National assembly tear-gassing, Tambuwal’s ‘sacrifice’…10 things to note about last week

As the battles for 2015 and 2016 electoral positions in Nigeria and the United States respectively continue drawing more attention, drama in both nations and other parts of the world have assumed some really interesting dimensions. It was some sort of chaos in Nigeria, dictatorial tendencies in the US, military in civilian clothing in Burkina Faso and fiery opposition in Zambia. Politics has rarely been as interesting as in the last week!

LIKE BUHARI, LIKE KAFANDO

A youthful revolution has been moving across the world in recent times, and nations are beginning to crave for young leaders, from Cameron to Obama, and most recently 44-year-old Nicola Sturgeon, the first female first minister of Scotland. In fact, there is an exceptional case, the youngest acting president ever, Razvan Gogan, the five-year-old Romanian who became acting president for a day to sign a presidential decree for children’s rights. The world seems to thirst for young and versatile leaders.

Burkina Faso, on the other hand, has chosen experience, and all that comes with ageing, by electing Michel Kafando, a 72-year-old, to oversee the transition of the country to proper democracy in November 2015. The action of this West African country is extra motivation for those supporting a 2015 presidency for 71-year-old Muhammadu Buhari. Would Buhari ever be a civilian president? Time would tell.

TAMBUWAL THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB

Aminu Waziri Tambuwal – this name made the face of every Nigerian newspaper in the past week. The reasons may differ from one news outfit to the other but certainly, everyone had something to say. However, on Tuesday, November 18, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said the popular lawmaker had sacrificed himself for Nigeria. Our sacrificial lamb!

Earlier, Tambuwal, in a talismanic style, defected to APC from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), leaving the waters of PDP unsettled as many political intrigues were employed to reduce the effect of his defection. He was considered a contender for the nation’s presidential seat as his “friends” bought him the N27.5 million APC presidential form. Nonetheless, he “sacrificially” turned down the offer to run for presidency, opting to pick up APC gubernatorial form for his home state, Sokoto.

ZIDA’s STILL ON BURKINA FASO PRESIDENCY

Burkina Faso’s helm of power is really becoming a comfortable sofa for the country’s military, as former interim president, Isaac Zida, was selected as the nation’s prime minister on Wednesday.

Zida had earlier announced himself as interim president of the country on November 1 after the infamous end to the 27-year tenure of President Blaise Compaore. Zida handed over power to civilian Kafando, though defying African Union’s (AU) ultimatum to relinquish power in two weeks. Many commentators around the world didn’t expect a senior military officer who was in Compaore’s presidential guard to still oversee affairs in the nation. In fact, natives refer to him as “a part of the old order”, as many of them suggest that he’d likely run for presidency next 2015. Would the military colonel end up as Burkina Faso’s democratically elected president?

LIKE NIGERIA LIKE CHELSEA

May 19, 2012 is a day that would be forever remembered in the history of Chelsea football club as the Blues condemned Bayern Munich to a 4-3 loss at the Allianz arena in Germany to clinch the UEFA champions league. For the rest of that year, Chelsea fans in their usual style bragged about the feat to everyone they had a little argument with. They were the “happening” team.

The following campaign, the great champions, Chelsea, who destroyed the great Bayern, crashed out like a pack of cards at the group stage of the same UEFA champions league, not having the slightest chance at title defence.

Similar narrative – worse, in fact – goes for Nigeria, the giant champions of Africa who could not move past qualifiers into defending the title it won in 2013, crashing to South Africa on Wednesday at the glorious Allian-arena-like Uyo stadium. For some reason, Nigeria would not be at the African Cup of Nations 2015.

FALLING OIL PRICES, NAIRA RECORD LOW, AND 2015

Over the past few months, oil prices across the world have fallen drastically, beating its own record low from time to time. This, in turn, has affected the economy of Africa’s leading exporter of oil, as the economy dances to the tunes of oil prices.

The worst of this was seen on Friday when the Naira crashed to a record low of N176.10 to a dollar, despite the central bank’s intervention to keep the Naira from such fall. This led a lot of investors to a sell-off, selling equities to escape perhaps a worse fall in the coming weeks.

Strangely, the Nigerian economic team seemed to have learnt little from this stereotypical dependence on oil and the placement of benchmarks at the knife edge, as it placed the oil benchmark price at N73 per barrel in the 2015 budgetary year. With the rate at which oil prices are falling, it may go beyond the Nigerian benchmark in 2015, plunging the country into economic certainty. Not good at all.

SCOTT STILL BANKING ON SLIM PRESIDENTIAL AMBITION

Frederik de Klerk was the last white president in Africa, after his party lost to Nelson Mandela in the 1994 South Africa election. Klerk was president during the apartheid regime, which could not be totally qualified as democratic. However, this has made Guy Scott the first democratic president of Zambia and the continent at large, as he assumed office after the death of Michael Sata.

Zambia goes to the poll in January, with Scott’s eyes on the Presidency, as he plays his role as the interim president. As his intentions filtered through Zambian airwaves, the ruling party, Patriotic Front (PF) suspended Scott as leader of the party, citing unconstitutional conduct, although it  was in fact in a bid to crush his presidential hopes.

Scott, according to the Zambian constitution, is ineligible to contest the January elections because his parents are not natives of Zambia. Would Scott’s unconstitutional conduct make him the first democratically elected white president on African soil?

IN EKITI, SEVEN IS GREATER THAN 19

Nigeria is the land where impossible is definitely nothing! May 24 2013, Nigeria’s political mathematics taught us that 16 was greater than 19, as Jonah Jang was declared by Godswill Akpabio as winner of the governor’s forum elections after polling just 16 votes as against Rotimi Amaechi’s 19 votes in the same election.

The same political mathematics had earlier ensued in 2010, when nine Ogun lawmakers suspended the speaker of the house and 14 other legislators.

After 2013, we thought we had seen the last of this mathematical mishap until the return of the same in Ekiti on Thursday, as seven of 26 members of the state house, impeached Adewale Omirin, the speaker and Adetunji Orisalade, the deputy speaker. The seven PDP legislators immediately appointed Dele Olugbemi as the new speaker. As the cases increase in number, creating judicial precedence in Nigeria, this may eventually become the norm in Nigerian politics. Nigeria beware!

OBAMA THE “EMPEROR” OPENS THE US GATES

Barack Husein Obama’s name would go down in American history not just for being the first black president of the multi-cultural country, but also for being the president who beat Ronald Reagan to allowing illegal immigrants stay in the country.

In 1986, Reagan signed a legislation that allowed about three million undocumented people stay in the United States. On Friday, Obama made an executive action that would allow over four million illegal migrants to stay in the US.

According to Obama’s executive action, over four million undocumented immigrants who are the parents of US citizen or legal permanent resident children, would receive new legal status, as long as they have been living in the country for at least five years, pay back taxes, and pass a criminal background check.

This action, which was without the permission of the US congress, has made the speaker of the house dub Obama as acting “like a king and emperor”.

GEJ’S GUARDS GET AWARDED FOR DOING THEIR JOB

According to a statement by special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Reuben Abati, two police officers in the presidential guard were awarded by a non-governmental organisation, Security Watch Africa, for their exceptional commitment to the safety of the president, his family and the country.

The awardees, Moses Jitoboh, the chief personal security officer to the president and Miller Dantawaye, the commander of the mobile police presidential escort, were awarded Most Outstanding Security Operations Officer in Africa 2014 and Best Police Operations Officer in Nigeria 2014 awards, respectively.

“The organisation said that it decided to confer the awards on the two security officers after a careful monitoring of their selfless, patriotic and untiring efforts in providing effective security for the president of Nigeria,” the statement read.

George Orwell was right to have said, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Some security operatives in northeast Nigeria are rewarded with death for protecting a mass of helpless Nigerians, while some others are awarded for protecting the president. Indeed, some animals are more equal.

TAMBUWAL AND THE MEN OF THE MOMENT

The past week in the nation’s house of representatives can easily be likened to a theatre of chaos as drama unexpected of such national figures ensued. On Thursday, as the Aminu Tambuwal-led house were to reconvene to deliberate on state of emergency in three states in northern Nigeria, officers of the Department of State Security were on ground to prevent the speaker from entering the green chambers.

The unexpected happened; the number four citizen of the world’s most populous black nation and other lawmakers were prevented from entering their chambers by security officer who fired canisters of tear gas into the air at the national assembly.

David Mark, the senate president, immediately ordered a shutdown of the house, saying he was present to ascertain the safety of the speaker and other lawmakers. Mark also claimed that he was tear-gassed in the heat of the entire controversy.

The Inspector General of Police (IGP), through the police spokesperson, Emmanuel Ojukwu, defended the action of the force, saying the police was capable of arresting and prosecuting anybody, forgetting Nigeria is a land of immunity.

But Tambuwal says he is prepared for the arrest. Would Tambuwal be arrested? And would tear-gas revisit the national assembly when the house reconvenes next month? The drama continues!