A captain of a cargo ship and several crew members have been kidnapped by suspected pirates in Nigeria, Polish officials say. Several other sailors escaped capture by barricading themselves inside the vessel.
The attackers captured five Polish nationals, including the captain and three officers of the small cargo ship “Szafir,” Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said on Friday.
The assailants opened fire during the overnight incident in Nigerian waters. The ship sustained damage, but there were no reports of injuries and no traces of blood to be found, officials say.
The remaining 11 sailors managed to barricade themselves inside the ship during the encounter. They are safe and in contact by phone, according to Waszczykowski.
The incident appears to be a pirate attack, according to Sea Industry and Navigation Minister Marek Grobarczyk.
The ship was attacked while transporting metal cranes and other items from Antwerp in Belgium to Nigeria. “Szafir” is owned by a Polish company, but was sailing under a Cypriot flag.
The suspected pirates kidnapped the sailors some 30 nautical miles (56 kilometers) off the coast.
No official ransom demand was immediately made. Warsaw’s government is in contact with Nigerian officials and waiting to open negotiations, Polish officials said. However, the Polish authorities would not get involved directly unless asked to do so.
“This is a responsibility of the sovereign state of Nigeria,” Waszczykowski said.
Piracy has taken off in West Africa during recent years, with criminal groups hijacking ships to steal cargo, or taking hostages for ransom.
Earlier this year, suspected pirates killed four soldiers and a policeman in a coordinated attack on a military base in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta. [myad]
The Nigerian Navy in the Delta state has arrested a self propelled barge loaded with estimated 4000 metric tonnes, equivalent of 400 truck load of suspected crude oil in what the Central Naval Command, CNC, described as “a big break in the fight against oil theft” in the Niger Delta.
The Flag Officer Commanding (FOC), Rear Admiral Apochi Suleiman who briefed news men today at the Nigeria Navy Ship, NNS Delta in Warri said the boat, MT Camille, was caught on November 15 along with 11 man crew in Forcados waters where Shell operates an oil terminal.
“The crew captain is making serious confessional statement, but this is such a big break that we can’t let the details out now so as not to compromise the investigation. We have informed the oil majors operating in the area too.
“No ordinary person can put a 400 trucks capacity crude oil stealing boats on the river. This is a big break. We will get to the bottom of this and get the kingpins, working with other relevant stakeholders.”
The crew members were paraded by the Commander, NNS Delta, Commodore Raimi Mohammed who said they would be handed to relevant agency for further investigation and prosecution.
The crew captain whose name was withheld claimed they were sailing on a voyage from Thelma, Ghanna to Cameroon, adding that the boat was at the Forcados Rivers for get fuel and food when it was allegedly hijacked by gunmen who deployed them for the oil theft. [myad]
A 21-year-old rising Nigerian-born British singer and son of a pastor, Samm Henshaw has confessed that he was rebellious and anti-religious when he was growing under his parents.
“I hated it growing up as I felt that the choice to believe in God was not my own and also felt pressured to behave in a way that I did not want to behave. As a result, I became very rebellious and was very anti-religion until I decided to find God for myself and start building my own relationship with Him and allowing my beliefs and my faith to be my own choice, as opposed to it being force-fed down my throat.”
In an interview with The Voice, Samm said that his parents were not overly strict on him, saying: “looking back, they were just loving and caring but disciplined me where I needed to be disciplined. And yes, I do consider myself a Christian; I do believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and I am also definitely a work in progress!
The rising musician admitted that his parents and other family members supported his decision to pursue a career in music, saying: “my family is supportive of anything, as long as it’s wholesome and not negative or demeaning. They also saw I was gifted in the area of music and so definitely encouraged me to pursue it.
The musician who recently completed a BA (Hons) in Popular Music Performance, said:”I grew up on mainly gospel so artists like Kirk Franklin, Alvin Slaughter, Helen Baylor, Ron Kenolly, Fred Hammond and other gospel greats. Also more mainstream acts like Michael Jackson, the Spice Girls and Nsync.
He said that his Nigerian heritage shapes him in his day-to-day life, “from the food I eat to the jokes I tell. I’m very much in tune with my heritage and I love being Nigerian. We have the best banter in my opinion!” [myad]
The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has said that that no fewer than 3,500 male sex workers have been identified within the Abuja city center with most of them concentrated in Bwari, Gwagwalad and Municipla.
The Director-General of NACA, Professor John Idoko, made this known at a lecture to mark this year’s World AIDS Day in Abuja with the theme – Strategies for Ending AIDS in Nigeria by 2030, said that over 60 per cent of the men were found to be married, thereby raising concern of their spouses’ HIV status.
“Within the Federal Capital Territory, we found that if we focus our resources in three council areas of Gwagwalada, Bwari and Abuja Municipal, we would have covered a greater population of persons with HIV within the area,”
The Director said that the agency is developing interventions that would help reduce the contact between infected and uninfected persons. [myad]
A Consumer goods manufacturing company Procter & Gamble (P&G) Nigeria has donated hygiene products and personal care items to the Nigerians displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno state in particular and the North East in general.
The relief materials which were distributed by the UNICEF Nigeria including sanitary pads, baby diapers, toothpaste, batteries, and detergent which were aimed at helping to improve hygiene and basic comfort for the internally displaced in Borno State.
During a handover ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja today, Procter & Gamble Managing Director, George Nassar presented samples of the products to Borno State National Assembly Representative M.T. Monguno.
“Our mission is to touch and improve the personal health and well-being of Nigerians,” Nassar said. “This donation will help to meet some of the basic requirements of those who most need our support. We chose to work with UNICEF as it has a proven reputation in working with partners to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, and disease can cause,” he added.
“We thank Procter & Gamble for this generous donation,” said UNICEF Nigeria Representative Jean Gough at the handover ceremony. “It will make a big difference in the lives of the displaced in Borno, who struggle daily for basic necessities. We hope it will also help to inspire Nigerians to support those less fortunate in their country.”
While receiving the donation on behalf of Borno state, member of the House of Reprehensives, Monguno said: “this gift is very timely in view of the needs of the IDPs. This is a clear demonstration that Procter & Gamble is a patriotic corporate citizen.”
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) facilitated the donation. Aler Grubbs, USAID/Nigeria Deputy Mission Director said: “This effort by P&G and UNICEF is proof positive that corporate collaboration with development partners can promote vibrant and vital models for each side to extend assistance to underprivileged people.” [myad]
Even before the sudden death on November 22, of the governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 21 election, Prince Abubakar Audu, Kogi state had been turned into a case study for absurd democratic practice. The incumbent governor, Captain Idris Wada of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of all people, had raised an alarm that APC was planning to rig the election, as a result of which President Muhammadu Buhari had to invite the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, the police chief and other stakeholders to a brief meeting to address the issue. Indeed, it looked funny and strange to hear a governor of a state raising such alarm, whether false or real. For one thing, being the chief executive officer of the state and incumbent should have sufficed to make him (the governor) feel more comfortable with the election than the opposition. Despite such overzealous executive hysteria, the election went on with some measures of peace and tranquility, except in Dekina local government and a few other places, incidentally, in Igala land where hoodlums were on duty. The second absurdity was the declaration of the election as inconclusive by the electoral umpire when facts emerged to show that Prince Audu of the APC defeated Captain Wada by a little over 41,000 votes, whereas the number of votes cancelled or as a result of election not being held was over 49,000. Just when political and constitutional analysts were about to flip through the pages of the constitution to determine the level of and the consequences of an inconclusive election, one of the major actors, Prince Audu of APC died. The death of Prince Audu created one big emotional pent-up that snow-balled into a burst across the country, and in particular, across Kogi; a situation that had now led to all manners of absurd suggestions and even threats, mainly from PDP renting the charged air. One of such suggestions came from the APC leaders from Igala land, the Kogi Eastern Senatorial area, that the 43 year old son of late Prince Audu should be allowed to replace his late father as the APC governorship candidate, and possibly, governor of the State. From out of blue! Of course, the leadership from the Igala land cannot be faulted, but only pitied, for the simple reason that they are still struggling to come to terms with the reality that their beloved lion of the Niger was dead. And feeling giddy, they allowed emotion to take control as reason took flight. In fact, their suggestion for Audu’s son to replace him can be located within the circle of love the Igala people had for the late politician, but completely runs out of political reasoning. It was never known that Prince Muhammad Abubakar Audu ever participated in politics or campaign, or took part in any public function that had to do with APC. The Igala APC leaders might have been thinking out of the box: that political elective office is the same as succession to the traditional ruler’s throne or leadership. Yes, Prince Audu and, his son, emanate from royal system, but governing Kogi state has to manifest from political system, based on the relevant provisions in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the provisions in the electoral laws. There is no provision in the two legal books for the succession to the governorship through birth or even pure emotion. Another absurdity was the national leadership of PDP, represented by a lone-ranger, Olisa Metuh, asking the INEC to declare Captain Wada of PDP winner of the inconclusive election. Though nothing much to say on this other than that such call ought not to have come from even an illiterate in the remotest part of the country. In fact, Metuh has always been quick to comment on political issues, lambasting, most times, the APC or President Buhari or both, so much that most times, it is arrant ignorance that he churns out to the dismay of even his few admirers. Metuh needs to go back to political classrooms to learn the elementary side of opposition politicking, and much more, the political/electoral systems that are meant to produce leadership. Not to be left out in the absurdity is the running mate to late Prince Audu, James Faleke. Just so that it would not appear as if he had been beaten into a corner by unnecessary noisemakers, Faleke wrote to the INEC, asking that he be declared governor-elect in an election that had long been declared inconclusive. Indeed, the drama that played out where the Attorney-General of the Federation and minister of Justice indirectly asked INEC to call for nomination of replacement for late Prince Audu and the swiftness with which INEC moved to announce December 5 as a date for the conduct of the supplementary election were part of the entertainment side of the absurdity, which many Nigerians either for good or ill contend with, depending on which side of the fence you are sitting. The fog that rose with the declaration of the election inconclusive and the sudden death of Prince Audu is likely to clear either by judicial pronouncement or the electoral process or otherwise, in the days ahead. Meanwhile, the absurdities are still playing out, either to entertain, insult the sensitivity of the sane ones or simply to display total ignorance. We are watching. [myad]
He was the man to beat prior to the Kogi State governorship poll that commenced on November 21. Many days after the inconclusive poll, the death of the late Abubakar Audu, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), continues to beat and confound all expectations, permutations and calculations. This was Audu’s third attempt to become the governor of Kogi State, after previously occupying the office between 1992 and 1993, and again from 1999 to 2003.
Audu’s second coming as governor was less than auspicious. His tenure was largely overshadowed by tales of rampant corruption and graft. Many Nigerians resident in the US at that time remember tales of the governor from Nigeria who reportedly turned the high-brow and affluent city of Potomac, Maryland, into his personal estate, due to the number of expensive properties he allegedly owned there. That governor was Audu, even though the man also laboured at every turn then to deny the rumours and allegations as completely unfounded.
It is the disturbing “firsts” thrown up by Audu’s recent unfortunate death that have continued to seize the public imagination. No other governorship aspirant in Nigeria has been known to die in the middle of an election he was poised to win. Audu also had the unenviable distinction of having his opponent in the same election and incumbent, Captain Idris Wada, declare a seven-day mourning period in his honour, with a three-day holiday for residents of the state added in for good measure. Wada’s gesture was meant as a honour, of course, but it was a morbid and unfortunate one, no less. After all he was already losing to Audu in the same election in which both men were the only major candidates.
The novel nature of Audu’s demise has reverberated the most in the arena of Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence. Lawyers, legal scholars, politicians and well-meaning Nigerians are falling over themselves trying to explain the way forward in the aftermath of Audu’s death. Well into a week into that process the vexing, if overwhelming, consensus appears to be that there are many ways forward, with none leading to an immediate solution, until the matter probably grinds its way to the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Notwithstanding the widespread and divergent opinions, existing laws appear to provide reliable guidance on the matter, but only if the jostling of various political and other competing interests do not get in the way.
The most pertinent guidance appears to be found in a joint reading of Section 221 of the 1999 constitution and Section 33 (2) of the 2010 Electoral Act (as amended in 2014). While the former reiterates the supremacy of the political party as the sole beneficiary of the electoral process, rather than the individual candidate presented by that party for an election, the latter states unequivocally: “If the candidate whose name was submitted to the Commission dies or withdraws from the election, the political party, which nominated the candidate, shall forward to the Commission the name of the aspirant who scored the second highest number of votes at the primaries as the substitute candidate.”
These words envisage the circumstance of the late Abubakar Audu’s demise: he was involved in an election which can still be regarded as ongoing when he died, since the polls was declared “inconclusive”. The late Audu had also not been declared the winner, even though he was leading other candidates in the same election. More crucial, the words of Section 33 (2) of the Electoral Act envisage that any election that falls within its ambit, such as the one that started on November 21 in Kogi State, must be concluded one way or the other, once the affected party is able to replace its candidate who died while the election was ongoing, as in Audu’s case.
The other words in Section 33 (2) of the Electoral Act certainly throw up the scenario that might invite unbridled—and selfish—political interests to get in the way of an otherwise good law. They mandate the APC, which nominated Audu as its candidate after a keenly-contested primary, to do one thing and one thing only: draft the man who came second to Audu in those primaries as its new candidate in the election that Audu started, and which now remains inconclusive, until INEC completes that process, hopefully in the next few days or weeks.
That man or candidate should certainly not be Audu’s son, daughter or family member as it is now being canvassed in certain quarters, nor even his running mate in the inconclusive elections. The latter assertion, of course, may be deemed very unfortunate in certain quarters. But as those who drafted that law must have realized it takes far more to contest in a party’s primaries, even as one who simply makes up the numbers, than to stand away from that fray and later find oneself appointed running mate by the winner of those primaries because of ethnic, gender, religious or other considerations.
. Soboyede is a public affairs commentator. [myad]
“My brother, let’s just say I slept at a fuel station, looking for fuel.”
“For which of the women in your life, because I hear these days, to please a woman in Nigeria, you must be ready to supply the three major things lacking in the land: money, fuel, and happiness.”
“Leave that matter, please. My condolences on the death of your man, Governor Abubakar Audu”
“We thank God for his life. He played his part.”
“To be so close to breasting the tape and then fall.”
“I know. I know. May be if he had not insisted on running again for the office of Governor in Kogi state, he would still be alive today.”
“The man drove himself too hard, publicly and privately. He ran for every Gubernatorial election in Kogi state since 1991. There must be something special in being Governor for him.”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead, I beg you. Simple etiquette.”
“But you know now?”
“I don’t know nothing”
“Then the man went and married a young, 23-year old. If the election had been concluded and the man had won, the First Lady of Kogi state would have been a 23-year old lady! Those who seek public office should always weigh their lifestyle and their health against their ambition, but politicians act as if they are superhuman.”
“Can you stop?”
“A 74-year old man, with a 23-year old wife. That alone is enough to give anybody hypertension.”
“He was 68”
“Official age. He was 74, somebody told me.”
“Excuse me! Respect the dead, please. Abubakar Audu was a democrat extraordinary, a courageous politician, a visionary, selfless, man of the people, and his party’s popular choice.”
“My view is that it is not the election in Kogi that is inconclusive per se, a supplementary election will be organized, a winner will emerge; it is Audu’s death that is inconclusive considering the many issues it has thrown up.”
“What kind of talk is that? Death is final. It is the cessation of all things, a necessary end.”
“Nothing has ended with Abubakar Audu’s death oh. Did you not see the desperate efforts made to get some Prophets to resurrect him? And some people actually believed that he could be the Lazarus of our time! They started jubilating.”
“That is concrete proof of his popularity. But I was shocked seeing Nigerians will believe anything, and being so superstitious. Even the grave diggers stopped digging, waiting for the prophets to perform a miracle.”
“I hear there was a meeting of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the Kogi election but the moment the prophets waded in, even INEC suspended its meeting and did not reconvene until the prophets failed.”
“Only in Africa!”
“When the Prophets didn’t deliver, people got angry. They could have lynched those Prophets”
“Well, at least, some people will now know that the prophets are not always right in the age of biology and science. Who could have been behind such a hare-brained scheme?”
“The man’s in-laws, for example.
“Oh, come on”
“Or persons who may have been promised appointments and contracts. Or it could be persons who invested in his candidacy. Elections in Nigeria are business investments. The investors must have thought of a last minute strategy to reverse the situation. Simple economics. ”
“You and your theories. The same people will do business with whoever eventually wins the election, anyway.”
“There is also the inconclusive matter of the 23-year old wife. When the death was announced, many commentators on social media were more concerned about the young widow. Comments about how she will cope, what she would do next. One guy asked for her phone numbers.”
“Stupid, callous fellow.”
“Another fellow actually said he was ready to inherit all of Audu’s assets and liabilities in that regard.”
“Let him go ahead. Ole!”
“Besides, Audu’s death has turned everybody into a Constitutional expert. What happens if a candidate dies in the course of an inconclusive election? Who becomes the new candidate?”
“Simple. The APC will field another candidate, appeal to whoever is aggrieved within the party to step down until an appropriate candidate who definitely must be Igala, is identified. I don’t see the APC fielding any candidate who will automatically make them lose the election.”
“You think the APC candidate must still be Igala? But nothing is ever that straightforward in Nigerian politics.”
“Of course, otherwise, it will be a walk-over for Governor Idris Wada. The Igalas have the numbers. Politics is a game of numbers. The stakes are high. I foresee many court cases”
“Let them field Audu’s young widow then”
“Are you out of your mind? Why are you so obsessed with this lady?”
“Or may be his son. Does he have any son who is qualified? Let them make it a family affair. If he had supported his son as a candidate…But people just don’t know when to quit and hand over to the next generation.”
“With a 23-year old wife, he was definitely committed to the next generation.”
“Some people are of the view that his running mate should just run with the mandate, but I don’t think the circumstances favour him. He is from a minority group in Kogi state. He is a Christian, and the party may not back him.”
“Poor James Faleke”
“Yeah, he must be troubled. What if he and Audu had won. And they had been sworn in. But now, there are no guarantees.”
“God’s will is supreme. That is one lesson we all must learn from all this. Remember Abacha? When it was time, God intervened. We are all pencils in God’s hands. You can amass all the wealth in the world, marry all the young women, misapply the people’s money, get so close to Cannan, but you can then fall sick and die. In life, things happen and all you have left is six feet, rich or poor, six feet.”
“Six feet”
“I hope Robert Mugabe knows this. I hope Grace Mugabe knows.”
“Why Robert Mugabe?”
“Didn’t you read that story about 50-year old Grace Mugabe, First Lady of Zimbabwe, buying her Robert, a special wheelchair?”
“The way you pronounced Robert, you make it sound like Robot”
“Isn’t that what the 91-year old President of Zimbabwe has become, a Robot. Grace Mugabe’s Robot”
“Sad. In his days, Robert Mugabe, multiple degrees holder, was a shining star. And now, his wife is pushing him around”
“She actually has a PhD, awarded in two months, without examination or dissertation, by her Robert in his capacity as Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe!”
“Mugabe! A Pan-Africanist, who stood up to the British and neo-colonial imperialism; today, he is falling down at public functions, he reads the wrong speech in parliament, he is old and tired, and yet he won’t quit.”
“He should. Zimbabwe already has the oldest President in the world, and he has been in power since 1980- 35 years!”
“With a wife like “Dis Grace” Mugabe, he won’t. She says she is ready to push the wheelchair herself, just in case anybody is in any doubt.”
“I won’t put anything past that woman. Didn’t she once proclaim that any woman who wears mini-skirt and gets raped should not complain? Is that not the same woman who punched a journalist in the face during a foreign visit?”
“Mugabe has stayed too long and has allowed a woman to destroy his legacy. He is so smitten with “Dis-Grace”, he allegedly fired his Chief of Defence Staff last year for staring at her derriere!”
“That’s madness.”
“But the woman get am oh. The thing dey; very seriously. And you know in that part of Africa, the women don’t need to buy it and enhance it like Kim Kardashian, the thing just dey and you can lose your head.”
“I think someday in Africa, we’d have to start voting for these First Ladies too. Voters should be given the right to choose the President’s wife, or at least they should be screened by parliament. In Africa, the wives wield so much influence.”
“They do in other places too. It is the man that matters.”
“When Mugabe sits in that wheelchair, Zimbabwe is finished!”
“For democracy to work, we need to worry about the leadership recruitment process in Africa. How do we free democracy from a debilitating sense and culture of entitlement. How do we get persons who are still up to it, and who will not aspire to rule till they are on wheelchair or life-long medication.”
““All men who play God and who aspire to be God, let them be reminded, it is just six feet. In Cameroon, Paul Biya has been sitting tight for 33 years, in Congo, Nguesso has been in power for 36 years, in Equitorial Guinea, Mbasogo is almost a god in human form. And you have dos Santos in Angola (36 years) Bashir in Sudan (22 years) Museveni in Uganda (29 years), Idris Deby in Chad (25 years) and Jammeh in Gambia (21 years).”
“Six feet. Just six feet in the grave.”
“I hope they all know.”
“It is also a lesson for the poor, including those young ones who play God with their talents.”
“Absolutely. There are people these days who play God with their laptops, their pens and I-pads. Imagine some people jubilating over other people’s misfortune.”
“Six feet, my brother, not an inch more nor less. In the grave, all men are equal.” [myad]
The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court has let the former governor of Bayelsa state, Timipre Sylva off the hook by dismissing the 50-count criminal charge that was entered against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Trial Justice Ademola Adeniyi dismissed the charge on the ground that it constituted a gross abuse of the judicial process even as he barred the anti-graft agency from ever filing another charge against Sylva based on the facts of the case that was dismissed.
Sylva is currently the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the election scheduled to hold in Bayelsa State on December 5.
He was in the charge that was dismissed yesterday, alleged to have connived with three others- Francis Okokuro, Gbenga Balogun and Samuel Ogbuku- and siphoned over N19.2billion from the Bayelsa State. [myad]
The Corps Marshal and Chief Executive of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi has recommended the use of bicycles to beat traffic gridlocks in some areas of Lagos.
Oyeyemi who spoke at a one-day Transport Summit in Lagos, advised the Lagos State government to fully implement the State Traffic Law 2012.
This was even as governor Akinwunmi Ambode said that his government has strong political will to take tough decisions and implement effective strategies to bring about a robust traffic management system in the state.
He reiterated the need to empower traffic officials and install monitoring cameras at major road intersections to record traffic offenders, while advocated the use of bicycles as alternative means of transportation in some areas of the city to reduce traffic congestion.
Ambode admitted that immediate solutions were needed to achieve future aspirations in respect of Lagos traffic. [myad]
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A captain of a cargo ship and several crew members have been kidnapped by suspected pirates in Nigeria, Polish officials say. Several other sailors escaped capture by barricading themselves inside the vessel.
Audu: One Death, Many Ghoulish Firsts, By Akeem Soboyede
He was the man to beat prior to the Kogi State governorship poll that commenced on November 21. Many days after the inconclusive poll, the death of the late Abubakar Audu, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), continues to beat and confound all expectations, permutations and calculations. This was Audu’s third attempt to become the governor of Kogi State, after previously occupying the office between 1992 and 1993, and again from 1999 to 2003.
Audu’s second coming as governor was less than auspicious. His tenure was largely overshadowed by tales of rampant corruption and graft. Many Nigerians resident in the US at that time remember tales of the governor from Nigeria who reportedly turned the high-brow and affluent city of Potomac, Maryland, into his personal estate, due to the number of expensive properties he allegedly owned there. That governor was Audu, even though the man also laboured at every turn then to deny the rumours and allegations as completely unfounded.
It is the disturbing “firsts” thrown up by Audu’s recent unfortunate death that have continued to seize the public imagination. No other governorship aspirant in Nigeria has been known to die in the middle of an election he was poised to win. Audu also had the unenviable distinction of having his opponent in the same election and incumbent, Captain Idris Wada, declare a seven-day mourning period in his honour, with a three-day holiday for residents of the state added in for good measure. Wada’s gesture was meant as a honour, of course, but it was a morbid and unfortunate one, no less. After all he was already losing to Audu in the same election in which both men were the only major candidates.
The novel nature of Audu’s demise has reverberated the most in the arena of Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence. Lawyers, legal scholars, politicians and well-meaning Nigerians are falling over themselves trying to explain the way forward in the aftermath of Audu’s death. Well into a week into that process the vexing, if overwhelming, consensus appears to be that there are many ways forward, with none leading to an immediate solution, until the matter probably grinds its way to the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Notwithstanding the widespread and divergent opinions, existing laws appear to provide reliable guidance on the matter, but only if the jostling of various political and other competing interests do not get in the way.
The most pertinent guidance appears to be found in a joint reading of Section 221 of the 1999 constitution and Section 33 (2) of the 2010 Electoral Act (as amended in 2014). While the former reiterates the supremacy of the political party as the sole beneficiary of the electoral process, rather than the individual candidate presented by that party for an election, the latter states unequivocally: “If the candidate whose name was submitted to the Commission dies or withdraws from the election, the political party, which nominated the candidate, shall forward to the Commission the name of the aspirant who scored the second highest number of votes at the primaries as the substitute candidate.”
These words envisage the circumstance of the late Abubakar Audu’s demise: he was involved in an election which can still be regarded as ongoing when he died, since the polls was declared “inconclusive”. The late Audu had also not been declared the winner, even though he was leading other candidates in the same election. More crucial, the words of Section 33 (2) of the Electoral Act envisage that any election that falls within its ambit, such as the one that started on November 21 in Kogi State, must be concluded one way or the other, once the affected party is able to replace its candidate who died while the election was ongoing, as in Audu’s case.
The other words in Section 33 (2) of the Electoral Act certainly throw up the scenario that might invite unbridled—and selfish—political interests to get in the way of an otherwise good law. They mandate the APC, which nominated Audu as its candidate after a keenly-contested primary, to do one thing and one thing only: draft the man who came second to Audu in those primaries as its new candidate in the election that Audu started, and which now remains inconclusive, until INEC completes that process, hopefully in the next few days or weeks.
That man or candidate should certainly not be Audu’s son, daughter or family member as it is now being canvassed in certain quarters, nor even his running mate in the inconclusive elections. The latter assertion, of course, may be deemed very unfortunate in certain quarters. But as those who drafted that law must have realized it takes far more to contest in a party’s primaries, even as one who simply makes up the numbers, than to stand away from that fray and later find oneself appointed running mate by the winner of those primaries because of ethnic, gender, religious or other considerations.
. Soboyede is a public affairs commentator. [myad]