GUEST COLUMNIST: SINA KAWONISE

The now suspended Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) directive to telecommunications companies (telcos) to have a floor price for their services was premised on the goal of protecting competition in the sector. The directive purported to protect small telcos such as Smile, Spectranet and Natcom by fixing a floor price that would guarantee that they recover their cost and make profit at their small scale of operation.

The current price of data per megabyte among the big four is as follows: Glo – 21 kobo, MTN – 45 kobo, Airtel – 52 kobo, Etisalat- 94 kobo; average price – 53 kobo.

For the small telcos, the price structure is as follows: Spectranet – 58 kobo, Natcom- 72 kobo, Smile – 84 kobo; average price – 71 kobo

To ‘protect’ the small telcos, NCC directed that the floor data price for all Telcos (big and small) should be 90 kobo /Mb – an increase of 328 percent on the Glo price of 21 kobo/Mb.

Here is why the NCC was absolutely wrong to have reasoned and acted the way it did: One, it runs counter to the logic of capitalism and principles of free enterprise to fix price in order to protect some operators (big or small). Anti-trust laws are never designed to stymie efficiency but to promote it through competition. For any new entrant or small operator to survive and thrive in an established market/sector, it must DISRUPT the market/sector through innovative technology and/or business model. For Glo to enter and survive in the GSM market more than 2 years after MTN and then Econet had been dominating the market, it disrupted the sector with per second billing which MTN and Econet said was impossible.

Currently in the United Kingdom, Virgin Telecoms entered the crowded telecom sector by disrupting it with the technological innovation of launching internet vehicles into space. That innovation enables Virgin to charge a mere £15 per month for a subscriber to have 5,000 minutes to call UK lines, 5,000 minutes to make international calls, and 5 gigabytes of data all in one month. The resultant effects is that hundreds of thousands subscribers hitherto paying other telcos an average of £60 per month for less benefits have migrated to Virgin. Now, that is disruption for entry and thriving! It is therefore wrong for a regulator to seek to protect so-called small operators by fixing an inefficient price floor for them to continue in efficiency.

Two, to protect three inefficient telcos, owned by probably less than 100 Nigerians and foreigners and which have among them less than 5 percent market share, 100 million Nigerian subscribers must subsidise their inefficiency by paying more than 300 percent more for data (especially for Glo subscribers). And that was to happen during a biting economic recession that continues to pauperise our people! Competition was conceived and promoted to serve man, not man to serve competition for its own sake.

Three, since GSM operations started in Nigeria 15 years ago, there hasn’t been any evidence of price fixing by the telcos to suggest an oligopolistic situation. Rather, they continue to compete among themselves by rationalising their operations and embarking on cost saving measures (such as infrastructure sharing), all to the benefit of subscribers and the economy in general. The fear of getting to a monopolistic/oligopolistic situation is therefore unfounded, at least for now.

Four, empirically speaking, one of the small telcos, Smile, is already disrupting the market by selling its voice service for 5/min. This is currently the cheapest in the market. Smile is able to do this by using a technological disruptive internet App for its subscribers to make voice calls to all GSM lines in Nigeria, and to pay the same rate even while abroad. This is disruptive of the local and international roaming voice rates of the big Telcos. Would the NCC seek to protect the big telcos against ‘small’ Smile?

So obviously wrong are the assumptions and actions of the NCC on this matter, and given the pervasive corruption in Nigeria, that it is difficult to resist the temptation to suspect that the NCC must have been compromised to come up with that economic-sabotaging and anti-people directive. No thanks to the current economic recession and all thanks to popular uproar, the NCC failed in its bid to return telecommunications to the David Mark era when they weren’t for the poor.

· Kawonise is a former Information and Strategy Commissioner in Ogun State

Thisday, January 9, 2017

During World War II, numerous fighter planes were getting hit by anti-aircraft guns. 

Air Force officers wanted to add some protective armor/shield to the planes. The question was "where"?

The planes could only support few more kilos of weight. A group of mathematicians and engineers were called for a short consulting project. 

Fighter planes returning from missions were analysed for bullet holes per square foot. They found 1.93 bullet holes/sq. foot near the tail of the planes whereas only 1.11 bullet holes/sq. foot close to the engine.

The Air Force officers thought that since the tail portion had the greatest density of bullets, that would be the logical location for putting an anti-bullet shield. 

A mathematician named Abraham Wald said exactly the opposite; more protection is needed where the bullet holes aren't - that is -around the engines.

His judgement surprised everyone.  He said "We are counting the planes that returned from a mission. Planes with lots of bullet holes in the engine did not return at all."

*Debrief*

If you go to the recovery room at the hospital, you’ll see a lot more people with bullet holes in their legs than people with bullet holes in their chests.  That’s not because people don’t get shot in the chest; it’s because the people who get shot in the chest don’t recover.

Remember the words of Einstein - "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts."

• From the book - "How Not To Be Wrong" by Jordan Ellenberg

“The dog and the baboon must truly be soaked in blood. Now, I agree. Can the ear ever be greater than the head? We have made this party so fertile that an okra tree is now scheming to be taller than the farmer?”

“You are speaking in proverbs today, my chairman. And, you are not smiling.”

“Your Excellency, I want to fight. Enough of this Lagos man’s insults. You have heard what he did again. The last time you asked me to let go. Remember I told you, rankadede, that this man won’t stop. Now, court cases are sprouting at night, everywhere. The man thinks he is the only eagle in this sky. What does he think he has which others don’t have? For the twenty years his monkey spent in the American bush struggling for unripe bananas, my dog had been in the city, calling the shots. I was a governor when this peacock was an ordinary, upstart senator…”

“My chairman, easy, easy. I read what he wrote and even know what you don’t. Look at me, why have I been calm in the face of provocations around me? Do I look like a fool?  I’m Fulani. There is a practical reason Yorubas salute us as the fair snake that enters the town like an invalid. If you want to catch a monkey, you must play monkey. It is only a snail-man that captures a snail. Read my body language, don’t look at him; he is noise, pure noise. I am the one you are trading with in this market, ignore the noise of this space. Chief, don’t fight, at least, not now.”

“The frog thinks its bulging eyes can frighten my zebra away from drinking at the stream. I know he enjoys politics as fish enjoys water. But, will fish stay in water when it is hot? I will make this party hot for him.”

“Chairman, I have never seen you this angry. Just ignore him. With patience, the wise licks a whole pot of hot soup. You don’t paddle through the treacherous sea with fury. It will drown you.”

“Your Excellency, I’m sorry if I appear implacable. The man feels everyone must be his victim. Every bush rat describes itself big. You are big relative to the size of your farm. When a child’s entire horizon ends with his father’s farm, he is likely to boast, even to the king, that the royal farm isn’t as large as his father’s. This city of power is not this bat’s neck of wood where he is the main issue. It is true he did well at the beginning of this journey. But, no matter how helpful you have been to someone, if you are immodest in your demands, you lose all respects. This gentleman has lost me. In fact, he lost me a long time ago…”

“If you are this angry, what do you want me to do? Every fumbling bride who can’t dance in this party blames either my drum or even me, the drummer. With what I have seen sitting here on this rock, I can write a million-page book. I don’t know where the chief hunter contests the throne with the king. His duty is to hunt and kill for the palace kitchen. That is the meaning of his chieftaincy. There is a problem when the hunter grumbles that he has no seat in the royal dining room. That has happened repeatedly but I’m not bothered. What I do is that I always ensure his excess fingers are cut each time he touches my sleeves.”

“Gaskiya, Your Excellency. I hear he complains everyday that he was trashed so soon after the war. What exactly does he want? He has eaten so much that he is about throwing up. What again despite all he has been enjoying? Why would the best man want to share the bed chamber with the groom and the bride?”

“Sheege! What a wicked proverb. The bed chamber is not a place for any third force. It is a sacred grove for only the licensed…”

“ Hahaha…Your Excellency…”

“My chair. You see, the Fulani everywhere have a particular delicacy. In Burkina Faso, it is called chobbal. It is a carefully prepared blend of pounded millet and raw milk. Here, the name is different. It is sweet and cooling but you don’t take it while on the grazing field unless you are under a spell. If you succumb to the enemy’s spell and drink it, you lose your cattle to careless slumber. That is the way I view this issue. I don’t want a distraction from experts at distraction, no matter the bait. It is the fish which opens its mouth that gets caught by the fisherman’s hook. I am keeping my powder dry. Just fall behind me and watch as I use some people to practise what I learnt in military school.”

“Interesting. Old soldier never die….”

“Yes. Old soldiers don’t die, they’ll rather fade away. That is why you bloody civilians always lose to us. We allow you to underrate us.”

“Huh. I hope this man hears this direct from Your Excellency. He doesn’t appear to know his limits. He even wanted me sacked. Can you imagine that sir? What did I do wrong to have merited his sack schemes? If not for you, I would have come down, just like that. I am eternally grateful to you, Your Excellency.”

“Why are you thanking me? I did it for myself, and that was because I realized he is an antelope hunting a leopard.”

“The antelope does not stand a chance…”

“You think so? A Fulani wouldn’t agree with you. You’ve never heard the Antelope and Leopard story before? Why the leopard always kills the antelope?”

“No. That must be interesting…”

“Leopard once thought Antelope was a friend he could strike a deal with. They had a deal and one thing led to another and Leopard became indebted to Antelope. Then Antelope turned himself to a beautiful girl whose charm cast a spell on the big cat. She started making demands. First she demanded the fiery eyes of Leopard be removed because they were not romantic. She got them and then asked for the claws which she described as unpleasant and dreadful. She got those ones too, and finally asked her suitor to remove his ugly teeth if she would agree to his advances. Love-drunk Leopard removed his teeth and became utterly useless and dying. Then the maiden showed who she really was — the Antelope. But it was too late for the defeated Leopard. That is what our friend wanted to do. If you can’t face the Iroko in the forest, start by attacking its roots one by one. Very soon, it will fall. I am the target of all these moves and I know. And if they don’t back off, they will soon know what we mean by  kare jini, biri jini…”

“Huh! The baboon and the dog will be soaked in blood.”

“Yes. Imagine a dog sauntering into a tiger’s bedroom.”

“That will be a bath in blood. But you have done so much for these people. What else can a man do for them to show gratitude?”

“You know General Obasanjo wrote about this in his book…”

“Which of his books? My Command or My Watch?”

“No. The one he wrote in prison.”

“Oh. This Animal Called Man.”

“Exactly. Obasanjo says in that book that ‘we must always brace ourselves for man’s ingratitude, indeed, man’s treachery…’ “

“He wrote that? But he is another problem that must be solved.”

“My chair, leave our boss o. He knows what he is doing and why he is doing it.”

“And there is this loud one from the north who attacks you everyday. He recently said he gave you a good book on economics and that you read only two pages…”

“That one. I don’t have his time. Must a man read all books? If I meet him, I will ask if he has ever read Winston Churchill’s views on books.”

“I will want to know that too.”

“Churchill said: ‘If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them – peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.’”

“Interesting. But sir, this lion in Lagos is due for taming. We can’t go to the 2019 bed with this snake constricting our rafters.”

“Every snake has a charmer. What taming is more effective than keeping your enemy busy fetching rain water with a basket? He is doing that for us already and we won’t ask him to stop. There will always be work for his hand to do until we cross the river next year.”

“The wise bird knows a dead tree is not where to build a nest. It will soon become firewood for women. I suggest a plan B in case he breaks loose from our spell.”

“Every soldier has a Plan B; even a Plan C…”

“ Soldiers! And you were so jovial with him at the Kano wedding on Saturday. I was wondering how you managed to stand him.”

“Do you throw away the kitchen sponge after washing the dishes? You will need it after the next dinner party. Besides, it is an unwise father who turns his daughter’s wedding party to a night of owls. I saw his worth as a friend and I can guess his worth as an adversary. In the military, we were trained to always keep the enemy within the range of our weapons. In politics, every friend is a potential enemy, so what you need is short range. The targets here are smart, very mobile, never stationary. Politicians are very clever people; they know that as the range increases, the options available to you decreases too. So, they try to keep a safe distance, but you must keep them within the range of maximum damage. And that is short range. You can’t slap someone who is not close to you. I won’t fight and throw this one away. I call him my frenemy — Friend and enemy. I will continue to keep him under my armpit.”

“Great. Now what do I tell the press outside? They are waiting.”

“Ignore them. They are not our friends.”

Former Minister of Education and Social Democratic Party (SDP) chieftain Mr Tunde Adeniran has said that members of Coalition for New Nigeria (CNM) will join the party, ahead of next year’s elections.

He said SDP will contest and win the presidential election because Nigerians will reject Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) at the poll.

Adeniran, who defected from PDP last week, spoke on his defection and the chances of his new platform at the polls. The Ekiti State-born politician spoke on the live Channels Television Programme, Sunrise.

The former minister’s remarks on the resolve of some CNM members to team up with the SDP has put an end to the speculation that they were in discussion with Labour Party (LP) on the possibility of taking refuge in the opposition party.

A source said having decided to join SDP, members of Mr Olusegun Obasanjo-inspired movement may have considered the hurdles on the way, if they apply to the electoral commission for registration as political party.

The former Ambassador to Germany contested for the chairman during the controversial national convention of PDP at Eagle Square, Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Prominent chieftains walked out of the venue in protest against alleged manipulation of the exercise.

Adeniran, who did not speak on the prospects of the CNM’s transformation into a party, said CNM members have resolved to join SDP, adding that the platform has become the third force.

He lamented that PDP, of which he was a founding father, has derailed from the vision of those who formed the party.

He recalled that the party was bastardised by its latter-day leaders, who have established themselves in the culture of impunity.

Adeniran said the behaviour of the party handlers became unbearable during its last national convention when new leaders were imposed on the members.

He said despite the assurance by the convention planning committee about a free and fair intra-party election, they later owned up that the situation was beyond their control.

Adeniran recalled that as one of the founding fathers, he hosted the first important meeting of the party in the Southwest, adding that PDP of today does not mirror the original vision of the founders.

He denied that he had become a spoiler, following his defection, stressing that there were compelling reasons for him and other defectors to leave the party.

The former minister said despite his vicissitudes as a party chieftain in the past, he kept faith with the platform.

The former minister said SDP will satisfy the yearning of Nigerians in their clamour for change in 2019.  He said: “We are contesting the presidential election and we are wining.”

The Nation 

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to their owners will begin by middle of May.

Ebonyi INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr Godswill Obioma, disclosed this at a strategic security interactive meeting on Wednesday in Abakaliki.

The strategic meeting involved INEC officials, representatives of security outfits involved in the conduct of the election as well as National Orientation Agency (NOA), and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

Obioma said that the commission would commence distribution of the PVCs to eligible electorate, who registered between 2017 and 2018.

He urged security officials, who were yet to register, to take advantage of ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) to register.

He further urged members of security agencies, who transferred from other locations, wishing to transfer their cards to Ebonyi to approach any INEC office nearest to them for the transfer.

He warned against double registration, noting that any double registration would result to cancellation and disqualification of the voter.

“We have concluded arrangements for the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards to their owners and the exercise begins by mid May and will involve those who registered between 2017 and 2018.

“We have begun early to plan for the 2019 elections and I want to assure you that we will do our best to eliminate factors that will compromise outcome, credibility and integrity of the elections.

“Let me use the opportunity to urge officers who have not registered to register and those wishing to do card transfer to visit any INEC office for the update,” Obioma said.

The resident commissioner said that the strategic meeting was part of the early preparatory arrangements by the commission aimed at mobilising its critical partners and stakeholders.

He said that the interactive security meeting would deepen collaboration between the security operatives and the commission and boost proper security arrangements and understanding ahead of the elections.

According to him, the meeting is running concurrently at the three senatorial zones of Ebonyi including Ebonyi South, Ebonyi Central and Ebonyi North senatorial zones.

“The briefing is called cluster briefing running concurrently at the three Senatorial zones of the state which has in attendance all security agencies involved in the Inter Agency Consultative on Election Security (IACES).

“The aim is to plan properly, especially in the areas of security and the idea is to share information on the proper conduct of elections.

“The commission is making plans in earnest for smooth, transparent and credible elections and we need adequate security to ensure safety and security of INEC staff and materials,” he said.

He explained that IACES had set up a security sub-committee to identify number of security personnel to be deployed to polling units and voting points.

He said that security operatives that would be involved in the election would undergo a joint training programme on election security.

He said the training would enable the operatives imbibe high ethical standard before the elections as well as equip them with knowledge of security strategies developed by INEC to ensure credible poll.

NAN

The Church, right from the medieval times, performed the role of the main stabilizing force in Western Europe. Not only did it provide religious leadership, it also offered the world secular leadership as well. Through the Roman Catholic Church, the Church satisfied the spiritual needs of the medieval society. The Pope, who headed the Roman Catholic Church, offered ordinary folks of the time earthly and spiritual comforts in troubled times. Since it was the largest landholder in Europe at this period, the Church also possessed wide-ranging and significant economic powers. It played a very dominant role in reviving, as well as preserving, ancient Greek and Roman texts.

In Africa, the church was no less dominant in the lives of the people. It played a formidable role in speeding up the end of colonialism and was responsible for the stoppage of slavery and apartheid in Africa, especially, its role in pushing up the internal contradictions of colonialism which led to the nationalist struggle for independence. The modern church has even played a greater role, especially in the mounting secular challenges of the 21st-century, most significantly, the increasing attempt by science and technology to swap the place of faith and the role of God in the lives of the human being.

Yes, science and technology have eliminated the spatial gaps in communication. Technology, for instance, has found easier ways of either curing or reducing the pains hitherto suffered in terminal ailments. In spite of the above, however, technology has proven critically unable to fill the void in the life of the human being. As predicted in II Timothy 3:1 which says, “but know this, that in the last days, perilous times will come,” the perilous times are actually here and science and technology are profoundly incapable of providing solutions to the existential pains suffered by humanity. The perilous times are the existential void, agony and crises that man undergoes today. The pains man underwent decades ago are little compared to his challenges today. The Church is still where people frequent for solutions to these existential crises and where they get “spiritual fixes” whenever they get to inexplicable crossroads of their lives.  

Overtime, governments were the pinnacle of hope of redemption for man and society. Today, however, governments, all over the world, are literally throwing their hands up in surrender. The perils and pains of society are proving intractable for secular powers-that-be, where man laid his hope. Unemployment has reached a crescendo that is unprecedented in the world; economic, health and social crises have proven really indomitable, in spite of coordinated attempts to tackle them. Hopelessness is becoming infectious like a pestilence and the world, which had made governments and technology its hope, especially since the renaissance period, is returning to the Church for the way out of its existential dilemma.

The above are also very true of the Nigerian situation. The situation is perhaps even worse. Economic and social problems in Nigeria are on the upswing, indeed in an unprecedentedly scary manner since the amalgamation of the country. Our children come out of schools every year to join an army of unemployed persons. In the bid to wriggle out of this societal hopelessness, our children take to drugs at frightening dimensions, making the rate of youth who take drugs today to climb to a pandemic level. Statistics of spousal abuses are becoming scary as pent-up angers and frustration about life are tearing husbands and wives asunder in homes. Never has the church faced this level of massive hopelessness and disenchantment of its flocks. Having encountered failure in looking up to government for remedy, the Church is the only hope of the people today.

Statistical data show that church members are more beggarly than they have ever been; in spite of the wealth of the Nigerian nation. Also, despite the unprecedented technological advancements made in the area of health, the number of church members who die of ordinary sicknesses and diseases and sundry other challenges are on the increase. The church is indeed the hope of the common man for remedy.

The political society has dealt very unkindly with the church. Every time election is nigh, politicians who pretend that they are examples of that meek and temperate servant in the bible, come to the church to seek its partnership in securing power. Once they assume power, however, not only do they fail to advance the cause of the people who constitute the catchment area of the church, they put greater burden on the church. 

Thus, the church cannot but be interested in good governance and a better society. To seek a better society, the church must fortify its understanding of what the power equation in society is, what the challenges are and why it has become such a rocket science for politicians to give the people good life. I guess this lecture is one of the church’s attempts at understanding what the challenges of good governance are and the way forward for Nigeria.

Challenges of 2019 elections

 In the build-ups to the Nigerian federal elections which will hold in 2019, there have been several fascinating and interesting scenarios which cannot but interest any student of history. Already, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has cried out that the growing number of political parties would certainly pose challenges to the commission in the 2019 general elections. According to the Chief Technical Adviser to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Bolade Eyinla recently, the 68 registered parties at present, which would translate into 68 party agents in each polling unit and 68 party names on INEC ballot papers, could pose a massive challenge of management to the electoral umpire. If this is added to the other challenge of INEC having to monitor the congresses, conventions and primaries of the 68 parties who are contesting for, conservatively, 1000 elective positions, the challenge could be imagined.

As we speak, President Muhammadu Buhari has on his table the Revised 2019 Electoral Bill. He is likely to decline assent to the bill, in which case, the National Assembly, by a two-third of the two houses, can override it. In the bill, the National Assembly reordered the course of the proposed elections as earlier scheduled by INEC. INEC had proposed to have the presidential and National Assembly elections first on the same day and the governorship and State Houses of Assembly last. However, the National Assembly changed this order to its own election coming first, governorship and Houses of Assembly election next and the presidential election to be held last. Many people have reasoned that the federal parliament was merely being smart as configuring its elections to hold same day with the presidential election could tie its fate with that of the president’s. Which the National Assembly does not want. Even though this was for selfish purpose, God is perhaps using the parliament’s foolish self-centeredness to establish the people’s electoral freedom from the hands of elections that do not represent the wishes of the people.

You will recall that this scenario of having the presidential election on the same day with that of the federal legislators paid off for the legislators in the 2015 elections because, many of them, relatively unknown by the electorate, got voted into office on the hitherto goodwill and name of General Buhari. However, today, same is not the story as the parliamentarians ostensibly felt that the president’s goodwill had plummeted greatly, a baggage he could carry into the elections.

The challenge of the practice of party politics in Nigeria today is also a major challenge to the 2019 elections. As I wrote in my column in the Sunday Tribune of March 4, 2018, I said that, comparatively, especially with the First and Second Republics, party politics, like everything bright and beautiful in Nigeria, has become withered flowers. Today, party politics has taken a turn for the worse. Not only has it lost its reverence, parties have no ideological base any longer. Moneybags superintend over the fates of political parties and this is simply because ordinary party men do not own the political parties. The only way to own the parties is to return to what obtained in the First and Second Republics where party men contributed weekly or monthly dues and had the power to ask how they were being administered or how their monies were being spent.

Political parties today have become mere organs of winning elections. Political party system, we must note, is central to the survival of any democracy. It is indeed the platform for recruitment of leadership. In Nigeria’s weak political architecture and absence of democratic political culture can be found the nil or weak democratic institutions of the Nigerian state. Some people have argued that the weak party politics Nigeria runs is a product of military authoritarianism and authoritarian legacy we inherited.

The result of the weak party structure that we have today in Nigeria is that, once the political party is not able to guarantee equitable choice, it destroys the foundation upon which representative government stands, limits and pollutes the choice of the people and ultimately provides a wonky and tainted foundation for the electoral process. And the holy writ asks that once the foundation is destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Once we do not get party politics right, we can as well forget about democracy. Party nomination or party primaries is the most integral element of democracy. These have been so corrupted in Nigerian party system, so much that there can be no logical mode of producing God-fearing representatives of the people with the current political party status quo. There is thus no wonder that Nigeria hasn’t been able to get democracy right since.

For the church and many Nigerians, the challenge goes beyond the above. In my estimation, the greatest challenge for the church is the quality and inner constitution of elected representatives who would carry the baton of power from 2019 and beyond. For, if Nigeria is not successful in electing God-fearing men and women into positions of power in 2019, who will in turn ameliorate the social burdens that have consequentially become the heavy load which the church carries today, the pressure on the church would multiply, probably leading to a revolt of immense proportion.

The first challenge which the church has to confront is the need for it to wake up from its apathy and lethargy of the past towards politics and the process of acquiring political power. You cannot blame the church wholesale for this. The church had been driven away from having anything to do with the process of seeking power. The backstabbing, murder, corruption, occultist search for power and sundry vices of politicking in Nigeria would make anyone who has integrity to protect to see politics and politicians as lepers. An average Nigerian politician will kill his father and rope his mother for the murder once it leads to political office. This has been on since the 1950s when indigenous party politics took over in the country. It has driven away many God-fearing people who had the heart of bringing meaningful changes into governance.

Over the years however, due to the abdication of space by the righteous for the unrighteous to reign, the worst of us have superintended over the best of us, while the collective keeps silent. Nigeria has been battling challenges of corruption, nepotism, selfish leadership, ethnic irredentism and cronyism, among sundry others. These challenges are brought about by the executive who execute haphazard and self-centered policies which have kept Nigeria down; as well as the legislators who legislate unrighteousness as the credo of Nigeria’s legal code. So, for how long will the righteous stay on the sideline and allow the heathens take up the space to foul up Nigeria? This perhaps is the greatest challenge which confronts the church as Nigeria marches to the 2019 elections.

The first way out is that the church must purge itself of its ancient allergy to politics. Not only must it come out of its hiding place, the church must take full and undisguised interest in who runs for offices, from the minutest to the biggest office in the land. Due to its closeness to the congregation, who make up the electorate and the people at the grassroots, the church has an understanding of who the nefarious people in communities and society as a whole are. It must move against the reprehensible set of people who contest elective offices and who have, over the years, drawn Nigeria backwards. The church must also wholeheartedly goad on and support the few good ones in society who demonstrate purity of mind and character.

Even though the time is very short, the time to begin this task is now. My personal take is that the church must however be religion-blind in this task. This is because there are several people out there of different and even nil faiths but whose purity of mind is not in doubt. The church must embark on a methodic process of identifying them and parceling them for the process of seeking political power. The same zeal with which the church evangelizes for lost souls must be deployed in searching for the thousands of pure souls who can be encouraged to change the already messed up status-quo. Even though there cannot be any logical expectation that the church would be hundred per cent successful in getting righteous men to be in power in 2019, whatever strides it makes could be the foundation for future attempts.  

The church must also encourage the calls for a return to full-blown democracy in political parties. As it is now, the political parties are in the hands of a very few cabals who do not mean well for Nigeria but who crave a rehash of the same political party system with which they promote charlatans and never-do-wells to political relevance. This has resulted in the unmitigated disaster of governance in Nigeria. Governors, ministers and other political party barons have hijacked the parties, the only vehicle through which anyone who wants to contest political office can deploy. The result is that, if party politics is this uncharted and atrocious, it would be difficult to change the status quo from what it is to what the church and Nigerians in general want it to be, so as to better the lot of the common man on the streets.

Party members must collect their parties from moneybags who run them today and this can be done by fastidiously paying their tokens at party meetings. We must also ensure that only those who have verifiable means of livelihood are nominated for party offices. The mistake of electing those who do not have verifiable means of livelihood is that, they become easily purchasable and worsen the take for the Nigerian people.

Perhaps the most important challenge for the church is how to mobilize its members and communities within its jurisdiction to collect the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC). This is an urgent imperative. Due to its age-long apathy towards the process of acquiring political power, the church has shown little interest in this core area of electioneering. For 2019, there must be an urgent reversal of this mindset. Since PVC ownership is a sine qua non for electing persons into office, other tasks earlier enunciated seem to be secondary when compared to the urgent need to collect the voter’s card. It would not be out of tune if the church dedicates some days to encouraging its members to collect the PVCs. It is when the church has ensured that members have sufficiently procured PVCs that it could go ahead with other strategic plans of securing the buying-in of its worthy sons and daughters into the task of vying for elections.

Of important interest to the church and the 2019 elections should be the current herdsmen’s crisis. It is apparent that President Buhari cannot be divorced from his paternalistic embrace of his kinsmen whenever they are at loggerheads with other Nigerians. He did that while Governor Lam Adesina was in office when he gathered his Fulani brothers and arrived Ibadan. He had asked the governor, why are your people killing my people? That was Buhari in his unpolluted essence. In today’s dailies, the president, toeing earlier comment of another Fulani, the Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, had said that the number of people (apparently Fulani herdsmen) killed in Taraba was more than those killed in Benue, Zamfara. It is the first time in my life I would hear such an indecorous comment from the president of a nation justifying a killing over the other.

What that means, as I said recently, is that if President Buhari is re-elected in 2019, he will continue to side with his Fulani herdsmen kinsmen in clashes with the rest of Nigeria. The killings will get to a climax and Nigerians will be forced to revolt. The presidency and its security apparatus, controlled by the likes of the Minister of Defence, who is also a Fulani and many other Northerners, will send in troops to repel the attacks. May God help us not to return to Aburi, post-2019.

More fundamentally, the church must begin to speak up on the side of righteousness over policies at local, state and federal levels. You will recall that your fellow clergymen – Bishops of the Catholic Church, recently spoke truth to power in an unprecedented way. They had met President Buhari at the Aso Rock Villa and told him to his face that the ship of state was in the process of capsizing. They spoke against the bloodletting in the country which are said to be superintended over by Fulani herdsmen and how the President had literally kept silent. I have said it at another forum that the blood that has been shed in the last years of President Buhari’s government has rivaled that which was shed in the Nigerian civil war. A combination of all those speaking up to power has culminated in the President waking up only yesterday to embark on tours of Taraba, Benue and Nassarawa states where the herdsmen have killed hundreds of people.

Even though Christians and politics are uneasy partners, we must begin to befriend politics. Of a truth, philosophers like Nietzsche believe that this kind of alliance could lead to crisis, but the facts of our current helplessness as a people dictate that the church must take more than a passing interest in politics. Nietzsche had said that we must be careful, lest in fighting the dragon, we become the dragon but doesn’t the church possess the fire of the Holy Spirit any longer? Should the fire that the dragon spits frighten the church?

In conclusion, I must state that the task of befriending politics in the build-up to 2019 for the church, is very crucial. It is indeed in the interest of the church to so do. Otherwise, there may be a revolt among the congregation at their worsening plights. May God have mercy on us all.

• Adedayo delivered this lecture at the Ibadan Anglican Church Diocese’s Clergy Seminar, held in Ibadan on March 6, 2018.   

1. c) a dynamic, productive, transformed and sustainable economy;
2. d) a just, fair, egalitarian and peaceful nation
3. e) a land of bright and full of opportunities for all Nigerians; and
4. f) a national culture of raising good leaders through effective mentoring;