Hail da COURTS!

The judgements from the Election Petitions Tribunals as well as the Superior Courts are so calming and comforting, that the masses now believe that justice is attainable and obtainable in the land!

Bravo to Their LORDSHIPS!

Especially the Supreme Court if Nigeria.

Scheduled Debates

Lagos and Oyo States have led the way in public debates by gubernatorial candidates. Bravo! All other states should follow suit. Time is short.

While the electronic media hold the ace, it is worthy that the print media get creative by using their online presence to stream their own debates. This way, the products can be on-demand and remain archived on the web. While rebroadcasts are needed, the electronic media should upload their tapes for the same reasons/purposes: permanent access and record.

It is time also to take on the big one: presidential debates. The field is crowded no doubt, which is why we need to get them talking in structured settings soonest.

In this constitutional duty of the media, we need well-researched and highly pragmatic debates. We need accountability - those seeking reelection or higher office must defend their past. This is the time and place to hold them to full disclosure. What have they done with previous mandates. How can they defend the present state of affairs: e.g. how can we not treat catarrh or a torn tendon in Nigeria?!

Local media should take on the parliamentary candidates' debates as well as the numerous local government contestants, when the time comes. This must include village square and town hall debates nationwide. We are AFRICANS!

Bottom line: Let no one get to office without public scrutiny.

"Defending" da Constitution!

Nigeria's Supreme Court ruled that the federal government has no power, authority or right to withold, hoard or impound statutory revenues/allocations due and belonging to states and local governments (re - Lagos v FG case). The president proudly ignored the order, claiming he was defending the constitution!

An Abuja High Court ruled that INEC has no power or authority or right to disqualify or bar any political aspirant from the April general elections - such powers lie only with the courts. The commission proudly ignored the order, claiming it is defending the constitution!

Pray, which constitution? Hahaha.

Professor Maurice Iwu, the INEC chairman, is certainly matching his appointer and boss order for order, hubris for hubris, law-trampling for law-trampling! Except that a President Olusegun Obasanjo has an armada of sorts (forces, praise-singers, pretenders and resources) to shield him awhile. As for the professor, oh bells! Hope all members of the commission are part and parcel of that decision o! Hope? Well, the press has been speculating...

Building our democracy and the so-called learning process, constantly mouthed by our leaders, surely has its limits. Aren't we taking this proverbial handshake beyond the elbows? Haba.

The beauty is that our courts are primed and proper these days, and the nation has absolute confidence in the unflagging integrity of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

Wait and see!

I'm Upbeat....on this Transition!

Perish the thought! Who says the forth-coming elections will not hold? Who thinks they can derail this long-awaited TRANSITION? Who? How? Where? What is it that surpasses the will and manifest destiny of THE PEOPLE? None. Period.

I'm upbeat. I'm positive. I'm possessed of the incurable optimism that holds true for all nations whose time has come. And come to stay. EIGHT YEARS of all that can possibly go wrong be now over. Over! Truly over.

Hey, beyond them spirit and conviction of positive goodness, just look around: What we see is magic! Institutional renewal. Independence of the "Branches of Government". Sharpening of the Media thru' Freedom of Information Bill. Pressure from the International Community. Fatigue of Blind-Followership. Vehement Renaissance at "Tiers of Government". Bold Questions. And the Hand of Retribution. Times!

So, dear doubter, relax! With the Parliament and the Supreme Court clearly on the side of due process and the rule of law, both our constitution and this fledging democracy it under-girds will come to no grief. Not anymore.

Then, the clincher: I see a sweep. I see some hand-in-glove journeys. Mutual. Joint and Glued. I see envy, mirrors and minds. I see hunger for legacy and the fear of posterity. Oh, dear seeker, I see laughter, alas! Yes.

Count the "Weeks to Freedom"! Yes, yes.

Hail Nigeria! Yes, yes....and yes.

Campaigns: Content & Style

At last, things are picking up. Yes. And, oh yes, I know the complaints: we need substance, not substandard electioneering! Manifestoes, not maligning of opponents. Canvassing, not cheap or creep condemning.

It's early days yet; so, patience. Things will soon start heating up - when they exhaust all dem crudity and expletives!

Soon, the media will goad them, guide them, grill and grind them. The wise better beware!

As for us, the people, our turn is nigh. Let's use this "power to choose" firmly and fairly. We must not fail again!! No.

Mr President, Sign the FOI Bill right away!

Finally, the National Assembly has passed the Freedom of Information, FOI, bill - after 4 years! Knowing this administration and its track record, we must still acknowledge the feat!!

Indeed, because of such huge skepticism, I advise that President Obasanjo signs the bill into law as soon as it lands his desk. There is no doubt that many are nervous about this new instrument in the hands of both the media and critical segments of civil society.

Well, as you lay ya bed may you sleep on it, ba? Let the crooked panic for aye! It is their due, it be their portion. Stay firm.

This law was long overdue. No openness, no anti-corruption! Period.

INEC on the WEB

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has an inadequate presence on the world wide web. The Internet is too powerful, to important and too helpful to be underused or ignored. Not in the 21st century. This needs to be corrected right away!

Here are some thoughts:

1) Full official info about Nigeria should be given, including geography, demography, religion, economy, foreign policy, etc
2) Present political state of the nation, including data on old and new parties
3) Full details of all the registered political parties, their candidates for various offices, pictures, manifestoes, full contacts, etc
4) Summarised details of the registration exercise and the critical voter education info for 2007 Elections
5) Gender-support Action
6) Youth mobilisation Agenda
7) Multimedia Networking, including the Nigerian Blogging Community, as is now the trend worldwide (INEC needs to accredit credible Bloggers for the elections promptly).
8) All legislations governing and guidelines shaping the elections and the electoral process
9) Full info on INEC and its offices nationwide
10) Qualitative INEC Publications and user-friendly eDocuments

It is time for time for the Chairman's Office to properly engage the Nigerian Public and get the VOTERS on the commission's side! Is there an INEC Press Office up to the task?

Get to work, folks, time is short!
Technorati Profile

Campaigns: What Content, What Substance?

Enough of people-bashing, mob-frenzy politics and politicking! Let the content be out, and real substance subsist. This be the season of ideas, the reason for change. Period.

Considering that we've had elections? in 1999 and 2003!?, it is expected that our electioneering efforts this time will be robust and will resonate with Nigerian voters. My informal survey shows that our people are fed up with this whole politics of bitterness, acrimony and scare-mongering. And this is the colour so far! Do these guys think they will be voted in without us knowing what they stand for, or merely on the sentiments of disappointment and disillusion with extant state of affairs? Do they think abusing the ruling parties is enough to get them elected???

Where are the options, where are the alternatives? Not too late, but now pretty urgent.

My take: Political parties should publish their manifestoes in local languages and in multimedia. Candidates should publish their Compacts plus Action Plans in same manner. Take the SEVEN most critical areas of concern and articulate a budget-based response, then challenge all your opponents to do same - for a proper debate.

The media should summon the courage and patriotism to call all wayward contestants to order, or promptly and comprehensively BLACKLIST them!

Enough of these tendentious jokes and roller coaster jokers.

Time for Niger Delta Manifesto

We congratulate the Action Congress and its presidential campaign for advertising outlines of their goodies for the Niger Delta Region. It looks and sounds good. The devil, as they say, is in the details!

Other parties should please do same, and these should cover both their national, state and local initiatives. Let's have a clear private sector opportunities window tied to them. Parties should be more specific, timelined and budget-based. This way, quality analysis can take place.

As in all things political, it is easy to build castles in the air by ignoring previous initiatives. This time, they should show what was and why it failed. Then tell us what will work and how.

We wait.

The Opposition from 2007

Eight years has flown by like a jot and a jolt! Goodness me, and the political class is jostling for power again!! The thing is so sweet those who have exhausted their tenure want more (as in the immoral Third Term misadventure) or are aspiring higher, while those who have been in the proverbial political wilderness desperately seek rehabilitation. Yet, very little desire for full accountability! Wow.

It is amazing how many so readily pass the buck. They'll blame everything on the executive, especially the presidency. Not for them the principle of collective responsibility. Not for them the question of "herd mentality", when they sold their conscience by neither speaking up nor shipping out. They loved to belong, and had their day in the sun, plus plenty a salad day to boot. It paid while it lasted. Now they mouth alibi and crave exculpation. Haba!

Oh, and those cross-carpeters! How they ogled and lapped up spoils and crumbs! The ruling PDP made a mince of many, made a Man Friday of others, made a monument of a few. We watched in utter dismay and amusement. Comical, theatrical and mysterious indeed. There was an unspoken code of compromise and comeuppance that nothing mattered anymore.

This lack of self-censorship, self-restraint as well as the drift to self-immolation soon engulfed the official opposition, rendering them sufficiently impotent and escapist that they became unofficial! If we admit that the ruling party has a crushing majority at all levels of governance, including most-inappropriately some souls in the supposedly independent judiciary, it is no consolation for political delinquency and self-distruct by the opposition parties. Nor could it excuse or justify the absence of constructive engagement and elevated contestation of public policies, with credible alternatives, both in parliament and in the people's domain.

Without putting a fine point on it, only the principled stance and stout opposition of some PDP members helped Nigeria defeat the Third Term monster. Paradoxically, several members of the opposition parties so betrayed their mandates and their constituencies by playing ball with the subversive elements! As they say, the rest is now history. We hear many of the Third Term and fraudulent-impeachments actors have been dumped in last weekend's PDP primaries. What poetic justice! Alas, the chickens are coming home to roost!! Next, posterity will claim its due.

Our plea this day is that after all permutations, alignments and realignments for election and balloting purposes, let winners be winners and losers transform themselves into credible and responsible opposition-democratic forces at all levels of governance. They should let those in office know that power can shift through by-elections, impeachments, recalls and...at general elections. Yes, no matter how long the incumbency.

The opposition next time must not abandon the struggle for only the press, labour, students and civil rights crusaders. Working with civil society is the greatest assurance we can have of a just and humane nation. ALL aspirants and their parties must imbibe this beauty, this reality.

Hey folks, remember, he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day! But he must return fully equipped, well prepared and highly motivated for the rematch. Yes.

Campaign Hints: We Need FACTS-n-FIGURES!

Just an early advice/warning to aspirants and political parties: Don't waste our time with bland and woolly talk. Use FACTS and FIGURES: from government/official and researched/unofficial or commissioned sources. Elections 2007 is no business as usual. No.

Nigerians need credible analysis, alternative propositions and enlightened debates/attestations: How will you plan, design and execute robust sustainable development within your sphere of governance and tenure? What will you do differently, given our known/expected resources? In particular, how will you tackle and fund education, agriculture, infrastructure and security? What game-plan do you have for rural development and rural-urban migration? How will you tackle the proverbial brain drain, turning it to brain gain? What's in store for the neglected and now-boiling oil-rich Niger Delta, with its restive and agitated populace?

And the mother of all factors: How will you deal with CORRUPTION???

No one should enter the fray be it at local, state or national level without a very clear vision and mission - based on sound reasoning, backed with FACTS and FIGURES. None.

Voters Registration Exercise

The e-Registration of Nigerian voters was meant to be novel and fault-reducing. So far, it has been faults galore! Somehow, there is no shortage of complaints all over: from bad batteries to insufficient equipment, from inadequate training to invisible registration booths, from time wasting to power failure, and a general level of disillusionment.

If these were teething problems, they amount to worrisome signals and portends. No one is in a position to know what a failed exercise will look like; but we really don't want to know. It will be too dangerous, too self-destructing, too not-to-be-conjectured that we should just make this thing work! There are now strident calls for a prompt return to "manual registration".

I'm yet to join the nay-sayers, but you really can't flatly fault them. Turn on the TV day or night and see the unflattering reports with heart-wrenching visuals! Open the newspapers and you confront plenty bad news with photos and quotes! In all, the media is full of citizens lampooning, lamenting, lambasting and languishing.....

Who is listening? But more important: Who is ACTING???

2007 Transition is NOT negotiable. NOT!