The outgoing year would go down in history as a remarkable one globally because Covid-19, one of the major issues that dominated the year, imposed a number of restrictions on humanity. This affected the politics and economy of many countries, including Nigeria. Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI catalogues the major political events that shaped the year
The year 2020 was dominated by coronavirus disease 2019, otherwise known as COVID-19. The jostle for the control of the various political parties ahead of the 2023 general elections was also a major feature of the year 2020. Though President Muhammadu Buhari is due to complete his second and final four-year term in 2023, which is still about two years away, the battle over who will succeed him is already heating up, placing further pressure on an already strained economy.
The following is a summary of some of the remarkable political events that dominated the year.
50th anniversary of civil war
The 50th anniversary of the end of the Nigerian Civil War, which ended in January 1970, was marked without fanfare across the country. The Armed Forces Remembrance Day, which is marked nationwide on January 15 every year was instituted to commemorate the sacrifices of fallen heroes to keep Nigeria one. This year was not an exception. At this year’s celebration, President Muhammadu Buhari urged Nigerians to reject division and embrace national unity.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Senior Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu to commemorate the end of the war. Some civil society organizations in association with two socio-cultural groups, Ndigbo Lagos and Nzuko Umunna organized a conference under the theme, “Never Again” to mark the anniversary, as well as to underscore the lessons learned from the war.
Sanusi dethroned as emir
On March 9, former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was dethroned as the emir of Kano by the state government for “disrespect to lawful instructions”. Governor Umar Ganduje was to explain later (recently) that he had no choice but to repeat the dose given to Sanusi by former President Goodluck Jonathan, easing him out from the CBN as governor.
Ganduje said Sanusi was removed from office as emir to save the system and the traditional institution from abuse. He said Sanusi was not the best man for the throne at the time he was appointed in June 2014. The Kano State governor added that the deposed emir was appointed to spite Jonathan.
Dr Jonathan, then as President, had in April 2014 sacked Sanusi as CBN governor over claims by him that $49 billion was stolen by some persons in the Jonathan administration. Ganduje faulted Sanusi’s alleged outburst, saying the former CBN governor ought to have discussed the matter privately with the former President, who in turn could have ordered an investigation into the allegation.
COVID-19 pandemic
The entire year was dominated by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide. In Nigeria, it started on February 27 when the Federal Ministry of Health confirmed an Italian citizen who works in Lagos as the first case of COVID-19 in the country. He had returned on February 25 from Milan, Italy. On March 9, a second case was reported in Ewekoro, Ogun State; he had contact with the Italian. Within one month, the virus had spread over a dozen states, with Lagos as the epicentre.
With effect from March 30, President Buhari ordered the lockdown of Lagos, Ogun and Abuja, as part of the effort to contain the spread of the virus. After more than four weeks, Buhari ordered the easing of restrictions in the two states and the capital on May 4. The government was compelled to relax the restrictions on movement because of the hardship it had brought on the populace.
On Thursday, December 10, with the number of infections going up exponentially, Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire warned that the country may be on the verge of a second wave of COVID-19 infections. He said 1,843 cases were recorded the previous week, compared with 1,235 two weeks before that.
Scores passed on
The following politicians passed away during the year: former Majority Leader of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Asiwaju Yinka Mafe (February 4); Senator Ignatius Datong Longjan who represented Plateau South senatorial district in the 9th National Assembly (February 10); Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari (April 17); former Minister of Justice, Richard Akinjide (April 21); former Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State (June 25); Ondo State Commissioner for Health, Wahab Adegbenro (July 2); and former National Vice Chairman (Northwest) of the APC, Inuwa Abdulkadir (July 6).
Others are Ismaila Isa Funtua, publisher and businessman who served as minister during the Second Republic (July 20); Senator Buruji Kashamu who represented Ogun East in the 8th National Assembly (August 8); former governor of the defunct Gongola State, Wilberforce Juta (August 15); Shehu Idris, Emir of Zazzau since 1975 (September 20); Second Republic governor of Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa (November 11); and politician, pharmacist and publisher of Leadership Newspaper, Sam Nda-Isaiah (December 11).
Insecurity worsened
The country was a hotbed of all manner of violence in 2020. Nigerians were murdered senselessly on a daily basis; thereby creating an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, particularly in the Northeast and the Northwest. The security landscape was shaped by the war against Boko Haram terrorist group in the Northeast, banditry in the Northwest and the growing incidence of kidnapping all over the country. The narrative that Boko Haram insurgents have been ‘technically defeated’ has proved to be nothing but a propaganda spin by an administration anxious to be seen as succeeding where it has not.
For instance, the Abuja-Kaduna highway was a hunting ground for kidnappers and bandits; armed gangs that rob and kidnap for ransom, commonly described as “bandits” have been on the rampage on that highway and elsewhere in the Northwest. Such groups killed more than 1,100 people in the first half of the year, according to international human rights watchdog, Amnesty International.
Towards the end of the year, insecurity has been in the increase. On November 27, for example, gunmen suspected to be kidnappers shot dead a First Class traditional ruler in Ondo State in broad daylight. The monarch, the Olufon of Ifon, Ose Local Government Area, Oba Israel Adeusi, was returning to Ifon, after a meeting in Akure, the state capital, when he ran into a barricade erected by the suspected kidnappers.
There was also an uproar on November 30, over the killing of 43 rice farmers in Zabarmari, Jere Local Government of Borno State. Communities, roads and civilians in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno in the Northeast have become vulnerable to attacks, following the withdrawal of Nigerians troops into “super camps” that can be more easily defended against insurgents in 2019.
In outrage, following the killing of the rice farmers, members of the House of Representatives invited President Muhammadu Buhari to address the lawmakers over the growing insecurity in the country. In his reaction, the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III decried a situation where bandits operated openly and brazenly in a manner that jeopardised the security of the region. He said: “We are fed up of the shedding of innocent blood under whatever guise across the country.”
In another development, 344 schoolboys were abducted recently from their boarding house in Kankara, Katsina State and released six days later, after the authorities successfully negotiated with the terrorists. Lacking state protection, communities in the Northwest and the North-Central have become increasingly vulnerable.
APC in eye of storm
Since President Muhammadu Buhari secured a second term at the 2019 presidential elections, the attention within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) shifted to 2023 general elections. Politicking within the ruling party dominated the country’s political landscape in 2020. The internal crisis within the party reached a climax on June 17 after the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s ruling suspending Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as national chairman, with former Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi (Prince Hilliard Eta) and Deputy National Secretary Victor Giadom laying claim to the position.
Following the court ruling, the National Working Committee (NWC) had appointed Ajimobi as acting national chairman, but Eta was later nominated by the same body to take the former governor’s place because the latter was unavoidably absent to take up the offer. President Buhari later threw his weight behind Giadom as the authentic acting national chairman.
However, on June 25, an emergency meeting of the APC’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which was attended by the President, resolved the matter by appointing a National Caretaker Committee headed by Yobe State governor Mai Mala Buni to manage the affairs of the party. The Caretaker Committee was given six months to reconcile warring factions in different chapters and organise a national convention.
On December 8, at another NEC meeting also attended by President Buhari, the party’s executive committee at the ward, local government, state and regional levels were dissolved. The tenure of the Buni-led National Caretaker Committee was also extended by six months. With this development, the APC has succeeded in buying time to resolve its internal squabbles. But, disquiet persists within the party at national and some state levels.
Mixed fortunes for PDP
The year 2020 was a mixed bag of fortunes for the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). The party benefited from the nullification of the APC’s David Lyon’s governorship election victory in Bayelsa State in February by the Supreme Court. Lyon’s victory was nullified on the grounds that his running mate, Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The court ruled that the candidate with the highest number of votes and the required constitutional spread, which happens to be the PDP’s Duoye Diri, be declared the winner of November 16, 2019 election. The then governor-elect was already rehearsing at the Samson Siasia Stadium for the swearing-in when news filtered that the apex court had ruled in favour of the PDP’s Diri and his Deputy Lawrence Ewhurdjakpor. Besides, an avalanche of court cases (31) were instituted across party lines against Diri and his running mate, five of them ended up at the Supreme Court but the PDP candidate emerged victorious in all.
The PDP also benefitted from the crisis in the Edo State chapter of the APC between the former national chairman and Godwin Obaseki. The Edo State governor dumped the APC for the main opposition party; after he was disqualified from contesting on the ruling party’s platform, and went on to win the September 19 governorship election on his new platform.
On the flip side, the PDP equally lost a number of chieftains elected on its platform to the APC. Notable among the defectors from the PDP to the APC during the year are the immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; two members of the House of Representatives, Ephraim Nwuzi from Rivers State and David Abel from Taraba State (October 7); a member of the House of Representatives from Kano State, Datti Yako (December 15); Senator Elisha Abbo from Adamawa (November 25); and Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi (November 17).
In a letter of resignation addressed to the Bogoro ‘C’ Ward Chairman of the PDP dated July 24, 2020, Dogara mentioned a breakdown of governance in his native state of Bauchi under the administration of Governor Bala Mohammed whom he said he helped install as a governor in 2019. The former speaker said he cannot successfully ask questions about those issues without being accused of disloyalty if he were to remain in the PDP.
Abbo who came to national limelight in July 2019 after he physically assaulted one Osimibibra Warmate, a female attendant at a sex-toy shop in Abuja, the nation’s capital, said his decision to defect to the APC is because of the mismanagement of the PDP in Adamawa state by Governor Umaru Fintiri. Umahi, on the other hand, said his defection to the APC was as in protest against the injustice being done to the Southeast zone by the PDP.
Off-cycle governorships, by-elections
The September 19 and the October 10 governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States were the off-cycle electoral contests that featured in the political calendar in 2020. The Edo election was a rematch of the 2016 contest between Governor Obaseki and Osagie Ize-Iyamu. But, they swapped platforms this time around; as Obaseki contested the election on PDP platform, while Ize-Iyamu contested on APC ticket.
Obaseki triumphed in Edo over Ize-Iyamu, while his Ondo State State counterpart, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu who contested on the APC ticket also secured his second term.
There were also five senatorial by-elections on Saturday, December 5, to fill vacant seats in the upper legislative chamber for Lagos East, Cross River North, Bayelsa West, Imo North and Plateau South. On the same day, INEC also conducted bye-elections in eight federal constituencies across the country in Bauchi, Borno, Cross River, Enugu, Katsina, Kogi and Lagos. All the bye-elections were earlier scheduled to hold on October 31, but the electoral commission had to reschedule them because of insecurity and other environmental challenges in the affected states.
#EndSARS protest
Early October a nationwide protest started against the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police. For more than two weeks, angry youths took to the streets, blocking roads across major cities. The potent combination of street protests and social media campaign gave young Nigerians a voice that appeared to shatter the country’s long-standing culture of deference.
What began largely as peaceful protests against police brutality later brought an orgy of violence, looting, arson and lawlessness in its wake, after the army fired at demonstrators in Lekki area of Lagos on October 20.
Yakubu reappointed INEC chairman
On October 27, President Buhari reappointed Professor Mahmood Yakubu as INEC chairman for a second five-year term. In a letter to the President of the Senate, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan, the President said the nomination was in accordance with the provision of Section 154 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).
The reappointment was hailed by both the ruling party and the major opposition party. This may not be unconnected with the marked improvements recorded in a series of recent elections conducted under Yakubu’s watch.
Prof. Yakubu is the first person to ever enjoy that privilege, and this conforms to Buhari’s well-known tradition of sticking to those he knows and is familiar with. Yakubu was first appointed in November 2015 by President Buhari.