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  • Highlights of Kwankwaso’s Speech at Chatham House

    Highlights of Kwankwaso’s Speech at Chatham House

    On today’s episode of “Keeping up With the Chatham House Speeches”, the New Nigeria People’s Party presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, made his debut on January 18, 2023. 

    Kwankwaso is known to have most of his supporters as grassroots Nigerians in the North. Like Peter Obi’s Obidients, Kwankwaso’s followers have also cultivated the Kwankwasiyya movement — a movement based on his ideologies for the common Nigerian.

    Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP

    Although his speech was being aired for over an hour on Chatham’s Twitter live stream, the social media streets didn’t even realise that he had a conference until he started roasting Obi the Labour Party (LP).

    But what were these roasts exactly? Did he have anything else to say? Let’s take a look:

    The Disses

    “Labour Party is based on religion and ethnicity.”

    As of June 2022, the NNPP and Labour Party felt that the combination of Obi’s Southern “Obidient” force and Kwankwaso’s Northern “Kwankwasiyya” movement would make for a great alliance. But this fell apart in August 2022 due to the LP’s insistence that the NNPP give up their presidential goals and support them, which the NNPP refused.

    In his Chatham House speech, Kwankwaso gave more context to the failed merger. According to him, the Labour Party isn’t a “national party” (like the NNPP) but one based on ethnicity and religion. He also blamed the Labour Party’s “serious media hype” back then as part of the reasons why he couldn’t see these major flaws.

    But for someone whose party members only truly exist in Northern Kano, can he say that the NNPP is a national party?

    “To us, [Labour Party] is like Andrew Liver Salt.” 

    Kwankwaso also took the chance to boast of his 30 years of civil service experience. According to Kwankwaso, NNPP is the “only growing party in Nigeria today”, with all other parties reaching their “maximum”. Most especially his archenemy, the Labour Party.  

    For the NNPP presidential candidate, the Labour Party’s popularity can be compared to “Andrews Liver Salt ” — a fast rise that is rapidly slowing down.

    Even though the Labour Party achieved fame due to Peter Obi’s presidential ambitions, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, as the Labour Party star has been known to lead over four opinion polls — and counting.

    Now that we know the disses let’s look at the promises he made to Nigerians.

    The Promises 

    Provision of free healthcare services

    Kwankwaso promised that if he were elected president, all families in Nigeria would have free natal and maternal healthcare services. He also promised “mobile clinics” in underserved communities.

    This would prove quite helpful, as the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) announced in March 2022 that over 40,000 women often die from pregnancy-related issues in Nigeria. Part of the cause is due to the lack of affordable healthcare.

    Eradication of illiteracy and introduction of four-year validity for JAMB

    Kwankwaso believes that all Nigerians deserve quality education no matter their gender or social status. He plans to achieve this by doing the following:

    • Addition of incentives to encourage enrollment of girls and all other children from underserved communities.
    • Eradicate illiteracy in Nigeria by giving adults the opportunity to engage in lifelong learning.
    • Enroll Nigeria’s 20 million out-of-school children in quality institutions of learning within the next four years.
    • Provision of one meal per day for children in primary schools.
    • Application forms for tertiary institutions (WAEC, NECO, JAMB) and job enrollment would be free of charge (due to the success of a similar experiment in Kano state).
    • Introduction of a four-year validity period for JAMB results instead of one year.

    Two million job opportunities in armed forces, police and other security agencies

    Kwankwaso believes that one of the best ways to tackle unemployment is by creating two million job vacancies in security agencies, particularly the armed forces and police.

    There’s a possibility he might have gotten this idea from his time as Defence Minister. Still, statistics show that Nigeria’s armed forces have only 190,000 personnel in the Army, Navy, and Air Forces combined and his promise might be a long stretch.

    More taxes for companies and citizens 

    Kwankwaso wants to boost Nigeria’s non-oil revenue through reforms and increments in taxes. Company Income Tax (CIT), Value-Added Tax (VAT), and other revenue-generating agencies were mentioned.

    This is certainly one promise that’s jarring, as Nigeria’s current CIT rate of 30% is one of the highest in the world, even more than ‘developing countries’.

    We write the news and track the 2023 elections for citizens, by citizens in our weekly newsletter, Game of Votes. Make the subscription of a lifetime here.

    Chiamaka Dike

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  • What Did INEC Boss Say to Nigerians at Chatham House?

    What Did INEC Boss Say to Nigerians at Chatham House?

    It’s 38 days to the start of Nigeria’s 2023 elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been involved in a lot of recent troubles. This includes the attack on seven INEC offices in the last four months, the near removal of Mahmood Yakubu as INEC chairman, amongst others.

    This is why Yakubu decided to use his Chatham House outing on January 17, 2023, to reassure citizens of the commission’s credibility. He also gave some updates regarding the 2023 elections and future laws. Here are some of them:

    The 2023 elections are for the youth

    Yakubu has confirmed that the winner of the 2023 elections would be determined by the youth. This is simply because they have something going for them this year — their high numbers.

    According to Yakubu, “the 2023 election is the election of young people because they have the numbers. Even the majority of PVCs collected are by young people. Out of the 93.4 million, 70.4 million registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 49.”

    This is a solid increase from the last four years. The total number of registered voters in 2019 was 84 million, with 51.1% of these voters as youths aged 18-35.

    The 2023 elections will hold despite reports of insecurity

    It is no longer news that Nigeria’s insecurity numbers keep rising at a worrisome level. 

    This is especially felt in regions such as the North-East with Boko Haram, North-West/North-Central with the onset of banditry, and in South eastern Nigeria with violence from the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). 

    However, Yakubu has assured Nigerians that the elections will hold no matter what. He also said that the commission would take the insecurity bull by the horns through the use of two tools:

    • Election Violence Mitigation and Advocacy Tool (EVMAT), is a research and diagnostic tool for predicting and reducing the risk of election violence before elections. 
    • The Election Risk Management Tool (ERM) tracks and reports general risks to elections.

    People who have been displaced by these conflicts are not left out. The INEC boss has plans to make registered Internally Displaced Person camps (IDP) camps into polling units. 

    INEC supports diaspora voting, but lawmakers are against it

    With several questions from the audience about diaspora voting, Yakubu reiterated that the commission is in full support of Nigerians in foreign countries being able to vote from wherever they are.

    However, the bill to include diaspora voting as part of Nigerian law was refused by lawmakers in the National House of Assembly (NASS) in March 2022. Therefore, Nigerians should continue to beg the NASS lawmakers to make a diaspora voting law.

    INEC may introduce body odour as a means of voter accreditation in future

    Yes, you read it right, body odour. The INEC boss is open to having machines that can detect individual body scents/aromas to verify genuine voters in polling units in future elections. It’s very similar to how dogs can identify house residents by smelling their scent.

    The use of cell phones and cameras would be banned to avoid vote buying

    Dirty party agents will have a tough time with vote-buying this year, as Yakubu has mentioned that voters will be prohibited from using cell phones and cameras in voting cubicles.

    This is because of the recent “mark, snap, and show” tactic. Here, a voter will go into the voter cubicles, mark the ballot and snap it with their phones for later payment by the party agent.

    Every voter in the queue before 2:30 pm will vote

    Previous experiences in past elections show that there are instances where voting closed for the day in the evenings. This is to the dismay of voters who had not yet cast their votes.

    Yakubu assured Nigerians that as long as a voter shows up at the polling unit between 8:30 am and  2:30 pm and is in the queue, they’d be allowed to cast their vote. Even if it takes all night to do it.

    He also mentioned that this usually happened due to the separation of voter accreditation and the casting of votes. 

    To counter this, there will be simultaneous voter accreditation and ballot casting. This is so that you, the voter, can attend to any other business at hand.

    We write the news and track the 2023 elections for citizens, by citizens in our weekly newsletter, Game of Votes. Make the subscription of a lifetime here.

    Chiamaka Dike

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  • Here Are Five Promises Obi Made at Chatham House

    Here Are Five Promises Obi Made at Chatham House

    From presidential opinion polls to a highly loyal and ‘Obidient’ fan movement, Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has been the talk of Nigeria’s 2023 presidential race so far. 

    This is due to his promises to Nigerians in his campaign speeches on his desire to restore the country’s economy. For him, this will be from a nation that consumes to a nation that produces.

    On January 17, 2023, he reiterated these promises in the Chatham House in London, UK. 

    Most Nigerians online were especially glad that the candidate could answer questions given to him boldly and by himself. 

    This wasn’t the case for another presidential candidate, who had his Chatham House speech in December 2022.

    That candidate is Bola Tinubu of the All-Progressives Congress (APC)

    Anyways, let’s look at five bold promises that Obi made to Nigerians during the event:

    “We’ll fight and stop corruption”

    Like Marvel’s Avengers, Obi wishes to stop evil and build a “New Nigeria” where there is no corruption alongside his running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed. 

    Yusuf Datti Bab-Ahmed and Peter Obi

    He feels that the duo are the best fit for the job. He claimed that he never took property for himself in his tenure as Anambra State governor. He also claimed that Datti didn’t steal any money during his time as a Senator. 

    His strategy to end corruption is to ensure that it doesn’t exist in the basic units of society. This includes family units and friends. 

    According to Obi, “If you’re not involved [in corruption], your wife is not involved, your family is not involved, and the people around you are not involved, you have reduced corruption by over 50%.”

    “As long as some Nigerians are in IDP [camps], all of us are in IDP [camps].” 

    Obi promised to ensure that the whole of Nigeria is secure, not just select states. 

    He mentioned spending his Christmas holidays in Makurdi and Abuja in Internal Displaced Person camps (IDP). In these camps, he assured all displaced persons that he would not stop until all Nigerians were secure in their home states.

    “As Long As Nigerians Are in IDP [camps], All of Us Are in IDP [camps]. We can’t have some Nigerians sleeping in IDP [camps] and some in mansions.”

    Nigeria currently has the third highest number of internally displaced persons (IDP) in Africa. 2.7 million IDPs were recorded in 2020. An estimated number of 2.7 million people was recorded in 2020. This is due to rural conflicts, extremism,  armed banditry, and climate disasters. 

    “I’ll attract foreign investors like bees to honey.”

    In June 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) declared that the total value of capital entering Nigeria had declined to $6.7 billion in 2021. This was the lowest amount in five years.

    What’s Obi’s plan to solve this?

    He said he would ensure that the country is attractive enough for foreign investments in the first place. 

    According to Obi, foreign capital has not been forthcoming in Nigeria. This is due to its “being scared” of the rule of law, and heavy corruption. 

    He plans to solve that by making sure that there is a regulated environment where there is no corruption.

    “Further borrowing will ONLY be for production.”

    For Obi, the problem is not in the country’s borrowing but in using the money borrowed mostly for consumption purposes. 

    Obi came again with his “Consumption to Production” mandate. The borrowed money will be used for production purposes only. To achieve this, he plans to implement economic policies to reduce our debt service. This is because borrowing is a major drain on government revenue.

    If he becomes Nigeria’s president, debt is one problem Obi has to solve “sharp sharp” for us. The country is currently in a ₩77 trillion debt since President Buhari first came into power in 2015. 

    “If they can declare an emergency on power, then I can declare a war”

    When asked how he would combat hindrances to national power generation, Obi used the example of South Africa. 

    The nation recently declared an emergency on power. This gave any independent vendor free licensing to generate up to 100MW of electricity. 

    Note that this is a country that currently generates 42,000 MW of power. Meanwhile, Nigeria has not generated up to 6,000 MW of electricity since 1960.

    Hence this inspired Obi to say that “if South Africa could declare an emergency on power,” then he could “declare a war on power.”

    He plans to instigate this “war” by removing legislative blockers for independent energy companies and giving them free licenses to generate certain amounts of power for the country.

    We write the news and track the 2023 elections for citizens by citizens in our weekly newsletter, Game of Votes. Make the subscription of a lifetime here.

    Chiamaka Dike

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  • What Was Tinubu Doing at Chatham House?

    What Was Tinubu Doing at Chatham House?

    After keeping a track record of constantly dodging important campaign events the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, did the one thing we thought he could never do — attend a presidential town hall


    
in Chatham House, London.


    Nigerans were confused when they heard the news on December 5, 2022, and they wondered why Tinubu would leave all the presidential town halls in Nigeria to attend one overseas. 

    Well, if there’s anything we know, it’s that a Tinubu show is never boring. Here are highlights of what went down during his Chatham house appearance:

    “My birth, academic records are consistent”

    Tinubu took advantage of the outing to throw a comeback shot at all the haters doubting the genuineness of his birth and academic records. According to Tinubu, his date of birth and transcript clearly show March 29, 1952. Of course, this is easy to say, considering his birth certificate can’t be found in the first place. 

    He also boasted of Deloitte training him as an accountant and Mobil attesting to his outstanding performance.  There was no one there to remind him Deloitte already denied his record as an employee:

    The Atiku diss

    Really, can you say Tinubu is at an event if he hasn’t tackled his fellow political rivals? Definitely not. As he was verifying speculations concerning his Tinubu surname, the BAT dared his critics to request a DNA test, saying that “one of them (a presidential candidate) has been accused of not being a Nigerian.”

    In case you’re wondering who it is, look no further than this guy:

    PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar

    In 2019, the Incorporated Trustees of Egalitarian Mission for Africa (EMA) filed a lawsuit against Atiku Abubakar for vying for the presidency in the 2019 elections, since he was born in Jada, Cameroon before it became a part of Nigeria. However, the court dismissed the suit in February 2022 and called EMA a “busy body”.

    The APC team strategy

    Instead of continually making gaffes whenever he speaks, Tinubu decided to take the easy way out by making his homies answer questions for him.


    People online were already disappointed that Tinubu was handing down important questions about his future policies to his minions team to answer, but it got even worse when he asked Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, to answer the question on security. This is a governor that terrorists have killed over 400 people in his state in the span of six months.

    “I don’t do live interviews because I’m marketable”

    During the town hall, a journalist had the courage to ask Tinubu why he’s not been granting requests for interviews and debates in Nigeria. To that, Tinubu replied that he sees himself as a “marketable individual”, and thus, he would not be used to make money.

    A slight gaffe appeared

    Most people considered the Chatham outing was one without gaffes. But Tinubu still managed to create a new word while trying to pronounce  “magnificent.”

    Reno Omokri fans clash with Tinubu stans

    Social media influencer and former special assistant to Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, decided to take his opposition of Tinubu to the streets of London in front of Chatham House. His supporters engaged in a shouting match with Tinubu stans. Omokri and his supporters shouted “Tinubu, drugs, Tinubu, heroine,” in an apparent dig at the APC presidential candidate. Tinubu’s supporters, who held placards, chanted, “Tinubu for President.” They also sang, “On your mandate, we shall stand.”

    We wonder who won.

    Chiamaka Dike

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