MY ELECTION DIARY
By Anti Kur
By Anti Kur
At last, the 2011 general elections have come and gone. The outcome, to a larger extent, reflects the wishes of the electorates. Except in few elaborate instances of gross electoral fraud such as result faking. In the latter, the aggrieved parties are seeking redress at the tribunal. Once again, the stakes are high and the judicial system is in the saddle as the last arbiter for the commoners.
On a holistic note notwithstanding, the elections were a fabulous improvement over the past. Practically to be commended in this regard are the INEC Chairman, Attachiru Jega, who had faith that things could still work in Nigeria, President Jonathan, for his support and non-interference stance, and a cream of those Nigerians who believed in the emerging trends.
Jonathan cleary did not resign to compliancy with the radical illusion of no “vacancy in Aso Rock” as it was the case under the wily Obasanjo in 2003 and 2007. During this period, elections were a mere formality and pre-election campaigns were only a smokescreen for blatant rigging. The pre-election dynamics were however different this time around. President Jonathan refused to be lured in to the stereotype of the power of incumbency.
Truly, president Jonathan stylishly dodged the presidential debate organized by NN 24 with his aids citing ridiculous reasons. This was an exposition of an aspirant who may not have had well defined and articulated blueprint for the country. But in the final analyses, he forced to engaged in a farcical dialogue (no, monologue) with himself masquerading as a presidential debate organized by the Nigerian Election Debate Group (NEDG). This is still good for our democracy, because at least the incumbent could not afford to ignore public perception.
Before the elections in April, it was so easy for many Nigerians to give in to despair and cynicism. This mindset palpitated very loud when the April 2 poll was botched. Again, those state functionaries who made the loudest profession of commitment to free and fair elections demonstrated a capacity to misuse state power to manipulate the electoral process to their favour.
My interaction with many people largely pointed to faith or lack of faith in the system. Not a few citizens still believe that the incumbency factor cannot be circumvented. As such many of those who supported the ruling party banked on the capacity of the incumbent to deploy the arsenal of power and influence to manipulate the electoral process. Still yet, there were those who had faith that things could change. I do not know where you belonged.
In many states of the country, results of the elections were received with grandeur as a true reflection of the wishes and aspirations of the people. But the same cannot be said of Benue State where the political space is beclouded with mixed feelings. The result is being challenged at the tribunal. Whether Governor Suswam’s victory is upheld remains a matter of time.
In spite of all these, there is still every reason to keep hope alive. Hope, a poet once declared, springs eternal in the human breast. The march, to sustainable democracy in Nigeria has become an irresistible force. Therefore, every seemingly immovable objects in its path must inevitably give way. This is just a matter of time.
One particular attitude that impressed me most during the elections was the voter’s orientation. For the first time many voters in some cases were disposed to voting candidates on the merit of their personalities. That is the electorates were more inclined to voting candidates of their choice, irrespective of party affiliations. Though this was the case in the urban areas.
In future elections, more efforts should be made to involve more social and religious groups to intensify rural-voters education. This is quintessential because the power to vote can only be utilized in a socially beneficial manner if a substantial proportion of voters are fortified with the power of adequate knowledge and acquaintance with pertinent issues. One of these issues is that of sale of conscience. The truth is that in scale illiteracy and a cynical power of elite, the power of the vote can be vulnerable.
It is shameful that our political elites capitalized on poverty and illiteracy of rural voters to influence their decision. Money was shared at most polling units as low as N200 (two hundred naira) the most irritating incidence took place in Agba-Ikyan in Nanev and parts of Ikyurav-Ya , all in Kwande Local Government where slices of bread and sachet water were shared to voters. Surprisingly, results from those areas showed that the voters enjoyed those dividends of democracy’ and gave their votes of solidarity. Against common belief those electorates were coerced to accept that “man shall live by bread alone”
Whatever the efforts of parochial minded politicians to pervert the electoral process, one monumental gain of the emerging political trends is that, at least the Nigerian political class appeared to appreciate that in the final analysis, the voter is king in a democracy. Virtually all serious all serious minded contestants at all levels campaigned vigorously both by physical contact with the electorates and through the media. This is a welcome indication that the power seekers are no longer taking the electorates for granted. So let’s keep faith.
By Anti Kur
In the wake of the hostilities against the Russian city of Moscow in 1812, the Napolean grand army had planned a raid on the city. But in a rather bizarre manner, the inhabitants of Moscow had resolved and burnt down their own houses.
Conservative historians views the peoples action as self-defeating and cowardice, However, the progressive school of thought treads the psychological impetus of the people’s decision. This supposes t hat the Russian invasion by the Napolean army was a failure because the people in Moscow burnt down their houses rather than let the army do so. So it was the people that won.
The import of the preceding anecdote is to juxtapose the potency or otherwise of a people’s action or inaction in any given curious situation. I believe it is just natural for people to respond to stimuli, be it economic, social or political.
Government in whatever concept it is defined is woven around the people, so any system that drifts from this ideality is destined to fail. The recent or current revolutionary uprising in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya should remind us that, no matter how long a people are suppressed, a time will come when they will take their destiny in their own hands.
In Tunisia where it all started, the protests were inspired by the self-immolation of a frustrated unemployed graduate, Mohammed Bouazizi in December, 2010. Weeks of anti-government protest led to the resignation of presidents Zine Al-Abidine Ben. Ali. The toppling of Ben Ali after 23 years in power inspired similar mass action in Egypt. After more than two weeks of protests, the leadership of the governing National Democratic Party (NDP) resigned en masse.
The stakes were high and it became imminent that the end had come to the reign of president Hosni Mubarak. Shortly after nighfall on the 18th day of protests, Mubarak stepped down after 30 years in power. It was victory for the people, it was victory for humanity.
As I watched the sequence of events unfolding in Tunisia and Egypt, my thoughts wandered on the home front. I see a similar plight faced by majority of Nigerians. The high levels of poverty, corruption and unemployment has left the people perpetually frustrated.
Since the return to democracy in 1999 the people’s Democratic Party (PDP) had been the dominant party controlling the centre and majority of the state in Nigeria. The government of PDP was largely characterized by wide-spread Maladministration exhibited through high level financial impropriety and graft offense on tax payers’ money. It is during this era that the “Ghana-must go’ Syndrome perverted the national public life unabated with its attendant decay in moral rectitude of public servants.
More so, the governing PDP had respectively bastardized and perverted the electoral and judicial systems to ensure their tenacious grip on power. The congenital malpractice exemplified in ballot snatching, ballot stuffing or pronouncement of favoured candidates laid bad precedence and a rape on national psyche.
While the status quo prevailed, public servants were not accountable to the people but the powers that be. As it were, nobody could have doubted Tony Aneni, a PDP chieftain who sometimes back boasted that the party would rule for 50 years! Ipso facto, the PDP became a rendezvous for the powerful, an attraction for the ambitious, in fact, an end in itself. As far as politics in Nigeria was concerned. This psychosocial factor coined “Mainstream politics” encouraged a drift to the centre; to a one-party structure.
But all this appear to be changing. The people seems to be fed up, and they are now singing a new song. A natural mystic is blowing through the hills in the wake of approaching 2011 general elections. The agitation is reinforced by the grievances in the PDP following the party primaries in January, which led to the decamping of many bigwigs. The tax payer’s money which they embezzled while in PDP is now being spent to finance opposition parties to wrestle power with the governing PDP. What a twist of destiny! The good omen is that the people are now relevant in the scheme of things.
One salient possibility in the offing is the fact that the days of elections rigging in Nigeria are numbered. Ever since the reconstruction of a new electoral commission made up of people of high integrity, and the fairly successful completion of the voter’s registration, a grim hope appeared in the horizon for the Nigerian electorate. For the first time after June 12, 1993 they hope to exercise their right of franchise freely and fairly.
Democracy provides for alternatives. Politics and politicking must find expression on a political platform which is the choice of the people. Therefore, it is absolutely unlawful for an individual or group of individuals to intimidate or molest those perceived to be opposed to their political affiliations.
The molestation in Kwande, supposedly masterminded by the caretaker chairman, Terlumun Akputu and executed by youthful social misfits is absolutely barbaric and against ideals of democracy. Such activities like defacing of bill boards, removing of flags, and other symbolic emblems belonging to opposing political parties is capable of instigating skirmishes. I hate the violence, I hate the killings, they are tall in the hearts of the people.
The beauty of democracy is that it goes with the majority. That is, the people are greater than the individuals. And when the people take their destiny in their own hands, when they put aside sentiments and take on real issues, they become like a moving train and nobody can stand in their way. We may have individual differences and supercilious opinions but the collective will of the people always subsist.
So, let the people decide for what they think is good for them. After all, the key fact of the idea of existentialism says that we are all responsible for the consequences of our actions or inactions.
what manner of policing is this?
By Iorliam'Amo Shija
Once again the people of Kwande are living in perpetual fear over a possible outbreak of crises. This is neither news nor the main issue on ground that I want to write about, because for those who have been following recent happenings in Kwande, it will be a story told too many times; a story of intimidation and political victimization . The issue to worry about is that, the police who is supposed to be our friend, our source of security and protection, who ordinarily is to work in line with all other security agencies to forestall the political activities gone wild, is so far proving impotent and a bit useless. How on earth can a place with a police division and a lot of police officers; sponsored by the tax payers money be made to look so helpless, like we are experiencing right now? Yes for a while now, well known political thugs have been disturbing the peace of Kwande and beating people at will, all the police is seem to be saying is that, “nothing can be done...” no arrests are made..So we believe the Divisional Police Officer in Kwande, SP Moses James Aiki need to throw more light on this strange policing method. Our fear is even heightened when we recall that the police proved ineffective when unhindered terror was unleashed on the helpless people in 2004.... So what manner of policing is this? If the police seem to look this helpless then, do we need them after all?
Policing a place like kwande appears quite easy, one would presume; looking at the resume of Moses Aiki . In short, in the area of robbery and criminal activities, we must state that since 2005 when he arrived Kwande Division to date, he had done a lot. He has familiarised himself with all the stakeholders in the area and identified even with the common men; we believe through this method, he gathered useful info that aided his policing activities... the people trusted him with useful guide. In an interview with NAKS EMANCIPATOR in 2006 which I happened to edit, the top cop had demanded for useful info, “the highest the police will expect from its host community is useful information to assist the police in performing their lawful duty to enable them achieve the desired goal of fetching out the criminals in the society”. He said. And from the look of things, the people responded well.
But his closeness to some politicians shortly towards 2007 general elections and afterwards, might have laid the background for the ugly status quo, where his hands are tied even when well known miscreants are leaked to him. And just like he did in the past when he came newly and it earned him the trust and goodwill of the majority of the people, Aiki would have to exonerate himself from the issues will raise here to reclaim the nostalgic appellations and accolades that the people bestowed on him. Does he think he is handling the Kwande political embarrassing situation with the best policing methods that are available? I have seen where well known thugs and party youths run after others before the eyes of the police under Aiki and what we seem to be hearing is that “it is their thing”. I stumbled over guide lines for police in electoral periods like this and I was surprise, they stand a par from what we are experiencing right now under Aiki.
We believe it is high time the police told us that they can protect us . Note that in April, all politicians are projected by analysts to release their arsenals at each other, so definitely.... Kwande being a politically volatile place, the first issue to address and give it the utmost desired proactive polish is that of security, but without sentiments; cann’t we say that the Aiki led police are giving us a cause to worry.
I want to end this write up on an objective note by saying community policing is a collective responsibility of everybody. So we can also aid the police to help us; by that I mean, we appear to have entered into a contract with the police and to have an envisioned result, both the police and us have to fulfil our dues. We have an important role of informing the police of the activities of anybody or group of people who pose any security risk to the community; believing the police will play their part with all sense of decorum.
But the Ter Kwande was still an Honourable man
by IorliamAmo Shija
Anyone who observed how the late Ter Kwande, HRH James Ityowua Adzape, lived his last years with a critical mind, would arrive at the inevitable conclusion that, there was a sort of conspiracy against him. A conspiracy to drag his highly earned status, precious life blessed by God, fruitful service life to his fatherland and the throne upon which he presided, to nothing and shame. The plot was designed to make him look dishonourable, a no body of a kind. And Since the Ter Kwande was not the complaining type, many did not know. So my efforts here at exposing the scheme against the Ter Kwande and to what extent it went, should not be misunderstood as a show off but rather, be compared to Carroll Quigley’s, a onetime professor of Interpretative History at Princeton , Georgetown and Harvard in US, when he dared to reveal facts about secret societies that controlled Anglo-American life in his book, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time ;which he wrote in 1966. In the landmark piece that has longed formed precedent for so many other revealing books, Quigley said:
There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates………….I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for over twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s,to examine its papers and secret papers. I have no aversion to it or most of its aims …………but in general, my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in History is significant enough to be known.
I believe the maltreatment of Ter Kwande , which I have studied since came close to him in the last 10 years, needs to be known, because the throne deserves such, and this is the time .It is the time to reveal how the plot against the honourable status of the Ter Kwande manifested, at least for posterity, because HRH James Ityowua Adzape cannot come back to life, but as our people say, “the old mushroom rots, but the tribe lives on”, so I speak for the Ter Kwande Institution.
How many people know that the Ter Kwande died and was owed salary arrears? How many people know that the Ter Kwande died in a rented apartment? How many people know that the Ter Kwande used to invite his so called prominent Kwande sons and daughters for meetings on several occasions to iron out salient issues of community development and they did not attend? How many people know that the road leading to the Ter Kwande's house was only graded a last week…..…… the list is endless. Nevertheless, the simple issue that made all these NOT to becloud the glory that was the personality of the Ter Kwande was because he was a capable person. The fact that there was a conspiracy against him, but he maintained a coveted status throughout, has just only gone to confirm what the Bible says, but was made popular by Bob Marley in his Rastaman Vibration Album by the song “Who The Cap Fits”, that who God blesses, no one can curse. The natural abilities and capabilities of the monarch were beyond what jealousy and any amount of conspiracy would affect.
Perhaps one of the greatest virtues of the Ter Kwande was his ability to be silent in the face of baseless accusations. He never imposed any ideas on people to achieve any point. He was not quick to defend himself; he had the highest sense of responsibility that graciously accepted even the failings of others around him and allow rumour mongers to have a field day unchallenged. Others thought this was a weakness so, at every stage in his life, when he was to achieve any landmark thing, recurrent accusations or unsubstantiated rumours arose; the commonest was the allegation that he was a man from Vandeikya Local Government Area of Benue State, a Kunav Man. For example, in 1994 when it became glaring that he would emerge the Ter Kwande, the unsubstantiated claim came to play again. He never joined issues with the formentors of the evil agenda until his biography, which I was opportuned to be part of came up, two years ago, in 2009.
Adzape Igino, the father of the late Ter Kwande, left Turan as a young man to Tongov, present day Katsina Ala Local Government, to enter the services of Tor Amaafu as a danduka by the recommendation of Jato Aka. It was there that Ityowua, his son was born in 1932. Adzape Igino later in the very year that his son was born, moved to Gboko . Ityowua was to do his primary school education in Gboko up to Primary Four before he appeared in Adikpo. Now, the way he appeared in Adikpo might have formed the basis of the allegation that he was a Kunav man from Vandeikya Local Government.
His father had a friend; his name was Charles Ategba, an Ute man from Vandeikya Local Government. When the father became a Corporal in 1947 and more wealth accrued to his household, he became afraid that his son, Ityowua who at that time was showing intellectual promise, might saw affluence and be carried away, as it was common with so many boys at that time, so he gave the boy to his friend, Ategba who at this time was transferred from Gboko to his home town, Ute. Ategba resumed work in his home town, yet enrolled Ityowua at St Anns’s Adikpo, the most vibrant school within the vicinity . So since Ategba was very close to Ityowua during this time, in short he called him father; the romuors grew that he was his biological father; initially without evil intentions, but later, evil intentions craved in. But all that did not bother the monarch because he was a man of strong convictions.
In 2004, the house of the late Ter Kwande was set ablaze by hoodlums who were misinformed by influential Kwande sons and daughters, saying that the Ter Kwande was practicing partisan politics and blocking their chances of making proper headways in their various political ambitions. Today, it is by share determination and high sense of dignity that the family of the Ter Kwande has to get his house, burnt down during the crisis ready, because they have refused to lay their father in a rented apartment. Yes, the Ter Kwande could not say that he was going through all these because he was a simple man who cared less on such issues, but he had sons and daughters in the local government, who were aware of all these; very rich sons and daughters who could not speak on his behalf either,or make financial provisions to such effect. Some lawyers, like Dr. Akaa Imbwase, a seasoned lawyer and Dean Faculty of Law at Benue State University, are not only from kwande but know that to burn down some body’s house, not to talk of a chief, is illegal and a possible case in the law courts, but they were not moved to do same for their father. I understand a Kwande man is a Director at the Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, but that is where for about Five months, the salary of the Ter Kwande pended or was released but it never reached him. I am not insinuating that these are the conspirators, but I feel they are blameworthy of the collective atrocities that befell their father. Maybe they were not close to him to observe.
Maybe yes, but that excuse is not good enough. I have stayed in Lagos, Benin City and I am a regular visitor to the north; and one of the things that interested or still interest me in these places is the kind of respect and attention that is accrued, not only to the Traditional Rulers but even their children, and the throne they represent. I stayed in the house of one old Benin woman, Comfort Ero. She used to tell me interesting things about the Oba of Benin, and even previous ones like her Uncle Ovaramen, who was deported to Calabar by the British. She spoke with passion and respect about the Obaship, mindless of the basic and not so important flaws that are common to us all. Travelers to Yorubaland know the way their Obas are treated; they are respected and even worshipped. It is useless to talk of the core north or Hausaland; we know too well the powers they have. So why is it that, some of our brothers and sisters who have traveled and witnessed the trepidation that chieftaincy holds some where else, choose to return and disregard theirs? One could only imagine what could have become of the Ter Kwande throne if the late Ter Kwande was not a capable person. Alternatively, if they could do this to the Ter Kwande, one only imagines what happens to the District Heads, Kindred Heads and Tax collectors.
As he lies on his dead bed, the big question is “has the conspiracy against the Ter Kwande succeeded?” where the conspirators able to belittle the Ter Kwande and bring him to nothing?. I don’t think so. For even with all these against him, the Ter Kwande was still a honourable man. His household was full of food; he took in uncountable orphans and extended family members who he catered for. More so, his judgments were sound, and he looked joyful all through. He was still revered . Was it not Socrates who said that, no evil will happen to a good man, in life or death? How was it for the Ter Kwande, HRH James Ityowua Adzape Igino.
