One would have naturally dismissed the latest antagonisms against the Buhari led All Progressives Congress administration, since it is an election year and owing to our checkered nature of our politics, it is suitable for many to throw in the kitchen sink and cast the present administration in the light of having failed, even in the face of glaring successes these children of hate, reared by their deep seething rage against an administration that has done so much with so little, will stop at nothing to belittle and undermine any of these achievements, attempting to do such on the platter of revulsive revisionist thinking.

Their latest target has been the Second Niger Bridge which after many years of what NdiIgbo will term “Cherekambia” promises made out to the people of the SouthEast Region about the promise to build a Second Niger Bridge to help ease transport flow from the East to other parts of Nigeria by road transport by successive civilian and military administrations. These promises which were made amidst much fanfare saw each administration somewhat falling over each other in their desire to make such promises they very much intended to break! From that of the late Shehu Shagari who not only promised us a Second Niger Bridge but also a new sea port in Onitsha to successive military administrations that followed it and then back to the civilian administrations who went on to use the bridge as campaign poetry. Most notable amongst these civies were the Olusegun Obasanjo administration who never hid his disdain for Ndi Igbo and the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Now while Shagari may be pardoned for toying with our hearts owing to the very fact that he was overthrown three months into his second tenure, the others cannot benefit from such magnanimity as they had ample time to deliver on their campaign promise but for lack of political will did not!

All Obasanjo could do was to flag off the project five days to his leaving office, this meant that the Yar Adua administration and not that of Obasanjo would construct the bridge at the cost of 58.6 Billion with a six lane set of roads and a toll entrance. The project was also to take a public private partnership dimension (PPP) for which 60 percent of such funding was to come from the proposed contractor, the Gitto Group while counterpart funding was to come from the Federal Government which was to provide 20 percent while both Anambra and Delta States were to match such with 10 percent each . The bridge

The bridge was however one to nowhere as the Yar Adua administration could not evolve neither policy nor one brick to the proposed project site in his near three years as president with his eventual demise while in office.

Goodluck Jonathan did not fare better, not even with his inserting Azikiwe into his set of names. In 2011, during his presidential campaign rounds told the whole world that he would deliver to Ndi Igbo the Second Niger Bridge before 2015 or he would go on self exile! 2015 came and it looked like a one chance promise as by 2014, President  Jonathan perhaps thinking that Nigerians suffered from cataplexy was at the  same point in which he made that pronouncement to flag off its construction from which all Ndi Igbo and Nigerians saw was a proposed map of the bridge without any corresponding works on such a bridge as well as how it would be funded.

These children of hate did not at that point in time raise hell with Jonathan for his presumed failure in delivering on his campaign promise. They did not express their now misplaced anger as they are doing now on a man who rode to power with the bulk of votes coming from the South East Region. Neither did they focus their fury on the systemic collapse of public infrastructure as was witnessed all over the South East, no! President Goodluck Jonathan was a man then who could do no wrong, and like a King without no clothes a number of Igbo leaders swirled to the dance of shame, basking in the euphoria that they were properly dressed whereas they appeared naked and naive Seco to a number of us.

It never dawned on them that for near four years, the Goodluck Jonathan administration had not deemed it fit to deliver on his promise or at least make a head start . Rather with Jonathan having the 2015 elections in mind, he had only come again to whip up the voting sentiment from the region towards his proposed reelection. It did not matter that the cost of the bridge had been inflated, nor did it matter then that a tolling arrangement was in the offing  while the same administration had built bridges for free in other parts of the country with no tolls.

How will they exonerate Obi from the obnoxious religious schisms he created in Anambra while he served as governor. Such schism did not exist while his predecessors were in office, how can the Obi-Kererenke children know such? How can they understand that their “Go and verify” trumpeter single handedly turned Anambra into a Neo-Catholic State? Today he is visiting these churches, he openly discriminated against like some Mecca of sorts.

We cannot even call the Obi-Kererenke Children a political base but what motivates these guys should be a case study. One thing is for sure, they bear some antipathy to establishment politics and blame such for their numerous woes as a society, but then they somewhat forget that their man has also been a part of the establishment politics and cannot recuse himself from such politics. On the other hand, it will also be unfair to blame the establishment for a majority of the woes faced by the nation, these challenges or woes did not start with the return of democracy or the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari as a number of these people would want to make one believe. Were these Obi-Kererenke children to queue behind a Sowore or Kachukwu then one would have no qualms with such a choice but then one must understand that democracy despite it being the best form of government is also prone to suffer from the personality cult deficiencies experienced in other forms of government.

They love spinning saintly narratives about their candidate, and so day in day out, they are quick to mutate his campaign from Peter Obi the container economy philosopher to Peter Obi the economic genius who  claimed to save 75 billion Naira while Anambra State was in dire need of quality infrastructure that would have helped reposition the state’s economic base and attract immense investment opportunities ! They scream “from consumption to production” but then I cannot marry the two given the fact that Obi is one of the biggest importers of finished goods into the Nigerian market. Shouldn’t this be a case of one practicing what he preaches! If Obi was indeed serious about moving the economy from consumption to production then we ought to have seen him initiate such moves with his private businesses?

The Obi-Kererenke also exhibit some hubris and believe that they have already constituted themselves into a plurality or that they represent a plurality already, it is like the butterfly thinking itself a bird of prey, the Obi-Kererenke children are yet to have tested their electoral will at the ballot box, nay, they seem to be satisfied with their noise making on social media and their 10 million man marches similar to Daniel Kanu’s Youths Earnestly Ask For Abacha and Ifeanyi Ubah’s TAN which had promised to deliver over 20 million votes to former President Goodluck Jonathan but then could only muster less than 13 million votes inclusive of those that were manipulated.

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In concluding, the Obi-Kererenke children should be allowed to exercise their right to support any candidate of their choice but then should respect the rights of others to support other candidates. This is a democracy and not a totalitarian state, otherwise we may be returning to Nazi Germany where demagoguery and populism would attempt to hold sway!

Good News From The Second Niger Bridge

After many years of promise and fail, starting from the Shehu Shagari days to that of President Olusegun Obasanjo and then to Goodluck Jonathan. The Second Nigeri Bridge would soon be ready for use as the asphalting  Binder Course and streetlights have begun to spring up on the bridge that spans Delta & Anambra States.

The bridge which is divided into three phases, will bypass Onitsha and Asaba connecting the Owerri-Onitsha Expressway and then cross into Atani in Ogbaru Local Government to the Asaba-Benin Expressway at Okpanam with a total length of 44km.

Upon  completion, the Bridge will much help to ease traffic flow to and fro as well as enhance economic opportunities for locals and Nigerians in general.

The Second Niger Bridge is a promise kept by the Muhammadu Buhari administration to the people of the SouthEast, something the People’s Democratic Party failed to accomplish in its 16 years of power despite the humongous votes it rigged to itself year in and out.

Matter of fact what the PDP leaderships did then was to use the bridge as a campaign tool, only showing up at the river banks when it got to election periods. It was such a sorry sight that Goodluck Jonathan had to commission the project twice without us seeing even a pontoon bridge!

Today, the Buhari administration without drama and fanfare will be completing the bridge in record time of seven years. So much for a man alleged to  harbor deep seated hatred for Ndi Igbo.

They appear to share similarities with what is now known as the baby boomers generation, the generation that morphed into the anti war generation, who protested the Vietnam war and a number of other major issues affecting the United States. Starry and dreamy eyed they claim that they are out to challenge the establishment and see themselves as change agents!  These are the Obi-dients or the Obi-Kererenke Children as I prefer to label them! Their demographics are clearly defined, they are within the ages of 18 to 50, mainly within the SouthEast region, energetic and appearing as the new day ideologues these new kids on the block are driven by unbridled passion as well as other funny ideas of government. They naturally lack an understanding of the nation’s political history but what they lack in knowledge of such history they make up for in their readiness to insult and harangue any opinion that is contrary to theirs or that of their Demi god, Mr. Peter Obi, a former Governor of Anambra State and the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party. To these Obi-Kererenke children, no matter how mild such a contrary opinion stands, it must be followed with a barrage of vitriolic insults, threats and canards, they are much ready to label other aspirants with a plethora of  nauseating appellations but much readily frown should the coin be flipped. They want a democracy but are not seemingly tolerant of the views of others,which is what makes a democracy thick and thus must attempt to shout every voice down on the platform of the social media.

They have sought to market their candidate no doubt, but again they have gone to the extremes on such, a stark replica of their candidate, who is known to exhaustively quote false statistics, majorly from China, Hong Kong and lately Vietnam, reeling such figures with the measured aplomb of a semi-literate trader.  A creation of the media,  their candidate revels much in taking the spotlight to bandy figures and numerous faux pas. Unfortunately, a number of us were alive while he served as Governor of Anambra State, I for example, as a student of the Great University of Benin then fell in love with Obi’s billboards in which he asked salient questions! However the moment he became governor, the reverse was the case as every developmental model he gloats about on TV is at large in Anambra.

Yet the Obi-Kererenke children don’t care! They are not bothered, Like the pleb in Mark Anthony they are zealous to offer the Presidency to Obi without subjecting him to the grills and rigors  of free speech and constructive criticism. To these garrulous lot,  Obi is infallible and can do no wrong, like a saint he has received his beatification and has known no sin!

They have made the grave error of marketing Obi as an ethnic and religious candidate. Forgetting that Nigeria is a country of 360 ethnic groups, showing that they again have failed to learn from the mistakes of 2015 , which showed that no single region could singularly make one person president.  Carried away  and swirling from the din of their banter on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms which is very far from the  grave and realistic notes of electioneering in Nigeria. Reveling in what media scholars term as “ digital mob action” or “dragging” in the Nigerian parlance, the Obi-Kererenke children will engage in even the denunciation of even that which is sacred and true. They claim to be fed up with the barmy political system they perceive Nigeria to be in, but they have not presented a better option to what is presently obtainable and so like Moses in that Orwellian satire, Animal Farm, they believe that Obi will usher them into the Sugar Candy Mountain they however suffer from what Dim Chukwuekeka Ojukwu, termed as selective amnesia, as they quickly forget that Obi has been neck deep in the same system they deem as barmy.

Even in their attempt to drape Obi in newly borrowed fine robes, the acts of Obi like an old wine skin receiving new wine will be quick to burst,. Like a house without a foundation it cannot stand the test of the winds. How they intend to cast an ethnic champion like Obi as a nationalist or attempt to separate him from the clannish politics in his hey day as Governor of Anambra State in which he asked Ndi Anambra and NdiIgbo not to vote for  Igbos in other political parties because those parties were either Yoruba or HausaFulani parties? How will he now appeal to the same Yorubas and Hausa-Fulanis for votes?

How will they excuse Obi from his mediocre laden eight year tenure as governor whereas the likes of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and even Atiku Abubakar as former governor and former Veep possess immense credentials as well as achievements in their political CV’s? There is also the issue of his investing government funds in his family business as well as the Panama Papers revelations, these surely are not the antics of a supposed messiah!

The clouds they said bore no ominous signs, the air was fresh and the moonlight that night had not failed to shine forth its light. The city of Ibadan, the garrison city of the Old Oyo Empire was in a swell mood. The Supreme Commander Aguiyi Ironsi was in its abode. He must have been treated to a welcome reception laden with the effusions of the Yoruba culture, surely the Yorubas of the Western Region of Nigeria were indeed striving to be good hosts, its guest was Nigeria’s number one citizen, having assumed power following the January 15, 1966 coup which had been put down by the same man. Ironsi was on tour of the Federation trying hard to sell Decree 34 which was to ensure the unification of the civil services of the four regions into one body. He had begun by touring his own region, where he hailed from—the Eastern Region before moving to the North and then to the Midwest before finally arriving in Ibadan. Ironsi thought it would be business as usual, discuss with the stakeholders of that region on the positives of that decree as well as announce to the leaders there the Supreme Military Council’s SMC’s decision to  release the Chief Obafemi Awolowo from Calabar Prison, this was not to be.

The late Major General Alexander Madiebo  had in his book described the period as the “Gathering Storm” the January 15th Coup had been unfairly dubbed as an Igbo Coup, as a number of leaders of the Northern Region as well as the West had been assassinated including Tafawa Balewa, Prime Minister of the nation. A number of military officers were also killed with the North having again the highest casualty list, including the likes of Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari and Colonel Yakubu Pam , very fine officers who never deserved to die. General Ironsi then the General Officer Commanding had rallied loyal troops to quell the putsch in the South forcing the likes of Emmanuel Ifeajuna and other coup plotters to abandon the cause, as well as lured Nzeogwu to lay down his arms  arresting him  upon his arrival in Lagos.

No doubt, the coup had created some level of bad blood which remains till this very day. On a daily basis the North continued to agitate for  maximum punishment for the January 15th coup plotters, while the South saw them as heroes. To add salt to injury, General Ironsi had floated the idea of a Decree 34, which was much resented in the North. Rumblings occurred in the army with soldiers of both the Eastern and Northern Regions accusing each other of plotting another coup. Ironsi it was alleged was reportedly inundated with security reports about a counter coup, one of such events was reported by Madiebo himself to Ironsi who naively then invited one of the key plotters of the July 29 Counter Coup in Yakubu Gowon  and had asked Madiebo to repeat his report before Gowon an accusation to which Gowon flatly denied and Madiebo reprimanded for rumour bearing.

When the counter  coup broke out, Ironsi and soldiers of the Eastern region were caught flat footed, Ironsi who was  lodged in the guest house owned and operated by the Western Region could not reach his Army Chief in Yakubu Gowon, who was in Lagos coordinating the technical aspects of the coup. All set in motion, a Theophilus  Danjuma then a captain came with troops to arrest his Supreme Commander, not however without a Colonel  Adekunle Fajuyi then the Military Governor of the Western Region refusing to allow the captors take his host away from him. The rest is history, Fajuyi, an officer of honour was to pay the supreme price.

This is a man who could have hidden under the staircase like I heard one did, or under the bed, thanking his Orisa for sparing him from such an ordeal. This is a man who could have taken the cock and bull story approach of Danjuma who alleged that he was pushed off the vehicle by junior soldiers after promising that no harm would come to Ironsi and Fajuyi. This is an officer who could have adopted the crocodile tears shedding of a Yakubu Gowon by denying the whereabouts of the Supreme Commander, no, the soldier in Fajuyi would have none of such.

What Fajuyi did that day will continue to resonate through the ages, it much towers above the fabled courage of the Spartans and it is in its very right, in league the story of Alexander the Great’s charge in India as well as Napoleon’s decision to face the bayonet bearing soldiers of France sent to capture him on his return from Elba. Here was an Ekiti born Officer with no form of ethereal  affiliation of whatsoever with Ironsi, save for the fact that he wore the same uniform  lay down his life for the Umuahia born Officer who happened to be his Supreme Commander.

Fajuyi did not ask what portion was that of a Yoruba with that of an Igbo man. He did not allow the tribal proclivities  of “omo kedu Kedu” and “Ndi Ofe Mmanu” both derogatory terms by which both ethnic groups addressed each other, as well as a number of other differences  which were then rife to deter him from towing such a path.

Sadly in a nation like ours such heroics have been given the back seat while we cheer near cowards and the pusillanimous who have only contributed more to the woes of this nation. In a nation where those proven to be corrupt are beatified and given saintly garbs, where lecturers and professors, those vested with educating the future of our nation earn less than a councilor and where companies scramble to sponsor programs like Big Brother Naija where the craze is to be the rave of the moment, irrespective of how deplorable such appears to be but  sees best graduating students from our universities receiving the paltry sums of 1000 to 10,000 Naira then it is no wonder!

Yet, even in such a state of despair, it can be argued everywhere that Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi did not die in vain, his killers may have mocked him and those who profited from his death may bestride the land as behemoths today and yet his star, drenched in his blood will forever dim theirs.

At a point where ethnic nationalism and other inordinate sentiments are being pandered to by a number of our leaders, trumping nationalism and nation building, the Fajuyi example will continue to be a model  for the champions  and those desirous of a Pan Nigerian nation which not only will be the Giant of Africa but also the defender of the rights of the black man all over the world.

I will give it to Soludo, his administration has been in the news for a number of wrong and right reasons! If it is not the news that the state’s finances are in a very poor shape then it is for the  botched teachers recruitment exercise where the commissioner described teachers who attended the interview as “stupid and filthy”. There is also the issue of the new tax regimes imposed on the ordinary Anambra citizen which has seen Soludo like the biblical Rehoboam impose stinging like levies and rates on market men and women as well as transport operators across the state in a time when the average citizen is presently battling with inflation and the rapidly rising increase in prices of goods and services. But then before they call me a trouble shooter and perennial nay sayer, the Soludo administration has also done some good, its urban renewal programmes seem to be well intended , even though for reasons best known to the administration mountainous refuse dumps which have sprung up all over the state have continued to defy such a programme, also his drive to block all leakages to the state’s internally generated revenue by attempting to digitalize payments made to the state’s  coffers deserves some commendation.

Recently Governor Soludo had written to the Anambra State House of Assembly seeking approval to secure a N100 billion Global Limit Multiple Term Loan Facility for the construction and refurbishment of key infrastructure in the state. As I write this piece, the House of Assembly, typical of a classical example of rubber stamp legislature has granted the approval. This will obviously mean that the Soludo administration will get the money and nothing much can be done about it but for the sake of posterity, a number of us will still add our voices to the loan request because we are involved. I had expected the Dr. Uche Okafor led assembly to raise a number of questions concerning the loan request, perhaps institute public hearings on the matter and weigh the pros and cons of such a request.

This is not to say that I am against the loan request, no, I do not belong to the ignorant tribe that sees or views any topic broaching on loans by government for development as evil. Loans taken for development or to prop up production of properly managed and utilized will naturally spur development, the challenge then lies much in the intention of such a loan and much more importantly its utilization as our history is rife with a number of debt burdens arising from the non utilization of loans earlier taken.

How a state house of assembly can speedily grant such an approval without a clear description and roadmap for the number

of projects the administration  seeks to deliver using the loan remains questionable. What are the specific projects targeted by the administration for such a loan? How many roads are we looking at? How many bridges? Which local governments,  towns and communities will benefit from such utilization of the loan? For accountability sake, did these factors not matter? How then do we scrutinize the utilization of the loan? How then do we monitor its deployment ?

Again, will such an infrastructural drive cater for the challenges of urbanization such as the creation of jobs, density of housing and the cost efficient transport solutions. Will such an agglomeration of projects correlate with the reduction of poverty in these areas targeted?

There are also unanswered questions about the loan’s interest rate, will it be at single or double digit rates? What about its duration and the likely deductions that will come in the name of servicing such a debt? When will the  funds meant for repayment probably emerge from?

Lastly, the fact that the state house of assembly speedily approved such a request in less than two weeks, when we are not at war or in some sort of emergency situation  is indeed baffling, should anything go wrong with such a loan then I believe that this state house

of assembly should be prepared to bear full responsibility but in a democracy like ours do they understand the meaning of such.

Come to think of it, is this not the same Soludo that confidently announced in his baritone voice  against all known logic and prisms of stark reality that “it wasn’t broken yet in Anambra” What has changed ? Why is he then seeking such a loan ? Surely the administration he made such lofty comments  about, which was that of his predecessor , Governor Willie Obiano ought to have left a humongous amount of money for Soludo to play with and not a debt profile of over N100 Bn.

Finally, Soludo will likely have to contend with posterity. He has yet a golden opportunity to place Anambra on the pedestal of development  and I pray he does such because whether he succeeds or fails we all will be involved .

No serious country would have watched the news about the attacks on the Kuje Custodial Centre and not feel a tinge of shame. No nation would watch the news and not ask questions about how a rag tag army of misguided religious zealots stormed a prison located within the Federal Capital Territory and then go on to have a field day by releasing their comrades who were held in that same centre. Any nation that does otherwise has no business existing and perhaps should need another bout of colonialism.

Such occurrence remains a blight on the security architecture of the nation and calls to question not only the effectiveness of the security architecture but also the efficiency of those who manage such architecture as well as the integrity of such architecture. The Kuje prison attack is one attack too many and is slowly helping to demystify the nation’s approach to security as presently witnessed.

The question then should be where do we go from here ? Who should bear the brunt for the laxity witnessed before, during and after the attack? Which heads should obviously roll for such a national shame that has made us the laughing stock of the comity of nations? If Kuje could fall in so short a time and with little or no resistance by members of the security personnel found there is it not possible that such could be replicated in other areas of immense import to the Nigerian nation? With airports , schools, shopping malls, embassies military barracks and bases lying at the mercy of these terrorists?  It may be that we have been running on a wrong road and may very much need to break such a pattern!

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President Muhammadu Buhari while breaking protocol to visit the centre following the attack just before he headed to Senegal lamented on the failure of our intelligence services to help detect, plan and foil the attack. Had the intelligence units being up and doing they would have marshaled the resources adequately needed to repel such an attack, probably nip it in the bud before the bandits arrived in Kuje. While understanding that the war against terrorism is much of an asymmetric war and thus puts conventional intelligence gathering under much strain, there is still the fact that for such an attack to have occurred in the FCT, there must have been a build up and coordinated movements of men ,materials and arms between their bases and Abuja, how our security agencies with such intelligence failed to nip this in the bud before these terrorists struck is indeed alarming. Now the DSS has come out to say that they got such notice of an impending attack and passed it to the “necessary authorities” The question is who did the SSS pass the information to ? Did the institution feel that it was enough to have passed such to the leadership of Kuje prisons only? Was the National Security Adviser briefed? If he wasn’t then we need to ask why? If he was then we ask what steps did he take to prevent all of this from happening.

Again, what sort of policy sees the remanding of terrorists in one single facility?  I mean what kind of security text books or manuals are these guys reading or implementing? What sort of security architecture accommodates these kind of criminals in one shared space where they can easily have access to each other?

Finally, the fact that these terrorists had a field day and could with ease move within the correctional facility and release their comrades goes to show that the Nigerian security architecture is saturated with fifth columnists and persons sympathetic to certain causes both domestic and foreign  that seek to much undermine the territorial integrity of Nigeria. When President Goodluck Jonathan cried out while he was president that Boko Haram has infiltrated his government and had recruited their acolytes into the government then and security agencies,many of us thought that it was merely his incompetence  that was speaking. Today, while still not taking anything away from such incompetence, recent events suggest such a statement to be true.

While we await the comprehensive report as ordered by President Buhari, it is important to draw the attention to our authorities to the glaring fact that whatever pattern presently being used by the security outfits of our nation in its bid to tackle insecurity is not effectively working and there is indeed dire need for a rejigging!

With the continuous news of kidnaps and attacks which have led to the loss of lives of our citizens and the reduced confidence in the ability of our security agencies to effectively protect the lives and properties of the citizenry, the present authorities need no auguries to know such.