The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sentry

  • How Tinubu stole show at ABUA convocation

    THE seventh convocation ceremony of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUA) on October 21 has come and gone. The high point of the occasion, no doubt, was the conferment of honorary doctoral degrees on All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar and the Obi of Onitsha, His Royal Majesty, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe and Professor Anthony Olusegun Adegbulugbe.

    However, the untold story of the event was the home truth Asiwaju Tinubu told his host, Chief Afe Babalola, Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi and other dignitaries in respect of the plan to build an airport in Ado-Ekiti; a plan that the state has been working on for years leading to the inauguration of an eight-man committee to oversee its construction.

    With the project failing to materialise under the administration of former Governor Ayodele Fayose, Governor Fayemi has sought to continue the push, allegedly on the promptings of Chief Afe Babalola, who feels a need for the airport because of his university, while successive governors have not been able to say no to it because of the enormous respect they have for the influential lawyer.

    But speaking at the convocation ceremony on Monday, Tinubu told the audience that there is clearly no need for an airport in Ado-Ekiti, and building one in the city would amount to a waste of the state’s scarce resources. A functional airport in Akure, the capital of neighbouring Ondo State, he said, will fulfill the transportation needs of  residents of Ekiti state  as well as visitors to the state

    Tinubu added that what Fayemi and well-meaning Ekiti indigenes should do is to push for the fixing of the Akure-Ado-Ekiti Road because an airport in Akure will effectively serve both states.

    Not a few people were dumbfounded by the APC chieftain’s forthrightness in the presence of Chief Babalola, Governor Fayemi and even Osun State Governor, Gboyega Oyetola, whose predecessor, Rauf Aregbeshola, mooted the idea of the state building an airport, not minding its parlous financial situation.

  • Sanwo-Olu pointing to fix Lagos

    THE social media may be the bastion of fake news and all manner of materials that purists and well-meaning citizens would consider unhealthy for societal growth and development, but as a potpourri of the good, the bad and the ugly, it can also be a veritable source of entertainment, an oasis of smile in the desert of sadness that grips the modern world on a daily basis.

    From time to time, the social media take on public figures and celebrities, rechristening them on the basis of their manners and mannerisms, comportment and deportment. That was the case with the Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, shortly after he assumed the leadership of the state about three years ago. On the basis of his promise to ensure that residents of the state wake up to see new projects every day, the social media labeled him “the Wake and See Governor.”

    Only recently, the social media entertained the world with news of President Muhammadu Buhari’s imaginary wedding with the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadia Umar Farouq.

    The latest butt of the bug is the Lagos State Governor, Babjide Sanwo-Olu, who on the basis of his penchant for gesticulating while speaking was labeled “the Pointing Governor.” And for effect, several pictures of Sanwo-Olu pointing in different directions surfaced on the social media.

    But rather than take offence, the Governor has taken the label in his stride. And his smart media minders have turned the act of pointing into a symbol of his administrative competence, saying that the governor does not point for the sake of it but does so only when he sees a problem that needs to be fixed. Many, indeed, are the problems calling for the attention of “the point and fix” Governor.

  • Aides jostle for Obaseki’s heart in Edo

    SINCE he sacked about 250 special assistants and other aides early in the month, the siege appears not over yet for Governor Godwin Obaseki’s appointees in Edo State. Many of them are still jittery and have resorted to organising solidarity rallies in support of the governor to prove their loyalty.

    Even the local government chairmen and councillors are not left out in the race to please Governor Obaseki in words and action. They have joined the fray for solidarity rallies because the governor is said to be suspecting that many of them are loyal to his godfather turned foe, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.

    To prove that they are loyal, they “mobilise” their supporters to sing and dance in towns and villages in their constituencies, alluding to Obaseki’s superlative performance and why he deserves to be re-elected next year. They denounce politicians within and outside the state who are against the Governor. The rally is filmed and the video sent to Government House, Benin, for the Governor to view. Woe betides any official whose loyalty is in doubt and refuses to disprove it in “such a convincing manner.”

  • Silent war in the Senate

    Sentry

    A quiet war with potential for deep scars is brewing in the Senate. It is over the 100 slots the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) allegedly allocated to the leadership of the upper chamber in the agency’s recruitment exercise.

    The practice before now, Sentry gathered, had been that such gestures would be spread to other members of the upper chamber in order to make them happy and retain their loyalty. This time around, however, the leaders allegedly decided to corner all the slots, leaving nothing for other members.

    For instance, a particular leader was said to have been given 26 of the 100 slots and he gave all the slots to job seekers in his own constituency, not even minding to extend the gesture to job seekers in the two other senatorial districts in his state.

    The development has generated serious anger, with many aggrieved senators cursing and threatening a showdown with the leadership. Some are said to be blaming themselves for toeing the ruling party’s line in the election that heralded the leadership.”

    Walahi (swearing by Allah’s name), we made a big, terrible mistake,” an aggrieved senator said.

    “Where is merit, fairness or competition in this, when people are employed based on the  people that they know, or who recommended them? ” another aggrieved senator queried.

  • Buhari’s audit order causes panic in NDDC

    Sentry

    In a feat of cyclical history, a scenario that occurred in Oyo State during the famous Ogunpa flood disaster in the early 1980s played out at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday.

    After flood from Ogunpa river rendered many homeless and swept away many souls as a result of days of heavy rains in lbadan, some elites in the sprawling ancient city had gone to the then Oyo State governor, the late Chief Bola Ige, to complain that the ugly incident was due in part to the fact that Ibadan was neglected by his government

    Trust the man called “the Cicero” on account of his oratorical prowess, lge fumed, and fired back at the delegation, naming the members one by one, and asking repeatedly: “Who neglected Ibadan?”

    In the same vein, some Niger Delta leaders visited President Muhammadu Buhari in Aso Rock on Thursday to complain that the region had been neglected by the Federal Government. Although no one knew if Buhari tongue lashed the leaders like the way lge gave it to the creme de lá creme of lbadan leaders. Could the President’s decision to carry out a forensic audit dating back to 2001 on the NDDC his own way of telling his visitors that Niger Deltans themselves are to blame for either the neglect of the region or its slow pace of development?

    The President believes that the structures on ground in the region are far from justifying the money the Federal Government has pumped into it over the years. An Ige would have asked the delegation comprising Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, his Bayelsa State counterpart Seriake Dickson and Governor lfeanyi Okowa of Delta state, “who neglected the Niger Delta? What did your people do with the humungous amount given to the NDDC over years? “

  • Delicate times for politicians in Edo

    By Sentry

    The quiet war between Governor Pius Obaseki and his estranged godfather and National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is taking a toll on the relationships between members of the political class in the state.

    Gone now are the days when politicians from different political camps interacted freely with one another without fear that any untoward meaning would be read into their actions.

    These days, they have to think twice before they interact with members of rival political camps just so that they don’t get into trouble with their political mentors or benefactors. In one of such instances, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in last governorship election in the state was said to have got into trouble with his party members for  allegedly travelling in the same plane with Oshiomhole from Benin to Abuja after a chance meeting at the airport. PDP members in the state were said to have accused Iyamu of engaging in anti-party activities for hobnobbing with the national leader of the ruling party.

    In another instance, Governor Godwin  Obaseki was said to have withdrawn his support for Hon Edoror as candidate for the seat of the Speaker of Edo State House of assembly simply because he visited Oshiomhole to tell him about his ambition and also seek his blessings.

    Governor Obaseki was said to have interpreted Edoror’s visit to Oshiomhole as pledging loyalty to the APC national chairman, hence his decision to withdraw his support for him and transferring same to Frank Okiye who eventually became the Speaker in controversial circumstances.

  • The marriage that never was

    It would have been the marriage of the decade and, indeed, of the century. Everyone from the political class to the diplomatic community and the business community and fellow heads of government waited with bated breath for a ceremony that would have marked the second time a sitting Nigerian head of state would be getting married after General Yakubu Gowon’s wedding to Victoria Zakari in 1969, but President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Humanitarian and Disaster Management, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq’s rumoured wedding in Abuja Friday turned out a fluke.

    The origin of the rumour remains yet unclear, but the social media were awash with the story and talked it up until everyone was caught in its frenzy. Rational-minded people who expressed doubts about the veracity of the rumoured marriage were dismissed by its promoters as incurable cynics determined to rob Hajia Sadia the chance of being nominated as the person of the year for winning the President’s heart.

    The day came, however, and it was the doubters that triumphed. Contrary to the widespread rumour that the wedding would take place after Friday’s Jumat service, nothing of that nature happened. Little wonder the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has been waging an unrelenting war against fake news.

    Dismissing the rumour in a statement on Friday, President Buhari’s Special Adviser on Information, Femi Adesina, said it was a deceptive manoeuvre by its fabricators.

  • What Buhari told Melaye after budget presentation in Abuja

    Since the picture emerged of President Muhammadu Buhari pointing his index finger at Senator Dino Melaye after he presented the 2020 budget at the National Assembly on Tuesday with Dino responding by hailing him with a salutary fist, there have been speculations as to what the President was telling the senator.

    Observers who have followed the confrontational stance of Melaye with the Buhari government and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) closely were quick to guess that Buhari was issuing a threat to the cantankerous senator. But a source who was at the scene of the interaction has told Sentry that what Buhari said to Melaye was nothing of a threat but a question that is pregnant with meanings.

    According to the source, Buhari simply asked Melaye: “You mean you are still in this chamber?”

    Of course, the question is open to different interpretations considering the issues around Melaye. Since his days as a member of the House of Representatives, the senator who until he was sacked by the Court of Appeal yesterday represented Kogi West has come across as a querulous fellow whose presence is known to provoke crisis in the legislative chambers.

    But he has been unusually quiet in the 9th Senate; a development that many has attributed to the failure of the former Senate president, Dr Bukola Saraki, to return to the upper chamber following his defeat by the APC candidate in Kwara Central during the last National Assembly elections.

    Still, other watchers of events would interpret Buhari’s question as an indication that Buhari had already got wind of the direction of the Court of Appeal judgment that sacked Melaye on Friday and was simply expressing surprise that the deposed senator was still in the chamber.

  • Why Obaseki sacked all aides

    The political crisis in Edo State took a toll on the cabinet of Governor Godwin Obaseki on Wednesday with the termination of the appointments of all the governor’s special assistants and senior special assistants. In a statement made available to journalists in Benin, Edo State capital, the Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Osarodion Ogie, said fresh appointments would be announced within 30 days.

    The development no doubt came as a shock to many watchers of events in the South-south state. Although Ogie said the move was necessitated by the need to reorganise the structure of  governance in the state, Sentry gathered the real motive for the reorganization was to rid the Obaseki administration of disloyal aides.

    A reliable government source told Sentry that the governor had grown weary of the activities of fifth columnists he believed were reporting the goings on in his camp to that of his estranged godfather and National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.

    Asked if the sacked aides would not constitute a threat to the governor’s reelection bid in the 2020 governorship poll in the state, the source said it is even more dangerous to keep many of them because “keeping them because of the election will amount to going into war with disloyal soldiers. It is better they plot against the governor from outside than do so from within.

    “The governor has been conscious of the rebellious activities of many of them long before now, but because they were appointed with the influence of a party leader in the state he so much respected, there was little he could do about them.

    “But the situation is different now. The governor is now his own man, hence he can afford to flex some muscle. Between me and you, the governor is extremely popular in Edo; the only place he has a problem is the party.”

  • In Bayelsa, agreement is sacrosanct

    After weeks of grandstanding and muscle-flexing, a new era began at the Bayelsa State House of Assembly on Friday with Hon. Monday Obolo as the new speaker.

    His emergence marked the end of the reign of Hon. Tonye Isenah who had vowed not to vacate the seat in spite of an agreement he allegedly struck with Governor Seriake Dickson to vacate the seat whenever occasion demanded.

    Although Isenah denied having any such agreement with the governor and other party leaders in the state, a reliable party source gave an insight into the circumstances in which Isenah agreed to step down as speaker whenever the party wanted him to.

    According to the source, Isenah had made it a part of his campaign promise to his constituents in Kolokuma/Opukuma Local Government Area to ensure that the constituency produced the Speaker once he was able to make it to the House.

    After the election, he was said to have approached Governor Dickson to tell him about his ambition to become the speaker, but the governor frankly told him that he could not become the speaker.

    Isenah, however, pleaded with the governor, saying that he had told his constituents that he would become the speaker and he would not want it to look as if he only tricked them into voting for him.

    As the result of the recent governorship primary of the PDP in the state turned out, the winner, Senator Douye Diri, hails from the same Kolokuma/Opukuma Local Government Area as Isenah, prompting the party to tell Isenah to honour earlier agreement as it was not politically expedient that the governor and the speaker come from the same constituency. Isenah stood his ground. He found support in three APC members of the House and one PDP member. Seventeen PDP members aligned with the party and moved against him. To them, the alleged agreement is sacrosanct.