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Nigerias political environment has assumed a new but disappointing and frightening mob culture over an election that has been won and lost. In a previous article, I pleaded for peace and asked that we should stand together as we await the outcome of the petitions at the election tribunal. I am sure I was not asking for too much.

Understandably, there are frayed nerves and bitter emotions exerted in the form of intimidation, cyber-bullying and hate speeches, but we do not have to burn down the country because of one election. Have we forgotten that Nigeria belongs to all of us or should we create two green-white-green countries as Donald Trump did when he created two Americas? That would not be a good idea.

Since 1999, we have been taking learnings from every election cycle and there is always room for improvement. This year, we conducted our 7th general election, however flawed these elections might have been. Isnt that a good thing and something to cheer?

The reactions that have trailed the presidential election since February 25 give the impression that some people own Nigeria more than the rest of us simply because Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), lost an election.

I have friends, classmates and colleagues who are Obidients and supporters of Peter Obi. That is the beauty of democracy; it allows for freedom of choice. There are family members who belong to different political parties but they still eat and drink together. In the last presidential election, I know a couple that voted for different parties. They are still living together. Why should our political differences separate us?

I have a brother who is an Obidient. He was very hopeful that Peter Obi would be declared the winner. I have long-standing associates at work (both in Nigeria and the diaspora) who are also Obidients but we understand that our political affiliations and worldviews will not affect our work and relationship.

Our agreement is that superior arguments based on facts and not emotions and sentiments should always prevail. Personal attacks are also forbidden, although in many chat rooms, that is the order of the day. Many participants spew garbage in their attempt to take Nigeria back for Peter Obi.

Even when there are heated arguments as I have witnessed on different occasions, the debaters should have the presence of mind to calm down afterwards. But Obidients believe it must be their own way or no other way. This is an exaggerated sense of entitlement and it shows that they are incapable of tolerating other peoples views. Previously, I refused to accept this characterisation of Obidients but not anymore.

The time has come for a reality check because we can disagree without being disagreeable.

What has become evident is that Obidients mismanaged their expectations because of the rising profile of Peter Obi. Popularity of candidates and opinion polls dont win elections. If that were the case, Hillary Clinton would have defeated Donald Trump in the US presidential election in 2016.

Talking about Donald Trump, no one expected him to win that election but he gained the advantage at the Electoral College and became the 45th US President. Heavens did not fall despite Hillary winning the popular vote.

The same Trump and his supporters refused to concede defeat to Joe Biden four years later, even going as far as instigating an insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 where lives were lost and property destroyed. It is the same scenario that is playing out with the duplicitous behaviour of Obidients who insist that Peter Obi won the presidential election.

No one promised Obi a coronation party in Abuja and winning the presidential election is not a stroll in the park. You need a winning strategy to gain competitive advantage. The presidential election was keenly contested and it showed in the results.

There was no way Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would have gone down without a fight. These are formidable politicians with rich experience, influence and political capital that they amassed over a long period.

Once you hold a different view from Obidients, they will attack you? Why should it be so? Why cant we have a healthy debate and exchange of ideas, even if we disagree? On social media, they resort to cyber-bullying just like Trump supporters who believe erroneously, like Trump, that the election was stolen from them.

Obidients must note that they cannot bully the rest of us into submission and accept their propaganda as the truth. Not one Obidient has shown me the pathway to Obis victory but they expected the crown to be handed over to Obi on a platter of gold. When you want to build a house, you start from the foundation before pillars and beams are introduced.

Two data scientists based in London, UK and Atlanta, USA carried out independent forensic examinations on their own on the presidential election using data they obtained from multiple sources. They found out that Obi was popular and represented a new political force; he could be trusted by his supporters who wanted change from the old order (meaning they were tired of APC and PDP) but he clearly did not achieve the national spread required to win the election.

Obidients were the biggest threat to Obis aspirations. In addition, since about 47% of registered voters were below 50 years old, Obi needed this demographic, based on previous projections assuming they were correct, to win only if they came out to vote. Go and verify the ratio of voters on February 25 as a percentage of the 95 million registered voters as per the various demographics and see whether Obi had the numbers and spread to win.

This brings me to an important management tool known as SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. If Obidients truly want to be honest and conduct a comprehensive SWOT analysis, it will reveal that Obi could never have defeated Tinubu or Atiku.

Obis strengths were his popularity, frugal nature, and so on. But did they review his weaknesses? Did they also verify his antecedents? What of the opportunities (e.g. coalitions across regions and tribes and religion) and threats (e.g. Obidients)? Obi only ticked one out of the four quadrants and it is not enough to win.

The recent music released by Falz, Nigerian musician and son of legal luminary, Femi Falana, is part of a groundswell of coordinated attacks aimed at de-legitimising the victory of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. But how far can his adversaries go?

Even before the presidential election, several attempts were made from different quarters to discredit Tinubu (there were 18 presidential candidates) and damage his chances. There was nothing that was not thrown at him every bad adjective was used for full effect on Tinubu before and after he became the president-elect.

Obidients believe that Obi won the presidential election and we are having a situation whereby friends are becoming sworn enemies just because they disagree on the matter concerning Obi. I do not think it makes sense for politicians to divide us. By the way, we must also note that ethnicity and religion have become two combustible and dangerous elements that politicians use to weaponise us.

Obi was popular and he was therefore expected to win the election. Thats the story repeated by Obidients, believing that it will become the truth. It does not work that way, a fact Obidients have refused to accept.

Obidients deploy hateful and hurtful drivel to push their narratives and gag the civic space a dangerous and counter-productive idea. It explains why they have continued to thrash the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), accusing the electoral body of rigging the election in favour of Asiwaju Tinubu.

There were other candidates in the election but the attention was always on Asiwaju Tinubu. Obidients will not agree but Tinubu had a better resourced-campaign and his ground game grassroots mobilisation was better. He also built a formidable northern coalition over the years.

Asiwaju is not called the last man standing for nothing.

Overall, Tinubu had a better campaign strategy. No one expected the 2023 elections to be perfect but it is also wrong to assume that there were large-scale electoral malpractices sufficient to invalidate the whole process.

In how many polling units out of 176,606 PUs nationwide were there irregularities? Let us even assume without conceding that the elections were flawed, is that enough reason to say the president-elect should not be sworn into office on May 29? Obi himself knows that he did not win the election but he does not have the courage to admit it because of Obidients. He cannot control them.

But for the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), it would have been business as usual for the leading political parties in their respective strongholds. Let us celebrate the little wins that we achieved and thank President Muhammadu Buhari for giving us the Electoral Act 2022.

The same election described as flawed produced winners from Labour Party in the National Assembly. Those winners were happy to receive their certificates of return but they refuse to acknowledge that the statistical distribution of winners from APC, PDP and Labour Party in terms of ratios is consistent with the outcome of the presidential election.

By the way, Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of PDP and a veteran of the game, was second to Asiwaju Tinubu while Obi came third, an achievement the Obidients should ideally celebrate as a victory for our democracy. Tinubu won in 12 states; Atiku also won in 12 states while Obi won in 11 states and the FCT, yet Obidients believe Obi won the presidential elections. They should go and read Section 134 of the Constitution.

Atiku also filed a petition just like Obi did challenging the outcome of the presidential election but he does not have a mob behind him. The Waziri Adamawa has displayed maturity like a true statesman.

Maybe Obi and Obidients are forgetting that PDP was weakened as the main opposition party having been splintered into four units: Atiku, Obi, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (of the New Nigeria Peoples Party) and Nyesom Wikes G5. They made victory easier for Tinubu and APC. The two Data Scientists also cited this disadvantage/threat in their reports.

The former Anambra State governor left PDP and joined the Labour Party at the last minute. He became the partys flagbearer. Apparently, the likes of Prof Pat Utomi had to step down for Obi because he was hailed as the messiah that would redeem Nigeria.

Im still of the view that Obi should not have left the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), the party that gave him a wide berth to be Anambra State governor for eight years. Prof Charles Soludo, the incumbent governor, made this point in his famous article (Part One) on Obi.

By now, APGA would have been a force from the South East comparable to what ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) was in the South West and CPC (Congress for Progressive Change) in northern Nigeria.

It takes time for political alliances to mature but Obi, it would appear, was in a hurry. In a multi-ethnic society like ours where Christians and Muslims live side by side, you need a pan-Nigeria mandate anchored on broad and strategic coalitions and partnerships supported by efficient foot soldiers to win the presidential election.

Just to be clear, I have nothing against Peter Obi but he should be magnanimous in defeat just like Hillary Clinton. The reports by the international observers are encouraging but the impression created by biased media reports and social media activists as well as commentators was that they rejected the process and results of our elections. This is patently false.

What we call electoral malpractices include isolated cases of violence, ballot box snatching, voter suppression, late voting and the incompetence of some security agencies and INEC officials. These problems will not go away overnight but we must constantly seek to improve by working together.

The elections have come and gone and the next task before us is healing and reconciliation. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a staunch supporter of Obi, believes we need to stand together at this time and he has asked the incoming administration to list and promote healing process as a top priority.

Braimah is a public relations strategist and publisher/editor-in-chief of Naija Times (https://ntm.ng)

Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of TheCable.

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Obidients, give us a break - TheCable

While Donald Trump launches verbal attacks against the prosecutor and judge overseeing his criminal charges in connection with hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, an attorney for the former US president has said his main focus is on legal maneuvers aiming to get the case dismissed long before a trial jury is ever seated.

Jim Trusty appeared on Sunday on ABCs This Week and argued that theres a lot to play with when examining whether New York state prosecutors waited too long to secure an indictment against Trump and if the ex-president intended to commit any crimes with the payments at the center of the case.

The payments were made at the height of the 2016 White House race which Trump won, and Trusty also reiterated questions that his side has previously asked about whether the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, should be able to apply federal election law into a New York case.

The motions to dismiss have to be a priority because they amputate this miscarriage of justice early on, Trusty said to show host Jonathan Karl. And I think youll see some very robust motions.

In his remarks to Karl, Trusty also doubled down on questions already floated by his side about whether Trump could get a fair trial in Manhattan. The New York City borough voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Democrat who defeated Trustys client in the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, after all.

However, though Trusty said Manhattan is a real stronghold of liberalism, of activism, and that infects the whole process, he suggested pre-trial dismissal motions citing statutes of limitation and an alleged lack of criminal intent are almost certain to come before one that might seek a change of trial venue.

A state grand jury in Manhattan on 30 March handed up 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up $130,000 in payments meant to keep Daniels quiet about claims of an extramarital sexual encounter in what Braggs office maintains was a conspiracy to influence the race Trump won over Hillary Clinton. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges on Tuesday.

The Daniels payments have already led to one conviction, in federal court: that of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen, in that case, said he paid Daniels at the behest of Trump and was reimbursed by the then president during his time in the Oval Office. Prosecutors alleged that those payments were falsely classified as legal expenses as part of a conspiracy for Trump to get around state and federal election laws or to deceive tax authorities.

Cohen pleaded guilty to federal crimes stemming from the hush money payments, resulting in a three-year prison sentence as well as the loss of his law license.

Trusty on Sunday called Cohen a convicted perjurer with an ax to grind but said it would be ineffective to attack his credibility in a motion at this stage. He also suggested that Trumps political rhetoric about Bragg being a failed district attorney and a criminal and about the judge to whom the case was allotted, Juan Merchan, being a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife was unlikely to be reflected in some of his sides upcoming legalese.

It was pointing [out] that they have a bias, that they have a political interest that is contrary to President Trump, Trusty said about comments that prompted Merchan to issue a warning against any statements that were likely to incite violence or civil unrest.

Trusty added: Theres kind of a political lane and a legal lane. Im in the legal lane. Im not going to worry too much or be able to control the politics of the moment.

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While Trusty didnt elaborate on his statute of limitation mention, New York law gives prosecutors five years to charge felony falsification of business records. The last alleged false record in the indictment is from December 2017, more than five years before Bragg obtained the charges against Trump.

Its unclear how Braggs office might try to defend against such a line of attack. But in other settings, lawyers confronted with a motion to dismiss based on a statute of limitation often argue that steps taken to conceal the alleged wrongdoing should result in prolonging if not entirely suspending any relevant charging or filing deadlines.

Meanwhile, Trustys comment about applying federal election law into a New York case seemed to refer to Braggs decision to indict the former president over payments during a federal election although the US justice department prosecutors who secured Cohens conviction passed on charging Trump. The justice departments decision against charging Trump does not amount to a finding of innocence for the former president, though it remains to be seen whether Braggs office has enough evidence to eventually secure a conviction.

Trumps next court date in the case that made him the first former US president to be criminally charged is 4 December. But Trusty said the public should not be surprised if some of the possible motions that he discussed were filed well ahead of that date.

If Trump were to eventually be found guilty as accused, it is possible that he would face up to four years in prison, the director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvanias Annenberg Public Policy Center recently told the resource website factcheck.org. Yet it is also possible that Trump would not be at risk for anything more than probation, fines and community service because he was charged as a first-time offender, Columbia University law school professor John C Coffee Jr said to factcheck.org.

Despite the case in Merchans courtroom, Trump is widely considered to be the frontrunner to land the Republican presidential nomination for the 2024 election.

See the rest here:
Trump lawyer says he aims to get hush money case dismissed ... - The Guardian US

As the polarization in the U.S. grows ever deeper, a hot debate rages over whether the media are helping or worsening the divide. In Transcending the Echo Chamber: Polarization and the Media, distinguished alumni and Cornell faculty will explore the medias role and what can be done.

The panel, on Wednesday, April 19, 7 p.m. in Rhodes-Rawling Auditorium in Klarman Hall, is free and the public is invited. It will be preceded by a public reception from 6-7 p.m. in the Groos Family Atrium in Klarman Hall.

Register for the event here.

The event is hosted by the Distinguished Visiting Journalist (DVJ) program in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The panelists include:

As political debate collides with a 24/7 news cycle, the public is often left wondering whether they can trust the news media, said Morse, who organized the panel. Its never been more important for Americas news organizations to cut through the noise and ensure the public can separate fact from fiction.

Morse is a former senior leader at CNN, Bloomberg and ABC News, and was recently appointed president and publisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to lead the digital transformation of the Souths largest newspaper.

Cupp was formerly a panelist on CNNs Crossfire, and has written for numerous outlets, including the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the American Spectator, Slate and Politico. She has been a frequent guest on Fox News and MSNBC.

Hiltziks company specializes in corporate communications,crisis management andlitigation support, media relations, digital and social media strategy, message development, research and analysis, content creation and storytelling. He has worked with political figures ranging from Hillary Clinton to Ivanka Trump.

Cirones research interests also include democratization and party systems in new democracies and multi-level governance in European politics. Her most recent paper is Asymmetric Flooding as a Tool for Foreign Influence on Social Media, which explores the influence of Russian trolls.

Linda B. Glaser is news and media relations manager for the College of Arts and Sciences.

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Panel to explore political polarization and media | Cornell Chronicle - Cornell Chronicle

No one is above the law. That should be an obvious, irrefutable principle in a democratic country.

And in many countries, it is. In recent days, as the historic criminal prosecution of former President Trump has moved forward in Manhattan, plenty of examples have been offered of nations that have put that principle to the test trying, convicting and in some cases incarcerating their top leaders for corruption, theft, bribery and other crimes.

Surely a rules-based democracy like the United States can be as principled as those other countries and bring a successful criminal case against a former head of state who has broken the law. Yet before 10 days ago, no current or former U.S. president had ever been indicted or charged, much less convicted. Many Americans apparently believe that prosecuting a president is improper or beyond the pale. (When Richard Nixon came close to being charged, he was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, to preserve national tranquility.)

Opinion Columnist

Nicholas Goldberg

Nicholas Goldberg served 11 years as editor of the editorial page and is a former editor of the Op-Ed page and Sunday Opinion section.

By contrast, consider France, where both Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac were tried for corruption and convicted in recent years. It may be no great testament to French democracy that they needed to be prosecuted, but it is to their nations credit that they were.

In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, who served three terms as prime minister, was convicted of tax fraud in 2012.

In South Africa, former President Jacob Zuma was charged in 2021 with taking bribes; he faces 15 years in prison.

In South Korea, three former presidents have been convicted of corruption.

In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is serving as prime minister and, at the same time, standing trial for bribery and fraud.

Good for those countries for holding or at least attempting to hold their top leaders accountable for criminal misbehavior. When done right, it can build faith in government and the law, and serve the cause of equality and justice.

But whats been less often discussed in recent days, and which complicates the picture, is that there are also countries where the law is wielded like a weapon by powerful politicians against their enemies. This is the example that Trump and his Republican allies are implicitly pointing to when they insist that his prosecution has been corrupted by politics.

Consider Pakistan, where rival politicians, often from family dynasties, routinely seek to use the the countrys judicial system against one another. As the dynasties gain, lose and retake power, the courts are used to punish, weaken or sideline those who challenge them.

Again and again, Pakistani politicians have been hit with criminal charges after leaving office, including allegations of corruption, treason and money laundering. At the moment, former Prime Minister Imran Khan faces dozens of charges that he says were instigated by the government of his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

Now, the United States is not Pakistan or anything like it. But Trump wants us to believe it is.

It is not helpful to Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg that the crimes charged in the Trump indictment 34 felony counts of falsifying business records sound to the layperson like bookkeeping offenses and not terribly serious violations of the law. Whats more, theyre being prosecuted by a Democratic district attorney.

Thus they give oxygen to the argument that a politically motivated prosecutor was out fishing for charges, no matter how obscure, technical or tangential. That it was a witch hunt, as Trump likes to say. (He has pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts.)

But it turns out thats not true; in fact, theres nothing at all unusual about the case Bragg brought. His office charges people with falsifying records on a regular, bread-and-butter basis, he said. According to lawyers Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Norman Eisen, Trump is the 30th defendant to be indicted on false records charges since Bragg took over a year ago.

Politically speaking, it would undoubtedly have been better for the country if Trump had been indicted first for his bigger, broader, more obviously outrageous offense of seeking to subvert the 2020 election, rather than for falsifying hush money payments to a porn actress.

It would have gotten more clearly to the heart of whats worst and most dangerous about Trump. It might have been more persuasive to skeptics. But that case may yet be brought. The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., is still investigating Trumps demand that local officials find him 11,780 votes. And the Justice Departments special counsel Jack Smith continues to probe Trumps post-election lies and machinations, including his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

Of course its ironic that Trump insists hes being persecuted by politically motivated enemies. The fact is, there is no one more willing to politicize the legal system (and the countrys democratic institutions generally) than Trump himself. I firmly believe he would turn us into Pakistan overnight if it would gain him a hundred votes or a hundred dollars.

As president, he repeatedly called into question the legitimacy of judges who challenged him and court rulings he disagreed with.

He demanded the arrest of political adversaries, including President Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden. He was especially vocal in 2016 about his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who he said has to go to jail for accessing her official email on a private server, which he insisted at campaign rallies was the biggest political scandal since Watergate.

All Americans should agree that it is wrong to use the justice system to punish ones enemies. But at the same time, it is absolutely essential that we hold powerful people to account for true crimes.

The ongoing investigations against Trump must, of course, be conducted fairly and without prejudice. He should be presumed innocent and treated no better or worse than any other defendant.

But he doesnt deserve special protection, either, just because he was once the president and hopes to be again.

@Nick_Goldberg

Originally posted here:
Opinion: What other countries can teach the U.S. about how to ... - Los Angeles Times

HYPOCRITES Trudeau, Biden Vow to Fight AUTHORITARIANS After CRUSHING Truckers: Brie and Robby

Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave discuss the recent unified support the United States and Canada have expressed for Ukraine.

Robby Soave: WOKENESS TARGETS Agatha Christie Novels, Classical Literature UNDER ATTACK?

Robby Soave elaborates on how woke culture is impacting literature.

Israelis Start MASSIVE PROTEST, General Strike Against Netanyahus Controversial Judicial Overhaul

Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave interview Joel Rubin, the former executive director of American Jewish Congress, about political crisis in Israel.

Glenn Greenwald: Calls To BAN TikTok Are A DISTRACTION; Elites Blame CCP For Problems THEY CAUSED

Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave react to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opposition to a proposed ban of TikTok.

Joe Rogan: Stormy Daniels Payments Were A GOOD DEAL, Didnt HILLARY CLINTON Do That?

Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave discuss podcaster Joe Rogans commentary on the impeding arrest of Donald Trump.

Elon BEEFS With Celebrities Over Twitter Blue Payments, Trolls Jeffries: THATS WHAT SHE SAID

Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave weigh in on Twitters massive devaluation.

CNN: Using GIFs Of Black People Online Can Be DIGITAL BLACKFACE

Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave react to the definition of digital blackface.

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Rising: March 27, 2023 The Hill - The Hill