The Lame-Duck President Hiatus – Unhelpful for Emerging Democracies.

by Eze Eluchie,

The disdain and odium the ‘lame-duck’ posture foisted on the occupant of an executive political office (particularly that of President) by virtue of the time lag between the election of a new candidate and the departure of the incumbent from office, often times presents a risky and fluid transitional period which if not properly controlled may lead to unsavoury outcomes. For instance, whilst the pacifist nature of former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, who conceded defeat early as soon as it was clear he had no path towards being re-elected had served to douse tension and give the incoming President a smooth path to office, ensuring a smooth ‘lame-duck’ period; on the other hand, the picturesque West African country of The Gambia, is currently in a state of political flux resulting from comments made by the President-elect and some of his supporters during President Yahya Jammeh’s ‘lame-duck’ period, after the incumbent had publicly conceded defeat, were deemed sufficiently provocative and troubling for the incumbent and his supporters, for the incumbent to renege on his earlier resolve to depart office at the end of his tenure and support the President-elect/incoming President.

In the case of the United States, the space between 8^th November of the election year and the 20^th January handover date has always served to facilitate a smooth transition, preparing the incumbent to ease out in peace whilst allowing the incoming President sufficient time to understudy the enormity of functions and issues to be addressed by US Presidency distinct from the euphoria of electoral campaigns. This arrangement, which had worked near seamlessly for decades, is now unraveled in a most unpalatable way, leading to the ridiculing and scaring of the exalted office of the President of the United States.

After his party’s candidate lost in the Presidential polls despite his having thrown in all the political capital he could muster into the fray, including degenerating into some uncouth language in response to now President-elect Donald Trump’s bombastic and highly unrestrained gutter approach to campaigning, US President Barack Obama was left in the very awkward situation where his successor in office had promised to virtually wipe away whatsoever legacies he, Obama, might have laboured for during his stint in the White House these past eight years.

In a bid to preserve his legacies, particularly in the areas of environmental protection/conservation and health insurance, President Obama had to resort to Executive actions which to all intents and purposes were geared to frustrating the ability of his successor-in-office to easily roll-back achievements of the Obama presidency – incredulous as it was, a US President was in effect, undermining the abilities of his successor-in-office to succeed/fulfill his electoral promises. 

Had the schism been restricted to domestic affairs, it would have been partially all well and good. Things however get murkier when the efforts to undermine the successor regime got extended to involve actions impacting on foreign authorities and Governments. From the surprising abstention in a UN Security Council vote against the State of Israel, to a scathing address, shortly thereafter by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, castigating the Government of Israel and the decision to expel 35 Russian Embassy officials and the closure of two Russian diplomatic building in the US, the outgoing administration of Barrack Obama seemed to have become hyper-active in seeking to undermine the powers and integrity of the succeeding Government of the US. The actions concerning the State of Israel had clearly been geared towards stoking ill-will against the incoming Trump administration which had promised to revive US-Israeli relationships, a relationship which had gone sour during the Obama days, and recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel; whilst the Russian diplomatic face-off was clearly aimed at rubbishing the promised rapprochement Trump had assured the US electorate he intended to seek with the Russians and making any efforts by the incoming President Trump to fulfil the pledge on Russia appear at variance with common sense and the interests of the United States.

For the stature of the United States, the age old injunction never to wash dirty linen in public soon came haunting. In response to the Secretary of State’s comments against the State of Israel, in addition to the unprecedented and swift tongue-lashing of the US Secretary of State’s comments by the Israeli Prime Minister, the British Government, (yes, even the British Government who ordinarily would never utter a sound against any US position), felt emboldened enough to condemn John Kerry’s remarks. On its part, the very matured Russian response of no response whatsoever, to the extremely hasty expulsion of Russian Embassy staff and closure of Embassy premises, certainly portrayed the US presidency in poor light before the international community.

The lacuna in leadership in the White House created by the lame-duck period, made more prominent by the confusion as to who was really in charge, with the in-coming President tweeting policy statements and making pronouncements which further diminished the stature of the incumbent occupant of the US Presidency. Many outside the United States felt moved to respond more to utterances from the incoming who had a full term ahead in the White House than the out-going who with less than 2 months left in his tenure was more focused on ‘protecting legacies’ than governance; the post-election transitional period in the US presidency is proving to be a huge burden to not only the stature of the US but also to the transitional process in a democracy.

The United States has a long and well established pedigree in democratic governance and practices, and so has inbuilt institutional structures and mechanisms to withstand the affront posed by the Lame-Duck period or the likelihood of an in-coming President being publicly disrespectful and cantankerous of the incumbent out-going President. Sub-Sahara African states or others with yet evolving democratic structures might not have the patience and capacity to withstand the tension and pressure inherent in the Lame-duck period.   

Why should anybody outside of the United States and particularly non-citizen of the US be concerned about the any diminution in the stature of the Office of the President of the US? Just like the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had hitherto served as a balancing factor in international affairs and relations was a great minus for the global community; the loss of stature of an Office that personified the ideals of democratic precepts should likewise be of concern to the international community as a whole.

Soon enough, the consequences of the US having an inward-focused President with diminished global stature and respect will come haunting. Already, increased volatility in relationships between South Korea and Japan, a likely 4^th Intifada, and a weakened NATO are but a tip of the iceberg of what portends to be an interesting period for global affairs and inter-State relations sequel to the self-inflicted wounds of the lame-duck period of the US presidency. 

Picture: The outgoing 44^th and incoming 45^th US Presidents.

Pyrrhic Victory: Buhari Celebrates the ‘Capture’ of a Piece of Rag!

by Eze Eluchie,

What really did Mr. Buhari and his military commanders think they had achieved by ‘capturing’ a rag-tag hand painted flag of Boko Haram from the over-hyped Sambissa Forest? Is the piece of cloth representative of the Boko Haram spirit and its 'capture' thus indicative of the end of Boko Haram?

Did Buhari and his Officers mistake this rag-tag piece of cloth for the ‘Military Colors’ associated with standard armies that must be protected at all costs and never be captured? Are Nigerians and the wider international community supposed to applaud this ‘feat’?  

It is perhaps high time an evaluation of the curricular of the various Military trainning courses some of our military leaders attend is undertaken, to ascertain the efficacy of such training to modern day realities. It’s either the curricular of such military training institutions are suspect or Nigeria has been sending intellectually challenged personnel to such institutions leading to graduates of such institutions not imbibing what they had been taught. I doubt that the Military training institutions in Aldershot, Sandhurst, Carlisle or Chennai, on which Nigeria has spent several millions of dollars on training of military officers could have taught our soldiers to celebrate the capture of a rag from a bunch of terrorists.

The fact that what they claim to have ‘captured’ is at variance with the known Boko Haram flag does not seem to douse their misplaced sense of achievement. And to imagine that the 'captured' flag was handed over to the Commander-in-Chief at an elaborate event held at the official residence of the President, to which the media was invited!@# 

Clearly, these guys are far more clueless than one had ever envisioned – and the malaise is clearly getting worse by the day.

Picture: Nigeria President, Muhammadu Buhari receiving the ‘captured’ Boko Haram ‘flag’ from Major General Irabor (Commander of Nigeria Army’s Operation Lafiya Dole) at a lavish ceremony in the State House, Abuja; second pix, Abubakar Shekau, with the Boko Haram ‘flag’ serving as his background.

Nigerian of the Year 2016 - Mrs. Rose Oruru

by Eze Eluchie,

In a year when the national economy nosedived with inflation spiraling out of control forcing many Nigerians to dispense with their cultural and traditional hospitable nature; when terror elements had a field day blowing up stuff and maiming at will despite bogus claims of the terrorists having been ‘technically defeated’; and when some erstwhile intellectual role models for the youths incredulously somersaulted from Olympian heights to unfathomable depths from which they will most probably not be able to climb out before their demise – one of them who had climbed to prominence via criticizing societal ails turned to abusing the entire population for daring to point out his glaringly silly gaffe concerning electoral outcomes in foreign lands, and the other who had through the course of his life pretended to be interested in true Federalism and supremacy of the constitution turning round, for lucre, to praising brutal attacks by security operatives on the judiciary and mocking the practice of separation of powers upon which our pretense at democracy is hinged; it would ordinarily appear that all hope is lost for the Nigerian contraption and there is none in the land worthy of being singled out as a positive role model, a person of the year.

Far from it! It is in the midst of adversity and tribulations that the goodness in our peoples shone the more. 

People who seem to have comparatively less prove more generous. Families who had a sole bag of grain willingly shared out measures from their store to those less endowed; Cooperatives emerged where none had hitherto existed to soften the economic strain on their members; neighbors anonymously paid for the school fees when they noticed youngsters who ought to be in school loitering around long after their mates had returned to school; Muslim families risked all to harbor and accommodate non-Muslim neighbors when that bout of murderous lust for blood that has become the norm in our northern fringes sets in; Our peoples, in their various localities, live and exhibit the best qualities of humanity, giving lie to the perception their ruler wants the international community to know them by – as a ‘fantastically corrupt’ specie of the human race.

In Year 2016, one woman rose head and shoulders above her country folks to best exposé the virtues of an irrepressible spirit, fearlessness and never-say-die-till-goal-is-achieved attitude imbued in the average Nigerian and qualify to be recognized as the Nigerian of the Year, a role model most worthy of emulation.

When her 14-year old daughter (Ese Oruru) was kidnapped from right under her nose in Yenegoa (Bayelsa State) in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region by a philanderous butcher (Yunusa Dahiru) who disappeared into the uncharted Nigerian wilderness, Mrs. Rose Oruru did not consign herself to wailing and gnashing of teeth. This Amazon, in the face of the usual and most unfortunate failure of the local police authorities to conduct proper investigations apprehend and prosecute culprits, plunged herself head-on into rescuing her daughter. Mrs. Oruru’s personal investigations led her, over a thousand kilometres away, to the Palace of the Islamic ruler of Kano city, the Emir, where her daughter’s kidnapper had taken refuge and where a sham marriage had been conducted to forcefully join the kidnapped under-aged girl in matrimony with her kidnapper.

At great risk to her life, Mrs. Oruru, who was making her very first visit to Kano State, pestered the entrance of the Palace of the Emir of Kano (a huge fortified premises with hundreds of rough thugs serving as a first-layer of security) imploring on anyone who cared to listen to help retrieve her daughter from the kidnapper and his very ‘politically powerful’ overlords. Mrs. Oruru’s uncommon valour and insistence caught the police and state authorities flat-footed with all manners of despicable denials and statements emanating from the various Commands of the Nigerian Police (Bayelsa and Kano State in particular) through whom the kidnap case had passed through without any real actions being taken and the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force, Mr. Solomon Arase, who elevated the shame of the Police to  arduous levels when he asserted that though the Police Force knew where the kidnapped girl was being kept, the release of the under-aged girl was dependent on approval by the Emir of Kano, Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, (a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria) who was then performing the holy pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. True to the IGP’s words, the under-aged girl was only released to her mother upon the return of Mr. Sanusi to Nigeria a few days later.

As a result of the publicity generated by Mrs. Oruru’s heroism, several other instances of parents (mostly Christians) who were suffering from helplessness at the kidnap and forced ‘marriage’ of their under-aged children under the patronage of Islamic rulers across several cities in Nigeria’s northern region were brought to light. The diabolical pattern of kidnap of under-aged girls and forced ‘marriage’ of such girls to their kidnappers has continued unabated without any efforts at quelling this most inhumane of crimes by Nigerian authorities.

Ese Oruru has since given birth to the product of rape during her ‘forced marriage’ to her kidnapper; The kidnapper of Ese Oruru remains a free man.

For her tenacity of purpose, efforts at self-help which resulted in the rescue of her kidnapped daughter, bringing to limelight the dastard vice of kidnap of under-aged girls and forced marriage under Shari’a which has continued till date in Nigeria, helping others in her situation to come out with their own tales of woes and seek solution, her dexterity, her leadership and serving as a role model worthy of emulation, Mrs. Rose Oruru is the 2016 Nigerian of the Year!

Picture: Mrs Rose Oruru (in red) surrounded by Police Officers.