By Owei Lakemfa
March has been a celebratory month as President Bola Tinubu turned 73. As the celebrations began, Nigerian Shiites were simultaneously being shot for marching on the streets. March 2025 has also seen an escalation in the unending Fubara-Wike drama. It has now soaked in the Presidency, Executive, legislative and judicial arms including the Supreme Court.
Equally, the Nathasha-Akpabio tango which began in the ballroom of the Nigerian Senate, has taken international stage.
It has also been the month when some perceptive Nigerians in organising a posthumous birthday for radical intellectual, Professor Nuhu Omeiza Yaqub, analysed the country’s past and suggested ways forward.
President Tinubu was on Friday, March 28, the eve of his birthday, at the National Mosque, Abuja for Jumat prayers. The faithful were also with him. The country was in a joyous mood as Ministers and Governors, legislators, political appointees and the hopeful were in a near-stampede to congratulate the President, and perhaps assure him that there is ‘no shaking’
Simultaneously, less than a ten minute- drive away, the Shiites were marking their international Qudus or Wufus. This Day of Ashura is designated a day of mourning the martyred. For over four decades now, they have dedicated this day as an annual international march for a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue.
So, if in a democracy, the Shiites march, exercising their fundamental right to freedom of religion, movement and assembly, how does it constitute a security threat for which the army and police annually open fire on the children, women and men in the procession?
All that is required by the Police Act, is for the police to provide protection for those marching or demonstrating, and for the general populace.
It appears that the annual murder of Shiites in Nigeria is beyond a so-called security reason. If the Shiites march, let them march! Are they marching with your legs? It is their religious belief, so the annual slaughter will not stop them from marching, and they have a fundamental human right to do so.
President Tinubu does not need to inherit the enemies of former President Muhammadu Buhari. The Shiites in Nigeria are not our enemies. If anything, they are our fellow citizens and government has the constitutional duty to protect all Nigerians irrespective of belief. Also, as Nigerians, we have the right to be briefed by government on how many Shiites were killed this Friday, how many injured and if there are still some being detained. We need an enquiry into this crime and how it can be prevented in future.
My final take on this is that we must make far less use of the army. Its intrusion in normal civil life is becoming pervasive and must be checked.
On Thursday, March 27, 2025, Nigerians were also on the march in the endless ritual of constitutional amendments. On that day, the House of Representatives passed 31 Bills after second reading. For me, the most attractive was one that seeks to review the requirements of those contesting the Presidential and Gubernatorial elections. It seeks to stop anyone above sixty years from contesting those positions.
I laughed. If by any miracle such an amendment is passed, we are in for another melodrama. Eighty year old politicians would start producing birth certificates or sworn age declarations that purport them to be fifty five! This is more so in a country where birth and death records are not readily available.
So, why not concentrate on enforcing existing requirements that can be better verified? For instance, the constitutional provision that such aspirants should process a minimum high school leaving certificate?
It reminds me of the case of former President Muhamadu Buhari who in contesting the 2015 elections, could not produce a school leaving certificate or any such documentary evidence. He claimed that the Nigerian Army had custody of his certificate. The Army denied. What is instructive is that for the eight years he was President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he could not produce the certificate he claimed he had deposited with the army.
The Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan saga is one of the wonders of the Nigerian polity. She was said to have refused to change her seat. She in turn, accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment. How these two matters constituted “gross misconduct” for which over 250,000 otherwise busy constituents would go queue to sign a recall petition, is baffling except that it might be one those scams in our politics.
There was the joke that the Senator had externalised the issue by taking it to the floor of the United Nations Inter-Parliamentary Union. Really? Do the people making this claim not realise that in a highly digitalized world, the altercation right from the Senate was already internationalized?
At the Prof Yaqub colloquium held on March 4, 2025 to repair the broken joints of the country, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU said the universities can make meaningful interventions in all aspects provided they are made eternally healthy. He submitted that: “ it is only by priotising knowledge solution through effective and development-focused university education that Nigeria can get back to its path of sustainable development.”
A father of Political Science in Nigeria, Professor Adele Jinadu said Africa needs an Afro-centric approach to governance and development based on five types of freedom; political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security. The road to Europe he argued, would not lead to salvation for the continent.
Senator Ita Solomon Enang, Presidential Adviser, National Assembly Matters, Emeritus, pointed out to developing countries that Trumpism is the best thing that has activated their economies and potentials; an opportunity to progress from Self-Governing countries to truly independent ones.
Human Rights lawyer, Femi Falana, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, submitted that the judiciary should have conscience and uphold social justice not technicalities.
Ambassador Joe Keshi, President of the Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria, ARCAN spoke on the need to employ diplomacy as a tool in solving Africa’s crises of democracy and development. He pointed out that the crises are international in nature, so the solution has to be national and international.
Dr Usman Oladipo Akanbi, President of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA in assessing Professor Yaqub who apart from being a leading political scientist and former Vice Chancellor in the Universities of Abuja and Sokoto State, was also engaged in the Arts, spoke about the public intellectual. He pointed out that in this new generation, the public intellectual rather than recede into academic obscurity, can evolve with the times and still contribute to upholding social justice by remaining true to the ideals of his status.
Obviously, Nigerians have a long way to tread.
