Predictable and Inevitable

A month ago, I wrote this post about violence in the build-up to the election. It was a blog post. Blog posts are of necessity brief. To fully and exhaustively discuss violence in the 2011 Elections would require a volume of books; a thorough examination of the place of violence in Nigerian politics historically would require a library of books.

One of the things I pointed out (perhaps not as clearly as I would have wanted) is the connection and (oddly enough) disconnection between political VIPs and the armies of thugs that wreak violence in the name of politics.

The violence in Akwa Ibom was ostensibly "PDP" against "ACN", but (as noted in the post) it had little or nothing to do with Goodluck Jonathan (PDP President), Nuhu Ribadu (ACN Presidential candidate) or Bola Tinubu (ACN Supremo). It was a turf war between local warlords, ex-Governor Victor Attah and current Governor Godswill Akpabio. Attah may cloak himself in ACN colours but he does not take orders from Tinubu; and it is politically weak Jonathan who needed governors like Akpabio to "deliver" states like Akwa Ibom for him and not the other way around.

That blog post referenced incidents of violence ostensibly involving all the major parties, PDP, ACN, ANPP, CPC and APGA. I say "ostensibly" because each violent outcome was the product of local and individual specifics, local and individual quarrels, local and individual VIPs, local and individual Big Men, local and individual political, economic and social dynamics.

Atop this post was the picture of a bruised and battered woman. Her name is Hajiya Halima Aminu Tijjani. She is a Kaduna State politician who was viciously beaten up by thugs on the orders of Barrister Musa Soba, the Kaduna State Chairman of the ACN. I do not like Bola Tinubu. I do not like Nuhu Ribadu. Actually, I do not like any Nigerian politicians. But the honest truth is neither Tinubu nor Ribadu had anything to do with Musa Soba's decision to beat, batter and bruise Hajiya Tijjani. None of the national ACN leaders asked him to have her beaten. What he did to her was "normal" politics in Nigeria. Go to that blog post and click on the link to the Daily Trust article on the story -- there are examples of other such "muscular" political acts (and bear in mind, most political thuggery doesn't get reported by the media; read this blog by journalist China Acheru about journalists being intimidated into silence in 2007).

But, while the respective VIPs of the different parties do not necessarily give the orders authorizing the violence of their underlings .... they do not publicly or privately condemn those underlings, nor do they lift a finger to try to stop them or their armies of thugs. What they do instead is criticize the violent underlings of all the other parties, while pretending not to notice the violent underlings of their own party. In my prior blog post on this issue, I included links to pre-election articles quoting President Jonathan condemning violent CPC thugs, and candidate General Buhari (rtd) condemning violent PDP thugs. Neither man mentioned or acknowledged the thugs from their own parties. I don't recall Shekarau saying anything about ANPP thugs; Tinubu was silent on ACN thugs; and Peter Obi barely acknowledged that a world existed beyond the borders of the electoral constituency he was trying to manipulate in favour of Dora Akunyili (in part by using thugs of his own).

These "grassroots" political machines go by different colloquial names in Nigerian discourse; a news media pundit or beer parlour discussant, for example, make talk about Chief/Alhaji XYZ's "structures on the ground", when discussing his electoral chances. The local warlords, comparatively low-level bosses who run these "grassroots" machines, are more often than not the direct or indirect employers of the various armies of political thugs who are used for the purposes of intimidation, protection, "manipulation" (i.e. rigging) ... and violence.

Each national government on Earth encompasses so much more than its army, but near-every government on Earth feels it strategically necessary to have an army to defend its domain against encroachment by other national governments.

It works the same way with these "grassroots" machines or "structures on the ground". They are much more than just their violent thug branch, and do much more than rote violence. Nevertheless, each machine or "structure" feels it necessary to hire a gang of thugs lest they become the victims of violent encroachment (or takeover) by a rival machine's thug army.

By the way, the preceding paragraph does more (so much more) to explain 12 years of violence in the Niger-Delta than the unfortunately unexamined claims that the "militants" are fighting to stop the exploitation of the Delta's peoples. Each of the so-called "militant" groups started as the violent branch of a local politician's "structures on the ground"; they fought against each other and terrorized the civilian population in order to secure territory for their respective political sponsors. In between elections, when money from politicians dried up, these "militants" would turn to the financially more lucrative work of blowing up pipelines in order to siphon vast amounts of crude oil for sale in illicit international markets. When election season returns, they go back to working for the politicians who kept the Police and Army from disturbing their oil bunkering operations.

Yes, I know the army struck against specific, particular bunkerers, but it was one of those Ribadu-type things, where a single person who has fallen out of political favour is targeted while the numerous people who are still in favour are allowed to continue business-as-usual. Of course they protected their once-and-future allies. Be serious. This is a "Human" political phenomenon that is not restricted to Nigeria.

In any country in the world, be it a democracy or a dictatorship, people in power are indebted to whoever put them in power and go through a great deal of effort to keep those "constituencies" happy so as to assure their continued support; if the army put you in office, you spend a disproportionate amount of the budget on the army; if unions put you in office, you pass laws that allow union bosses take something to their members when it is time for the next election for union leadership; if corporate money put you in power, you cut taxes for corporations.

The key to understanding why these "grassroots" political machines act with criminal impunity lies in this musing from my prior blog post:

Would the bosses of "grassroots" political machines wield such power without the patronage and protection of the Big Men? Or is it the Big Men who would not wield the power they control without the backing of the machine bosses? Either way, the two groups work hand in hand to dictate political outcomes.

In Nigeria, these "structures on the ground" are the decisive chess pieces wielded by the VIPs and Big Men. Unlike checkers (a.k.a. "draught"), chess is not decided by who has no pieces at the end; you can checkmate an opponent, even if he has "structures" still in play. However, as with chess, you can look at the "structures" available to each candidate, study how those "structures" are arrayed on the board, and come to a conclusion as to who has the higher probability of check and mate.

Insofar as the ACN "structures" are controlled by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the electoral fortunes of ACN candidate Nuhu Ribadu were entirely in Tinubu's hands; had Tinubu sold his candidature to the CPC per the long-running negotiations, that would have been the end of Ribadu as a presidential candidate (and even now, pundits are speculating that Tinubu cut a last-minute deal with Goodluck Jonathan, by way of explaining why ACN-dominated states went en masse for the incumbent rather than the ACN candidate).

But I digress.

Political VIPs and Big Men rely on these local warlords to "deliver" communities, LGAs, senatorial zones, states and regions on election day. They know what these warlords do. They know what will happen when the warlords go to work. The VIPs and Big Men know what the short-term, medium-term and long-term effects of this type of politics are. Unfortunately for the Federal Republic, the Big Men and VIPs perceive the likelihood of their directly benefiting in the short-term to be sufficient enough to warrant blithely consigning the country to seriously negative medium- and long-term effects.

This is the complicated back-story to the outbreak of violence in the North of the Federal Republic in the aftermath of the Presidential election.

Supporters of Goodluck Jonathan, blame second-place finisher General Mohammedu Buhari (rtd) for the violence. My opinion of Buhari is the same as my opinion of every Nigerian politician, Jonathan inclusive -- I am NOT a fan or supporter. However, the accusers seem to imply that Buhari ordered his supporters to kill their fellow citizens and spread anarchy across a handful of northern cities. This is most certainly a lie. Buhari gave no such order. If anything, Buhari has as much (or should I say as little) control over the thuggish wing of his "structures" as Jonathan has over Akpabio's violent "structures" in Akwa Ibom, or Bola Tinubu over Attah's "structures" in the same state.

On the other hand, they are right to criticize Buhari for his hesitation to fully and properly criticize the violence. With that said, they are quite hypocritical in doing so, because they too hesitate to criticize the violence of their structures too.

Aside from his failure to enforce the criminal laws against violent pro-PDP "structures", I have not forgotten the unseemly quickness with which President Goodluck Jonathan exonerated MEND from culpability in the Abuja bomb blasts before there had been even a cursory examination of the evidence, much less a full and conclusive investigation. Unsurprisingly, "militant" leaders in the Niger-Delta have pledged their unflinching support for him and (ominously) warned against any plot to undermine his government. Look at the list of those making the pledge: Chief Government Ekpemupolo (a.k.a. Gen. Tompolo), Chief Ateke Tom, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, Chief Bibopre Ajube (a.k.a. Shoot At Sight), General Ezekiel Akpasibewei, Farah Dagogo, Africa Ukparasia, Paul Ezizi (a.k.a.Comdr. Ogunbos), Pastor Reuben Wilson, Joshua Macaiver, Ferdinand Amaibi (a.k.a. Busta Rhymes, Tamunegiyeifori Proby (a.k.a. Egbele), Kenneth Opusinji (kula Community), Kile Selky Torughedi (a.k.a. Gen. Young Shall Grow) Bonny Gawei, Aboy Muturu, and Hendrick Opukeme. This is a list of men who should be in prison for VIOLENT crimes committed against Nigerian citizens, Nigerian infrastructure, and against institutions of the Federal Republic like the Army and Police. Yet, here they are, as free as free can be, making veiled threats, while our jails are full of innocent citizens who "await trial" for years on charges for which there is no evidence (like the 13-year-old boy arrested and accused of "attempted murder" by way of throwing a sachet of pure water at the car of the Imo State governor).

There is a point I am trying to make.

You see, I understand the way we have been taught to think. There is a 9 in 10 chance that any Nigerian who has read this blog post up to this point is about to accuse me of being an apologist for the extremists who wreaked violence in the North after the election or of being an opponent of Jonathan (or supporter of Buhari) who is trying to tar Jonathan with the same brush as Buhari.

That is how we have been taught to think.

And that is one of many roots of the problem ... but I will not digress from what I am trying to say.

You see, this is NOT about Jonathan as an individual, NOR is is it about Buhari as an individual. Attacking either one of them as an individual is POINTLESS.

This is about the POLITICAL SYSTEM AS A WHOLE.

The Federal Republic of Nigeria is now, and has seemingly always been, governed by a political process in which violence is a NECESSARY part of the system's functioning. If your body is alive, your lungs are going to breathe; if the Nigerian political system continues to exist as it does today (and always has), there will be violence.

All the finger-pointing at this individual or that individual, at this ethnic group or that ethnic group, at this region or that region, at this religion or that religion .... is entirely besides the point.

Somalia is violent despite being a country of uniform ethnicity and religion. Rwanda has been violent for decades despite being mostly Roman Catholic. Cote d'Ivoire has been a semi-disaster for 20 years despite once being known as a West African miracle. Point being, if you do the things that make violence inevitable, then violence will be inevitable

Be honest with yourself. You know, and I know, that if the Independent National Electoral Commission had declared anybody other than Jonathan the winner of the election, the Niger-Delta "militants" listed above would immediately have started blowing up oil pipelines again. Violence is inherent in our system.

As if this isn't bad enough, the VIPs and Big Men are not as much in control of their respective "structures" as they like to pretend. They don't want to reform, restructure and transform the Police and security agencies. They don't want to reform, restructure and transform our political system. And they don't want to destroy their "structures" in case they may need them. And so, when local warlords go on the warpath, the response of a sequence of governments has been noticeably limp. They first wait to see if the violence will subside on its own, and if it doesn't they send in the Army to frighten the thugs into a ceasefire by means of blasting everything in sight. A few token thugs are taken into custody (though I have never heard of any of them being convicted) .... and life goes on exactly as it did before, with the GUARANTEE of a repeat of the violence in a few weeks or months depending on the circumstances. In fact, one of the most annoying things about government in Nigeria is the fact that everyone in the country has a firm grasp of where/when/why communal violence will break out, yet there is never any sign of the government/police/SSS/etc doing anything to pre-emptively or pro-actively responding to forestall repetitive crises.

Keeping with my earlier metaphor, forestalling violence for them is like you or me trying to hold our breath. We might be able to do it for a while, but eventually we are forced to gulp down huge mouthfuls of air. The same is true for our political system; when the violence gets out of hand, they use the Army to put a stop to it, but ultimately they are all utterly reliant on a brand of politics that makes violence a predictable and inevitable result ... so they open the door, and allow it to happen because they see benefits for themselves in the short-term.

True Courage

An inspiring story reported by NEXT about a Nigerian citizen who risked his life to save his fellow citizens during the post-election violence.

I have two comments for NEXT though.

Firstly, identifying the gentleman by name is risky enough; going further to tell the whole world his place of employment is putting his life in danger. Any violent radical who thinks what he did was wrong could easily go there looking for him.

This is something I don't understand about the Nigerian media in general. They do not investigate or report important stuff we citizens need to know because they don't want to put themselves at risk of commercial, political, and physical retaliation .... but they think nothing of broadcasting other people's phone numbers, home addresses and even graphic pictures of corpses without regard to the sensitivities of family members of the deceased.

Secondly, there is heavy emphasis in NEXT's report (and in the subsequent online public commentary) about how this was a "Moslem" helping "Christians". The impression they give is that they think this singular fact makes it a "man bite dog" story.

Let us be honest with ourselves. When it comes to life-and-death issues, to circumstances where a person runs a real risk of losing their life if they do the right thing, Nigerians in general (regardless of religion or ethnicity) are extremely reluctant to put themselves on the line to protect their fellow citizens .... even if that fellow citizen is of the same ethnic, religious, kindred or village origin.

It is why Fela Kuti sang that song about us being so afraid to die we would never rise up against our oppressors.

It is why incomprehensible things happen to Nigerians all over Nigeria, and there is no reaction whatsoever from the public .... not while it is happening, not after it happens. No reaction. No effort. Nothing.

What this gentleman did is amazing by NIGERIAN standards, not by "Moslem" standards. More than that actually, because what he did was impressive by HUMAN standards; most people on Earth simply would not have done what he did. Even as I salute him, I can but pray that I would find similar courage if I ever found myself in a similar situation.

I wish he was a policeman. Or maybe I should say I wish the Nigerian Police Force was more like him. Either way, he was out in the streets, facing down thugs and protecting citizens.

I have immense respect for him. What he did makes him far more useful to Nigeria and Nigerians than all the useless politicians who ran in the 2011 Elections, both those who "won" and those who "lost".

God bless him.

Multiple reports of post-election violence.

I don't suppose I need to post links. You are all probably monitoring the situation too.

Four More Years of PDP

It looks like President Goodluck Jonathan will "win" this weekend's polls without the need for a run-off. His Peoples Democratic Party remains the largest in the Senate and the House of Representatives, albeit by a reduced margin. The PDP is likely to have deals in place with APGA, and there are rumours that the failure of the CPC/ACN talks led to a secret PDP/ACN deal that handed the Southwest to the PDP in the presidential race. Whatever happens, whatever coalitions are formed in the federal legislature, the next four years will be similar to the last twelve.

The upcoming Gubernatorial and State Assembly polls should be .... tense. From the citizens' perspective, I am not sure it matters which of the factions win the final leg. Whatever happens, we will end up with imperial Governors who rule their states like private property, and State Assemblies that either act as a rubber-stamp (if dominated by the same faction that won the Governor's mansion) or as block-headed obstructionists (if won by a different faction from that which won the Governor's mansion). Precedent suggests the possibility turnout will be lower than turnout for the federal races these past two weekends.

Life will go on.

Same as usual.

Where a sachet of water is a deadly weapon

Usually, I prefer to post a link to stories carried by Nigerian newspaper websites, so if you wished to read the story, you'd give the web traffic to the professionals who invested resources, time and effort in reporting the story.

Today, for the first (and I hope only) time, I will post the full text of a news report. On the off-chance that NEXT edits the report in the future, I want you to see the story exactly as I saw it few days ago. This is the link to the story on NEXT's website.

Boy, 13, jailed for pelting Obasanjo's convoy with 'pure water'

By Nicholas Ibekwe
April 14, 2011 04:58PM

A 13-year-old boy, Precious Efurueze, who is accused of allegedly attempting to kill former president Olusegun Obasanjo and the governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, in Owerri on 31, March, by stoning their campaign convoy with sachets of pure water; was on Wednesday denied bail by a chief magistrate court in Owerri.

Master Efurueze is among 18 people charged with attempted murder for participation in the attack on Messrs. Obasanjo and Ohakim. Notable among the accused is Prince Madumere, the chief of staff to the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Rochas Okorocha.

At the resumed hearing of the suit yesterday the presiding magistrate, V.C Isiguzo, while delivering ruling on the application for bail for the accused, explained that her court has no jurisdiction on two of the charges because they are punishable by life imprisonment. Mrs. Isiguzo, however, turned down the accused's request to be granted bail until the conclusion of the substantive suit.

The chief magistrate explained that her reason for denying the accused bail is that they had been charged with felony which carries a punishment of life imprisonment if found guilty. She said the offence is a serious one and, therefore, should not be treated lightly.

Speaking to newsmen at the end of the court session, Greg Okemiri, the counsel representing the 12th to the 16th accused persons, while expressing his displeasure with the ruling of the magistrate, hinted that the reason the application was denied may be political. He was also angered by the continued detention of Master Efurueze who, he explained, under the law of the country, by virtue of being a minor, is considered incapable of committing a crime.

"The law describes him as not capable of committing crime yet," he said. "All these things are in our law. Sometimes I feel very sad that we do not want to do things right. You see someone who the law describes as not capable of committing a crime yet, and you remand him in an adult prison." Mr. Okemiri, however, stated that he has taken steps to see that the boy is released soon. The case was adjourned to May 30, for further hearing.

Can you believe it? A 13-year-old kid, charged with "attempted murder" for throwing sachets of pure water? Not "disorderly conduct" or something like that, but "attempted murder"?

And the kid is denied bail because ....? Is he a criminal mastermind? Perhaps he will graduate to throwing handfuls of dry leaves if we don't keep him under lock and key with hardened, adult criminals for room-mates?

Why did his lawyers ask for bail anyway? Why didn't they ask the judge to dismiss the case? I strongly doubt the police can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the boy threw sachets of water in the first place (our treatment of evidence and crime scenes leaves a lot to be desired). But even if they can, it is simply impossible to legally sustain a murder case against a 13-year-old sachet-of-water-thrower.

The judge's rationale for denying bail is the severity of the crime, a felony punishable by life imprisonment. Before she got to the question of whether bail can be awarded, shouldn't she have first made a finding as to whether a prima facie felony case exists in the first place? Shouldn't she have quashed the charges the moment she realized the ridiculous nature of the case? At the very least she could have instructed the prosecutors to revise their charges against the boy to something that makes sense (and is applicable to what he actually did), at which point she would be free to grant him bail based on the new charges?

There is simply no prima facie evidentiary rationale for the boy's detention on a murder charge. Not only should the judge have issued an order setting him free, she should also have strongly cautioned the police against wasting the court's time with such an unprofessional "case".

You know what probably happened?

The Imo State Governor is driving through the streets with his guest ex-President Obasanjo, and some people embarrass him by throwing sachets of "pure" water at their cars. The governor orders the police to "arrest those hooligans".

The police then round up everyone standing in the vicinity from which sachets were thrown. They have no pictures, no video, no eye-witness accounts, nothing linking the people standing around there other than the fact that they were standing there when water was thrown. The police tell them that even if they were not among, they either (a) saw the people who did it; or (b) supported the people who did it. Either way, "you are coming with us to the station". Someone, the governor or over-zealous policemen seeking the governor's favour, come up with the bright idea of charging the sachet-of-water-throwers with attempted murder.

Sensing an opportunity, the governor orders the police to arrest the lieutenants and functionaries of his principal political opponent, Rochas Okorocha, on charges of "inciting" the throwers of water sachets, thus causing a "security breach". The governor probably does not know that a 13-year-old boys was among the detainees. When he asks the Police Commissioner whether his orders have been carried out, the Commissioner likely tell him "yes" and maybe gives him the number of people arrested and the names of the VIPs arrested for incitement ... but the "hooligans" who actually threw sachets of water are not important enough to be named, and the Commissioner probably sees absolutely nothing about arresting a 13-year-old for attempted-murder-by-water-sachet that should warrant specially reporting it to the governor. Heck, the Commissioner's subordinates probably didn't tell him; they too see nothing especially out of the ordinary with charging a child with attempted-murder-by-means-of-water-sachet.

The case then comes to a judge who knows the case is stupid, and knows it is wrong to lock up a 13-year-old with hardened, adult criminals in an abominable Nigerian jail, but who also knows that if she releases even one of the governor's enemies without the governor's explicit approval, she will feel the governor's wrath. Even if the governor would think it stupid to have arrested the boy if someone had told him, that does not mean he would forgive a judge for acting as if she could overrule an order that came from him.

If the boy's lawyers were serious about getting him out, they would "leak" his story to Al Jazeera or CNN or Sky News. Governments in Nigeria are far more concerned about their image in the global media than they are about their image among Nigerian citizens.

If this story went worldwide, the governor (or frankly the president) would not only order the boy's release, but would then very loudly order the Police Commissioner to investigate how such a thing could have happened. The Commissioner will promise thunder-and-lightning for anyone found to have breached regulations.

Then time will pass ... everyone will forget ... life will go on same as usual ... but at least the boy would be free.

Scandal in the Oil Ministry

The newspaper NEXT has published a story about corruption in the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources. The story itself is .... disturbing if true, but interestingly they have also posted:

(a) A rough video which they purport to be an undercover sting-type meeting with the man who collects the bribe money on behalf of the Minister.

(b) An audio clip which they purport to be the phone call setting up the sting. They pose as oil importers calling the man who collects the bribe to set up the exchange.

They have posted links to the above two media clips, as well as links to PDF transcripts of the audio and video clips.

Officials at the Ministry have (predictably) denied the allegations.

I don't know what to believe. Oh, I am sure there is monumental corruption in the oil industry (not just in Nigeria, but worldwide) .... but NEXT's sting did not produce a "smoking gun" linking the Minister or anyone else to the man they spoke to on the audio and video clips.

Election

You've probably all heard/read/seen the news of the explosion at the INEC offices in Suleja, and the subsequent explosion at a vote collation centre in Maiduguri, as well as the blast in Kaduna. Campaign season has been violent as usual, and these were the thugs' end-of-season exclamation points.

Voting in the National Assembly elections went off relatively peacefully this weekend.

I am tempted not to say anything about the election itself, and to focus (as per usual) on issues that are never mentioned or addressed by politicians in their campaigns or in office. Notably, consolidation and cost-cutting in our over-expensive, over-burdensome administrative structure (as sketched out in this, and many other prior blog post) will simply not happen. Fundamental reform of the Nigerian Police Force (argued for in this, and many other prior blog posts) will not happen either.

Besides, there is no point saying anything when results are not final. Not just the results for the National Assembly, but all results. Only then can you say what patterns have been revealed.

So far the only "pattern" (if it holds out) established is that the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has become the new AD/UPN/AG-type party that controls the Yoruba-majority states. I suppose this is good news for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) which each seemed to be aiming (despite rhetoric to the contrary) to take the NCNC/NPP and NPC spots for the Igbo-majority and Hausa-majority states respectively. I don't know what that means for the Peoples Democratic Party, heirs to the NPN/SDP/NRC "gather all the Big Men together under one tent" strategy, nor am I sure what that means for the prospects of pan-Nigerian political parties (as opposed to regional outfits). All I can say is if the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) is wiped out in Kano by the CPC (likely) but holds on to Borno and Yobe, they would have metamorphosed from a new NPC into a new version of the late Waziri Ibrahim's GNPP.

Is it me, or do we just go around in circles, coming back to the same place we started rather than moving forward to something different .... something better?

Another interesting trend is some of the early victories by opposition parties over the PDP have involved former members of the PDP running on opposition party tickets after failing to win the PDP ticket. Prominent among these early winners is George Akume, who was an 8-year PDP governor of Benue State, and is now a newly re-elected ACN senator (having only recently decamped to the ACN).

In the fluid world of Nigerian politics where men hop from party to party depending on short-term Realpolitik, it is hard to conclude that the victory of any one party in a specific election means anything different from the victory of a rival party in that same poll.

First Principles

I'll restate something for the record. I've said this several times since I started this blog.

Every political, economic and sociocultural leader in Nigeria claims to be interested in reforms. They all make promises, give assurances. They all claim to be Born-Again (Christian) or Pro-Shariah (Moslem). They all point fingers at everyone else in the world other than themselves when answering the question of who is responsible for the lack of movement in so many significant issue areas.

For me, the day I know reform, restructuring and transformation has begun in Nigeria is the day we begin a concrete and irreversible process to:

(a) Consolidate the 36 States and 1 too-large Territory into a sub-national second-tier of 6 Administrative Regions and 4 condensed Territories (these smaller territories would fulfill both second-tier and third-tier functions);

(b) Consolidate the 774 constitutional Local Government Areas and the dozens of unconstitutional Governor-created L.G.A.-equivalents into no more than 72 third-tier sub-national units (exclusive of the 4 condensed Territories which serve both second-tier and third-tier functions).

(c) Set constitutional limits to permanently right-size the legislative and executive components of the new administrative divisions, cutting by 50% or more the combined number of "elected" political officeholders (governors, parliamentarians, etc) unelected appointees political office (e.g commissioners, ministers, supervisory councilors, members of commissions/panels/advisory boards/etc, etc) and the respective political supporting cast of each of these officeholders (assistants, special assistants, senior special assistants, media officers, security votes, etc). For example, the size of the federal legislature should drop from 469 (360 in the lower house, 109 in the upper house) to 315 (300 in the lower house, 15 in the upper house), with a lowered ceiling on the salaries, perks and privileges of members, as well as the numbers of assistants, senior assistants, special assistants, senior special assistants and other hangers-on feeding out of the treasury trough

.

The three things mentioned above are only the beginning ... but without this beginning, nothing else will work. It is simply not possible to move forward under the present administrative structure. It is burdensome, an albatross on our necks.

Consolidation would not only make resources available for productive use, but would (much more importantly in my view) create a better platform at all three tiers for long-term planning and the optimal maximization of complementary economic potentialities.

I really do believe that this is the starting point (only the starting point, mind you, not the destination) for any reform, restructuring and transformation in Nigeria, so much so, that these first principles are responsible for the cynical approach my blog takes to Nigerian politics.

You see, if we enacted these three reforms, the number of politicians and political hangers-on directly supported by the public treasury by around half (50%) if not more. Inasmuch as criminal theft (a.k.a. looting, corruption or graft) is a problem, the greater problem to our fiscal health lies in the legal waste built into the system. Indeed, direct financial support of an excessive number of political operators is the lesser cause of legal waste; many more, so many more political patrons and clients are supported by the public treasury indirectly.

Hence my cynicism.

To expect the politicians to enact these reforms is like expecting them to commit financial and political suicide. The domains they control (from states and LGAS to ministries and commissions) are too fractured for effective, rational government. But direct control of a small pot of money is more appealing to them than having to queue up with thousands of other political jobbers for fiscal favours from someone else.

And can you imagine how powerful that someone else will be, what with his control of a bigger pot of money? This consideration is probably of paramount importance to them. If they were guaranteed that it would be them in control of the larger, rationalized entities, they would sign up for reform immediately! But all of them are already engaged in vicious, do-or-die political battles to control the existing LGAs, states and legislative/parliamentary constituencies; if you consolidate, then you merely increase the number of people with whom they would have to vie for imperial control of public resources. Part of the reason our states and LGAs were atomized in the first place was Big Men and warlords seeking to avoid having to contend with other Big Men and warlord by creating a small enough space upon which they could exert total control.

It puts me in a difficult position. I am a firm believer in something I know the political system will never produce. Concomitantly, I cannot in any way, shape or form deceive myself into supporting any of the politicians or political parties, because their many fake promises are simply impossible to deliver without enacting these three first principles.

Reform the Police

A very good friend of mine just survived a terrible incident while traveling from Lagos to Aba.

He was traveling in a bus that was driving a few vehicles behind another bus. Through the windshield he saw what appeared to be a uniformed "policeman" flag down the bus ahead of them. As soon as the bus stopped, a group of armed robbers sprang out of the bushes to attack that first bus.

This happened in broad daylight, at 3:00pm in the afternoon.

While this is awful, it isn't the reason for my post per se. Unfortunately, violent crime is a feature of this planet. It happens everywhere. There is no place on Earth in which you are free from the risk.

No, it is what happened next. My friend's bus was able to make a U-turn and escape the fate of the first bus. Some way down the road, the ran into that inevitable feature of our inter-city expressways, the police checkpoint; such extortion choke points are one of several reasons there is little "express" about our "expressways".

At the checkpoint they notified the police that there was a robbery in action just a short way up the road. The police reply? They said they were "not on robbery patrol", and that was the end of it.

This is the reason for my post.

In all the years I lived in Nigeria, I was never the victim of a direct crime; all of us are victims of various unpunished crimes, but that is another story. I am glad I wasn't, because if criminals had attacked, I would have been entirely defenseless. In those days, only the wealthy and well-connected had telephones; and even if we had had a telephone, the unpleasant truth is the police would not have responded to a distress call. They would have said their vehicle was in disrepair, or that there was no fuel in the vehicle; if we were lucky, they would show up the next day in the afternoon or evening and ask us to defray the cost of the fuel they used to come to our home (never mind the fact that their investigative skills were so poor, and their arrival on the crime scene so late, and their professional disinterest so great, that they were unlikely to ever "solve" the crime in spite of our having coughed out money to pay for their gas.

This is the problem. It is a bigger problem than crime.

There are violent criminals everywhere in the world, but the difference in the citizens' experience of crime lies entirely in the mind of the criminal. Where a criminal thinks he can do what he wants with a high probability of getting away with it, citizens' experience is worse. In contrast, where a criminal thinks there is a strong chance he will be captured, prosecuted and punished, crime doesn't vanish, but citizens' experience of it is different.

This is a reality even within countries with better police forces than ours. In the United States, for example, the police forces give a higher priority to crime prevention in wealthier neighbourhoods and a lower priority to poorer neighbourhoods, and it shows in those neighbourhoods' varying experiences of crime.

Nigerian criminals are not intrinsically worse than criminals elsewhere, and while some idiots like to talk as though all Nigerians are criminals, we as a the peoples of Nigeria are not any worse than any other peoples in the world.

The problem is Nigerian criminals are well aware that their odds of being apprehended and prosecuted range from minimal to negligible. This is why assassins can stroll casually in the busy, crowded streets of cities like Lagos and Onitsha, patiently approach their victim, calmly kill him in front of everybody, take the time to pump extra bullets to make sure he has no chance of survival, stretch their muscles, ponder the philosophies of Emmanuel Kant, read several books, make phone calls to their girlfriends, and then (and only then) stroll to their getaway vehicles to flee the scene. Well, they don't really "flee", they just calmly drive away.

Now you may be offended by my facetious remarks in the preceding paragraph, but trust me, it is grim, gallows humour ... the humour of the powerless man lamenting his fate.

They have no fear at all.

In fact, if by some chance a few of their colleagues are arrested, the criminals too-frequently launch frontal assaults on police stations and prisons to free said colleagues. We don't keep statistics, but I bet Nigeria has been the scene of far more "daring" attacks on prisons and police stations than any country outside an active war zone.

They have no fear at all.

The systems and institutions of law enforcement in our Federal Republic have been in desperate need of reform, restructuring and transformation since before Independence. In fact, the Colonial and Pre-Colonial systems of such were each in their way as problematic as the Post-Colonial variant has turned out.

It isn't just the Nigerian Police Force, but the nature, structure, form and functionality of the judiciary and of the legal profession.

Look around at the candidates in the oft-postponed 2011 Elections at all three tiers. Do any of them sound like they appreciate the depth of the problem? Do any of them sound like they have a thought-through, realistic plan to begin the long process of reform? Do any of them have the credibility to inspire trust in cookie-cutter promises of reform?

How many times have we changed governments since 1960?

What impact have these changes ever had on the Nigerian Police Force?

We have a much more intractable problem. You see, the people with the power to instigate reform are people who are threatened by the prospect of law enforcement institutions that work well. They know what they do, and they know that what they do would make them targets of any effective law enforcement regime .... so there is no reform and there never will be.

Ouattara's militia advances

In certain parts of Africa, most notably Chad and the Central African Republic, there have been multiple occasions when what was known as the "rebel" army becomes domestically and international recognized as the "government" army, while the erstwhile "government" army takes up the mantle as the new "rebel" army. Cote d'Ivoire is about to get its first taste of this phenomenon.

Alassane Ouattara's Forces Nouvelle look set to replace Laurent Gbagbo's "National Armed Forces" as the "government" army. No one is saying this (because everyone is officially supposed to support Ouattara), but it is likely his current martial success is built on the direct intervention of Blaise Campaore, President of Burkina Faso. Indeed, some of the "Ivoiriens" in Ouattara's triumphant army are likely officers and regular enlisted soldiers from the Burkinabe Armed Forces. Both sides are reportedly using Liberian mercenaries. Unsurprisingly, there are reports of atrocities by both the "government" and "rebel" armies.

Some think this is the end-game of the Ivoirien crisis, but such thoughts have been uttered before.

Nearly two decades ago, the autocratic Felix Houphouet-Boigny died.

In Houphouet's final years, his Prime Minister, Alassane Ouattara, was the de facto "Acting President", but according to law the Presidency was meant to pass to the President of the Ivoirien National Assembly, Henri Konan Bedie. Rather than step aside for Bedie to take the office, Prime Minister Ouattara attempted to use his de facto control of the powers of the presidency to subvert the transition and to consolidate power in his own hands. After a political mini-crisis, Ouattara's efforts failed, and he went into exile when Henri Konan Bedie was confirmed as president.

Gaining the presidency and forcing his rival into exile were not enough for Bedie, who decided to make it constitutionally impossible for his rival Ouattara to be a political threat. Bedie inaugurating the an ideology he called "Ivoirite" and passed laws he argued were necessary to (for all intents and purposes) protect the political supremacy of pure-blood Ivoriens from perfidious "foreigners" in their midst. Bedie's definition of "foreigner" was designed to apply to Alassane Ouattara, to invalidate his citizenship and disqualify him from running for political office. That was bad enough to begin with, but any law written to use the facts of Ouattara's life to invalidate his citizenship was bound to have the effect of invalidating the citizenship of millions of Ivoiriens in the north of the country, whether intentionally or not.

This sparked a bigger crisis, and when Bedie realized he could count on the support of General Robert Guei, who had been appointed army chief by the late Houphouet-Boigny, in his fight with Ouattara, he sidelined Guei and went on to "win" an election that was boycotted by both Ouattara's and Gbagbo's parties. In response, General Guei overthrew President Bedie and held a quick election. Having tasted power, and desiring to keep it, Guei upheld Bedie's Ivoirite-derived laws barring Ouattara from participating in the elections. By all accounts, Guei then lost the election to Laurent Gbagbo, but nevertheless declared himself the winner. A civil uprising forced Guei from office, sending him into internal political exile. Laurent Gbagbo, who had spent the last decade-and-half of the Houphouet-Boigny autocracy campaigning for democracy (and who had won an election from which Guei had blocked Ouattara), became President.

Alas, Gbagbo too became a convert to "Ivoirite" ideology, as well as to Bedie's statutory sleight-of-hand that banned Ouattara from running for office. In response, a rebel army, backed by Ouattara and by Burkinabe President Blaise Campaore, swept the northern half of the Cote d'Ivoire before French and Senegalese troops intervened to force the incipient Civil War into a stalemate. In the opening stages of the war, ex-president General Robert Guei was murdered in mysterious circumstances.

International intervention had the effect only of freezing the frontline. A decade went by with no progress on any core issue. Eventually an election was held; the rebel army controlled the north and the government army the south, and each side rather blatantly rigged in its domain. The final results said Ouattara had won; the Gbagbo side rejected this. After more stalemate, war resumed; this time the French and the "United Nations" did not stop the rebel advance as they had done the first time, and as I type this Ouattara's forces have more or less overrun the entire country save a few parts of Abidjan.

Firstly, let me state clearly that the autocratic political tradition of modern Cote d'Ivoire is the root of the countries present-day difficulties. As with most other countries in Africa, modern Cote d'Ivoire was "amalgamated" by the French, who then imposed what was in effect a colonial dictatorship over the country. Independence in 1960 meant only that the dictatorial French colonial governor was replaced by the dictatorial Felix Houphouet-Boigny. The French colonial government did not allow citizens to choose their government democratically and tolerated no internal opposition; the Houphouet-Boigny regime was exactly the same. Both the French and Houphouet would defend their political dictatorships by arguing that they brought economic progress to the country.

Eventually Houphouet died.

Ouattara, Bedie and the late Robert Guei were all political scions of the autocratic Houphouet Era. All three of them understood that the way the system worked is if one man takes the presidency, that man holds it for life, exercises the powers of Augustus Caesar, and crushes any rivals without remorse. There was no such thing as letting someone else be president for a while and then taking your turn some time later (as is done in Tanzaniza, Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana and has been suggested in Nigeria).

The reason Ouattara initially tried to block the transition of power to Bedie is he wanted to be president and knew if he let Bedie have it, he would never get to be president. Unsurprisingly, when he was forced to let Bedie have it, Bedie did nothing other than come up with ways to make sure he kept it and Ouattara never got it. Then Robert Guei got in on the act, and eventually the biggest disappointment of all, Laurent Gbagbo, joined the train.

Gbagbo was supposed to be different. While Ouattara, Bedia and the late Guei had all profited (financially as well as politically) from aligning themselves over decades with the Houphouet-Boigny autocracy, Laurent Gbagbo had been the lone voice crying out for democracy for over a decade before Houphouet-Boigny's death. And he had suffered the consequences -- anyone who thinks Houphouet was a genial old man, need only read up on Houphouet's treatment of Gbagbo. But much like other long-term preachers of democracy in Africa, Gbagbo turned out to be every bit as much an autocrat as the man he reviled (Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade is another example of a long-time democracy campaigner who metamorphosed into a pseudo-monarchic autocrat when he finally attained office).

The important thing you should note is NONE of the Ivoirien rivals is or was a true believer in democracy and limited government. The Ivoirien Civil War is not about "democracy"; it is about which autocrat gets to inherit Houphouet's throne. If anything, the rivals' collective abhorrence of democracy is the CORE REASON the Cote d'Ivoire is at war with itself.

None of them can afford to allow a rival to occupy the office because they know that in so doing they would forever lose their chance to occupy it themselves. NONE of them believes that his rivals will allow for democratic elections; the contest for power of necessity thus takes undemocratic form. Under the prevailing political environment, the only way to take office is to SEIZE it ... and once you have it, to do anything, even criminal things, to keep it

And all power is concentrated in the Office of the President, which means it is the only office worth having and no one cares about the National Assembly (a meaningless institution) or the Regions (which exist only as administrative devices for the Presidency). No one is satisfied to control X number of Regional governments or to have X number of representatives in Parliament. You are either the president or you are nobody.

In a prior post, I voiced my opposition to the idea of using of Nigerian soldiers to assist or actualize any of the rivals' presidential ambitions. As a matter of principle and altruism, if we truly want to see what is best for our sub-regional neighbours, we would have advocated:

(a) placing both armies under the neutral command of West African officers seconded for the purpose; stores of arms and munitions would have to be independently located and placed under direct ECOMOG control -- only a gun and a handful of bullets would be assigned to soldiers in each army, and all would be restricted to territory they already occupied;


(b) establishing an interim, technocratic government, responsible to ECOWAS, to reestablish basic unified governance across the country in a pseudo-federal format. ECOWAS would control the national government, while elected regional assemblies are formed in the 19 regions. Unlike national-level politics, there is less scope for post-election gridlock at the Regional level. The ECOWAS-mandated national government could serve as a neutral political device through which the 19 regional governments work together to decide upon nationwide, pan-Ivoirien policy. The principal rivals, and any of their associated within defined degrees of relationship would be barred from serving in any of these governmental structures.


(c) In five years or so, elections to a National Assembly could hold under ECOWAS jurisdiction, but not to the Executive, which would still be controlled by ECOWAS. We could then begin a five-year process of seeing if the different political parties can work together to pass legislation (which the ECOWAS-mandated will have no power to block, unless it can show the legislation would have the effect of reignited Civil War-era tensions).


(d) If all goes well, elections for President would take place in 10 years, when the National Assembly is up for re-election.


(e) All of the warring parties would have to agree to it in total; ECOWAS would go in there peacefully to carry out the plan and not as a party to the war or to fight any side in the conflict.

I know what you are thinking. The plan above is unrealistic.

I know.

I agree.

It is unrealistic.

For one thing, it presumes an ECOWAS and member-nations that are much less useless than currently exists. Unfortunately, most countries in ECOWAS are in dire need of cleansing themselves, and as such have neither the inclination nor the means nor the imagination to conduct such an exercise in the Cote d'Ivoire.

For another, it assumes a Nigeria that is much more efficacious in its internal governance and external diplomacy. As it stands, we have neither the standing (morally or politically), nor the capacity (resource-wise or administratively), for any such intervention.

Finally it presumes that the rival parties in Cote d'Ivoire (and their armies) would voluntarily agree to a plan whose very intent is to sanitize the Ivoirien political system by removing them and their cohorts entirely from it. They are willing to waste their fellow citizens' lives for their ambitions; you can hardly expect them to give up those ambitions because you remind them that they have a responsibility to their people.

But as "unrealistic" as the plan may be, it is the only scenario in which the loss of the lives of Nigerian soldiers would be justified. None of the Ivoirien rivals is worth dying for -- they are individually and collectively not worth the many Ivoirien lives wasted over their rivalry -- nor is the success of any of the trio likely to result in anything of value to the West African sub-region or to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Neo-Houphouetistes like Ouattara and Bedie would run the Cote d'Ivoire like an overseas department of France, with concomitant roadblocks to West African trade and cooperation, based on the ridiculously colo-mental notion of an "anglophone" and "francophone divide. Antipathy would be specifically aimed at Nigeria, a country neo-Houphouetistes have always treated as an existential threat to their preferred order of things.

Gbagbo's xenophoic tirades against the people of the northern half of his country make him unsuitable for the presidency in a sub-region comprised entirely of multi-ethnic, multi-relgious amalgamated countries. Like the rest of the Ivoirien political elite, Gbagbo too thinks of Nigeria as an existential threat.

And you have the unspoken-but-likely intervention of Burkina Faso's Blaise Campaore on the side of Alassane Ouattara. If there was a Kingdom of People in West Africa Who Hate Nigeria, Campaore would be their king. It was Campaore, along with Houphouet-Boigny and Moammar Ghaddafi, who principally backed Charles Taylor's NPFL and its offshoot, the RUF.

The case of Liberia and Sierra Leone is instructive for those who envision a more strategically cohesive foreign policy from Nigeria. The thing about us is we have a very weak conception of what constitutes our strategic interests in our sub-region or even worldwide. So when events start to go in a way that is opposite to our real interests, we barely notice, because we barely notice our real interests anyway. Things that could be nipped in the bud, stopped when they are still small (Taylor's initial army comprised 25 men) are allow to metastasize until they are so big that there is nothing we can do about it with our limited resources.

The economic and political relationship between Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire over the last 50 years has been rubbish from the perspective of either countries' strategic interests. The current Ivoirien Civil War will not result in any significant change to this state of affairs. Heads, we lose. Tails, we lose.

The Goodluck Jonathan administration will be looking for the "international community" to endorse its anticipated victory in the 2011 Elections, and so may be inclined to oblige them by recognizing the new Ouattara regime and helping to legitimize it (in part by joining everyone else to pretend it was only Gbagbo's forces who committed human rights violations and gross crimes against civilians). Ouattara will accept Jonathan's endorsement .... and then set about restoring Cote d'Ivoire as a French department.

I hate to see the Ivoirien people suffer. But I hate even more to REWARD the men who are the source of their suffering, and to retain the system of governance that gave rise to the suffering.

But what option is there? Nigeria, the so-called "Giant" is in no position to influence outcomes ... and even if we were, I bet you we would do the opposite to what is in our (and the Ivorien) interests.

No Comment on Election Postponement

I have absolutely nothing to say about the first postponement and the second, subsequent, postponement of the already postponed date.

Commenting on the vagaries of our elections is like commenting on the sunrise and sunset.

It is natural.

It is "normal".

Until such a point as we overhaul the system, reform our Federal Republic from its very roots, this will remain our reality.

Not so electrifying

A top aide to the President on electricity has denied the federal government promised 10,000MW of electricity generation by December 2011, and insisted the government had only promised 4,947MW by December 2011.

I suppose we should .... applaud?

Jailed in Akwa Ibom

Editor's Note: This post should have been put up on the blog days ago

This is a follow-up to this post on violence across the country by thugs on the payroll of the four major parties (PDP, ANPP, ACN and CPC).

The gubernatorial candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria in Akwa Ibom State was been arrested, arraigned and denied bail subsequent to election-related mass violence in Akwa Ibom.

The arrest of James Akpanudoedehe does not imply sudden governmental interest in prosecuting the perpetrators of political violence. On the contrary, the action is part and parcel of the political rivalries that generated violence in the first place.

The current governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, used to be the political godson of his predecessor, Victor Attah. After eight years mired in allegations of corruption, ex-Governor Attah essentially imposed his godson Akpabio on the state as his successor. But the defining characteristic of the Fourth Republic has been godsons turning against their godfathers once they (godsons) feel the reins of power are securely in their hands. It is so constant a pattern that I am shocked the many godfathers haven't realized the pointlessness of their investments; on the other hand, the inability to learn productive lessons from experience is itself a defining character trait of the Nigerian politician.

Like every other godfather faced with disobedience and betrayal from a godsons, ex-Governor Attah responded by using his political machine to make life difficult (understatement) for Governor Akpabio. The two men, and their respective political machines/alliances have been at war.

James Akpanudoedehe, the arrested ACN candidate in the 2011 Akwa Ibom gubernatorial race, is the new favoured godson of ex-Governor Attah; he is a proxy candidate for the Attah Faction in the denouement of their war with the Akpabio Faction.

The Attah Faction intended to show their strength by making their candidate the PDP nominee, thus forcing Governor Akpabio to leave the PDP and restoring control of the state party machinery to Attah. Unfortunately for them, the Akpabio Faction proved stronger. Or maybe Akpabio won because President Goodluck Jonathan's electoral machine/alliance decided it was better not to anger a man who would remain governor at least until the elections itself; Nigerian governors, with their near-imperial control of state treasuries and government structures, are the single most powerful force in the process of manipulating the results of elections, so unless you actually removed Akpabio from office before the campaign season and the polls, he could join another party and "deliver" his state to someone else.

Long story short, James Akpanudoedehe lost the PDP nomination race, and this being the Fourth Republic, he promptly decamped (with his godfather's blessing), leaving the PDP and joining the ACN after securing the usual guarantee that he would be the ACN's candidate. There is nothing ideological about it; both parties ideology is to acquire office and to use office to financially benefit political patrons and clients.

I doubt there were any new personal political connections either.

The ACN supremo, ex-Governor Tinubu is only interested in placing all the Yoruba-majority states under his thumb; he benefits from having a "heavyweight" in Akwa Ibom give the ACN the deceptive appearance of a pan-Nigerian outlook. For a while, the semi-retired insurgent Mujaheed Dokubo-Asari was in line to be the controlling influence of the ACN in Rivers State, before he was forced out by intra-party rival Tonye Princewill. Having Attah (for all his corruption allegations) be the force behind ACN in Akwa Ibom is a step up from all that.

Ex-Governor Attah, on his part is a dyed-in-the-wool PDP man who is only interested in controlling his Akwa Ibom fief. I don't know what Attah's plans are. He may intend his machinery in the state to take the ACN name for convenience, or he may intend James Akpanudoedehe to return to the PDP fold should he triumph at the polls. In reality, if Akpanudoedehe wins he would most likely turn against Attah and make a similar deal with Tinubu to whatever arrangement brought Chris Ngige into the ACN after his battles with the godfathers of the Uba Family in Anambra. In quite a few states, the one-on-one battles between godfathers and ex-godsons has mutated into three-way contests after replacement godsons did the same thing to the godfather as was done by the prior godson.

Yeah, I know you are thinking.

But be honest with yourself. This is the sum total of our politics.

There are no alternative policy options on debate. Just sets of hungry men, salivating over the national cake and pulling strings in the background to dictate results regardless of citizen preferences.

Anyway, my point is this ....

James Akpanudoedehe was arrested on the orders of Governor Godswill Akpabio. The arrest was NOT motivated by an interest in law-and-order, public security or justice. Governor Akpabio opportunistically took advantage of the violence to lock up his strongest opponent in the 2011 "Elections", and to tie the man's resources up with fighting a criminal indictment.

A lot of citizens don't care about such distinctions, and would be happy enough to see anyone arrested for the violence. But understand my basic problem with Nuhu Ribadu: If an agency like the EFCC removes a corrupt politician that is opposed to President Obasanjo, in order to pave the way for a corrupt politician that supports Obasanjo, then we are still left with a corrupt politician in charge of the treasury -- nothing has changed. Put it in more simplistic terms: If you replace a politician who steals $1 million a month and opposes Obasanjo with a politician who steals $1 million a month and supports Obasanjo, then you have not made any difference to the fiscal outcome.

Both sides, Akpabio's and Attah's, are willing to hire thugs and to use those thugs to wreak violence. Both sides, Akpabio's and Attah's, think their personal rivalry is more important than the safety and security of the people of Akwa Ibom. If one side "wins", the people of Akwa Ibom are still left with a Governor that values his political ambitions far more than any considerations of citizens' safety and security. There are implications to having people like that as governors; it is no surprise that the Niger-Delta has witnessed record levels of political violence since the launch of the Fourth Republic in 1999. You might think that it would be peaceful if one warlord "prevails" over another, but when people make peaceful change (i.e. democratic elections) impossible, they make violent attempts at change inevitable. It is a situation that generates an endless number of warlords willing to try their luck and chance whoever happens to be the dominant warlord.

If Governor Akpabio wins this year's election, he will attempt to impose a godson on the state in 2015 .... and will then be obliged to go to war with that godson almost immediately as soon as the 2015 Election ends.

Akwa Ibom will be back to square one.