Bumpy path to 2027; Endless rumbles at INEC; Rivers’ ‘Wuruwuru’ politics, and 1000 forest guards

From hateful political rhetoric to manipulation of party primaries, and to outright impunity, the path to 2027 appears jarring. The insecurity issue in Nigeria is of serious concern. We shall overcome… with truth and intentionality.

Dangerous path to 2027

Politicians are fouling the air. Judges in the nation’s law courts have become more mercantile than ever. They sit in their courts and dish out conflicting and confusing judgments. Similar cases nowadays get different judgments, even when they are handled in the same court by same judges. A lot of shenanigans are on display. Many believe that the judiciary has ruined Nigeria.

As Nigeria inches close to the 2027 election, the major political parties, except the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), have more than one presidential candidates.

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has three. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has one-and-half candidates. While one emerged from the Nyesom Wike faction, one is half-hearted. He is still being pushed by the Jerry Gana faction. In the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke’s candidacy is still being contested by other factions. At the moment, some of the major political parties are embroiled in internal wrangling over issues of legacy members and squatters cum invaders.

When the new comers were flooding the APC during the wave of defections by state governors, a lot of promises were made to the legacy members. They were told that their positions and interests would not be compromised on the altar of pleasing new comers.

Today, it seems that the promises have become discarded. Those who invaded the ruling party from the PDP appear to have hijacked the structure of the party in their respective states. The just concluded primaries showed who the current real owners are.

Across the country, there are hues and cries of alleged injustice being meted out to legacy members. The lamentation from Delta State, for instance, is deafening. Most of the arrowheads that were in the APC before the arrival of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and his team to the PDP are crying blue murder. Many of them were denied tickets.

Everywhere one turns, there is chaos. Egos are bruised. People’s rights are being trampled upon with impunity. Many are even losing their lives on account of the intolerable politics going on. The path to 2027 is, indeed, bumpy.

Read also:  Atiku to Wike: Rivers people are not your political property

‘Wuruwuru’ politics in Rivers

Rivers has continued to show bad example in politics. The situation has gone worse in the last few years. Following the failure of Nyesom Wike to secure the ticket of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2022 and his decision to destroy the party, his ambition has not only ruined the PDP at the national level, but has almost ruined Rivers State and its politics.

The frosty relationship between him and Governor Sim Fubara has effectively made Rivers a battle ground. In his ambition to pocket the state, Wike recently floated what he christened a “rainbow coalition”, a marriage of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the PDP. The two parties in Rivers at the moment have no soul. Their existence revolves around Wike.

Governor Fubara had defected to the APC for a possible rapprochement. He thought doing so could get him a second term ticket. But his fate was sealed when he allegedly signed an agreement with Wike before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to do just one term.

This was after he returned to the Government House on September 17 last year after the six-month emergency rule that was clamped on the state on Wike’s terms.

Fubara, who thought that Wike had forgotten the agreement, went to pick the governorship forms. But he was humiliated.

Kingsley Chinda, a member of the PDP, who represents Obio/Akpor Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, was a minority leader in the House.

Chinda picked the APC gubernatorial ticket even when he was still officially a member of the PDP. The normal ritual of announcing his defection on the floor of the house was not done.

Perhaps, because Chinda was fielded by Nyesom Wike, who controls both the PDP and APC from the sidelines, he got an incredible waiver. Neither the National Assembly nor the APC had the balls to challenge his status when he stood for the guber primary.

Chinda only declared his defection status Tuesday. What is happening in Rivers is a caricature of democracy.

An important state like Rivers cannot be allowed to be consistently messed up by political actors whose interest in politics is purely personal and selfish.

Read also: INEC, the courts, and Nigeria’s struggle to stabilise electoral authority

INEC must be careful!

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be very, very careful ahead of the 2027 general election. The Commission must watch its actions and inactions.

Professor Joash Amupitan must be conscious of the fact that he is sitting on a very sensitive seat. His appointment was greeted with loads of controversy. Since he mounted the saddle, he has oscillated from one controversy to another.

Although he has said severally that he was committed to giving Nigerians free, fair and credible election in 2027, a lot of factors appear to create doubts in the minds of many citizens.

The INEC, within a short period of the arrival of Amupitan, has been assailed by a barrage of allegations. The Commission has been in the public trying to rebut one allegation or the other.

The ongoing crisis over the compromise of the INEC data base/registration portal by its own staffers has raised a red flag ahead of the 2027 general election.

Emeka Ike, a Nigerian actor, who contested for the House of Representatives seat for the AMAC/Bwari Federal Constituency in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on the platform of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC) and lost, had his personal data (which were ordinarily supposed to be highly confidential), invaded by unauthorised persons.

Ike was miffed that his personal data that was supposed to be in the custody of the INEC was allegedly released to Lere Olayinka, an aide to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The actor said: “It’s quite shocking, extreme, and it is the height of political rascality for a government officer to access a citizen’s information from the INEC cyber. It tells you a lot; it shows how much impunity we have flying around, and people have access to things they shouldn’t be having access to, and that’s quite deplorable. I see that as a huge insult and slap on every political party and every Nigerian.

“He is telling every Nigerian that whoever you are, I can pull your information from anywhere and I can do what I want, and that rascality needs to be stopped.”

If the actor’s personal data could be easily traded on the streets from the INEC portal, that raises concern about the re-enactment in 2027 of the Mahmood Yakubu “glitches” that thwarted the Commission’s efforts in 2023.

What happened to Ike touches on institutional integrity. It touches on acute crisis of confidence. Many observers are saying that the country is dealing with an institution that is bogged down by crisis of partisanship and staff disloyalty.

The INEC must have to shred itself of these negative appellations. The Commission must be seen by all to be transparent in its handling of the processes toward the promised free, fair and credible election in 2027.

Mere verbalisation of good intentions cannot and will not move a needle!

Read also: Tinubu deploys 1000 forest guards, special rescue team to Ogbomosho

FG’s 1000 forest guards

A dark cloud appears to be all over the sleepy Oriire community in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, over the abduction of pupils and their teachers about three weeks ago.

The community is in a mourning mood right now. Social activities have since been affected. Residents huddle together. They are apprehensive of what is next. Those whose children are still being held hostage are terribly in anguish.

Many wonder why the Oyo State and federal government only woke up to the reality of the abduction 16 days after the incident. Many observers also wonder why the government resorted to primitive method of using hunters and forest guards to rescue the abductees, rather than employ technology.

The question is, what happens to drones? Terrorists are releasing videos, threatening a whole nation, yet, the federal government is behaving as if it lacked the necessary technology to track the location of the terrorists anywhere in the forest.

In the 21st Century, we must do better. Our heart goes out to all the victims of terrorism in our land. May the good Lord grant our leaders the wisdom to do the right thing.