The answer would have been to airlift Ekwueme to Abuja – straight to the State House Clinic of Obloquy!
Anambrarians went to the polls yesterday to elect a new governor out of 37 contestants. For the rest of us, it just seems weird, in a non-election year to be at the polls for such an important election. But this is what Nigeria gets for all the cheating, rigging, election tribunals, some dirty cops and corrupt judges assigned to electoral tribunals and on and on down the line.
It is hoped that electoral reforms will be adopted soon to authenticate our democracy.
Anyway, I personally do not like one thing: political debates. Neither does Buhari!
But Anambra’s was a marked departure from other states (which held one at all) where most of the candidates took part. There was one, on the ticket of a ‘correct’ party, but still an underdog in the race. Cool and collected, even his name Willie seemed understated. (I am Dr. William Soromtochukwu Obiano, PhD would have been more in form!).
Completely self-effacing, he marshaled his points out syllogistically, yet with such simplicity that within me, I began to wish, for the sake of Anambra that he would win. My wish came true; Willie Won!
Since then, news reports from Anambra indicate notable achievements so far. Anambrarians like Ibos majorly, are a mercantile people, but robbery and kidnapping was rife in Anambra. Obiano’s strategy on crime fighting was as radical as it was hard line. And it worked! Now not just Anambra but the entire nation is the better for it.
Before the current agric revolution championed by the central APC government, Obiano was a forerunner in the practice of boosting agric development.
Most endearing to me is that in spite of the frosty relationship between him and his predecessor, Obiano has completed projects of the last governor, including those in Peter Obi’s locality.
This trait in Willie Obiano and Nyesom Wike, Rivers State Governors is highly commendable and of special note as they are 2 Governors in this dispensation whose handover was acrimonious.
Obiano as I see practices Politics Without Bitterness. He was one of the first few Governors to visit the APC President-elect Muhammadu Buhari and has been cordial with the central government ever since.
For the other 2 top contenders, the APC and PDP candidates; both have adopted the methodology of GODFATHERISM; a mode that Anambrarians had suffered under for long, with dire consequences. To name the godfathers: Arthur One – Thousand is backing the APC candidate and the PDP candidate is linked with ex-Governor Peter Obi.
Whoever emerges Anambra Governor has my best wishes, but here on Princess Files we never shy away from making predictions.
For Anambra – Willie Will Win. Again!
Ekwueme treatment dilemma
Ailing second republic Vice President Alex Ekwueme slumped in his Enugu residence in October and fell into a comma. That’s no longer news, neither is the rumour that he is dead (he isn’t). Six days after he collapsed, President Buhari approved the immediate medical treatment of Ekwueme abroad.
This, I do not get. With the life expectancy of a Nigerian reduced officially from the initial 54 to 48, Ekwueme has lived the whole of TWO life times! Ekwueme, who is Nigeria’s first democratically elected Vice President has been in the corridors of power throughout. He was a founding member of G34, the PDP, and then was a presidential candidate in the party’s 2003 primaries. That’s nearly 25 years after being Vice President. He now says the party has humiliated and neglected him.
Just as I was basking in the relief that the medical tourism offer was not taken up, last Sunday morning Ekwueme was flown to London in an air ambulance that had even parked at the airport in Enugu all Saturday night, till Ekwueme was brought in the next morning.
Releasing an air ambulance to take him to London is one option, even where medical costs are not being borne by the government. Or are they? Everyday the information changes. However, now that the man, at the end of his 85th year and in a coma is ferried abroad, it is for the doctors there to do what, A MIRACLE? Urgently produce an elixir to grant Ekwueme 15 more years, to depart at 100?!
The President should have just asked me, I had the perfect solution to the Ekwueme ailment/treatment dilemma.
The answer would have been to airlift him from Enugu to Nnamdi Azikiwe airport and ferry him straight to the State House Clinic, of obloquy!
Stealing by networks
A friend of mine called me once and after we had talked for hours his call card ran out. I called back and we spoke on till mine ran out as well, so I decided to “borrow credit” as the network call it. Big Mistake. The next day I topped up my card and was duly debited for borrowing. But from that day on, every single time I recharged my phone, money was taken for the same card borrowed just that one time. And so they kept “repaying” themselves, I had to get out of the trap. By then it had happened about 8 times. I called the 3 digit helpline and was put on hold for ages. When they finally decided to attend to me – they assured that the deductions would end. Oh how about all the ones wrongly deducted? Ah, those had already been programmed bla bla bla.
Their computers are programmed to fleece PAYING subscribers.
Then come the texts about now your subscription to xyz has been “renewed”. Bad enough the call rates are crazy on Nigerian networks. Who hasn’t noticed that international callers go on and on until the death of your phone battery? Because calls are CHEAP outside our shores!
And text messages in the 15 countries or so I’ve visited are free. Here it costs N4 or so they say.
Because every time your network connects your number to one of Its platforms, they subscribe You with N100; sometimes N50, depending entirely on THEM. Nigerians scream, write and cry all the time. In September, I heard an NCC officials on Radio Nigerians saying they had dealt with the problem of unsolicited texts. Juts text STOP to the message, he instructed.
For heaven’s sake, what was he talking about? Everyone who has a phone knows this is not even the point. WE LIVE WITH UNSOLICITED MAILS, here. I even paid some money for a “special line”, like all the politicians have, just to get some deliverance.
I am talking here about outright stealing from subscribers, Mr. NCC.
Already a former governor, Col. Abdullahi Umar had sued one network (MTN) in a class action, for all its illegal deductions.
Still, nothing has changed. My nephew loaded a call card to go on a data plan, He then clicked on his N1,000 and met N726 available. The network just sits and waits for you to recharge then helps itself to your money at their whim. Weekly and monthly. Yes every now and again, you will receive data bonuses and free data days. But like Osuofia says in one commercial, they give you one, and take away five. He’s so right.
Say you lose N400 a week, my modest estimate, that’s N1,600 each month. Multiply that by the number of subscribers who have fallen for the grandmasters of data. That’s a gargantuan lot of stealing going on; since we are probing Deziani, we need to go after this mega national stealing too.
Stella Obasanjo
I shall not write anything more than what I have done here, the rest including the story BEHIND the stories, is in a book, to be released in 2018. Please look out for it and get yourself a copy!
- 07055547031 sms or Whatsapp