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At eight o’clock on Tuesday night, my attention was drawn to the coverage of the National Convention of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) on NTA Live. I abandoned the football game I was watching and tuned in. A band was playing behind which was what looked, oddly, like a large open space. A couple of minutes later the music stopped and focus switched to a crowded podium. One man was in a smart suit, six or seven others in various agbada designs. There was now just background noise but the compere soon appeared to introduce Senator Faruk Bunza who we were told was going to get the Convention to approve the nomination of General Muhammadu Buhari as the Presidential Candidate of the
CPC, Buhari being the sole contestant. It took several minutes for Bunza to show up during which time there was a lot of pointless comings and goings on the stage. Bunza said he wanted to “hear vibration (sic)” from the audience. “C P C,” he shouted, but his voice is a low, miserable susurrus and he failed to get the feedback he expected. He asked for ayes and nays. Three times he put the question: all those in favour of the nomination say aye, those against say nay. Each time a resounding aye. No nays. Each time the focus turned to General Buhari who seemed to be very pleased with the endorsement seated in the front row in a chair royally set apart from all others. But he fidgeted and there was something unsettling and suggestive of the late Umaru ‘Yaradua about him.

With his candidacy approved, General Buhari was then invited to address the Convention. Standing in front of the microphone on the busy stage Buhari cut a very uninspiring figure. Many of Buhari’s fervent supporters set store by the image of the stern, no-nonsense Military man standing upright in his polished shoes and starched khaki with a smart cap to match. But this was a very different Buhari. Dressed in an ill-fitting blue babbanriga, he looked like a spent, retired dispenser out of some rural store east of Kauran Namoda.

And when he spoke, the disappointment was greater. He held his speech in loose sheets in his hands and as he spoke, a man standing alongside him would move to retrieve each read page. This, a Presidential candidate’s address this year! Long before Mrs Margaret Thatcher began her political career, she had taken elocution lessons to polish her English speech which she deemed a handicap, and which she was determined to address if she was to realise her ambition of leading the Conservative Party in Britain. For General Buhari, English, despite it being for all intents and purposes our National language and despite the period he spent in Military school in England, has remained very much a Foreign language he sees no reason to master. Buhari’s talk of ‘suportatas’, ‘folowas,’ ‘smoos’ and ‘sru’ ‘sik’ and ‘sin’, quite apart from being cringeworthy served to divert our attention from trying to understand what he was attempting to say. Many people mock Mrs Patience Jonathan’s English speech but she must have sat in the same classroom with General Buhari because he picks his words as she does hers, requiring you to listen very carefully to make sense of what is being said. Not many of the new supporters Buhari must win if he is to realise his dream of the Presidency will be willing to take the patient, attentive listening, route.

Buhari spoke for only a few minutes. He came across as petty and embittered. He complained about the ANPP and about previous elections manipulated by the PDP; said “only the PDP believes that we are practicing democracy in this country;” and tried to curry favour with the current head of the Electoral Commission. That was all. His manifesto for change, he said, has been widely circulated. I later asked about half a dozen random persons if they had seen it and not one person said yes. Perhaps you have. That a Presidential Candidate of a Party can speak at its National Convention aired live to a National audience without outlining his programme is astonishing. That his speech did not contain a rallying cry to get his suportatas and folowas out to electoral battle is absolutely beyond belief. General Buhari did not name a running mate either; the Convention was all about him.

A man introduced as Madam(!) Hamma did speak about the CPC’s manifesto. It was a very muddled presentation. He did not have a document to present. He blustered extempore. He regretted that there was not enough time to go into it. However, insufficient time is never a valid excuse in organised events like this. Whatever happened to preparation and rehearsal? It was just as well that we were spared an extended listening. Hamma said their “manifesto does not believe (sic) in privatisation, it believes in proper privatisation.” He was trying to convey a rejection of a Western economic agenda for Nigeria but he had a hard time doing it. Some of what he said was truly bizarre: “How many people know how many zeroes to write a trillion? So we believe we will speak language of the people.” And other non sequiturs in the same vein.

An hour later and it was all done. The only other business, ratification of amendments to the CPC’s Constitution, done without demurral. Reflecting on the organisation and conduct of this Convention, one cannot fail to wonder about the whereabouts of the substance of the Buhari platform and the quality of its officials and aides. They failed to put on a good show. It is evident that Buhari has a poor speech writer and, worse, that he lacks the intelligence to make useful revisions to what is presented before him. A truly great man of thought and accomplishment, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo had argued with clarity and conviction more than thirty years ago that a Political Party worthy of the name “must present a coherent and unequivocal programme,” and a leader must make “binding undertakings.” How could Buhari spend eight years campaigning for the Presidency and not have a clearly articulated and coherent agenda which is understood by all as well as subscribed to and promoted by his supporters and followers? How can the presumed personal integrity of one man alone be deemed a sufficient political platform when it cannot even organise a Convention in a professional and inspirational manner?

I have argued elsewhere that Buhari is the nostalgia candidate; those who support him expect him to pick up from where he left off twenty five years ago. They choose not to evaluate today’s version and what it has to offer in what are now very different circumstances. This Covention has highlighted the vacuity of the wizened babbanriga version. But there’s one more thing. No one has succeeded in stamping his imprint on a Nigerian government to the extent achieved by the late General Tunde Idiagbon. How much of the credit attached to the Buhari/Idiagbon regime is attributable to General Idiagbon? In looking at what is today on offer from Buhari and his apparently inadequate advisers, one is increasingly led to the inescapable conclusion that the earlier work, such as there was, was all Idiagbon’s.

Advocacy and
pressure groups, newspaper columns and editorials, politicians and
lawyers, in fact Nigerians in general, high and low all have had a
convergence of opinion that everything must be done to give the country
free and fair elections, no matter what it takes in terms of effort; no
matter the sacrifice in terms of commitment.

Last week the
federal government announced with a tone that had echoes of that old
military alacrity and immediate effect that students in the country at
primary and secondary levels are to stay home for a full month to aid
the completion of a new – or updated – voters’ register.

It goes without
saying that this announcement was another bungled affair. Depriving
children of one month of education isn’t something that you announce
with fiat and for the Jonathan administration to disregard the
feelings, consequences and implications – financial, social, legal and
constitutional – for our federal system and the millions of parents and
children across the country, only goes to underscore the amateurish
hands that guide it.

Of course we are
aware that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has a
major task ahead of it to buck the trend of past elections and
efficiently manage the logistics, planning and implementation to
produce a contest that is free and fair in the scant three months it
has left.

The current
chairman of INEC came into office to clean up a mess he had no part in
creating. Nigeria spent 2010 trying to avoid a constitutional crisis
forced upon us by the selfishness of a cabal intent on keeping one man
in office so much that we could not focus on the important task of
equipping our electoral commission to organise elections worth having.
Seen simply in this context, it is not difficult to understand the
imperative that has driven the decision to extend school holidays by a
month.

It is indeed
possible that one extra week instead of four could be all that is
necessary to complete an exercise that we have known for well nigh two
years now, was vital for clean elections. The late President Yar’Adua
was dogged by the spectre of the rigged election that brought him to
power in 2007. His inaugural promise then was to reform our electoral
system. He never made it, dogged as he was by the ill health that
should, all things considered, have made him ineligible for the
presidency that he ‘won’. It is an object lesson that what is done
improperly can never be made whole. So too with democracy.

That now is the problem with this arbitrarily decreed closure of schools.

There is the
argument that it is impossible to use many other alternatives, such as
places of worship, to conduct the voter registration exercise. There
are barely 1, 000 post offices, less than 20000 eateries and less than
1000 local council offices we are informed. Of the 120, 000 locations
slated for voter registration, 85% of them are schools. There is no way
that the exercise can properly function if these schools are in
session. Common sense should have dictated then that the programme be
scheduled for when the schools were on holiday. Even with the chaos
that has accompanied our chequered path to this election there surely
should have been someone thinking of this. We have been down this road
before.

That this did not
happen is only symptomatic of the adhoc behaviour that substitutes for
planning in the PDP administration that has been in government for the
last twelve years. Add to that the abysmal handling of education at all
levels and it is clear why the political leadership can see nothing
untoward in making school children and their parents pay the price for
‘credible elections’, and on top of that imagine that Nigerians would
‘just take it’.

Dear President Goodluck,

We are compelled
to write regarding the recent Federal Government directive shutting
down all primary and secondary schools in the country until 30 January
2011 because of the voters’ registration exercise scheduled to begin on
15 to 29 January 2011. The directive also stated that SS3 students who
are preparing for their final examinations are exempted. The directive
failed to mention JSS 3 students and those preparing for international
examinations and how the Federal Government will ensure that they also
not affected.

The initial
directive announced on 6 January was that schools would be closed until
4 February. Then on 7 January, the Federal Government unilaterally
announced on National Network television that the schools would now
re-open on 30 January.

This directive was
issued on the last working day before schools were due to re-open.
Those most affected by it are school children in primary and secondary
schools, nearly all of who are ineligible to vote. With this directive,
therefore, the children are now liable to lose about one month of
schoolwork.

As a democratic
nation whose citizens voluntarily abandoned military rule 12 years ago
and chose the path of elective democracy, governmental decisions have
to be grounded in law and reflect the deliberative character of
democratic governance. The manner of this decision and its
communications is alarmingly short of these standards.

Under our federal
system of government, states have responsibility for primary education
while the federation and the states share responsibility for secondary
education. Yet, in issuing this directive, the Federal Government did
not consult with any of the states or secure their consent nor were the
unions of teachers, school proprietors, parent-teachers association
carried along. Furthermore, statements like ‘’… compliance will be
total’’ suggest that some people in your government are not aware that
the military left political power long ago.

Many countries with
more serious political challenges, including, Afghanistan, Côte
d’Ivoire, Iraq, Rwanda, and Sudan, have recently organised elections.
None had to shut their schools in order to register voters.

Participating in
the voter registration process is an essential foundation of the
citizen’s right to vote. Mr. President, many Nigerians undoubtedly want
to participate in the upcoming voter registration but not at the
expense of their rights or of their obligations to their children. The
education of our children is a basic obligation of both parents and
government in Nigeria required by the Child Rights Act, the Children
and Young Persons Act and the Universal Basic Education Act. In
addition, one of the major goals contained in the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) to which Nigeria is committed is the basic
education for all children.

This directive violates all these laws without any legislative or constitutional justification.

Moreover, in
purporting through this directive to cover private schools, the Federal
Government interferes with the property rights of school proprietors
without justification or compensation, contrary to section 43 of the
1999 Constitution. For those in private schools, is the Federal
Government willing to compensate the parents for the tuitions fees they
have paid? Quite apart from lacking any rational policy justification,
this directive is clearly unlawful and unconstitutional on its terms.
It sets a bad example for future generations in suggesting that
government is above the law.

Mr. President, what
do you suggest the students do until 30 January? Not many parents can
afford extra tuition; under-age hawking is banned in many states. There
have been numerous announcements and summits advising the youth to
desist from being used as agents of political violence. It would appear
that this extended resumption or holiday is contrary to what the
government has been advising.

Mr. President, it
is glaringly obvious that due to this directive these school children
will join the eight million out of school and those not in
universities. In the face of mass failure, illegally sanctioning
closure for an additional month demonstrates that we have a government
that is not serious about education.

Surely, there are
other solutions to the upcoming voter registration exercise without
maximum disruption to the education sector? We have stadiums,
government parastatals, public centres, faith buildings, hospitals, and
private organisations that may lend their premises.

Lastly, is there a
consensus within the Federal Government that our children’s education
can be sacrificed for the registration exercise and credible elections?
It is us (their parents and leaders) who have failed this nation to the
extent of issuing a directive to keep them at home. We are the ones
that should make that sacrifice by taking the time off work to
register, vote for responsible accountable candidates and finally by
peacefully protecting our vote.

As patriots, we
love our country and would love it to take its rightful place in the
world. As parents, we love our children, whom we are also duty bound to
prepare to take over the leadership of this country some day in future.
This directive suggests that we eviscerate our parenting obligations
under the guise of patriotism. So, Mr. President, we ask, don’t our
children also deserve the good luck you promised?

Yours sincerely,

Bunmi Ibraheem (Lawyer and Managing Partner at Swift and Moore)

Chidi Odinkalu (Senior Legal Officer, Open Society Justice Initiative)

Abiola Sanusi (Educator, Riplington & Associates)

Some 4 million
South Sudanese yesterday participated in a referendum to decide whether
they will remain in Sudan or go their own separate way. It is part of
the settlement under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that saw the
ending of a long civil war, which claimed more than 2 million lives and
wreaked untold devastation on an entire region. The outcome is a
foregone conclusion.

Amicable divorces
of this sort are not unknown in history, the most classic being that of
erstwhile Czechoslovakia, where the Czechs and the Slovaks, following
the collapse of the Soviet Empire, voted to dissolve the union that was
put together by the legendary philosopher-statesman Thomas Masaryk. It
was a separation that was done without the firing of a single shot,
thanks to the statesmanship of leaders such as Vaclav Havel.

Sudan stands at the
vortex of civilisational fault lines; the North representing
Arab-Muslim civilisation and the South representing Negro-African,
predominantly Christian culture. A zero-sum vision of politics was,
however, not inevitable. Like many Sudanese patriots, John Garang, late
president of the Southern Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA) and the
jurist Mansur Khalid shared the vision of a united, indivisible Sudan.
Sadly, succeeding rulers in Khartoum made policy choices that rendered
such prospects impossible.

Throughout its
half-century of independence, the North monopolised political and
economic power while the benighted South was kept in permanent
enslavement. As in Apartheid South Africa, southerners faced systematic
racial, ethno-sectarian and institutional discrimination. The policy of
forced Arabisation and the ensuing terror brought pain on a harrowing
scale. The shameful institution of slavery was a not uncommon
occurrence in the Sudan. Pillage and rapine were carried out on a
staggering scale, with the raping of women a systematic weapon of war.

For decades, the
Sudanese tragedy was swept under the carpet by a global conspiracy of
silence. The West, unwilling to offend its Arab satrapies, turned a
blind eye. The recent discovery of oil has changed the geopolitical
equation. The atrocities in Darfur as revealed by the Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court touched the conscience of humanity and
gave moral validation to the cause being waged by the SPLA.

The American
historian Barbara Tuchman once lamented that it is folly that rules the
world. Sudan is the cradle of some of the great civilisations that once
flourished on our continent. Nubia, Cush and Meroe flourished in the
North; the South had proud warrior kingdoms such as the Azande, Neur
and Dinka as painstakingly documented by anthropologist Sir
Evans-Pritchard and others. It was an act of monumental folly on the
part of the imperial court in Khartoum to imagine they could beat into
subjection a people so noble and so dignified; ignoring the simple
lesson which history teaches, that no force on earth can keep back a
people that are determined to be free.

The legacy of
misgovernment and tyranny has created a massive humanitarian tragedy.
South Sudan stands closer to what Wole Soyinka termed “the open sore of
a continent” than any region I know. Millions of southerners became
strangers in their own ancestral homeland, with disease and destitution
characterising the life-situation of the majority.

The South has
barely 50 km of tarred roads as compared to the North’s 2,500 km. While
the South produces 85% of the oil, most of the earnings are spent in
the North. Only 2% of South Sudan’s 15 million people possess the
equivalent of a secondary school education. An entire generation has
grown up knowing war, violence and humiliation as their only
life-experience. What is amazing is that a society so abused and so
pulverised still manages to have such life-affirming and warm-hearted
people.

But there are
wounds that only time can heal. The vocation of the leaders of the new
country is to hasten the process of this healing and to lay the
foundations for a just and lasting peace.

With its vast
petroleum resources and rich soils, South Sudan has most of the
ingredients for its own development. The task before the leadership is
to build a prosperous multiethnic democracy based on the ideals of
enlightenment, solidarity and the rule of law. A liberty won at the
price of so much blood and sacrifice must be jealously protected at all
costs.

Some have
inevitably drawn a parallel between Sudan and Nigeria. It is, I am
afraid, a false analogy. We may be a divided people; but the algorithm
of power in our country is not a simplistic matter of ‘North’ versus
‘South’. The North have controlled power for 36 of our 50 years of
independence. But our northern elites have brought nothing but penury
to their own people. They have continued to use religion as an
instrument of terror and mayhem; shedding the blood of so many innocent
souls. Astonishingly, today poverty and beggarliness wear a northern
face. The liberation of Nigeria must, ipso facto, involve the
liberation of my poverty-stricken brethren in the North from the
shackles of naked emperors.

The historian
Arnold Toynbee taught that there are no inevitabilities in history. Our
own country stands at the crossroads. But these are challenges we can
overcome through courage and boldness. Our trajectory need not follow
the Sudanese one.

In the last two
weeks, the people of Jos have had to contend with exploding bombs,
rampaging youths and the funerals of family members and friends. They
also continue to live in a place rife with tension and the anxiety this
generates can only be imagined. It would be no exaggeration to say the
regular people of Jos now sleep with one eye open.

This latest round
of sectarian violence in the once peaceful and multi-ethnic state is
coming barely six months after dozens were killed and places of worship
burned down in an orgy of violence that shook Plateau State to its
core. On that occasion in July, the government set up a military task
force to prevent further outbreaks of violence. Clearly, the plan
failed, but this is no surprise.

While the troubles
in Jos manifest themselves in sectarian violence, they are rooted in
bigger problems that must be tackled head on for peace to have any
chance of prevailing. There is no doubt that as Nigeria has continued
to regress in all indices of development; our country has progressively
travelled down the road of mayhem.

It is not that
there are no other factors that feed the frenzy of violence in Jos,
there are. These include a sitting governor who exacerbates existing
distrust between the different tribes and religions for political gain
and the triumph of impunity as well as the failure to convict those who
take part in the killings. However, poverty, the lack of functional
educational and health care systems, the dearth of legitimate means of
livelihood and a general despair rooted in the hopelessness of the life
of the common man, who is unable to aspire in a place like Nigerian,
are the cornerstone of the problem.

We live in a
society where no matter how bright you are, the circumstances of your
birth determine how well you do, except of course if by some miracle
you find yourself in government where plunder is the only option. This
has got to be the only place on earth where honesty is derided as
foolishness and theft and plunder are celebrated. This is a place where
we don’t, as a matter of course, groom thinkers and philosophers or
scientists and inventors; a place where patriotism is the last word on
anyone’s lips, not surprisingly because it is difficult to feel fervour
and passion for a place, which kills dreams and hopes.

When a people can’t dream, they lose hope and when that is gone, everything is possible…

The groups that are
the main actors in the Jos tragedy, like Boko Haram, did not spring up
by accident. They are constructs of the inequity and injustice
prevalent in our society.

In the north,
mainstream religious leaders who should be at the forefront of engaging
the leadership of this country to ensure a better life for everyone
abdicated that responsibility long ago, choosing instead to scramble
for their share of the national cake. Mallams and Sheiks now drive the
fanciest cars, live in choice neighbourhoods and send their children
abroad for higher education.

The obvious vacuum
left by mainstream Islam in the north is directly related to the rise
of the Boko Harams. They have tapped into the yearning of mostly,
rural, uneducated youth who feel marginalised and who see no
opportunity for a better life under the current arrangement.

This is what the
southern mostly Christian part of Nigeria must avoid. Churches here,
particularly the Pentecostal ones are big and influential. Many of
their pastors can, at the drop of a hat, summon thousands who do not
just show up but imbibe in whole what they preach. So why have the
churches failed to harness this strength towards better governance in
the country?

The Church world
over has a history of engaging in and in some cases leading the battle
for social justice. Churches in South America were at the forefront of
fighting for justice for their people. In America, Rev Martin Luther
King Jnr fought for civil rights for the black, oppressed minority.
Closer to home, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a vocal anti- apartheid
campaigner.

Why is it so
different in Nigeria? Perhaps the answer lies in what the churches have
done well. They have successfully promoted the notion that as long as
people go to church, pray and pay their tithes regularly, their lot
will improve, although there seems little in that sermon about being
your brothers keepers as preached in the Bible. Social responsibility
seems to be an addendum rooted only in charitable gifts.

For now the message
appears to be working, but for how long? Pray the day never comes, when
much like what has happened in the north, groups are formed that appear
to answer to the needs and aspirations of many Christians, particularly
the younger ones. Get on your knees and ask God to ensure that our
young Christians never begin to question the opulent lifestyles of
pastors in a poverty-stricken place like Nigeria.

Clearly, the
Churches have the potential to change things for the better for
everyone if they choose to. Let us hope this happens sooner rather than
later, for all our sakes.