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As Nigerians step out to cast their votes, thereby ensuring that they are not disenfranchised in the forthcoming general election starting on February 25, 2023, definitely, the world’s focus would be on the country.
Already, the elections have started generating bad blood among politicians and the electorate across the country. Surprisingly, the tension created by terrorists and bandits has subsided, while political thuggery is on the front burner of insecurity, as if there was a change of baton of wickedness. Apart from the political venom from politicians and their allies, the country is facing tremendous government policy somersaults that are gradually enveloping the country in turmoil. Who are these politicians who want to upturn the system? The first was fuel scarcity and the sudden change of the Nigerian currency. As I write this column, many people are complaining about their inability to swap the old naira notes for the Central Bank of Nigeria’s “dressed” new notes, thereby creating frustrating situation across the country.
As if that was not enough slap on a government that had severally boasted of its determination to right every wrong, especially to fight corruption head-on, unfortunately, it seems the government has been overwhelmed by corrupt practices and those being perpetrated within the oil sector, which has resulted in Nigerians experiencing fuel shortages around the country. This fraustrating situation has forced the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Momodu Yakubu, to our attention to the fact that the fuel scarcity could disrupt and grossly affect the general elections. These two instances are capable of disrupting the elections, despite all the preparations. Yet, Nigerians continue to exhibit resilience in the face of government’s unprepared and not-well-thought-out economic policy. As if the disruption and frustration in the system were not enough, the federal government is bent on adding another disruptive policy on the country by preparing to conduct a national census. An exercise many believe may further aggravate the already tense atmosphere.
While campaigning in 2003, President Olusegun Obasanjo decleared that his second term election was not a “do-or-die affair.”
Today, every political activity points at elections that are building up tension that could turn everything to a do-or-die affair. Do-or-die affair significantly means that there was political investment that was wasted and could not be recouped. When politicians notice that the voting pattern is no longer favorable, the politicians have no other option than to go haywire.
Such politicians would do anything to disrupt the election. Meanwhile, both national and international organizations are not resting on their oars to expose areas of political disruption. For instance, the CLEEN Foundation, an international organization, in theirassessment of the security threats to the forthcoming elections in Nigeria, stated in part: “The frequent serious attacks on security agencies, installations and infrastructure in recent months are highly worrisome and condemnable. The pattern of recent attacks on security facilities and INEC infrastructure is suggestive that they are facilitated by criminals who are bent on pushing the country off the cliff.”
Despite assurances from every quarter that all stakeholders are on top of the situation, the international community is still jittery, which is filtering into the country and triggering palpable fear and political restlessness.
Even the police are aware of deadly hotspots around the country, but have they stood up to these challenges like political arsonists, killers and violence? The question is, can this election be devoid of violence? If the attack on the spokesman of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), Ikenga Ugochinyere, was anything to go by, there are still yet-to-be-revealed acts of political thuggery and violence.
According to media reports, gunmen, on January 14, 2023, stormed the residence of Mr. Ugochinyere, who is the House of Representatives candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the Ideato North and Ideato South Federal Constituency, at his hometown in Akokwa, Ideato-North LGA of Imo State, killing his uncle while he escaped unhurt.
Security experts had made a clarion call over the influx of illicit drugs like cocaine, crack, ecstasy, hallucinogens, heroin, Inhalants, ketamine, marijuana, meth, synthetic, etc. The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), under the leadership of General Mohammed Buba Marwa (retd.), had impounded several containerloads of these illicit drugs worth billions of naira commonly used by criminals of various categories and youths who are easily drafted into political thuggery. The violent build-up is getting worrisome, with another reported attack on the campaign rally of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, where four supporters of his party and several cars were viciously damaged by poIitical hoodlums.
The supporters were said to have been attacked with machetes and other dangerous objects as they made their way to Tafawa Balewa Square, where the campaign rally was held at the weekend.
The Lagos State Police Command’s spokesman, Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed the attack via his Twitter handle.
He said the attack was reported by the party’s ward chairman in Jakande at the Ilasan Police Division, Lagos.
(To be continued)
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AIG Lawan Jimeta
(MY BROTHER)
Our paths crossed when I was the media adviser to the Inspector-General of Police, Sir Mike Okiro, and managing editor of the police newspaper, The Dawn, which I founded at the Force Headquarters, Abuja. Lawan Jimeta was then attached to the foreign peacekeeping mission department. He once came to my office with an idea to create a column for him as a poet, informing me that he loved writing poetry, like retired AIG Ade A. Ajakaiye. This I obliged him and he maintained the column creditably, such that even the IGP became one of his ardent readers.
Later in the year, we were officially scheduled to travel with Mr. Patrick Akpambu, a security television show presenter, as a group to one of the Caribbean countries, Haiti, in 2008 for a United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping mission to supervise the Nigeria Police peacekeeping contingent in Haiti. (Read my Column, titled “My Haiti Experience”.)
After that memorable journey, we started referring to one another as “My Brother”. The Haitian experience brought us closer, not minding our religion nor ethnic affiliation. No month passes by without a brotherly phone call from each one of us. Even as we continually thank God for sparing our lives in Haiti where we escaped back to Nigeria barely two months before the devastating earthquake in Haiti that swallowed the three-storey hotel building where we lodged.
Today, as I write my column, the sad news filtered in that my brother from another mother, a handsome, gentle and humble but intelligent police officer, Mr. Lawan Jimeta, passed on after slumping in his Zone 5 office in Benin City, Edo State, but later died in the hospital. He was once the commissioner in charge of Mobile Police Force and, later, the commissioner in charge of Edo State Command, before his promotion as an Assistant Inspector-General of Police, posted to head the Nigeria Police College, Wudil, Kano, before his present office at Zone 5, Benin City.
