The path to a one-party state may have been paved. No thanks to the winning formula of the ruling party.
Sometimes, to become a member of the kitchen cabinet in Nigeria, one has to first criticise a prominent politician sufficiently. That seems to be the secret of Daniel Bwala.
Despite the onslaught against terrorists, it seems there’s no let-up because the outlaws are still wreaking havoc!
The path to one-party state?
The All Progressives Congress (APC) may have hewn out a formula that may guarantee the party constant electoral victory as long as it continues to exist.
Elections in Nigeria since 1999 have not been totally free from manipulations and gerrymandering, which is why the presidency reminded former President Olusegun Obasanjo the other day that he lacked the moral high ground to pontificate on elections.
In Nigeria, every party in power tries to organise elections and declare itself the winner. The era of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) witnessed some electoral heist. The then electoral umpires were compromised to wheel results in PDP’s favour in the utter amazement of Nigerians.
When Nigerians thought that the 2007 election was going to be the last they would see of electoral malfeasance, when even the then-elected president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, got so embarrassed at his victory, little did they know they were just seeing an intro into what was going to be a statecraft.
Electoral observers speak in tandem that something more dreadful began to happen in the electoral space in 2019 when every institution of government linked to election management was allegedly introduced into the art of working together to deliver a premeditated electoral outcome.
The situation worsened in the build-up to the 2023 general election, when the then-presidential candidate of the APC, now President, Bola Tinubu, was caught on camera jocularly telling his supporters, “Political power is not served in a restaurant; you go for it; grab it and run with it.” His critics had then said he was referring to the ballot box.
After the election, while members of the opposition were screaming that the exercise was not transparent, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, told the aggrieved to “go to court.” The statement was interpreted by many to mean that there had been a predetermined outcome of the exercise.
An observer puts it thus: “This statement was made by a government official before petitions were filed by the opposition, signifying that the rigging, the thuggery, the violent snatching of ballot boxes, the manipulation of votes, vote buying, and the shifting of the goal post by the so-called independent electoral commission were all premeditated.”
The INEC has held six other elections after the general election. Off-cycle elections have been held in Osun, Kogi, Imo, Bayelsa, Edo, and Ondo States.
Increasingly, the conduct of the elections has continued to elicit controversies. While observers flatly condemned the Edo election held in September this year, the last election in Ondo dwarfed that of Edo in negative comparisons.
The Ondo election last Saturday was a bazaar, as Yiaga Africa, a prominent election observer-organisation, decried the commercialisation of the exercise. Reports had it that vote-buying was prominent despite the heavy presence of security agents.
The leadership of the APC has also reiterated its resolve to capture the remaining two states—Anambra and Ekiti. With the look of things, there is nothing stopping the bulldozer. This has increased the fear of a one-party state in Nigeria.
Read also: Ondo: APC hopeful of victory as PDP alleges shoddy conduct
Is Daniel Bwala a statesman?
Those who may be wondering why President Bola Tinubu decided to rehabilitate Daniel Bwala by giving him a political appointment may not have read or heard the saying that if goods are put in the custody of a malefactor, it is secured.
So, as long as he continues to eat from the president’s table, the administration is spared from his caustic vituperations!
Bwala used to be a staunch member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) until he found reasons to dump the party and moved to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). He claimed that the umbrella political association offered a clear vision for a united Nigeria and was the only party capable of realistically challenging the APC in the 2023 elections.
He began to verbally attack the APC and its presidential candidate. He employed all manner of adjectives to describe the party and Tinubu. With his “diarrhoea of the mouth,” Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP, mistook him for a genuine supporter as he began to badmouth the broom party and everything that belonged to the party.
When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced Tinubu the winner of the 2023 presidential election, Bwala was beside himself with anger and made some unprintable comments.
But when he was sure that the PDP was heading to the rocks with the enormity of internal wrangling besetting it, it became clear to him that his feeding bottle in Alhaji Atiku’s hand may soon run dry; he decided to adopt the biblical Prodigal Son’s approach.
He decided to swallow his pride by running back to Tinubu, including paying some Nicodemus visits, including trailing the Jagaban outside the country.
Before his appointment became official a few days ago as a media aide, he had already put on the toga of an unofficial spokesman, attacking the President’s critics and defending the President’s programmes and policies.
While many Nigerians see nothing wrong in his returning to the APC family, they point to holes in his decision to accept working with and for the president, who he had traduced to no end and said unprintable things about. Observers believe strongly that unless he continues his role as an “attack dog,” he may not fit into the bill of selling the President’s programmes.
Critics are also of the opinion that Bwala’s role as the special adviser to the president on policy communication does not gel, as they believe that a person that can excel in that capacity must be one with a measure of integrity and not a “rabble rouser” whose words are dismissed even before they are spoken.
Rather than appointing him into an office to communicate the President’s policies, the likes of Bwala, in the estimation of many Nigerians, are only fantastic when it has to do with electioneering campaigns where eloquence, skill of oratory, and the ability to verbally take opponents to the cleaners are needed.
To show his rowdy nature, a matter of hours after his appointment, he moved to cause a “revolution” in Aso Rock. Originally appointed as special adviser, media and public communication, he moved himself to a sacred post that Bayo Onanuga has been nurturing since the hurried exit of Ajuri Ngelale by adding “Spokesman (State House) to his portfolio.
Daniel Bwala, born on January 1st, 1975, in Canada, has entered the history books as a beneficiary and as one of the political jobbers that traverse corridors of power, seeking appointment by lacerating the characters and integrity of fellow countrymen and women.
Well, in a country where hunger is pummelling everybody, it is not unusual to see people renouncing their father’s name to adopt another so far as that will guarantee them their daily bread.
Bwala may have read the popular quote by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), an American writer, saying that: “Politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
The cycle of “all-weather” men will be complete only when Femi Fani-Kayode and Reno Omokri are appointed into the communication bureau of the president; then shall Nigerians chant Nunc dimittis because “it is finished.”
Read also: Atiku’s ex-aide, Bwala, finally joins Tinubu’s cabinet
Audacity of the outlaws
The news the other day that an unconfirmed number of terrorists of the hue of Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) ambushed and killed five Nigerian soldiers and injured 10, while four were missing in Kareto Town in a local government area of Borno State, was a sad one indeed. At the same time, insurgents reportedly ambushed and attacked personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). The suspected Boko Haram insurgents ambushed the monitoring team somewhere in the Farin-Kasa area of Chikun Local Government Area, Kaduna State.
The operatives were said to be inspecting the National Grid installation in Shiroro, Niger State.
These attacks are becoming too many and too frequent, raising suspicion of a possible fifth columnist in the security agencies.
The state of the nation’s security has continued to raise concern as the country’s military seems to be outgunned by armed robbers, kidnappers, and terrorists.
With the approaching Yuletide, when many Nigerians are looking to travel from one point to another, insecurity is one of the drawbacks despite the harsh economic weather.
With the air tickets out of the reach of most Nigerians, many would have settled for road transportation but are scared to do so as most nation’s highways have become dreadful.
Despite the reported efforts of the various security agencies, particularly the military, bandits and Boko Haram have continued to wreak havoc across the country, especially in parts of the North.
The security situation of the country became more precarious with the discovery of another terror group dubbed Lakurawa in the Northwest.
To say that the group has been in existence since 2012 raises serious questions on the type of intelligence the Nigerian military is gathering.
These outlaws, whatever name they are called, are becoming too audacious, and the security agencies must rise to the occasion now!
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
