During a press conference in Abuja, the nation’s capital held two weeks after the Supreme Court confirmed President Bola Tinubu’s electoral victory on February 25, 2023, under the All Progressives Congress (APC), Obi presented this recommendation.

This proposal is in response to Atiku, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the same election, who suggested a constitutional amendment for a six-year single term for the President.

But, Obi favours a five-year term with a 30-year rotation system, believing it would establish a more functional and productive framework for Nigeria, including the introduction of a single tenure system.

“I thank (former) Vice President Atiku Abubakar for his position and his commitment to ensuring that things work better going forward in Nigeria, but I disagree slightly,” Obi stated. “I will go for a five-year tenure, which will go for 30 years rotational — for a five-year tenure.”

Also, Obi proposed a quasi-system that would allow leaders in office to simultaneously participate in the legislature. He advocated for a mechanism enabling leaders to be answerable to the public through regular question-and-answer sessions, emphasising the need for elected leaders to be more directly involved in addressing important questions.

“Maybe a presidential question or prime minister question, instead of hiring surrogates. We want to hear from the people we elected now, and that is critical. We cannot continue with this way where we are now, where people have outsourced leadership.”

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The Labour Party (LP) and its Presidential candidate, Peter Obi, have once again, re-echoed their call to the Presidential Election Petition Court to nullify the victory of President Bola Tinubu.

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A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State, Mogaji Soji Olalere has chided the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero over his recent outburst on the hike in the pump price of petrol.

Olalere alleged that Ajaero’s NLC is an ethnic jingoist and champion of a failed presidential bid of Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP).

According to him, Ajaero’s today’s NLC is peopled by elements of an Igbo tribe who have an axe to grind with the rest of Nigerians.

“The NLC president is an Ibo; it is the same for the rest of Congress Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja; the deputy general secretary, Chris Uyo, Personal Assistant to the president, Chris Onyeka and Uzeina, head of international education”, he said.

Olalere further told Nigerians to ignore Ajaero and his likes who are trying to incite the masses against the Federal Government of Nigeria led by President Bola Tinubu.

He also cautioned Ajaero and co-travelers to stop fanning embers of ethnic tensions and allow the current administration to ensure the success of its economic policies which would ultimately benefit all, in the end.

The Ibadan Chief stressed the need for all to be mindful of the antics of those he described as surrogates of the defeated candidate of LP, Peter Obi.

He alleged that what they failed to accomplish through the ballot, they wanted to gain the same through the back door, stressing that “Nigerian masses are more enlightened and sophisticated politically to be hoodwinked into the shenanigans of the likes of Joe Ajaero.

Olalere assured Nigerians of glorious years and better times under President Tinubu. He said the president has shown that he is a detribalized Nigerian who is ready to accommodate all segments of the country and quality people into his administration.

“The president has started the government on a credible note as the appointments so far made by him reflected Federal Character and religious balancing. This President should be trusted to deliver on all his electioneering promises.

“The fuel hike won’t drag for long when Nigerians will begin to enjoy the effect of subsidy removal.

He said allocations to States and Local Governments have already started yielding more revenue than it used to be.

Speaking on Tuesday in an interview with Channels Television, Ajaero, the NLC president said Nigerians are being deceived by the new fuel pump price.

He further said Nigerians are being deceived, that is the official reaction. Because in the first instance, if you are saying that dependent marketers are now bringing the products into Nigeria;

“Nigerians would want to know how many of them and for us to see the list of those who are importing the products into Nigeria.”

Ajaero also questioned the role of the NNPC in the new dispensation.

He said, “NNPC cannot import and say it is imported by independent marketers, that is not true.”

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Turbulent anger of Obidients landed on Lamidi Apapa last week. By the time their anger petered out, Apapa had lost his cap to a God-knows-who. Esu Elegbara, the trickster deity of the Yoruba people, it will seem, lives in caps. Though most of the exploits of Esu exist in myths, Yoruba constructed a pantheon of beliefs that implicate the Esu as divisive and full of tricks. One such, sauced in mythology, was translated into a very sobering track by ace Yoruba Awurebe musician, Alhaji Dauda Akanmu Adeeyo, popularly known as Dauda Epo Akara. Famous for his anecdotal offerings affixed to virtually all his songs, Adeeyo got this sobriquet, for which he was more known by than his actual name, while he was a pupil in primary school. His uniforms were always soaked in bean cake oil called Epo Akara.

The Ibadan maestro entitled the track under reference Itan Ore Meji – the tale of two friends – in a parent album he called My Mother. Like Epo Akara, in 1987, Donald Cosentino, a lecturer in the Folklore and Mythology Programme of the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote an article for The Journal of American Folklore entitled Who Is That Fellow in the Many-Colored Cap? Transformations of Eshu in Old and New World Mythologies (Vol. 100, No. 397. Jul. – Sep. 1987). In it, he also situated the Esu as an author of dissent, “an exponent of ceaseless rearrangements” and a dissembler. Esu, said Cosentino, is a counterpart to Ifa, who the Yoruba see as the Lord of Divination and through whom sacrifices and propitiations are made to God for peace in the world.

Epo Akara and Cosentino’s narratives are not dissimilar. The two of them began this folklore thus: There existed two friends who were so fond of each other and inseparable. They were objects of discussion by the whole village. Sang Epo Akara, won ki ja, won kii ta – they never had a word of disagreement since they began their friendship in their infancy. So, one day, Esu swore to cause irreparable discord between them. The object he cast for that dissension was a cap. So the Esu sowed a multicolored cap, something in the mold of Dolly Parton’s coat of many colours. The colours, says Cosentino, have been “variously described as red and white; red, white and blue; or red, white, green, and black.”

Epo Akara, however, put the colours of the cap as white and black. So the Esu transformed himself into an irresistibly dressed, handsome young man in a dainty Aso Oke and Sanyan cap. As the two friends sat in a foyer chattering, Esu walked between them and in the words of Cosentino, “put his pipe at the nape of his neck and hung his staff over his back.” As Esu walked past the two friends, in the rendering of the Awurebe musician, the first friend called the attention of his pal to the cap, which he said was black. Once he had money, the friend remarked, it would be his delight to buy it – bi mo ri’ru e, ma ra’kan, Balarabi, Wali Muhanmonda. The friend fired back, insisting that the cap was white, and insulted the other friend by asking if he was blind – about re o ri’ran? Then, a very deadly brawl ensued between the duo as they came to blows.

While Epo Akara insisted that, having achieved his dissembling aim, Esu transformed himself into who he was and settled the quarrel, Consentino argued that the tiff came to a halt when the disputants were brought to court. In court, the scholar said, Esu confessed to his trick, boasting that “sowing dissension is my great delight.” In the rendering of the Folklore and Mythology scholar, Esu then fled. As he fled, Esu lit fire along the way, mixing up all the possessions of fleeing townsfolk. He also tested and exposed friendships along the way, thereby creating and destroying wealth. He then laughed at the ignorance of the people about his innate destructive nature.

Nigeria’s Labour Party, (LP) it will seem, is where Esu Elegbara has made his temporary home now. Last week, the party’s internal tiff reached a cancerous level at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja. In the glare of the whole world, the timely intervention of police officers prevented miffed supporters of Peter Obi from skewering the flesh of the party’s Acting National Chairman, Apapa. Apapa and Julius Abure, hitherto suspended national chairman of the party, was embroiled in a leadership tussle. This led to blood-baiting hounds, suspected to be sympathetic to the Abure faction of the party, pouncing on Apapa. The wolves had prevented Apapa from addressing the press and shoved him dangerously off television cameras. In the process, one of them took off Apapa’s cap. He later took possession of it.

Speaking at a press conference after the attack, the 73-year-old Apapa rained curses on the person who removed his cap. He had said: “My cap is here as you can see it. It was not burnt, and the boy who removed my cap will suffer it in his life. I saw him, he’s a young chap. He’ll never grow old by God’s grace. He deserves it, you know why? I didn’t use cutlass on him.”

Were Apapa’s curses of Janus colour and texture as that of Adedara Arunralojaoba, Ijesaland’s – domiciled in Osun State – the most evocative musician who sang Adamo music during his lifetime? Janus, you know, is the Egyptian binary god with two faces. Some installments away, I narrated this Adamo musician’s encounter with another musician, Ayinla Omowura, in Ilesa in the 1970s. Omowura’s drums began to get torn in subsequence as he set out to sing at a live gig to which he and Adedara had been invited. In the words of Arunralojaoba, on arriving at the bandstand to take over the evening belt of entertainment of the invited audience, Omowura had been drunk to a stupor with his assumed musical superiority. Speaking to Dele Adeyanju, a renowned broadcaster, in an interview, the Adamo musician had attributed the torn drums to God fighting his battle for him and not any traditional African spiritual attack. Adedara was known to have at one time been a member of the Ogboni fraternity. So, were the torn drums God’s way of fighting for Adedara against his adversary, or the scenario was a product of metaphysical invocation?

The removal of Apapa’s cap reminds me of the same violence and indignity suffered by Chief Bola Ige, ex-governor of old Oyo State, in the hands of sponsored miscreants like those hooligans in the LP. It was at the height of the intra-party saber-rattling of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). At a ceremony held on Saturday, December 15, 2001, where Olusegun Obasanjo’s late wife, Stella, was conferred with a chieftaincy title by the Ooni of Ife, wolves suspected to be in the herd of Iyiola Omisore, erstwhile Deputy Governor of Osun State, pounced on Ige in similar cavalier but blood-baiting manner Apapa was to witness almost 22 years after. They seized the cap of the man, known as Arole Awolowo – Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s heir – caps which, unlike Apapa’s, he was never to set eyes upon again.

Five days before this, an attempt to impeach Omisore was held at the Osun State House of Assembly. Odunayo Olagbaju believed to be one of Omisore’s Rottweilers, was at the forefront of the disruption of the impeachment proceedings. Allegations were rife that Olagbaju was also the coordinator of the violent seizure of Ige’s cap. Four days after the attack on Ige, Olagbaju was mysteriously assassinated in Ile-Ife. Exactly four days after Olagbaju’s assassination, Ige was also taken out in what appeared like cult-like revenge killings. Today, Omisore is Southwest progressives’ highest-ranking national official, representing the Yorubaland which venerated Ige as an avatar.

Beyond their ethnocultural implications as a significant aspect of dressing and fashion, caps also have mythic qualities among the Yoruba especially. Aside from caps’ aesthetic and symbolic elaboration of the body, they are also seen as weapons in the hands of Esu. The cap perhaps gained that relevance due to the renowned place that the head has in African epistemology. The head receives special aesthetic attention as a result of its spiritual and biological importance. Among the Yoruba, the head, called Ori, is a site of spiritual intuition and destiny. It is as well a harbinger of a man’s reflective spark of human consciousness. It is an Orisa, or god, of its own and is not only venerated but worshipped. To acquire a balanced character – iwa-pele – the Yoruba believe that the individual, working in tandem with this Orisa, can achieve this desirable personality. When he does, the individual then receives an alignment with his Ori, the divine self. People whose destinies are skewed are advised to worship their Ori whose variant among the Igbo is chi. So, when a cap, the decorative ornament of the head, is rudely removed as was done to Ige and Apapa, Yoruba see it as a bad omen, symbolizing a rude yank-off of the human person.

Immediately after the seizure of Ige’s cap, some knowledgeable elders in sorcery and witchcraft opined that there existed causality between the cap’s removal and his eventual killing. For people who use metaphysics as a human agency to explain what the common eyes cannot penetrate when Ige eventually died, the narrative of the connection between the removed cap and his death took the front burner. So, in the seizure of Apapa’s cap, was Esu Elegbara on the usual roller-coaster of his famous trickster prowess, or does the act just symbolize a fatality to either Apapa, the Labour Party, or the boy who bit the bullet by removing the cap?

The chief accusation against Apapa is that he is the Esu Elegbara in the Labour Party who this destructive god lent his heart for a fee. As Epo Akara and Cosentino narrated in their works, could Apapa be the modern or Nigeria’s political party version of the trickster deity, who is sowing dissension in the party? Ask those who are ranged against him to explain why, they will tell you that Apapa has received a humongous bribe from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to act as the Judas within the party. In an Arise television interview last week, Apapa asked those who leveled such allegations to provide evidence. Again, in his insular trickery, I saw Esu Elegbara laughing rambunctiously. Do those who give bribes leave traces? Should those who also leveled such allegations against this old man sincerely do this without providing evidence? Are they the Esu, being on the payroll of Abure, to ensure that Apapa is fought to a standstill?

Precedent is however on the side of those who accuse Apapa of acting the script of the APC. Nigerian politics is so enmeshed in indignity and amorality that virtually all those who engage in it possess scarred souls like the devils. They even tell you that politics and morality are in perpetual enmity. If you observe, the highest fusillade of attacks, both judicial and verbal, from the APC to any party, is towards the Labour Party. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its commissars receive scant attention from that party. It must believe that that party is already mortally wounded. APC, peopled by a commune of scavengers, vultures, and deadly hitmen, will logically rent an Apapa for a dissembling assignment. It is because the If I must hanker a guess, it must be because the LP poses the greatest social threat to the legitimacy that APC needs, not necessarily during the current judicial process but after it. Thus, employing an Esu Elegbara within the fold of the LP for this dirty job is a politically wise decision for a party whose men, in the name of politics, will kill their mother and rope their father for the murder without batting an eyelid.

Esu Elegbara seems to be on the trail of the Labour Party and is not relenting yet. At the tail end of last week, until the clarification given by the court, the Federal High Court in Kano was reported to have declared the votes polled by the Abia State governor-elect, Alex Otti, Labour Party’s only state governor in the last general election, as wasted. It however reportedly refrained from nullifying the certificate of return issued by INEC to the governor-elect. A newspaper later published the clarification of the court, stating that it denied annulling the election of the governor-elect.

If you think it is only in LP that Esu Elegbara wreaks its havoc, you are mistaken. In the PDP, he began his life-sworn disruption and destruction, as they say, as pre-election cancer. By the time Atiku Abubakar and his party realized that Esu was in cahoots with the party, Elegbara had destroyed all the cells within the body of the party, finally and permanently retiring the Adamawa-born politician from his serial quest for the Nigerian presidency.

Elegbara, it will seem, is on his way to the APC as we speak. From reports, the party is on its way to a political liaison with Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso, New Nigerian People’s Party (NPP’s) presidential candidate. President-elect, Bola Tinubu, was reported to have met the NPP boss for political talks in Paris last Monday. There is a need for enough senators to complete the circus of a pliable National Assembly. I imagine the mind of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Kano State governor, at the moment. The Nigerian politician, in pursuing his persuasion that politics and morality are not friends, devised what is labeled a “no permanent friends, no permanent foes” lexicographic feature of politics. But, must politicians be indistinguishable from serial adulterers? Esu Elegbara must be somewhere now, devising his next trickery. Will he wear Ganduje-like apparel?

Dr. Adedayo writes from Ibadan, Oyo state

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar did not meet the constitutional requirements to be declared winner of the February 25 election.

INEC urged the Presidential Election Petition Court to dismiss the petition by Atiku and his party, adding that the PDP flag bearer failed to score, at least, one-quarter of the votes cast in at least two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and as such could not have been declared the winner.

As against the claim by the petitioners, the electoral umpire said the election was conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 and was not marred by any corrupt practices.

The commission further maintained that the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu validly won the election.

It would be recalled that at the just-concluded election, Tinubu conveniently polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who scored 6,984,520 and Peter Obi of the Labour Party who secured 6,101,533. Atiku and Tinubu won 12 states each, while Obi won 11 states and the FCT.

Both Atiku and Obi are in court to challenge the declaration of Tinubu as winner by INEC, however, INEC told the court that the FCT is not accorded any special status in the constitution as being erroneously portrayed by some political parties and candidates who lost the election.

The commission said the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate met all the legal requirements to be so announced as the winner.

It argued that a candidate must not secure 25 per cent of votes in the FCT to be declared the winner

On why, it returned Tinubu as the winner, INEC said the APC candidate scored 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in 29 states of the Federation.

INEC added that by the margin of the lead, it did not act hastily, as claimed by Atiku and the PDP in declaring Tinubu the winner.

It noted that Tinubu scored 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in 29 states, namely: Ekiti, Kwara, Osun, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Yobe, Lagos, Gombe, Adamawa, Katsina, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Niger, Benue, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Kogi, Bauchi, Plateau, Bayelsa, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto, Taraba, Borno and Rivers.

It added that the FCT, beyond being the country’s capital, “has no special constitutional status over and above the other 36 states of the Federation” to require a candidate in the presidential election to obtain at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in the FCT before being declared winner of the presidential election.

The commission subsequently urged the Tribunal to dismiss Atiku’s petition.

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Some huge, evil men surround a big, black pot. Food is being cooked. The men strung around their waists black cloths like priests of a dreadful god. Their torsos are naked like on the day of creation. Their countenances are scary, with eyes dilating like pebbles immersed in crimson syrup. The sweats that glide down their barrows are crimson-red too. Underneath the black pot are logs of firewood with billowing charcoal-black fumes and red flame. As one of the men heaves the lead of the black pot, the broth on fire catches the attention. It is a blackish potpourri that instantly makes enemies of the mind and the palate. The smell oozing out of the broth is very repugnant. It is thick and heavy like the fart of a roving madman, hitting the nose like a pugilist’s blow.

The men are unperturbed by the smell. They keep fanning the fire which in turn cackles with fury. By their side sits the man who, at first glance, must have sent the hefty, unpleasant-looking men on the culinary assignment. He has the height of Goliath. Every one of his bodily features is in excessive size. He is as dark as tar, his face momentarily creasing into a wry smile as he watches the broth reach its final cooking finish. Then suddenly, another strange man appears, wearing white apparel. He moves near the heavy pot and billowing smoke. Suddenly, everything disappears; the hefty men and their Satanic paymaster. Alas, it was a mirage!

In the mind’s eye of Nigeria’s Department of State Security Service (DSS) today, the above image is Nigeria’s projected state of the polity. This DSS’ concocted broth has also infected the polity. And the emerging uproar from this is massive, even unimaginable. Wherever you turn, the discussion is Interim Government, the Satanic plot of some unnamed persons. Some sinister men are right behind the fire. They surround it with the craving fury of a dinosaur. They are cooking the broth with magisterial determination. They intend to upturn Nigeria’s democratic journey. They crave the death of the All Progressives Congress (APC) like the eagle does its reptile prey. Those concocting this deathly scenario are convinced that the announced victory of the APC in the February 25 presidential election has made the political party a victim of jealousy of rival political parties. This jealousy, they seem to infer, is comparable to that suffered by the proverbial Koto – Valley, in the hands of Gegele – Mountain. Wrapped in mortal jealousy that the downpour of the rain sidesteps it and enriches the Koto, the Gegele becomes a kvetch, inundating the world with stories of hatred against it.

All they see is the image of military president, Ibrahim Babangida and how he imposed interim government on Nigeria in 1993. These elements, who are yet to be identified, cannot even stand Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president-elect. Their gang-up is of equal, even if not more sinister content than the counsel of the biblical Ahithophel. Ahithophel, you will recall, was one of King David’s most trusted advisors. Absalom, David’s son, then plotted a rebellion against his father. He recruited Ahithophel who then starred prominently in this grisly drama, playing the leading role. Ahithophel finally defected from King David and this defection posed a mortal blow to the King of Israel.

Like Ahithophel, we are told that the infernal intention of those cooking the current Nigerian destructive broth is to return the country to the post-June 12, 1993 election annulment scenario. Nigerians who are old enough to connect with this narrative will be called to their marrows. Interim government signifies uncertainty and confusion. It grabs at the throat of a country, inflicting a scenario of the bird that perches on the thin twine rope in the backyard; both the bird and the rope are gripped with tension of unimaginable proportion. Never must a people return to that Ekwensu equation. The interim government under Chief Ernest Shonekan was a terrifying time in the life of Nigeria. It was a period of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

So, how did we arrive here? After the February 25 election which was declared to have been won by the APC, the polity became charged to its boiling point. Leading political parties, the PDP and Labour Party, in concert with their loyalists, contributed immensely to the charged atmosphere. Both Atiku and Obi alleged unprecedented electoral malpractices in the poll and proceeded almost immediately to the court to challenge the declaration of Tinubu as President-elect. They levelled allegations of a sophisticated rigging of the presidential election by characters who, they claim, have perverted the courses of electoral justice through the judiciary more than anyone in history. They argue that Nigeria is contending with street crooks who, all their grown-up years, have cooked and fiddled with electoral figures more than an Ijaw fisherman can ever fiddle with shrimps. The same characters, they allege, are adept at all manner of illegitimate perversions and that in this instance, INEC abetted the electoral crooks.

Were Nigeria to be a country where the rule of the brawns ruled, those levelling those allegations would probably have taken laws into their hands. But because the courts are the only recognized civil arbiter in such confusion, those levelling the electoral manipulation allegations subsequently took their matters to court. This action was however not enough to reduce tensions. Protests in some parts of the country erupted, pointing to the fact that the parties that went to court were either untrusting of the judiciary or felt that there was a greater power in mob assemblage. PDP’s flag-bearer, Abubakar, in March, led one of those protests to the Abuja office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The protesters said they rejected the result of the February 25 poll declared by the umpire.

In the process, allegations that the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Kayode Ariwoola, had travelled abroad to have a nocturnal parley with the president-elect began to spread like a bushfire in the height of harmattan. In my submission last week, I said that these were a cache of very incoherent allegations which have however recalibrated themselves everywhere like the metastasizing cells of cancer. Superior logic has sprouted to counter the widespread ill-logic. One said that, granted that there was such a gang-up, a physical meeting between Tinubu and Ariwoola was immaterial to pulling such treasonable chestnut from the fire. Perhaps this was one of the logic that doused and subsided the boiling passion.

Then, like the whooshing of an evening wind, the allegation of an interim government in the offing harmlessly hopped in. And characteristically, its first berthing point was social media. Its full manifestation runs thus: There was a plan by some God-knows-who to recreate Nigeria’s 1993 unpleasant model. As a digression, pray, why is MKO Abiola and the 1993 scenario the refrain of the people on this side of the divide and why does that model serve as a convenient harbour for them? First was, “on your mandate we shall stand” and then this, which sounds like an Epetedo Declaration! Anyway, the rumour left the realm of guesswork when the DSS claimed it was privy to its authenticity. The DSS’ claim came at the same time when the voluble Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo, raised a similar allegation. Coming in the form of a petition, Keyamo urged the DSS to invite LP’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, over their rejection of Tinubu as Nigeria’s President-Elect.

Then the DSS came with some frightening counterfactuals. It alleged that some “entrenched interests” in their “mischievous way” wanted to set aside the constitution and undermine civil rule, to career Nigeria into avoidable crisis. “The illegality is unacceptable in a democracy and to the peace-loving Nigerians…The planners, in their many meetings, have weighed various options, which include, among others, sponsoring endless violent mass protests in major cities to warrant a declaration of State of Emergency. Another is to obtain frivolous court injunctions to forestall the inauguration of new executive administrations and legislative houses at the Federal and State levels,” the DSS said.

However, like the man in the white apparel who starred in the first concocted grisly drama I began this piece with, if you subject the DSS’ allegation, the uproar from the APC and the Satanic scenario they all created, to the rigour of logic, you will realize that all we have since been grappling with are mirages. It is just the fertile and fictive imagination of some ghoulish-minded mind game fictionists who want to manipulate Nigerians’ emotions like a marionette. What you get after subjecting their “facts” to a session of logic is almost synonymous with prickling a massive balloon with a tiny needle. It will burst in your face. Its most fitting analogy is Shakespeare’s Macbeth’s famous quote: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day… And all our yesterdays have lighted fools… Out, out, brief candle! (All’s) but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

First, what is the work schedule of the DSS? Is it not to arrest evil plotters? Why then make hollow of people who are supposed to be sadistic characters in the market square? The global expectation is that, when you have such facts, you should not only name names with clinical precision, you should charge them to court. Second, how did all those counterfactuals propounded by the DSS amount to an interim government? At best, what the security directorate painted was public dissent, which is not illegitimate in a democratic government.

Perhaps, the DSS needs some kindergarten schooling on how interim government works. Also known by the name provisional, emergency or transitional government, it is an emergency governmental authority which is set up to manage a political transition. It is mostly applicable in newly formed states or when a collapse has been occasioned in a previous government. Members are generally appointed and, most times, arise as a result of civil or foreign wars. The provisional government maintains power pending the assumption of power of a new government. So, in what way does the Nigerian scenario resemble this? Isn’t it obvious that it is only government, never an individual, that can create an interim government?

When the crying wolf is the DSS, headed by a man who is suspected not to be an impartial security boss, people must take this Directorate’s empty rhetoric with a pinch of salt. The same Directorate it was which laid ambush for Godwin Emefiele and sought to have him locked up during the pendency of the general elections. Nigerians know whose bidding this organization serves and who the drummer underneath the river drums for its gadfly dancing on the river top is. To invoke that empty, spidery web of national security is one of the easiest things that characters like those in the DSS do, knowing that there is no way people can put a lie to it. But logic does!

To my mind, the script being penned by those who are pushing the frenzied lie of an interim government is that of victimhood and persecution complex. When the APC and its president-elect foist the analogy that they are persistent victims of gang-ups and persecution, they evoke public sympathy. Let all eyes be fixated on the court cases instituted by both PDP and LP. They are therapeutic for the health of Nigeria’s democracy. Perhaps, falsified election results and their negative spiritual implications have been responsible for how Nigeria has wobbled on a spot this endlessly since independence. Let the ill logic of interim nonsense not detain us or instigate us into misplacing our empathy and sympathy.

Dr Adedayo, a journalist, lawyer and columnist writes from Ibadan, Oyo state

The post The fiction of an interim government first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

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The Department of State Services (DSS), on Wednesday, said the plot to set aside the constitution and install an interim government by “misguided” political actors is real.

DSS spokesman, Peter Afunanya, in a statement vowed that the secret police will use all arsenals at its disposal to frustrate such plots.

DSS, also hinted that some key players in the plot for an interim government in Nigeria have been identified.

The secret police had on Saturday warned politicians to desist from peddling “hate speech” and all forms of “false narratives” to ignite violence or pit citizens against the current government of President Muhammadu Buhari and the incoming administration of the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu.

The DSS warning followed a petition by the Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo that the DSS invite the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi; and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, over their rejection of Tinubu as the President-Elect.

Also, the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar had earlier in March led a protest to the Abuja office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reject the result of the February 25 poll declared by the electoral umpire.

Both Atiku and Obi alleged electoral malpractices in the poll and are in court to challenge the declaration of Tinubu as President-Elect by INEC.

In a follow-up statement on Wednesday, the DSS did not mention any politician but said some key players have been identified in the interim government plot.

The secret police also said the plot being pursued by these “entrenched interests” is not only an aberration but a “mischievous way” to set aside the constitution and undermine civil rule, warning that such will plunge the country into an avoidable crisis.

“The illegality is unacceptable in a democracy and to the peace-loving Nigerians. This is even more so that the machination is taking place after the peaceful conduct of the elections in most parts of the country,” the secret police statement partly read.

“The planners, in their many meetings, have weighed various options, which include, among others, to sponsor endless violent mass protests in major cities to warrant a declaration of State of Emergency. Another is to obtain frivolous court injunctions to forestall the inauguration of new executive administrations and legislative houses at the Federal and State levels.

“The DSS supports the President and Commander-in-Chief in his avowed commitment to a hitch-free handover and will assiduously work in this direction. It also supports the Presidential Transition Council and other related bodies in the States. It will collaborate with them and sister security and law enforcement agencies to ensure seamless inaugurations come 29th May 2023.”

The DSS consequently strongly warned those organising to thwart democracy in the country to retract from their devious schemes and orchestrations.

“Stakeholders, notably judicial authorities, media and the Civil Society, are enjoined to be watchful and cautious to avoid being used as instruments to subvert peace and stability of the nation.

“While its monitoring continues, the DSS will not hesitate to take decisive and necessary legal steps against these misguided elements to frustrate their obnoxious intentions.”

The post Nigeria: DSS confirms plot to install interim govt first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

The post Nigeria: DSS confirms plot to install interim govt appeared first on MegaIcon Magazine.

DAILY POST had reported that worshippers on Sunday protested at the Adoration Ministry over sanction on Fr Mbaka by the Catholic authority.

Mbaka was sanctioned and services at the Adoration Ministry were suspended till further notice over his political statement.

Following the outrage, Mbaka apologized to Obi and the Catholic Church for his outburst.

Speaking in a viral video on Monday, Peter Obi said that Mbaka remains his priest and father in faith and he respects the cleric.

The former Governor noted that if he attended the service where Mbaka made the declaration, he would have told him to pray for him to overcome the vision he saw.

“For me, Father Mbaka is an ordained priest of God and as a priest, he remains my priest. I will always respect and show my allegiance to the church. Whatever he says, I will take it because he’s my father in faith. I respect him and he’s my brother.

“Whenever he says something wrong, I pray over it, if he says something right, I pray over it. Mine is prayers, whatever he does I love him. I don’t have any problem with him.

“If he says I am not going to be voted for because I don’t have money, I will pray that God will make those collecting money to vote to see reasons they should not do that.

“In fact, if I was there, I would have told him to pray for me to overcome it. I have met pastors who tell me things and I say since you have seen it let us pray that it doesn’t happen.”

The post What I would’ve done at Adoration ground when Fr Mbaka declared me ‘stingy’ – Peter Obi first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

The post What I would’ve done at Adoration ground when Fr Mbaka declared me ‘stingy’ – Peter Obi appeared first on MegaIcon Magazine.

Contained in a statement and made available to newsmen, Obi believed that the Atiku and the PDP approached the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to grow the nation’s democracy.

He hailed the former vice president and the party for choosing what he described as the most civilised manner to seek redress.

According to him, Atiku is always standing for democracy while the PDP has nurtured it for 16 years and conducted one of the most credible elections it lost and seamlessly handed over.

He further asked the lovers of democracy and justice to be happy with the development, saying that it would have been suicidal to ignore “the monumental fraud” and let it go unchallenged.

Obi through the statement said, ” by challenging the fraud, we have decided to deepen democracy the civilised way as a party and a people that believe in the rule of law,” the stat

The former governor of Anambra state, however  called on Democrats to remain focused, noting that victory would always come the way of those who seek justice and fairness.

The post Real Reason Why Atiku Is Challenging Buhari’s Victory – Obi Reveals first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

The post Real Reason Why Atiku Is Challenging Buhari’s Victory – Obi Reveals appeared first on MegaIcon Magazine.

Speaking in Lagos on Saturday, Obi made reference to the 2019 budget Buhari presented to the National Assembly on Wednesday.

According to him, Nigeria will not survive if Buhari’s goes ahead with plans to tax “poor Nigerians”, in line with provisions of the proposed budget which is largely focused on debt servicing.

“We need to know where we are going as a nation but with Buhari at the helms of affairs; we do not know where we are going. Buhari is not in charge of this government as he does not know or care what the poor people are going through.

“Nigerians are currently the poorest people on earth, yet the Muhammadu Buhari administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is still looking at taxing them the more.

“Take look at the budget presented by the President a few days ago and you will see that it does not give anyone hope instead, it tells us that we are still where we have always been.

“A quarter of the budget is meant to service debts, and that is about 60% of the budget while the President keeps telling Nigerians to tighten their belts because of the harsh times staring at us in the future.

“Does that give anyone confidence in this government? Not at all, I dare say. While presenting the budget, he said that the government is looking for ways to tax Nigerians the more. What are you taxing the poor people for?

“Does that give any one of us hope in this government? That means that if we keep them for the next four years, we are finished,” he said.

Outlining what Atiku Abubakar, PDP presidential candidate, will do to “reverse the situation” if elected to power, Obi said focus will be placed on reviving small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“We know the situation looks gloomy but we are not scared of going in to salvage the country. The situation with Nigeria is like an accident victim. The first thing to do in such a situation is to stop the bleeding first by applying first aid before the real treatment.

“Unless the right steps are taken to stop the bleeding, we will still be where we have been for years.

“It’s going to be difficult but we know where we are going and what we are going to do. To put the Nigerian economy back on a sound footing, we have to take a holistic look at SMEs because only then will you rescue the dwindling economy.

“We need to change the way we do things in this country if we ever hope to come out of this economic quagmire we have found ourselves in. We must change the way we do things in this country or we will continue to grope in the dark,” Obi added.

The post 2019: Peter Obi reveals what will happen if Buhari defeats Atiku first appeared on MegaIcon Magazine.

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