Edo Go Be Lagos?
How long can Nigeria’s Fourth Republic last?
Perhaps it is over already. In 2023, a heavily-flawed candidate won the presidency in a manipulated election, taking over the leadership from the hapless Muhammadu Buhari.
Nigerians have now spent one year in lamentation, wondering how they will get through four years of the Bola Tinubu administration, increasingly characterized by impunity and opportunism.
Last week, sadly, it turned out that in the 2023 election, the electoral commission sentenced the country not to four, but eight years of Tinubu. Letting it slip was Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who said in Abuja:
If you did not know that the event at which he was running his mouth was the opening of a bus station, you might have imagined that it was the commissioning of a 24-hour electricity system for the entire country; the launching of a Lagos-Maiduguri highway; or the flagging-off of the first Sokoto-Port Harcourt rail service.
But it was a local bus station, and Akpabio said of it: “This is for me another major wonder of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.”
It is for, and ata bus station that Akpabio declared that Tinubu would rule not only for his four disputed years, but for a second term of four that he has not yet to nominate himself for.
At the same time as Akpabio seemed to be disclosing that Tinubu will snatch an additional term in office, no matter what anyone thinks, Tinubu was appearing in a viral videoheaded EDO2024 GO ROUGH in which he declares that he would give Edo State tohis APC in the forthcoming governorship contest.
The video is clipped from a 2022 presidential campaign appearance in Benin City. In it, Tinubu, now Nigeria leader, drives a stake in the soil:
“You know me well,” he tells his supporters.“You know (former Edo Governor)Adams Oshiomhole well. We are still going to fight further. Don’t worry, we are with you, you will not walk alone. One thing I can assure you is this: do you want Edo back? As the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I will give Edo back to you. With time…your beautiful, if not more beautiful than Lagos, [Edo] will be equal to Lagos. Be assured of that.”
First, Lagos is not “beautiful.” Unless your standards are very low, it is aesthetically and practically one of the most unpleasant places in the world. Most of all, it is politically dysfunctional, repugnantly known as the land of The Godfather.
As a result, it is completely unlike Edo, one of Nigeria’s most democratic and Godfather-loathing states. Yes, Edo knows Oshiomhole well. I summarized his story in this July 2020 essay.
So do ask Oshiomhole, who himself tried to play Godfather after he left the governorship in 2016 and was politically reprimandedby Edo State. And while you are at it, ask Oshiomhole, who had himselfpolitically chastened “Mr. Fix-It” Tony Anenihto win that governorship in 2008.
No, “Edo No Be Lagos,” as her citizens declared when Tinubu tried to intervene in her election in 2020. Edo citizensbelieve in true democracy and do not suffer Godfather figures gladly.Edo is won at the ballot box by the more deserving and qualified candidate andnot “snatched” or “taken” as has sadly become the fashion of “beautiful” Lagos. It was in that light that I congratulated Governor Godwin Obaseki on his victory in 2020.
What Mr. Tinubu proposes, the annexation of Edo by something other than the votes earned by a candidate, is a dangerous warning being served to constitutional democracy in Nigeria: that the entire country has entered the “snatch-grab-run” era and could soon be owned by APC. It is unbecoming of a true leader.
Mr. Tinubu knows that he did not walk into power to the applause of Nigerians. But he can earntheir respectby demonstrating decency and effort in leadership.
Last week, for instance, Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla, who chaired Mr. Buhari’s Special Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property, appeared on Seun Okinbaloye’sMic On Podcastwhere he made several stunning revelations about Buhari having actively boosted corruption.
For the record, Mr. Obono-Obla was in 2019 suspended from his position by the government and subsequently declared wanted, the ICPC citing his“repeated failure” to show up to answer allegations of fraud and corruption against him by the public.
He was accused of not adhering to the guidelines governing his panel by investigating unauthorized petitions as well as prosecuting suspects without recourse to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation.
By showing up in the brightest of lights to tell his story, and telling it loudly, Obono-Oblaseemed to challenge the commitment of the Tinubu administration. Among his highlights:
- Recovered loot being returned to their owners despite Buhari’s endless affirmations of combating
- Someone in Abuja who possessed 80 brand new armored S-Class Mercedes Benz cars on which no customs duties had been paid
- The recovery of $2bn and gold bars from a minister in the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, following which, “only 350 million gold bars out of $850 million were reported.”
- The recovery of about $69 billion allegedly linked to stolen crude oil proceeds in a Texas-based bank account, about which Buhari did nothing, and Attorney General Abubakar Malami’s response to a letter was “dismissive.”
- The discovery, through the Panama Papers investigation, of offshore properties worth over £200 million belonging to a prominent former governor and senator.
In the week since these allegations were made, nothing has been heard from the Tinubu government. Obono-Obla has not been arrested. Neither Buhari nor Malami has been questioned. Fleecing Nigeria, as some of us have complained afresh in the past two weeks, seems to be perfectly in order.
Unless, of course, you look at the political warnings offered by such countries as South Africa, where the ANC suffered an unprecedented battering in the May 2024 election and required a coalition with its adversary Democratic Alliance to stay in power, andKenya, where the youth are currently engineering a deafening message for the political establishment.
In Nigeria, sadly, APC seems to imagine that it is immune to those cautions andwinds of change sweeping through Africa. Instead, Tinubu wants to “give” states as a gift to his party. He wants to buy new presidential jets despite a collapsing economy.
Consider: not once since September 2023, when world leaders adopted a sweeping political declaration at the SDG Summit reaffirming their commitment to end poverty and hunger everywhere, combat inequalities and build peaceful societies has Tinubu mentioned Nigeria’s implementation of the SDGs.Not once.
Instead—perhaps consequently—insecurity and hungergovern Nigeria. It is an unwise place in history to be, and the Nigerian government must end the business of business as usual.