A tsunami of crisis is set to sweep through the Rivers State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, over its failure to pay agents it used to allegedly rig the March 28 Presidential and National Assembly elections in Rivers State. Those engaged, who were either a remnant of the pool of the ad hoc staffers the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had employed and trained but got converted by PDP, or the party’s band of militias and supporters enlisted to join in alleged massive thumb-printing and other electoral malfeasances committed by the party to snatch victory, have threatened a showdown if PDP officials and their field commanders continued to keep back the cash promised them. With the polls over, some of them who have brought their plight to the attention of The Neighbourhood alleged that their employer – PDP – has refused to pay them what they were promised.
Narrating their circumstances to The Neighbourhood in Port Harcourt and other parts of Rivers State, the used-but-dumped election riggers alleged that rather than pay them the money promised prior to the fraud, the involved PDP leaders have taken to singing a different song. “They promised us huge cash to be paid on the election day even though to some of us, we didn’t want to be involved in their plans, but now, they are telling us stories. We won’t take it lying low with them unless they paid us”, the PDP rigging partners threatened.

The complainants, whose spread spans across the genders, further narrated the locations of their unholy engagements. The Neighbourhood would not publish their names for security and safety concerns but their accounts collaborate allegations of massive rigging made by the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State.

One of the accusers whom The Neighbourhood simply identified as Sam narrated his plight.

“I was one of those who served as ad hoc staff for the March 28 Presidential and National Assembly elections. I was trained by INEC but a day to the elections, some PDP leaders in our area sent words to me inviting me to meet with them in the home of one of them(the cheated election rigger gave the name of the accused PDP chieftains but The Neighbourhood would not disclose their names at this point). They told me they wanted I and others who were to also serve as ad hoc staff to “co-operate” with them on the election day. When I asked them the type of “co-operation” they meant, they told me it was to join in thumb-printing on ballot papers on the election day.

“I was hesitant in agreeing with them but when I noticed they were becoming hostile, I accepted but not after they had promised to pay me N30,000.  So, on that day(election day), we were all driven to a house along Onne/Trailer Park road(in Eleme) which belongs to a PDP candidate. They brought the ballot papers and directed all of us to join in thumb-printing. We joined until they felt satisfied. There was no voting. But rather than pay me, they are now telling me stories”.

The cheated INEC ad hoc staffers disclosed that the men have engaged in lines of denial and are passing the bulk. “They now refer us from one person to another. Personally, I doubt their promise to pay after the Governorship and State House of Assembly elections. They said they would pay after the Governorship and State House of Assembly elections which they have told us would follow same style. They boasted they would win the governorship in the same manner they used in winning the March 28 one. But for me and others, we need our money now”.

Further investigations by The Neighbourhood showed that not only did the PDP chiefs turn their collaborators into milk cows but used them to achieve their plot at minimum cost. However, while they paid some whose wages for the rigging ranged from N5,000 to N8,000, they pocketed those whose wages were higher. Payments, it was further gathered, depended on size of Polling Unit and designation of an ad hoc worker.

The late, great British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once advised that if you’re going through hell, “keep going.”

In many ways, this has been the guiding principle of retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s long and oftentimes tempestuous political career.

Ever since arriving in Congress in 1982, the 75-year-old Nevada Democrat has not been afraid to engage in the bare knuckle partisanship that has characterized Washington, DC politics in recent decades.

“He’s got that curmudgeonly charm that is hard to replace,” confirmed President Barack Obama upon Reid’s surprise announcement on March 27 that he intended not to run for re-election.

Fierce opponent to Republicans on health care reform

Indeed, to Republicans who opposed Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act of 2010, Reid went out of his way to compare them to earlier obstructionists of groundbreaking civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s. “Instead of joining us on the right side of history,” he thundered, “all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these excuses before, you’re right.”

He had even harsher things to say about former President George W Bush, whom he once likened to “a loser.” He was a vocal and persistent critic of Bush’s Iraq War policies, which he claimed were ineffectual and leading to an inevitable American military defeat in the Middle East. “This war is lost,” he said.

Needless to say, this kind of rhetoric did not go over well with pro-war supporters like John McCain, his Republican Senate colleague from Arizona. “It seems to me Senator Reid has lost all sense of priority,” McCain said.

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Reid was no Lyndon Johnson

Alas, Reid will never be confused with Lyndon Johnson, the great Democratic Senate Majority Leader of the 1950s. The tall and physically imposing Texan employed what became known as “The Treatment,” an intoxicating mixture of guile, stubborn persistence, country charm and sheer physical force that psychologically bent would-be political opponents to his will. “Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction,” noted the journalists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. Johnson:

“moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from its target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.”

Reid lacked such deft Machiavellian gifts, but he has had his moments. During his tenure as Majority Leader, he helped push through comprehensive Wall Street financial reform with the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, which placed greater accountability and federal regulatory oversight on our nation’s biggest financial institutions. He also ensured the passage of an $800 billion economic stimulus bill that Obama lobbied for in the early days of his administration to offset the worst effects of the 2008 Financial Panic. “I know how to dance, I know how to fight,” the former amateur boxer once said. He seemed to do more of the latter on Capitol Hill, however.

Through it all, he has earned the grudging respect if not qualified admiration of his worst political enemies. “The GOP could learn a lot from him,” writes Erik Erickson of FoxNews.com. “The Republicans try to get through a week without blowing themselves up. Reid tries to shape an entire year to make sure the GOP is blown up a month before election day.”

Who will succeed Reid?

With Reid’s departure, the $60,000 Washington beltway question of the day is who will succeed him. His stated preferred choice, the more restrained and politic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, seems to have the inside track. But regardless of who eventually does replace him as leader of the Senate Democratic caucus, Reid mischievously reminded Republicans that he will not be leaving the Senate until his term is officially over in 2016: “I am going to be here for 22 months. I am going to be doing the same thing I have done since I first came to the Senate.”

If I was Mitch McConnell, Reid’s long-suffering counterpart on the GOP side of the aisle, I’d start worrying.

credit link: https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-senator-harry-reid-bare-knuckles-but-no-lyndon-johnson-39458

As pressure mounts for Africa to take greater responsibility for development, peace and security on the continent, the question of regional leadership becomes pressing. A recent African Futures paper explores the changing power capabilities of Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa (the so-called ‘Big Five’) over the next 25 years. These countries are all leaders in their respective regions and hold some of the greatest power potential in Africa.

Collectively, they represent 60% of the African economy, 40% of Africa’s population and 58% of the continent’s military spending. This is expected to remain the same over the next 25 years. The future of these countries will provide a fairly straightforward answer to the often-evoked question of whether or not Africa is rising. Indeed if these states fall or fail, Africa will not be able to rise.

The authors of the paper, published by the Institute for Security Studies and the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, use the International Futures forecasting system to forecast future power trajectories. In an increasingly flat world where institutions matter, states that don’t network will have little influence on issues of regional and global governance.

The projections explored in the paper are based on a new index to measure national power, which includes diplomatic engagements in addition to traditional measures such as demographics, economics and technology.

If the world were a democracy, Africans would certainly have a bigger say

Today, the combined power of Africa’s 55 countries accounts for close to 9% of global power. This is more than that of Japan, Russia or India, but less than the United States (US) or China, which represent about 18% and 13% of global power, respectively. By 2040, Africa’s total relative power is forecast to surpass that of the declining European Union (EU) and US – although only adding up to around 11% of global power. This is at odds with the world’s demographic evolution. By 2050, one in four people will be African. If the world were a democracy, Africans would certainly have a bigger say.

In the next couple of decades, Africa is set to remain at the margins of global power. And this is an understatement, as Africa is clearly neither a country nor a union of states with any kind of supranational provisions. Even with significant advances in regional and continental integration, it is highly unlikely that Africa will speak with one voice in foreign policy matters, or be able to act in unison.

Only Nigeria has the potential to become a player with global significance. But this would require far-reaching changes in its current domestic stability, governance capacity and political leadership, which is an unlikely scenario. All other African countries are expected to remain so-called ‘minor powers,’ which affects Africa's influence in issues of global governance.

For the Big Five, the data tells a story of two emerging powers and three whose potential is waning. The capabilities of Nigeria and Ethiopia are expected to grow considerably in the next 25 years. Those of Egypt, South Africa and Algeria, on the other hand, are forecast to remain stagnant or experience a slight decline.

Nigeria’s economy, already the largest in Africa, is expected to represent almost 3% of the global economy by 2040. Its military spending is set to increase significantly over the next 25 years, ready to overtake Africa’s current military heavyweight, Algeria, in more or less 10 years. By 2040, Nigeria is forecast to account for nearly a fifth of Africa’s total power capabilities.

By 2040, Nigeria is forecast to account for nearly a fifth of Africa’s total power

Ethiopia, the other rising power, is coming from a low base and the country will remain the poorest among the Big Five. Nevertheless, by 2040 it is expected to be the sixth largest African economy due to high average economic growth rates. Algeria, Egypt and South Africa are likely to grow below the African average growth rate of 6.3% per annum. The size of their populations will also stagnate – although this is due to higher general levels of development, which are associated with lower fertility rates.

Among the Big Five, Egypt has traditionally dominated the category of global diplomatic engagement. This can be gauged according to the number of embassies abroad, the number of memberships to international organisations and the number of international treaties ratified by a country. Egypt’s strategic location, and its important role in both Arab and African nationalism, ensures that it is deeply connected internationally. Egypt is closely followed by South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria, while Ethiopia lags behind. Not surprisingly, South Africa made big strides after the end of apartheid in 1994 when the country reintegrated into the international community.

The way the Big Five project power is not necessarily in line with their capabilities. After all, power is as much about potential as it is about concrete projection. Some countries are able to influence more international actors, institutions or regimes than would be expected based on their capabilities, while others don’t live up to their potential.

It is questionable whether South Africa will continue punching above its weight

This is the case for Nigeria, which has been punching below its weight despite a strong set of capabilities. High levels of internal instability and corruption along with a political economy of violence compromise the country’s prospects. There is also a lack of strategic vision in the foreign-policy domain, which has recently been aggravated by the growing threat of Boko Haram.

Algeria’s role in Africa is also at odds with its relatively robust albeit declining capabilities. Faced with significant domestic and regional threats, Algeria remains focused on the need to maintain a large military capacity for internal purposes.

Egypt punches above its weight internationally, but below its weight in the African context. The country is struggling to cope with the aftermath of the Arab Spring as well as spill-over effects of the conflict in neighbouring Libya. Domestic challenges seem to detract from projecting power outside of the country, with external priorities evolving around the conflict in the Middle East and efforts to contain terrorism.

In contrast, both South Africa and Ethiopia have largely punched above their weight. Despite its limited capabilities, Ethiopia is Africa’s largest contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions and plays an important role in peace and security matters in the Horn of Africa. Indeed, regional security is a domestic priority for Ethiopia.

South Africa, for its part, has capitalised on the miracle of the transition to democracy; Nelson Mandela’s legacy; the international activism of his successor, Thabo Mbeki, as well as several years of healthy economic growth and a benign global environment. Yet it is questionable whether the current context of stagnant or even declining capabilities and a lack of credible leadership will allow South Africa to continue punching above its weight in the medium-term future.

What seems certain is that the distribution of relative power in Africa will remain multipolar, with various countries fulfilling the role of regional leaders.

Julia Schünemann, Senior Researcher and Project Leader, African Futures and Innovation Section, ISS Pretoria; Jakkie Cilliers, Executive Director, ISS; Jonathan D. Moyer, Associate Director, Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures.

The article was first published by The Institute for Security Studies ( http://www.issafrica.org) and is republished with permission  granted to www.oasesnews.com