Point One

He bestrode spiked but cloistered terraces of power for all of three decades and was on sure course for longer tenancy, having won an election where he was only nominally challenged by feeble political opposition. But he put aside all of that for a while and took on military opposition from rebel fighters on the harsh turf of battle frontlines, where he sustained injuries that he never recovered from. That was the life of Idriss Déby Itno, the ruler of Chad who died last week, a day after he was declared winner of a presidential poll. Sixty-eight-year-old Déby got the ticket for a sixth term in power by a landslide of 79.3 percent of votes in provisional results announced by his country’s electoral body on Monday, last week. But he postponed his victory speech to supporters and rather headed off to join Chadian troops battling rebels who had launched a major offensive on election day in the restive north of the country. Those supporters were still in celebration when, on Tuesday, he wa...

Former President Goodluck Jonathan is in perfect stead to take a broad overview of the Nigerian electoral process and make suggestions that could make the system work better. Amidst pervasive sit-tight syndrome in Africa, he was the first and perhaps only leader yet on the continent to concede defeat in an election he contested as an incumbent even before the poll was formally called by the umpire. Since he lost re-election as Nigeria’s leader in 2015, he has postured as a statesman and has been enlisted by multilateral agencies to lead observer missions to elections in African countries and beyond. Thus, he is perceived as having learnt by personal practice and by observing practices in other milieu what it takes to have elections that come high on the integrity scale. The ex-president early last week shared perspectives on what ails our elections in this country and remedial steps that could be taken towards meeting up with global best practice. Speaking during a media visit in Abuja...

 When he set about his official tasks on Tuesday, last week, former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu couldn’t have guessed he was headed for status duality within the span of the day. He began the day as Nigeria’s police supremo and travelled from the Force Headquarters in Abuja to Owerri, the Imo State capital, to assess the damage done by gunmen and arsonists who had stormed the Imo police command headquarters and the Owerri facility of the National Correctional Service early on Monday and set those places on fire. Also at the correctional facility, 1,844 prisoners were sprung free by the assailants who got away after the savage attacks without been apprehended. Expectedly, Adamu felt rudely affronted by the attacks as then chief internal security minder of this country and must have thought it helped the narrative to name culprits, even though no suspect had been arrested by security operatives. Upon his arrival in the Imo capital, he fingered members of the outl...