As I forewarned a few weeks ago, politics is swirling over Nigeria and threatening to enrapture us all. Everyday, we hear things that agitate our blood pressure, make us angry or incense us to be uncivil in thoughts, words, and deeds. We have to learn how to let off steam to make our health to not fall apart. Sharing our views on matters we consider contentious and likely to emotionally or psychically hurt us if we bottle them up is one way of doing this. That is what I have done in the following words….
always feel sorry for this man. He is a man of few words, always looking like an introvert but a man with a good sense of humour, as many people close to him always say. Even if I didn’t know him as such, should I not hear from him telling Aisha, his wife, that a woman’s place was in the kitchen and in the other room, and not jostling for space with her husband in the corridors of power where, incidentally, he is the President of Nigeria? The trouble with Buhari is that people who do not always talk often say what they are not to voice at a time they should learn to hold their peace. Lately, he has been on the road again, beating his chest that he has fulfilled all his election campaign promises, conquered all of Nigeria’s major problems and made life better for the ordinary folk. In my view, the President should have kept silent at this time, and allowed Time speak for him. Life in Nigeria is not as rosy for the ordinary folk as he is saying it is, and he does not have a good information machinery to tell the nation the fault is not all his own, although the buck stops at his desk. The problem is not that of Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Information Minister.
Nigeria has not got a professional information ministry for as along as she has been independent. Ojukwu’s Biafra outs smarted Nigeria in information management. The economy is still fowl smelling and almost suffocating everyone. There is no federal information ministry to educate us that the global economy is partly responsible for some of the short comings of the Nigerian economy, with slow downs in Britain and in the United States particularly. Now, it will appear there is a Euro-America conspiracy against Nigeria. Europeans and Americans say Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, may come under terrorists assault and have begone to evacuate their nationals from this country. This is not new, though. During COVID-19 pandemic, the then American President, Donald Trump, predicted that Nigerians would (die like flies). But Nigerians did not (die like flies) rather, Americans died “like flies”.
I suspect that the present Euro-American psychological war on Nigeria may have to do with the massive crude oil theft in Nigeria which have just been exposed. Where was the crude stolen to,if not to Europe and America? The destination nations for Nigeria’s stolen crude oil in Europe and America look the other way while their nationals plundered more than half of Nigeria’s crude oil. Any attempt by Nigeria to expose the culprit and the culprits nations would definitely invite fire works from abroad. Is this what is going on? Are they telling us that those Nigerian soldiers who are their collaborators maybe ignited to cover all the tracks in the oil fields through instigation of mayhem in Abuja? If Abuja cracks and quakes, will there be 2023 elections? If there are no 2023 elections, what would happen?
I believe we will all appreciate Buhari more after he leaves office when we realise he is a helpless President. A President is a helpless President when two key tools of governance are not in his hands. The first ismoney. The other is thepower or cohesion+. Many people didn’t know that the military had been infiltrated by Boko Haram, Iswap, insurgents and other terrorists. Buhari had to carefully sought out the bad eggs, motivate the puritants and re-armed them before he could storm the forest and achieve something meaningful. The troops in the forest cannot fight their hearts out when they know some of their kith and kindred are in the oil fields helping themselves to Nigeria’s common patrimony. Removing the dirty hands of these ones from the Apple pie without upsetting the apple carte is not an easy military task for any wrong move may set everywhere ablaze. So, Governance may have been trudging or plodding on too slowly without the rank and file of Nigeria knowing what was really going on.
The military has been infiltrated by Boko Haram, terrorists, bandits and kidnappers. If ASUU wants more money and the oil sector cannot give the president money to give ASUU, what does the president do? If the President would like to crack down on a section of the military said to be stealing about half of Nigeria’s income everyday, is it the police he is going to send after them?. We can say: are Tompolo’s men not doing the job now?. Shouldn’t we know that, before Tompolo can do the job, something must have given way between them and the military thieves?. Why are Tompolo’s men finding the exposures so easy? If this presupposes they knew about them, why did they keep quite until now? Only time will tell what is really going on.
No wise general fight a war on several fronts at the same time. Which general does that and wins the war. There is a war from a foreign invasion which he inherited. There is a war he is fighting with Biafra jingoism. There is a war with banditry. There is a war with kidnapping. There is a war with terrorists.There is a war with religion. President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, couldn’t fight El-zakzaky who is backed by Iran to set up an Iran- like Islamic Government throughout Nigeria. President Musa Yar’Adua, a moslem, avoided him. President Ebele Jonathan, a Christian, was no match for El-zakzaky. Everyone wanted El-zakzakytoppled. Even moslems in the north didn’t like his brand of Islam. President Buhari, a moslem, went after El-zakzaky and reduced him to rebel. The courts came to El-zakzaky’s rescue, but Buhari refused to let him go. He told the nation, instead, that national security was bigger than the rule of law. Many citizens who once wanted El-zakzaky crucified turned against Buhari. Such is the lot of a President who govern a people who hate their leaders and do not know what they want.
There is yet another war with oil thieves. Can he probe the assets of military generals?Do many of them not have assets in Dubai, a new haven for riches stolen from Nigeria? He should salute those soldiers who listen to Buhari’s voice and went to war in the forests while, as reported, several others are buying their way for postings to the oil soaked Niger Delta to secure the vandalised pipelines. When the President knows what has gone wrong with his generals, he is a wise general when he threads softly, as President Buhari is doing. The citizens do not see what he is seeing. Yet if he moves the wrong foot forward and the politry explosives or implodes, they are going to accuse him of ineptitude. So, rather than stoke the fire of criticisms of his administration, President Buhari should learn to keep silent until the time is ripe, for him to talk, for silence is golden, try to not jeopardise the chances of his party in the 2023 polls, recognise that time is out and wait for posterity to vindicate him.
El-Rufai to Obi: Northerners are civilised people
Of all the 36 governor’s, it is probably Ezenwo Nyesom Wike of Rivers State who can stand Nasiru El-Rufai in a talk war. In the 2019 general elections, El-Rufai warned foreign observers that anyone among them who meddled with the polls would be sent back home in “body bags” body bags? That’s where corpses are stored for transportation to whichever destination! so fiercely delivered was the warning that, without much ado, that some of they observers packed bag and baggage and headed home immediately. In that election, he dared Kaduna State Christians who were accusing him of paying more attention to Moslems by dropping his Christian deputy Governor and running on a Moslem-moslem ticket which won. As the APC 2023 election primaries were knocking at the door, El-Rufai launched an awesome attack on the “God father” of Lagos politics, a valedreference to Bola Ahmed Tinubu which probably explains the all comers race for the ticket. Peter Obi, presidential candidate of Labour party, has just “collected”an El-rufai tongues lash. El-Rufai was speaking at a Kaduna APC rally. He said that, when Obi was governor of Anambra State, he and some APC members went to campaign for party candidates there. Obi “detained”them in their hotels for three days, thereby barring them from the rallies. “Today”, El-Rufai said “I am Governor of Kaduna State”. The inference was that, this time around,Peter Obi would come to Kaduna State to campaign for vote. Would El-Rufai be veangeful ? Oh no he said, literally speaking, hitting Obi below the belt: “We northerners are a civilised people”.
To catch the import of that small but weighty statement, you do not have to be like me, a great goal keeper of my high school mosquito football team
Charles Idehor: A weak pro-northern argument!
The following is more about Charles Idehor’s recent reaction to Governor Nyesom Wike’s endorsement of APC Governor Babajide Sanwolu’s second tenure bid in Lagos State. Idehor, at different times, a host or presenter and guest analyst on Jordan Radio Station 105.5FM in Abule Egba, Lagos, literally took the station over from Babalola Sage, the young female presenter, to sermonise on why PDP ought to have shown Wike the door. I do not wish to engage in arguments over the right or the wrong party in the PDP/ WIKE battles. All I can see are hurt ego and curnning at play. I am more concerned about Idehor, an analyst, not giving sage breathing space to moderate her own programme on which he was a guest, a behaviour I have observed Ideho to not tolerate in his own shows where he clubbers the guest analysts and the contributors with his own opinions like sermons from the pulpit.
Ideho justified emergence of Atiku Abubakar as PDP presidential candidate on the ground that President Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, who lost to northerner Mohammadu Buhari in 2019 utilised the southern option and that the PDP was right to consign it’s ticket for 2023 to the north. Idehor probably did not have time to configure what a northerner handing over to a northerner, if Atiku wins in 2023, would do to the north south political configuration of Nigeria. What if Atiku wins 2023 and APC says Tinubu, a southerner, utilised it’s ticket and presents a northern candidate in 2027 to challenge Atiku in a North-North encounter? If Tinubu wins in 2023, will the PDP agree to shift in 2027 to a southern candidate to engage him in a South south challenge? The better life is not the mechanical but the spontaneous. Wasn’t it the North Ideho was defending which rejected a Yoruba and Igbo ticket in Obafemi Awolowo and Philip Umeadi? If Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba, and Philip Umeadi, an Igbo, had been president and Vice President of Nigeria at that time, a proposition rejected by the North, which boxed Awolowo’s search outside the North, would Nigerian democracy today be worrying about where political leaders come from? Radio stations around Lagos are being politically tainted in respect of their conversations on public affairs and their purveyors.
LAST LINE: If Ideho sees Wike as destroying PD0P, how did he see Governor Godwin Obaseki in Edo State, who politically defected from former governor Adams Oshiomhole but, nevertheless, removed Oshiomhole, at that time APC chairman, from the party and then migrated with many APC members to the PDP? Wasnt that a damaging blow on party and national democratic psyche?. Like Ideho, I see the possibility of Wike in APC cracking the party. Leopards hardly change their spots. It is in homogenuity we find peace and harmony and beauty. Wike and the PDP are tendencies which are not homgenous. I like his battles for freedom for the south, though. Many people have forgotten that Lagos State began sales tax for its IGR. Lagos has no land or other resources in other states. Its chief resource is people. Consumption tax gave financial freedom.The Federal Government pounced on sales tax and gave the money to the northern states. Wike went to court and won a judgement that sales tax is state income. Lagos government, under Sanwolu, sided with Wike in Wike’s legal battle. Wike and Sanwolu are political relations, even if they are mere cat and mouse friends!
ATIKU: Following the tracks of Shehu Shagari
WHATEVER anyone may say till kingdom come about what Atiku Abubakar said in the 2003 vote and ethnic power, it is like medicine after death. He has said what he needed to say, and his primary audience has heard him.Has anyone heard of a serious rebuke from the North?. Despite a huge Igbo rooting for him, Peter Obi does not have the guts to say in public what Atiku Abubakar said. Nor does Bola Ahmed Tinubu, despite a widerange of Omo eni ko le sedi bebere ki a fi ileke si idi omo flomiran in a Nigeria where Bi omo ko ba se ko lu bo,ki onikukaluku bo ti e lototo. What Atiku has told everyone is that, if I have a daughter with buxom buttom, I will be stupid to not decorate her buttom with a scintillating waist bead and, instead decorate the buttom of another person’s daughter. In other words, being a northerner, northerners should vote for him as their son(OMO ENI…)and not for a southerner (OMO ELO MI RAN…). Another interpretation is that where children from different mothers cannot be fed and brought up together in harmony, it is better for every woman’s child to feed from his or her mother’s breasts and not from someone elses(TI OMO KO BA…L’OTOTO).
Rivers State governor Nyeson Wike was powerfully and shamelessly taught this lesson in the PDP Presidential primary election when, in the last seconds, the governor of Sokoto State stepped down for second runner Atiku Abubakar to edge out first runner Nyeson Wike. Only once have my ears heard what Atiku Abubakar said about northerners voting for him and for no Southerners. Although several attempts have been made to pull wool over it, I do not put the statement past a desperate politician. In 1979, Dr Alex Ekwueme and Vice Presidential running mate to Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Presidential candidate of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), a re-incarnation of which the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) is, stood right behind Shagari when Shagari said at an open air campaign rally in Sokoto that moslems should not vote for “Infidels”. He was referring to Chief Jerimiah Obafemi Awolowo, Presidential candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria(UPN) favoured by political bookmakers to win the election, all things being equal. Alex Ekwueme was a Christian, and he swallowed the condemnation of his faith for a pot of political porridge, the price of which was to be the Vice President of The Federal Republic of Nigeria. Shagari won that election in controversial circumstances which haunt Nigerian military and Judiciary till this day. Leopards do not change their spots, we are told. Where was Delta State Governor Ifeanyichukwu Arthur Okowa, a doctor an vice presidential running mate of Atiku Abubakar when Atiku made his ethnic appeal?