by the Oduduwa Republic, Niger Delta militants, Middle Belt forum, Arewa Republic and IPOB-MASSOB-Unknown Gunmen-ESN agitators.
The imbalance in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, the refusal of the Northern political and religious elite to RESTRUCTURE NIGERIA, for more than 20-years now, has been the driving force behind these political agitations. As the 2023 election circle closes with all the unjust constitutional failures and abuses, on fundamental rights of Igbos or other ethnic nationalities that resemble Igbos, in Lagos State, violated before and after the Presidential election (a country where citizens are stopped from voting in elections, and neither the governments or Police authorities raised an eyebrow, why still retain them as citizens?): added to now by the unjust incoherent Presidential election Tribunal verdict of September 6, 2023, (depending on what the Supreme Court of Nigeria may also rule, in less than 55-days), it is impossible to predict what shape or format the new agitations in Nigeria may take.
It is wiser to assume the worst, and work towards the better. The basic structures of elections everywhere in the world, revolve around ethnicity, religion and lastly the capacity to govern. Unless the rules of politics and elections preserve ethnic and religious groups to share, participate and rotate, the agitations will reduce, redact and ultimately dissolve any political entity. It may take some time but the result cannot be altered.
Scotland and Northern Ireland are still seeking either to leave the United Kingdom entirely, or to devolve further away from the dominance of the UK, from London.In the Islamic Republic of Sudan, fighting ferociously between Muslims-Muslims , Arabs of the north and ethnic Dafur African Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, unusually again all Muslims, yet ethnic domination has fueled a 5-months war, that is close to deciding the final 3rd breakup of the Sudan: even among Muslims, in the Sudan, the ethnic factor is still very pervasive.
Nigeria should see this, especially in the North, and opt for early dissolution that will preserve the amity already established and sustained by the ECOWAS Treaty on the free movement of peoples. The APC and PDP trifle of the Zoning and Rotation Clauses in picking their 2023 Presidential Candidates, especially the Yoruba ethnic support of Tinubu and the political kingdom he has sustained in Lagos State of Nigeria, was a very costly mistake that will lead now to the eventual dissolution of the country. It will be impossible to stop or control this dialectical process or stage.
The models of Singapore-Malaysia (1964), Nigeria-Sarduana Province plebiscite into Cameroun (1961), is better than the Islamic Sudan-South Sudan solution (28-year ethnic civil wars; 2011 eventual dissolution), the earlier the political negotiations, the better for everyone. The peoples deserve peace and prosperity, and the politicians or military cadres should not deny them that.
In the North, Boko Haram and Bandits have been despoiling the people, and carved out new political entities, where they collect taxes and revenue, within Nigeria: in the East, IPOB, ESN and Unknown Gunmen have used “Monday Stay at Home”, social disobedience, and ethnic cleansing to drive fear and poverty into the psyche of the Igbo population; in Rivers-Akwa Ibom States, Cult groups drive the ethnic competitions, and only on September 9, 2023, a Senior Police Officer, the DPO, was decapitated in East Ahoada LGA: when will all this stop?
To Restructure or to Dissolve Nigeria?
The question has been answered by the 2023 Presidential election Tribunal verdict. Surely Nigerians know that RESTRUCTURING Is impossible now because, there are more legislators in the North, than in the South: so they the political and traditional elite of the North will not opt to restructure Nigeria, loose money, in Billions of Naira, annually, loose political control to keep acting as Kings only, and not citizens.
The South, except for the Biafra war, were never defeated in war by anyone, including the British, though the Oba of Benin, Ovonramwen Nogbaisi in 1897, and King Jaja Mbanaso of Opobo in 1887, were both exiled, just as a few other Yoruba Obas were also exiled. The South must reject DOMINATION by Muslims and Fulanis: we the Anioma Igbo of Delta State today, defeated the British in 1864, using Ekumeku Warriors tactics, now adopted by anti-Balaka and Séléka in Central African Republic (CAR), as well as the Unknown Gunmen, in Igbo Land, (fight and run away, to live and fight another day).
The intermittent war and violence, in the North, Middle Belt and South East of Nigeria, is totally uncalled for now, because of the dialectical stage of Nigeria today: bad economic and monetary policies, election rigging, corruption of politicians and imbalances in the 1999 Constitution now taken for granted by the Northerners, and some Yorubas, has destroyed trust of other ethnic groups in the unity and survival of Nigeria.
Nigeria must avoid the model of the CAR, where violence, ethnic and religious mini-wars has destroyed social cohesion and progress. We must move on forward, evolve better and quicker constitutional ways to create new political entities and republics, as happened in Europe after the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union, to lead our peoples, away from mini-wars, ethnic and religious violence, towards negotiated lasting peace, development and prosperity.
Long Live Our Peoples! Negotiate now and dissolve Nigeria!
Dr Orefo Nnamdi Onochie, Chairman-Convener NACOPPIN NIGERIA, sent in this piece.
