Key events that shook Nigeria in 2016

Each year comes with its defining moments and events that make it memorable. The out-gone year 2016 was no exception. For Nigeria, it was a mishmash of the good, the bad and the ugly. As some pundits put it, “2016 will be remembered as a year that did as it pleased.”

In the paragraphs below, BDSUNDAY presents some of the major events that, in our judgement, shaped the year 2016 for Nigeria:

Missing, padded budget

Controversy trailed the 2016 national budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22, 2015 to a joint session of the National Assembly when the Senate declared the document missing, upon resumption from a three-week break in January 2016.
Senate President Bukola Saraki tacitly admitted that the budget was missing from the National Assembly, when he confirmed that a search panel had been set up by the upper legislative chamber to look for the missing document. The search committee quizzed aides of President Buhari in the National Assembly as well as staff of the offices of the clerks to the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively.
The Senate President, who had at the beginning of Senate’s session announced to senators that copies of the 2016 budget document would be made available to them in readiness for general debate on it, eventually owned up on the missing document while responding to a Point of Order raised by Enyinnaya Abaribe.
Rising from a closed-door meeting with the Senate committee tasked to investigate the disappearance of the budget, Saraki specifically accused the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang, of masterminding the disappearance of the missing budget. He accused the presidential aide of stealing and replacing the budget with an entirely different copy.
The development, which not only embarrassed the Presidency but the nation, saw the emergence of two different versions of the 2016 Budget proposal in circulation.
But in a twist of events, the House of Representatives insisted that its budget was not missing, a situation that resulted in two different budgets in both chambers of the National Assembly. To resolve the impasse, President Buhari wrote to both chambers withdrawing the first budget he presented and replacing it with another one.
But that was just the beginning of the controversy, as government officials from Ministries, Departments and Agencies disowned the budgetary allocations to them on the grounds that it was padded.
Although the National Assembly approved the document in March, the President declined to give his assent, insisting on seeing the details, which would later prove to be incredibly padded, prompting the executive arm to return the budget for a re-work. In all, it took almost five months before the President could sign the record-breaking document.

Jibrin’s sack, exposé and suspension

The last was yet to be heard about the controversial budget, as it claimed its first casualty in the lower legislative chamber of the National Assembly. As the cliché goes, “There are no permanent friends or enemies in politics but permanent interests”. Consequently, two close political associates became worst of enemies as House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara sacked his ally and chairman, House Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin (APC, Kano State).
The Kano-born lawmaker had issues with his colleagues while holding sway as chairman of Appropriations as he was accused of putting constituency projects worth over N4 billion in the budget.
Jibrin, who was instrumental to Dogara’s emergence as Speaker, did not take it lightly as he opened a can of worms against the Speaker and some principal officers of the House over allegations of budget padding.
The embattled legislator, who is said to be so wealthy that he gave out loans to some members of the Green Chamber, petitioned the Department of State Security (DSS), Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to shed light on the purported corrupt practices by the principal officers. He accused Dogara, Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun, Chief Whip Alhassan Ado Doguwa, and Minority Leader Leo Ogor of attempting to pad N40 billion into the 2016 budget. He also accused the Speaker and some governors of allegedly shielding the President from granting him audience to hear his own side of the story.
But some political commentators viewed Jibrin’s accusations as an after-thought, having himself initially dismissed media reports that the budget was padded when he held sway as chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
The development assumed a new dimension in September when the Green Chamber suspended Jibrin for 180 legislative days for allegedly breaching the practices and precedents of the House. This followed the consideration of the report of the Ossai Ossai-led Ethics and Privileges Committee by the Committee of the Whole.
According to the House presided over by Lasun, Jibrin is also required to tender a formal written apology to the House before his future resumption of duties. He is also barred from positions of authority in the House till the end of the 8th Assembly. Not done yet, authorities of the House also sealed off Jibrin’s office in the National Assembly complex.
In November, the suspended lawmaker embarked on a self-exile in London and vowed never to return to Nigeria unless his safety is guaranteed.

APC owes N1.7m electricity debt, suspends Timi Frank

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) got one of the most shocking embarrassing moments in the out-gone year when its national secretariat was thrown into darkness following its inability to offset the N1.7 million debt owed Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC).
While journalists found it difficult to make use of the media centre due to the development, some staff of the secretariat were said to have contributed some money to power the electricity generator at the premises.
Also worrisome for the ruling party was the revelation that cabinet ministers and National Assembly members elected on its platform were indebted to the party to the tune of N410 million, being unpaid dues since they were appointed and elected, respectively.
The party also wielded a big stick on its Deputy National Publicity Secretary Timi Frank by formally suspending him over allegations of embarrassing utterances and anti-party activities. The Bayelsa-born politician and loyalist of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar took the party to the cleaners on several occasions, calling for the resignation of its national chairman John Odgie-Oyegun due to his inability to resolve the party’s internal crisis. He also threatened that key APC chieftains would leave the party in January 2017 and seek alternative platform should the Presidency and the party leadership fail to resolve the crisis rocking the party.

One party, two national chairmen

Yet to recover from the shocking defeat in the 2015 general elections, the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) plunged into deeper crisis in May 2016 following the botched national convention in Port Harcourt. Although the event became a non-elective convention and appointed a seven-man national caretaker committee chaired by Ahmed Makarfi to pilot the affairs of the party in line with a court order, the former national chairman Ali Modu Sheriff rejected the move, insisting that he remained the national chairman of the party.
In June, pro and anti-Sheriff protests led to the shutdown of the party’s national secretariat in Abuja by security agents. Both groups have since been operating outside the national secretariat. While the Makarfi faction operates from a temporary office at Wuse 2, Sheriff runs a temporary secretariat from Maitama District.
Efforts to resolve the leadership crisis suffered a major setback after governors elected on the party’s platform scuttled the peace deal at the Eleventh Hour.
A new dimension was added to the conflict when another convention in August extended the tenure of the national caretaker committee by one year, even as Sheriff promised to hold a parallel convention by the first quarter of 2017.
Political commentators have expressed worry at the internal crisis, especially at it comes at a time Nigeria needs virile opposition parties to keep the government in check and boost the nation’s democracy.
With the abysmal performance of the two major political parties, observers believe a mega party will emerge in 2017 to wrestle power at the centre. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo lent credence to this when he wrote off the two leading political parties in the country. According to the elder statesman, while the ruling APC is weak, the main opposition PDP is dead.

Buhari accused of plagiarism

The launch of ‘Change Begins with Me’ initiative of the present administration was marred by allegations of plagiarism against President Buhari and Information Minister Lai Mohammed.
While Buhari admitted lifting quotes from a 2008 speech by United States President Barack Obama, the creator of an anti-corruption effort Akin Fadeyi accused Lai Mohammed of stealing his concept to launch ‘Change Begins with Me’. The minster denied the allegation.
The campaign earned the President widespread criticism, with many Nigerians accusing him of shifting blames to them and wondering why they gave him their mandate if he would ultimately saddle them with the duty of effecting the change he promised.
Although the Presidency was reported to have immediately redeployed the deputy director linked to the plagiarism incident from the State House, other sources disputed the report, pointing out that the Presidency was trying to fool the public and fingered Mamman Daura, a nephew of President Buhari and arguably the biggest power player in the government, as the source of the speech.

DSS invades judges’ homes in Abuja, Gombe, Rivers

In what could be defined as a crackdown on the judiciary, operatives of the‎ Department of State Security (DSS) in the late and early hours of October 7 and 8, respectively, invaded residences of some judges in Abuja, Port Harcourt and Gombe in a bid to arrest them.

The crackdown was said to have begun in Gombe State with the arrest of Justice Muazu Pindiga who presided over the Rivers State election tribunal‎, the Abuja homes of Supreme Court Justices Sylvester Ngwuta and John Inyang Okoro, as well as the Abuja houses of two judges of the Federal High Court, Justices Adeniyi Ademola and Nnamdi Dimgba.
The Nigerian secret police was, however, unlucky as they were prevented from arresting a Federal High Court judge in Port Harcourt, Rivers State by Governor Nyesom Wike.

While the secret police accused the judges of corruption and claimed to have found incriminating evidence against them in the overnight raid, the judges on the other hand pleaded their innocence and pointed accusing fingers at the Presidency for their refusal to be bribed while carrying out their constitutional duties.
Bowing to pressure, the National Judicial Council (NJC) asked all the judges being investigated over allegations of corruption to step down from the Bench pending their trial. Consequently, two Justices of the Supreme Court – Inyang Okoro and Sylvester Ngwuta – and Justices Adeniyi Ademola and Muazu Pindiga of Abuja and Gombe Divisions of the Federal High Court, respectively, were asked to step down from the Bench. Their court trials have since commenced.
Buhari, Aisha and the other room
The biggest event that set tongues wagging in 2016 happened in October when wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, revealed that her husband’s government had been hijacked by a cabal. Her decision to go public with her concerns not only shocked many people, but also showed the level of discontent with the President’s leadership.
The soft-spoken Aisha, in a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa interview, said that Buhari’s government had been hijacked by a cabal who are “behind presidential appointments”. She lamented that most of the officials of the government were unknown to the President and the first family, adding that they were usurpers who did nothing to help APC struggle in 2015. She warned that her support for her husband for 2019 election rested on his readiness to shake up his government.
But the President’s wife was not the only one who shared this sentiment. Senate President Bukola Saraki during his trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) alleged that a powerful cabal within the Buhari government had hijacked power from the retired general.
Those already being pointed as members of the kitchen cabinet include Mamman Daura, the President’s nephew who has been tagged the unofficial vice president; Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to the president; Babachir Lawal, Secretary to the Government of the Federation; Ismailia Funtua, a personal friend of the president, and Theophilus Danjuma, who is one of Nigeria’s most influential and respected senior military officers ever.
Aisha’s interview did not go down well with the President who responded to criticism from his wife by saying she belongs in his kitchen.
On a visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he said: “I don’t know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.”
His response elicited pictures of a variety of bedrooms and the hashtag #TheOtherRoom trending in the social media.
Abati and ‘The Spiritual Side of Aso Rock’

It was the Late Ugandan President Idi Amin who said, “You have freedom of speech but freedom after speech, I cannot guarantee that.”
Former spokesman of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reuben Abati, got what he didn’t bargain for when his piece titled “The Spiritual Side of Aso Rock” landed him in the net of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
In the article, Abati who served as President Jonathan’s spokesman for four years recounted strange and sometimes tragic occurrences that befell people who worked or lived in the precincts of the Presidential Villa.
Recounting personal experiences and those that happened to colleagues while he served in the highest office in the land, Abati gave a depressingly worrisome scenario of the higher spiritual powers that tended to influence or dictate the happenings in the Villa which by extension had dire consequences for the country.
In the piece which went trending on social media, he said: “I can confirm that every principal officer suffered one tragedy or the other; it was as if you needed to sacrifice something to remain on duty inside that environment. From cancer to brain and prostrate surgery and whatever, the Villa was a hospital full of agonising patients”.
Ten days after the publication, he was arrested by the anti-graft agency over N100 million allegedly received from the office of the former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki (retired).
Since his release, little has been heard from Abati, especially his criticism of the government.

Nigeria officially in economic recession

There was little to cheer for the economy in 2016, as the country officially entered into economic recession for the first time in three decades.
The National Bureau of Statistics released the much-awaited Gross Domestic Product figures for the second quarter of 2016 with the GDP growth rate sliding further from -0.36 percent in the first quarter to -2.06 percent year-on-year.
The negative growth rate recorded in the second quarter of the year was a confirmation of the predictions by economists that the country was heading into recession.
The report also quoted a World Bank data as revealing that the last time Nigeria had such level of economic decline was under the regime of Ibrahim Babangida.
But critics say government policies made a bad situation even worse. The decision to delay devaluing Nigeria’s currency meant many businesses struggled to get foreign currency to pay for imports, which had a cooling effect on the entire economy.
However, the administration blamed the economic recession on the global meltdown, drop in daily crude oil production occasioned by vandalism of pipelines by militants in the Niger Delta and failure of past governments to plan for the rainy day.

GEJ, OBJ, IBB, others owed 10 months allowances

In November, the Federal Government admitted that in the last 10 months, it had not paid the salaries and allowances of all former presidents of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Those affected include former military heads of state Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar, and Yakubu Gowon, and former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Shehu Shagari, Goodluck Jonathan, and Ernest Shonekan.
This was revealed when the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs paid an oversight visit to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal. He attributed the non-payment of the former leaders to the unavailability of funds in service wide votes for salaries of ex-presidents.

Obasanjo laments Buhari’s blame game

Six days after the story of the present administration’s inability to pay ex-presidents 10 months salaries and allowances was published, former President Olusegun Obasanjo took a swipe at the government for consistently blaming past governments for the nation’s woes rather than proffering solutions to the myriad of problems facing the country.
Speaking at the first Akintola Williams Annual Lecture, Obasanjo said it was uncharitable for Buhari’s administration to continue to blame past governments that had served since 1999, saying that the administration needed to evolve policies that would take Nigeria out of the woods.
To the former president, it was unfair for the present government to lump all three previous administrations as one.
He said: “The blanket adverse comments or castigation of all democratic administrations from 1999 by the present administration is uncharitable, fussy and un-instructive.
“Politics apart, I strongly believe that there is a distinction between the three previous administrations that it would be unfair to lump them all together. I understand President Buhari’s frustration on the state of the economy inherited by him. It was the same reason and situation that brought about the cry for change, otherwise there would be no need for change if it was all nice and rosy.
“No administration can or should be comfortable with the excruciating pain of debilitating and crushing economy. Businesses are closing, jobs are being lost and people are suffering.
“I know that President Buhari has always expressed concern for the plight of the common people but that concern must be translated to workable and result-oriented socio-economic policy and programme that will turn the economy around at the shortest time possible. We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect things to change.”
But some observers have faulted the elder statesman on the grounds that the PDP ruled the country for 16 uninterrupted years and it was not out of place to lump all three administrations as one.
Pundits also believe the retired general would scale up his criticism of the Buhari administration through the use of open letters, if the Nigerian economy does not change for the better in 2017.

Sanusi blames Buhari government for economic woes

Those who thought the criticism of government fiscal and monetary policies by former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, ended with the immediate past administration of Goodluck Jonathan were proven wrong by the ex-apex bank boss as he blamed the Buhari government for the present economic woes.
Sanusi, who served as CBN governor during the administration of Goodluck Jonathan, said this at the 15th meeting of the Joint Planning Board and National Council on Development Planning.
He warned President Buhari not to make the same error made during Jonathan’s administration and also cautioned against focusing on blaming others, urging that the most important thing was to look forward for development.
The Emir of Kano compared Nigeria to other countries and showed how Nigeria faltered in the path of development.
Sanusi, who was suspended as CBN governor by the Jonathan administration in 2014, also said the Buhari administration lacked the right policies to fix Nigeria’s economy, even as he warned the government of grave consequences of borrowing $29.9 billion from external sources.
In a swift reaction, the Presidency said the Emir of Kano did not have the facts on the issues over which he criticised the Buhari administration.

Tensions between Sanusi and Buhari may escalate in the coming months, especially if the economic situation does not improve, according to pundits.

APC and Edo, Ondo guber elections

The governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States may have come and gone but their memories will linger on for a long time to come. The similarity between the two elections was the fact that they were relatively peaceful. By clinching the two states, the APC will be in control of 23 states of the federation as from February 2017, as against 22 states in 2016.

However, a new lexicon has been added to Nigeria’s political vocabulary, courtesy of the Ondo election. That is ‘see and buy’ strategy where a willing voter sells his/her vote to a willing buyer at the voting ground.
The Ondo election also witnessed the beginning of the cold war between Buhari and APC South West leader, Bola Tinubu, whose preferred candidate was defeated in the Ondo primary, leading to his call for APC National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun to resign.

Controversy over Onnoghen’s appointment as acting CJN

The refusal of President Buhari to ensure that Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen was appointed the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) generated negative reactions in the polity. Onnoghen was sworn in as acting CJN on November 10, 2016 following the retirement of Justice Mahmud Mohammed, who attained the mandatory retirement age of 70.
Many political observers felt that the president appointed the southerner in acting capacity to ease off pressure, dump him later and appoint a substantive CJN from the North.
Jurists argued that there was no constitutional basis for Onnoghen to be appointed in acting capacity when the coast was very clear for him to be appointed in full capacity, based on the recommendations of the National Judicial Council (NJC). Section 231 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) gives the president the power to appoint the CJN on the recommendation of the NJC subject to confirmation by the Senate.
With the expiration of his tenure on November 10, 2016, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, the immediate past CJN and chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC), had supervised the replacement process as required by the constitution. He forwarded the NJC’s recommendation of Justice Onnoghen as the next CJN to President Buhari on October 14, 2016 but the president failed to transmit a letter to seek the approval of the Senate for that appointment.
Report had it that some members of the president’s kitchen cabinet were not favourably disposed to having a southerner as a CJN for a whopping four years, and there were allegations that members of the ruling APC in the South in collaboration with their northern counterparts wanted to have adequate control of the judiciary ahead of the 2019 elections.
Eminent jurists who flayed Onnoghen’s appointment in acting capacity include Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), former President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA); Wole Olanipekun (SAN); Olu Daramola (SAN); Paul Ananaba (SAN); amongst others. According to them, Justice Onnoghen ought to have been appointed in substantive capacity.

It would be interesting to see if the President would heed to the demands of the legal luminaries or act otherwise.

Senate rejects Buhari’s $29.9bn loan, Magu’s nomination

For the Nigerian Senate, the fourth quarter of 2016 witnessed a potpourri of drama, rejection and indictment. In what was an unprecedented move in the history of the 8th Senate, the last quarter of 2016 saw the rejection of President Buhari’s $29.9 billion external loan request. The Senate also described the 2017 to 2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) as ’empty’, rejected 46 ambassadorial nominees, five nominees on the Governing Board of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), respectively, and indicted the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, for corruption and called for his resignation.
Perhaps the bitter bill was the upper legislative chamber’s rejection of Ibrahim Magu as substantive chairman of EFCC, citing security report which labelled him as corrupt.
This came as South African telecom giant, MTN, reportedly fired one of its top and most valuable staff over bribes offered to Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to the President.
Although the Presidency has set up a probe panel to investigate the allegations levelled against the top government officials, pundits say it smacks of double standard for the Federal Government to ask judges to step aside over allegations of corruption while the Presidency shields the indicted officials until the probe is concluded.
As Nigerians await the outcome of the presidential probe, observers say how the president tackles this issue will be a litmus test of his administration’s anti-corruption drive.

Super Falcons protests

If you want to know how Nigerian athletes that won laurels for the country are treated, then the case of Super Falcons is a case study.
The aggrieved players won the 8th edition of the African Women’s Cup of Nations tournament in Cameroon but vowed not to hand over the trophy to the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) until they were paid. In what could best be described as an embarrassment to the nation, the African champions also refused to leave their Agura Hotel‎, Abuja.
The reigning African women champions protested outside the National Assembly and the Presidential Villa in Abuja over non-payment of their allowances and bonuses. Their protest coincided with President Buhari’s arrival at the National Assembly to present the 2017 budget.
Sports Minister Solomon Dalung came under fire after he said the Federal Government was not expecting the Falcons to win the competition. And in his bid to justify how properly his ministry spent funds allocated to it, the minister informed the House of Representatives Committee on Sports that “funds spended are well spended”.
It took the intervention of the President’s Chief of Staff Abba Kyari, who assured that the girls would be paid within 48 hours, to calm frayed nerves.

21 Chibok girls released; Boko Haram kills Col Ali; Sambisa Forest falls

The release of the 21 Chibok girls and capture of Sambisa Forest were no doubt the biggest news in the out-gone year. Just when all hope was lost, the release of the 21 girls abducted by the jihadist group, Boko Haram, in 2014 and the fall of the last stronghold of the sect, Sambisa Forest, were clear signals that the present administration scored a pass mark in terms of security in the year under review.
Recall that more than 200 girls were kidnapped in April 2014 in Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
Their release, a boost for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, came after the Red Cross and the Swiss government brokered a deal with the group.
As Nigerians await the release of the remaining 197 Chibok girls, Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai had disclosed that Sambisa Forest, recently cleared by soldiers, would serve as a training ground for the personnel of the Nigerian Army as from 2017.
Barely two weeks after the release of the girls and 48 hours after the clearing of Sambisa Forest, one of the gallant soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel Muhammed Abu Ali, was killed in an ambush by Boko Haram at Mallam Fatori, Borno State, while the group’s elusive leader Abubakar Shekau appeared in a new video to dismiss claims that the jihadist group had been routed from its Sambisa Forest stronghold.

OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja