From the political scene, to the judicial chambers, to the criminal arena, to social media space and on to marital beds, stories emanating out of Nigeria last week ranged from the curious to the incredulous, to the puzzling and on to the dubious in short order.
There was this story that Benue State Government appointed “Her Excellency Mrs. Scholastica Ben-Sor” as “Coordinator, Office of the First Lady,” a veritable first in the history of rigmarole Nigerian public service. This post is curious. Benue State has had no First Lady since May 2023, because the Governor, Hyacinth Alia, is a Roman Catholic Reverend Father who has sworn an oath of priestly celibacy, so he has no wife.
Nor is this a new thing in Benue State. From January 1992 to November 1993, the state similarly had no First Lady, because Governor Moses Adasu was also a Roman Catholic priest. Protocol katakata erupted because First Lady Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu was to visit Benue State last Friday, so the state government hit on the idea of appointing a shadow state First Lady to receive her. They got that idea from Malawi. During Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s long reign as President of Malawi, which ended in 1994, he had no wife, so he instead appointed Miss Cecilia Kadzamira as Official Hostess. That position carried with it all the duties, powers and privileges of a First Lady. Like Malawi, like Benue.
Trust Nigerian politicians to start fighting for a post a year before it is due. Members of the 11th National Assembly will only be elected early next year and will be inaugurated in June, but a battle has already started for its Senate President’s job. Godswill Akpabio rammed through a change in Senate rules meant to disqualify two men who are likely to challenge him next year, namely Adams Oshiomhole and Hope Uzodinma. Akpabio is however assuming that he will be re-elected from Akwa Ibom; he is assuming APC will get a majority; he is assuming that his patron President Bola Tinubu will be reelected; he is assuming that APC will re-zone Senate Presidency to South South; and he is assuming that incoming senators, at least 80% of them first timers, will reward him for making the 10th Senate a lapdog of the Presidency. Too many assumptions.
Last week, the rapidly growing opposition Nigeria Democratic Congress [NDC] adopted a novel anti-defection policy, which compels all its candidates to sign indemnity forms and sworn affidavits pledging not to defect to another political party after securing electoral victory. It said the measure is designed to strengthen party discipline, promote loyalty and curb the wave of defections that has weakened several political parties in recent years. Insofar as defection is one of the biggest epidemics in Nigerian politics, this was a far-sighted move indeed.
But then, late last week, NDC’s leaders eroded its import by exempting its presidential candidate, Peter Obi and his running mate, Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, from signing the anti-defection oath. Why, NDC? Obi and Kwankwaso are some of the most politically travelled politicians in Nigeria. Obi started in APGA, went to PDP, migrated to Labour Party, went on to ADC, and ended up in NDC. Kwankwaso started out in PDP, migrated to nPDP, went on to APC, returned to PDP, crossed over to NNDP, and recently came to NDC. Yet, you exclude these two men from signing the anti-defection oath?
Last week, a Southwark Crown Court jury in London acquitted former Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, of all six bribery and corruption charges. UK’s National Crime Agency had accused Mrs. Alison-Madueke of receiving over £100,000 in cash, millions in luxury goods, Harrods shopping sprees and private jet flights from oil and gas figures seeking lucrative contracts in Nigeria, but the jury acquitted her and her two co-defendants of all the charges. Mrs. Allison-Madueke was the most powerful Oil Minister here, to whom President Jonathan ceded full control of the oil cash cow when two presidents before and two presidents after him all kept the Oil Ministry on a short leash. Her acquittal after 13 years brings hope to many other Nigerians facing charges of mega billion corruption; former Humanitarian Affairs Minister Mrs. Sadiyya Umar Faruk, recently declared wanted by EFCC, must be confident that she will be acquitted by 2039.
There was this storm on Facebook last week about Fatima, a beautiful young Yobe lady, that nobody is coming forward to marry her because she is the daughter of the late Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. Just because her father destroyed whole communities, killed hundreds of thousands of people including soldiers, policemen, clerics, village heads, young vigilantes and anyone who refused to join his insurgent group, destroyed untold numbers of public infrastructure, private homes and businesses and generated two million IDPs, what has that got to do with Fatima, who was about two years old when her father launched his murderous insurgency? Didn’t the law state that no one is punished for someone else’s guilt?
My worry for Fatima, however, is that Nigerian judges appear to find guilt by association. Late last week, a Federal High Court in Abuja convicted and sentenced the mother and sister of late bandit kingpin Kachallah Ibrahim Battujo to forty years in prison each. The mother, Safiya Salihu and the sister, Halima Abdullahi, were convicted under Section 26 of the Terrorism (Prevention) (Prohibition) Act, 2022 of passing information on phone to Battujo in aid of his terrorist acts. Justice Hauwa Yilwa also convicted the two women of concealing information, because they visited the bandit kingpin’s camp in the forest, saw him in possession of firearms, but failed to report to the police. The court however discharged them for having received ₦490,300 from Battujo and for also going on Hajj to Saudi Arabia sponsored by Battujo.
You see, my fear for Fatima Shekau is that a judge might say the ram that was slaughtered at her naming ceremony was procured by her father after overrunning a hamlet in the Chad Basin, and she is therefore guilty of benefitting from terrorist activity. In the olden days in Nigeria, if a son arrived from the city with an expensive gift for his father, the old man will ask him if he got it from his salary. These days, when radio stations broadcast daily news of leaders on trial for stealing mega billions, which village elder will ask such questions?
There was this uproar in once-peaceful Plateau State last week when a State High Court ruled that a Hausa person born and raised in Jos North Local Government Area should legally be recognized as an indigene. Justice C. Donglong, who delivered the landmark judgment, ordered Jos North LGA to issue a Certificate of Indigene to Fatima Baba Akawu, an ethnic Hausa woman who had been denied one. The denial, despite that Fatima was born in Jos, violates the constitutional right to freedom from discrimination under Sections 25(1)(a) and (b) of the 1999 Constitution, alongside the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. But while the Hausa community celebrated, the Berom Educational and Cultural Organisation (BECO), Middle Belt Forum and former Governor Jonah Jang strongly criticized the ruling.
This contest between constitutional citizenship and locally-formulated indigeneship has caused rumpus in many parts of Nigeria. In Jos, it has led to several rounds of bloodshed over the decades. While a Nigerian is a citizen that can reside and exercise citizenship rights anywhere in the country, but to get admitted into a school or to land a civil service job, one is often required to produce an indigeneship certificate. Plateau State once passed a law that stated which tribes are indigenous to the state, so anyone outside those is denied an indigeneship certificate, a severe pain for other groups. Courts alone cannot end this tango.
There was this curious case last week when Justice Oluwatoyin Odusanya of the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja ended a five-year legal tussle over the estate of late First Foundation Hospital CEO Dr. Tosin Ajayi by declaring Mrs. Adenike Ajayi as the sole lawful widow. The competing claim by former beauty queen Helen Prest was that for a long period prior to his death in 2020, Ajayi was separated from his wife, and that separation legally terminated their marriage. The High Court however ruled that prolonged separation does not automatically end a marriage; that regardless of how many years a couple lives apart, a legally contracted marriage remains valid under the Matrimonial Causes Act unless formally dissolved through court-ordered divorce proceedings.
While this ruling makes sense to judges and lawyers, many tradition-bound Nigerians must be shaking their heads and wondering, “What else ends marriage, if husband and wife have been living apart for many years?” Indeed, what is marriage, apart from a wife moving in with the husband, eating together, confronting issues together, procreating and raising children till death [or legal divorce] does them apart? Let us hope this court ruling will not lead to husbands and wives all over the country living apart and only rushing back to claim inheritance when the spouse passes away.
