The bill had been tabled before – in 2016 – but it was not passed: some members of our party, working with the opposition, then stronger in numbers than today, blocked it.
This time around, there has been no such attempt by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to scupper the legislation. We cannot tell whether they remain opposed to it, for they have been too busy to let the 200 million citizens of Nigeria know. Instead, last week – whilst this matter was in the Senate, and the first Federal Budget following our February General Election, was being tabled before the House – the opposition’s full attention was elsewhere: on the affairs of the President, who we were told by the internet, was planning to marry in secret to one of his cabinet ministers.
The interminable nonsense of fake news is hardly unique to Nigeria. In the United States, Britain – indeed across much of the democratic world – we see waves of falsehoods and untruths peddled across digital and mainstream media. It has led to journalists and the press to become less trusted than almost any other profession or estate. Yet elsewhere, whether the fake facts emanate from governments or oppositions, neither have sought to abdicate their unique responsibilities in the act of governance.
In Nigeria, the opposition is close to reneging completely on the compact it holds with the voters. Every modern democracy exists for its checks and balances. Voters may elect a government to govern but they also elect an opposition – to oppose, to scrutinise, and to hold the majority to account. In the absence of either weight or counterweight, the scales of democracy become imbalanced. This cannot continue for long without the full functioning of governance being affected.
Whether citizens voted for President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC), or for the opposition’s presidential candidate and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP), no one voted for failure. They may have voted differently on policy and personality, but regardless of a voter’s choice of candidate and party, for their vote they expect responsibility. No voter expected, nor wanted, the opposition somehow to simply go missing. But that, effectively, is what they have done.
Immediately after the February election that saw President Buhari re-elected to a second four-year term, and his APC secure a workable majority both in the Senate and House, the PDP went to court to challenge the result.
The world over election losers tend towards “lawfare” once they have lost the campaign battle in the field. None can begrudge the PDP their day in court: yet it was never in doubt that they would fail to persuade the judiciary to overturn President Buhari’s 4 million votes and 14 percent margin of victory over his opponent.
“Biased judges!” screamed the opposition. Perhaps. Judges do tend to be biased – towards the facts. Yet those, it would seem, matter no longer to the opposition at all – for last week they opened their next salvo in lawfare by taking their exact same, fatally flawed case to Nigeria’s Supreme Court. We must sincerely hope the opposition have the wherewithal to appreciate they will fail once more, given the facts and the math remain the same.
The opposition’s over-excretions are leaving a mess for the elected government to clean up. These do not just extend to the fact that even the most serious, and well-intentioned anti-sexual harassment legislation needs scrutiny, or the fact that the opposition yelled “corruption, padding!” at the Federal Budget – even before it had been tabled. More importantly, it leaves a stain on the terms of acceptable debate.
The median age of our 200 million population is 18 years old. Over 100 million Nigerians have access to the internet, and to cell phones. Many will, of course, see the opposition’s fake news and failure to hold the government to account fully and sanely for what it is: dereliction of duty. But there will be those who do not.
Nigeria is leading the fight in Africa against terrorists claiming to be adherents of Islam. This battle is being won – but not without cost. Our fight matters not just to our country, or West Africa – but to the whole world. We are defeating the terrorists both through military and through educative means. We hold up to the terrorists the inalienable truth that society is better when there is reasoned debate, the exchange of views, argument without harm – and that it is through this process of consent which leads to unity.
Without that process working as it should, not only is good governance threatened but it imperils the principle of our system of governance – based on scrutiny of the executive based on facts – and makes it out to be a sham. It imperils the principle of governance by consent which is the firewall against impressionable young people being swayed towards terrorists, whom it emboldens. Nigeria’s opposition is missing. We need them back.
Garba Shehu is Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity.
On Ese Oruru, World Shook, And On KANO 9 Teenagers, World Goes Silent, By Kabiru Dalha
If we can recall sometimes about two years ago, there was a case of a girl called Ese Oruru from Bayelsa State, who eloped with her boyfriend to the hometown of the boy in Kura local government area of Kano State.
The girl was about 19 years old then and was pregnant for her boyfriend also.
The Kano born boy was popularly called ‘Yellow’.
The girl decided to change her religion from Christianity to her boyfriend’s religion which is Islam, out of her love for her boyfriend, but that was her greatest mistake and offence, which was transferred to her innocent boyfriend.
I could recall, Hell was let loose, a simple case of love affairs involving two teenagers and despite the efforts of the emir of Kano to address the issue it went out of hand as nearly all the media houses, civil society organisations, human rights activists, CAN and even some political leaders went on rampage insinuating grand design by Nigerian Muslims to convert their girls through abduction and forceful conversion to Islam.
All these voices sustained their campaign until they made sure that the helpless boy aka Yellow was jailed. Later on I think Ese Oruru was put to bed of a bouncing healthy child. The rest is now history.
The point I am trying to make here is that all those voices that were very loud during the Ese saga, a girl that willingly wanted to convert to Islam without changing her name are now dead silent on a more terrible and sensitive case.
Remember, like I said, Ese was about 19 years then, an age good enough to decide her fate and she was not stole from her parent. She willingly eloped with her boyfriend, but her parents changed the story and Yellow ended up in jail.
Now we are talking about nine innocent children all between the ages of two and 10 years, stolen from their parents and taken to Onitsha in Anambra State, renamed and converted to Christianity against their wishes. Yet all the noise makers cannot find their voices. What type of hypocrisy is this?
Where are all the media houses that are good at spreading even a less sensitive case than this? Where are all the civil society organisations that are good at echoing even a less important case compare to this?
What of all the Human Rights activists that claim to be protecting the rights of the citizens? Where are those political leaders from the North that want to at least make names?
I will not ask of CAN, because of the obvious reason that they are now happy because their followers have increased, but I would rather ask of those Muslim organizations that seem to be quiet in the face of this deadly case for the Muslim ummah.
Should the North and Northerners be this intimidated into keeping silence just because our own is at the helm of affairs?
Where is the Kano State government? This is the type of case that you need to champion to which all of us will support and rally around, irrespective of political interest, because the innocent children stolen do not even understand what politics is all about.
Those children are Kano children from Muslims parents that are stolen and converted to Christianity unknown to them, as such we must stand-up for them. Their State government must protect their rights and this protection must be visible. This is beyond politics, but it is a matter of forceful conversion to a religion without consent. It is a matter of life.
It so sad that the Northerners are being intimidated, beaten to shape and made to feel guilty of all our country’s woes, simply because our own is at helm of affairs. This is unacceptable!
This dangerous syndicate must be uprooted completely, and all the culprits must be severely punished to the glare and knowledge of everyone.
May almighty Allah save Us from ourselves.