The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • Periscoping the ideal apc presidential candidate (1)

    Given the fact that corruption is our greatest problem in Nigeria, one that even pushed Boko Haram to what it has now become, Gen Buhari’s integrity should count positively for his candidacy.

    Justifying its tag as truly macabre, this past week showed, unambiguously, that PDP will stop at nothing to bring Nigeria down with it. Nigerians woke up early in the week to read about the PDP governorship aspirant in whose account $50,000 was allegedly found –how the godfathers must be missing Mr Ibori; soon after, it was the turn of a Judge of the U.S Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Justice Charles R. Norgle, to cause the eminent PDP Southwest poster boy, Buruji Kashamu, the total indignity of having to waste money on a newspaper advert just to tell Nigerians that he will ‘fight till he gets justice’. Judge Norgle had refused Kasamu’s motion to be acquitted in an earlier indictment of importing drugs to the U.S, but rather held that should Kasamu ever come to the U.S, voluntarily or not, he could be put on trial in the Federal District Court in Chicago.
    You would have thought that was enough for one week of what the APC has appropriately described as PDP’s ‘series of global ridicule to which it has subjected Nigeria and her people’.
    Then popped up the mother of all ridicules, when a plane allegedly bought for evangelism was, instead, converted to laundering money , ferrying $9.3 million dollars to South Africa, accompanied by two Nigerians and an Israeli contractor. The money has since been ordered seized by the South African Assets Forfeiture Unit.
    All these are only a small fraction of PDP’s corruption ridden government and it is the more reason Corruption should be a key subject of APC’s campaign to tackle this government. Nigeria had never been this corrupt. It is for this reason I focus today on who the ideal APC Presidential candidate should be. I hereby invite interested Nigerians to send me their views in not more than 800 words.
    Below are the views of Abiodun Ayodele, a young Nigerian publisher, who has a good grasp of strategy.
    Under the title: APC AND THE 2015 PRESIDENCY, he wrote:
    “Can APC win the 2015 Presidential election?
    Yes. Can APC lose the 2015 Presidency, in spite of, having the potential to win it? Yes.
    The 2015 Presidency is in APC’s hands to win or lose, and hardwork or lack of it, as well as creativity or lack of it will determine which way.
    The APC national hierarchy as presently constituted is in good hands with the Chairman, Chief Oyegun and his Deputy, Chief Segun Oni being former state governors. Lai Mohammed a lawyer with impressive thinking and writing ability is also there but has the team demonstrated the capacity to prosecute the 2015 elections to victory?
    So far, not convincingly.
    The Chairman says APC is ‘maturely engaging President Jonathan but what does this mean or amount to with the President? Is it a compromised silence to hurt the interest of APC in 2015 or a lack of capacity to prosecute the 2015 presidential election to victory?
    Either way, it is unthinkable that APC, and the Nigerian people especially, would be happy to allow President Jonathan continue in office beyond 2015. Why would a grossly incompetent leadership be allowed to continue to drag Nigeria further down in corruption, vision-lessness, poverty, and the daily loss of thousands of innocent citizens in all manner of untamed conflicts?
    The Oyegun team’s ‘silence’ has given fillip to the PDP to monopolise the airwaves like a colossus. They now daily insult the Nigerian people on television networks with their huge lies of achieving so much in office! The PDP now confidently deceives the people to believe that there is no person more capable than Jonathan for 2015 and, in truth, who will blame them for making these wild claims when the nearest opposition party seems to be taking a nap? (Apologies to Sabela Addide of The Punch newspaper)
    WHO SHOULD FLY THE APC FLAG?
    The simple answer to this poser is that evidences of previous electoral contests affirm that the most acceptable of APC’s likely candidates, and who can surely win, even massively, is General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd).
    Why General Muhammadu Buhari?
    The truth is that here is an honest man who is also known for honesty of purpose, and to date, no Nigerian has come up against him with any shred of a shady financial deal in all the positions of responsibility he has held in the country. The APC hierarchy can do a simple arithmetic to confirm this assertion or what did AC, and later A C N candidates in the presidential elections of 2007, and 2011 score against him?
    General Muhammadu Buhari’s major electoral weakness has been his weak campaigns that were characterized by very poor publicity of his personal qualities and his unalloyed commitment to the public good, which he continues to demonstrate by drawing attention to how people in government have turned themselves to ‘authority stealing’. (apologies to late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti).
    Most Nigerian youth are not aware that General Muhammadu Buhari was once a Nigerian Head of State and that he neither stole public funds, increased the price of petrol , nor allowed corruption to thrive in government, unlike what currently obtains in all the three tiers of government.
    General Buhari has the personal weakness of always keeping quiet over damaging allegations against him, and, his campaign teams, over the years, have not been hard working. The campaign teams have, instead, always tended to conclude, naively, after losing an election that the general is probably not wanted by Nigerians and so would always be rigged out by PDP. They say these things only to hide their laziness and inability to put all material facts about General Buhari in the public domain to secure him the people’s vote. A Redeemed Church pastor friend that voted for General Buhari in the 2011 election told me he adjudged him the only candidate deserving of his vote at that election. I have also been privileged to listen to a top company executive after the 2011 poll complain of Nigerians’ folly in electing the current president. He said he voted General Buhari. These two people are Yoruba. Others I have met told me they voted General Buhari at
    the 2011 poll. No wonder he scored nearly 10% of Lagos votes in 2011 in spite of literally not campaigning here in the South. Any greater evidence of Buhari’s electoral acceptability? General Buhari can partner with persons like Professor Utomi, Governor Okorocha, Femi Falana (SAN), Prof. Akin Oyebode, or a notable Company Chief Executive or academician and the team would be more than convincing to win”.
    As my own little contribution, for now, let me add that I think the general’s campaigns had lacked adequate funding and his overall logistics suffered thereby; weaknesses which an APC well-funded, issues-based campaign should effortlessly cure. For instance the CPC was primed to have won at least two or three additional states in the governorship election in 2011 but for lack of funds and inadequate logistics.
    Given the fact that corruption is our greatest problem in Nigeria, one that even pushed Boko Haram to what it has now become, Gen Buhari’s integrity should count positively for his candidacy.

  • Chief Pius Olu Akinyelure: A breath of fresh air in the APC

    Chief Pius Olu Akinyelure: A breath of fresh air in the APC

    Chief Pius Olu Akinyelure’s address at the APC’s Southwest Congress was an exhilarating reaction to PDP’s highhandedness

    It is gratifying that Chief Tom Ikimi and former Borno State governor, Modu Sheriff, have self-evicted from the APC after failing dismally to manoeuvre themselves into positions from where they could very easily have purloined the party in the foreseeable future. It would, most probably, have been the most grievous strategic error for any political party to commit: allowing anybody half as egocentric and self-loving as Tom Ikimi to ever emerge its Chairman. I had first met him  as a swashbuckling Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Architecture student at the 1969/70 National Convention of Nigerian  Students which was held at the University of Ibadan and none of his exaggerated idea of himself  then has  left him. But today is about Chief Akinyelure and the APC, not on our friend, the ‘Scourge of June Twelvers’, as the inimitable Olatunji Dare described him. The good news  of their exit  was, however, vitiated by what has become  APC’s recent, uncharacteristic tepid, if not outrightly timid, responses to PDP’s serial shenanigans which make you feel  like the party  is beginning to underrate its capacity to shock the PDP  at the 2015 presidential election, which I know  it can win.

    In a collaborative study we are working on, we have discovered that the APC can very well win the 2015 Presidential Election with enough hard work and creativity. This is quite possible with a good, targeted and extensive publicity, not the lies we currently see daily on television standing obvious Nigerian realities on the head,  but of the solid achievements of the APC governments in all parts of the country, especially in education, healthcare delivery, welfare of the elderly, the environment  and massive infrastructure procurement any  of which no PDP state can compare  except, may be, in solitary Akwa Ibom; coupled with strategically thinking  through pragmatic  programmes that will reflate the Nigerian economy and take it away from the IMF/World Bank paradigm we are currently stagnated with. I speak here of targeted, implementable and measurable, poverty-reducing policies that will resonate with the Nigerian people, not the  big names the PDP is parading, romancing and deceiving the likes of Ribadu at will.  These are programmes, not fraudulently collated bios of job-seeking Nigerian youth they have coyly converted to those they claim endorsed their candidate. On the contrary, these will be well considered policies that will create jobs, reduce corruption and expand our infrastructure base.  With such policies firmly in place, an APC government at the federal level  will, rapidly and sustainably,  increase the national income and can successfully lift as many as 20million Nigerians out of poverty within its first  four years in office.

    If the party’s reaction to the PDP’s highhandedness had been chilling, not so the exhilarating address by Chief Pius Olu Akinyelure, National Vice Chairman (Southwest), at the Southwest Congress of the party, held at Ibadan on Thursday, September 4, 2015. The highly impactful address is, for space constraints, reproduced below, mutatis mutandis.

    Happy reading:

    Ibadan has always provided the bedrock for great monuments. Today, I strongly believe that we are here to build even a greater future for our long suffering people by confronting the ills of the present to achieve a greater tomorrow. Today, we are here to make history. Ibadan is a city of history, a city that made and is still making history. I recollect for instance, that the achievement of the Action Group, (AG) and later the Unity Party of Nigeria, (UPN) took Africa by storm. Not only did the party become the best organized political party in Africa, it brought forth the best programme of action for the Africa renaissance. It was at this great city that remarkable achievements of one of the founding fathers of modern Nigeria, Chief Obafemi  Awolowo, rekindled the hope for black Africa when he established the first television station and the first radio station in Africa. Today, I can say that we are also making history by coming together in this remarkable city to re-energise our party so as to meet the greater challenges ahead. As we gather here today, we must admit that in spite of the outstanding achievements recorded by the founding fathers of Nigeria, there is a conscious attempt to dwindle and extinguish the glorious past of this great country and a more desperate attempt to dwarf every genuine attempt by the progressive forces in Nigeria to bring hope where despair lay siege. We cannot deceive ourselves about the economic and political woes of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, (PDP) which dimmed the stars of yesteryears, becloud the rainbows of today and diminish the hidden potentials of our great nation. I doubt if Nigeria has ever been faced with such a perilous future as we have today in the annals of our history.

    On the economic front, Nigeria has been dragged into the red light district of global affairs. On the political front, there are fears about the future considering the odious attempt to eliminate the basic principles of democracy. In Ekiti, Osun and across the South West, the PDP is promoting a retinue of rogue regimes that negate the fundamentals of the egalitarian political heritage of the South West. In Ekiti for instance, we witnessed, not only the monetisation of votes and the blatant institutionalisation of violence but much more – using state machinery. We are aware of the flagrant cases of human right violations perpetrated by some of the nation’s security apparatus. This is different from the hordes of masked gun men that stormed the State of Osun before and on August 9. I must say without any contradictions that the APC leaders in Ekiti and the State of Osun waged campaigns based on developmental issues like the environment, culture, economy, tourism, education and human capital and infrastructural development, while the PDP based its campaign on appeal to banal instincts and corruption, based on the puerile propaganda of momentary and opportunistic patronisation of market women and artisans. This is reprehensible.

    Permit me to use this opportunity to commend the resilience of millions of our supporters in the South West for their calmness in the face of naked brute force, provocation and state induced assaults by the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP). I also wish to commend our leaders for their vigilance and resolute, iron cast determination to defend the core principles of democracy as well as their resolve not to resort to violence. I commend the governments of Lagos, Oyo and Ogun for their achievements which have been validated and acclaimed by the international community. The effective response by the Lagos State Government to the Ebola scourge is another glaring example of how APC leadership stands shoulder high above our political opponents who have regressed Nigeria to a state of stupor. The entire country is today faced with monumental challenges arising from poverty, want and penury. The manufacturing companies are facing an all time economic low. Less than half of the population has access to electricity; living standards are the same today as they were in 1970, and nearly 100 million Nigerians live on less than $1 dollar a day. There is massive unemployment, with over 50% of our youth out of work.  And all are happening in the face of a PDP government that has no effective strategy to stem the worrisome whirlwind.

    This is the time for change.

    It is the time for all members of our great party and Nigerians, in general, to wrestle Nigeria from these vampires. Time is running out. We must act fast and decisively. And to strengthen the party, we must: Realise the need for us to make sacrifices for the party and build new alliances, develop a vision and philosophy our people can relate to and associate with: one that addresses current needs, provides hope and abundance for all.

    APC must have local cells alongside the ward structure that will become a meaningful platform of, and for citizens’ engagement. Our politics must be accompanied by clarity of message about what we stand for. We must create a movement that will put light at the end of this long, dark tunnel and make our people the pilot of their own destiny, so that Nigeria can reclaim her lost glory at home and in the comity of nations. Our new politics must be relevant, current and fit-for-purpose and must have political instruments that offer adequate response to the challenges facing our citizens. APC must become a political party that can act as a social movement. We need to start doing and playing politics of ideology and values, walking in the footpath of the Avatar – Chief Obafemi Awolowo – so that our politics can once again generate genuine momentum for progressive change.

  • The Peoples Democratic Party Of Nigeria (PDP): Lying as Modus Operandi

    The Peoples Democratic Party Of Nigeria (PDP): Lying as Modus Operandi

    We would not have bothered much if PDP lies were limited to within itself but unfortunately, what happens within it and organisations integral to it are worse

    The late James Ajibola Idowu Ige, SAN, (September 13, 1930 – December 23, 2001) and Uncle Bola, to us, left behind enough quotable quotes and other inimitable contributions to Nigeria’s political history and lexicon to make his name absolutely unforgettable. Among these are his description of the five ‘Abacharite’ political parties as akin to five leprous fingers and PDP, after his usually deep observation, as the People Deceiving Party of Nigeria. The party has never been able to live down that apt description in its many years even as they continue to humour it as the largest party in Africa. The good thing is, its members do not only deceive Nigerians, they also live on a diet of lies. Only this past week, as a means of inflicting a pre-determined governorship candidate on its Adamawa chapter – how happy would they not be seeing Ribadu by President Jonathan’s side during the campaigns – a notice suddenly materialised inviting the 14 governorship aspirants to a meeting with the president. Commenting on the invitation, one of the aspirants described it as a ploy. Elucidating further, he said, and I quote: “We were asked to come to the meeting at 9 pm on Thursday. But we got wind of a plot by some forces in the presidency to hold the entire aspirants hostage in Abuja till Friday afternoon when the meeting will hold. As the meeting holds on Friday, Yola Airport will be closed and all roads leading to Yola will be blocked. They will then proceed to hold the primary election in the absence of all the aspirants so that they can manipulate the process for an anointed aspirant.”

    We would not have bothered much if PDP lies were limited to within itself but unfortunately, what happens within it and organisations integral to it are worse; and here we take, for our example, The Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) – President Jonathan’s lodestar campaign organisation. Although both the party and government continue to deny any relationship with TAN, below are the views of a perceptive Nigerian, Simbo Olorunfemi, in a letter to the Editor of The Nation, published on Thursday, September, 2014.  Under the caption, ‘What Manner of Democracy Is This?’, she  wrote inter alia: ‘The advertising campaign by the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria and her co-travellers, obviously well-oiled from an abundance of unexplained resources, has been running for over six months now. The government has nothing to do with it, we are told, yet the Secretary to the Government of the Federation always finds time to be at these rallies to receive a pile of signatures. The president has nothing to do with it, yet his ministers, from time to time, abandon their duty posts to partake in this trend. Even, Ministers Adesina and Okonjo-Iweala could not help but leave their busy desks to take part in rallies at Ibadan and Port Harcourt’. Lies, lies and yet, more lies. What exactly are we to make of these people?

    Nigerians were, however, served the mother of all these PDP lies by Hussain Obaro of Ilorin, Kwara State, who, again, in a letter to The Nation Editor, titled: The Big Scam From TAN, indicative of how politically conscious Nigerians have become, and published on page 19 of The Nation’s edition of Tuesday, September 2, 2014, when he  poignantly captured the fact that these people would go to any length to deceive and to defraud. Hussain is here quoted in full:

    “Few months ago, a non-governmental organisation under the aegis of Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN), circulated a message all over the internet urging youths to register their bio-data for job opportunities through TAN. Millions of Nigerians, employed and unemployed, rushed into cybercafés to purchase network-browsing time while those who have smart phones and other ICT gadgets with subscriptions made do with it and registered duly and happily. Nigerians were asked to fill in their phone numbers, permanent home address, and local government areas, among other sensitive information.

    Few weeks later, TAN began an endorsement rally in support of President Jonathan’s re-election bid throughout the various geo-political zones in Nigeria. To the dismay of Nigerians, the bio-data which they naively gave to TAN with the expectation that they would be provided jobs were carefully collated and presented at the various TAN rallies to the representatives of President Jonathan, Secretary to the Government of the Federartion, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, as the Nigerians who are happy with the president’s transformation agenda in the creation of jobs, good healthcare delivery system, improved national security etc and have happily and willingly endorsed President Jonathan for another term of office come 2015!

    The use of bio-data of young Nigerians to score cheap, shameless and ridiculous political points without their consent is not only criminal and offensive, it is unfortunate and an insult on the sensibility of these young Nigerians, it is an embarrassment to this country and its image as it is a dent not only the credibility of the conveners of TAN but also on the presidency.

    The youths of this country should not be cowed or tricked into endorsing President Jonathan for another term in office. TAN should have come out openly and allow these young Nigerians to freely express their opinions on whether they wish to do so or not. Nigerian youths have been taken for a ride and for fools. TAN should as a matter of urgency render an unreserved apology in all the national dailies, national radio stations and television stations to Nigerians on their heinous crime and atrocity against the people.

    Failure to do this would be met with legal consequences, as various youths fora would have no other choice than to proceed to a law court for a legal battle. The sensibility of any people has never been this insulted in the history of this country. If you can’t help us out of unemployment, poverty and poor standard of living imposed on us by corruption and lack of ideas of our leaders, at least, don’t insult us or take us for fools”.

    Were I to be one of these young people, I would insist we collectively institute a class action against this infuriating banality from high quarters to teach a lesson they will never forget.

    Nigerians can now see why the PDP would not mind pre determining election results via pre-programmed ballot papers as was allegedly done in the 21 June, 2014, gubernatorial election in Ekiti whose later discovery made such deployment impossible in the subsequent Osun election. It also brings to mind the humongous lies currently being  peddled all over Ekiti by an in-coming government that has become hyperactive about money, going illegally to the state’s bankers for information about state accounts against all  protocol and decency simply because they had  allegedly pre-committed  huge Ekiti funds, straight  from  monthly  federal allocations, to servicing election related  agreements.

    The way PDP is going, shamelessly lying about everything and fighting shy of exposing and prosecuting sponsors of terrorism to the utter discomfiture of our hard fighting soldiers, we may one day wake up to find we no longer have a  country to call our own. God forbid.

  • Islamic State (is): The world’s next scourge and why Nigeria must be alert

    Islamic State (is): The world’s next scourge and why Nigeria must be alert

    It would be quite a shame if the country would sit on its hind legs and wait until Nigerians head to Syria and Iraq to be trained in all the technicalities of decapitating fellow human beings

    If al-Qaeda and its associates have killed in hundreds of thousands, the way The Islamic State, (IS), is going, it  may  account for millions killed by the time the world finally gets clean with it, if ever.  Without a doubt, the world is permanently in a flux but if anybody had suggested that the world was going to contend with anything worse than al-Qaeda so soon after the US dispatched Bin Laden, we all would have told that person to perish the thought. This is not to suggest that there hadn’t been chilling predictions, post Nostradamus, but they were mostly that: predictions that may, indeed, never come till the end of time. No more. They now mushroom like violence is the last name in Christendom.

    Talking about post Nostradamus predictions, there had been many and they keep pouring in. Indeed, 2014 vows to bring the hardest times for mankind. The predictions are terrifying as the world would, according to them, be shocked by natural disasters, assassinations and incurable diseases, and doesn’t Ebola come to mind. The year is believed to be a turning point in the history of humanity. Plagues, wars and disasters threaten the world according to Baba Vanga, a famed Bulgarian prophetess. A blind mystic and clairvoyant, she foresees an epidemic of skin cancer that will decimate the planet’s population and according to the Ukrainian engineer who deciphered Nostradamus quatrains, 2014 will be engulfed in violence.  Famed seers have even seen the beginning of World War111 and Mr. Putin appears to be working unerringly towards that end now that Russia has deployed troops in the Ukraine.

    However, if all these are in the future, not so the mind boggling violence the IS (Islamic State) continues to visit on mankind. Its militants  recently besieged a village in northern Iraq,  gave the residents a deadline to convert to Islam and when they refused, more than 80 men were killed and the women and children of the village became their slaves; this in addition to several weeks of crucifying  Christians, beheading their children and burying others alive. Although it started out like al-Qaeda on an extremist hard line, adhering to global jihadist principles, al-Qaeda has, since February 2004, closed all links to the Islamic State because of its extreme brutality.  Indeed, only two weeks ago, a British-born member of the group was reported to have beheaded the American journalist, Mike Foley, in a horrendous act of brutality that would hardly be equalled.  Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claims to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and has proclaimed him the Islamic “caliph”.  Caliph, meaning successor, is a title used by Sunni Muslims for those who led Islam from the death of the Prophet to the 20th century.  When Turkey was made a secular state after World War I, the caliphate was abolished. Now al-Baghdadi claims to have reconstituted it in himself.  He is calling on the Muslim world to move to his Islamic State to support his movement.  Militants are already carrying the IS flag in Indonesia and across North Africa.  Jihadist groups around the world are deciding whether to switch their allegiance from al-Qaeda to him. Al-Baghdadi has announced his group’s intention to march on Rome and Spain, seeking to establish his caliphate across Europe. When he was transferred from American to Iraqi custody in 2009, (from which he was later released), he told his American captors, “I’ll see you in New York.”

    For us as Nigerians, the most important part of this story, and its relevance is this: ‘Now al-Baghdadi claims to have reconstituted it in himself he is calling on the Muslim world to move to IS and to support his movement’. The potency of this statement and its probable dire consequences arise from what we have come to know about our intelligence community. Naturally, one would expect that a country of Nigeria’s economic standing and place in Africa would, by now, be on top of everything concerning the Islamic State. Indeed, going by the experience of how some Nigerians so easily hung on themselves everything concerning the Islamic world, be it in Iran, Afghanistan or Tajikistan, it should not be out of place to expect that there should be in place, as you read this, a desk specifically dedicated to Islamic state affairs in not only our Ministry of External Affairs, Defence Intelligence or at the ubiquitous DSS. But that will be the day!

    Given that it is not unknown for Nigerians to actually make their services available to organisations like Al-Qaeda, and with the entire Northeastern part of the country now being ferociously buffeted by Boko Haram, it should stand to reason that our intelligence community, if not the presidency, should now be fully engaged with all the ramifications of Islamic state activities. But as I indicated earlier, it would be the mother of all surprises if Nigeria is giving this ogre the importance and seriousness it deserves.

    It would be quite a shame if the country would sit on its hind legs and wait until Nigerians head to Syria and Iraq to be trained in all the technicalities of decapitating fellow human beings, causing and fuelling urban terrorism and putting the entire Nigerian government to fright, not to talk of completely destabilising the economy before our government starts running to foreign countries for assistance.

    The Islamic State (IS), formerly the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in its self-proclaimed status as a caliphate claims religious authority over all Muslims across the world and aspires to bring much of the Muslim-inhabited regions of the world under its political control beginning with Iraq, Syria and countries which include Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus and an area in southern Turkey.  The Economist reported in June 2014, that “it may have up to 6,000 fighters in Iraq and 3,000–5,000 in Syria, including perhaps 3,000 foreigners manly from Chechnya, France and Britain’.

    With a territory bigger than Britain, and assets worth more than 2Billion dollars, oil resources, gold bullions and massive kidnappings from which to easily increase its current holdings and the well known attraction of the young and employed who are relentlessly being recruited via a massive propaganda on the social media, it is obviously a short distance from recruiting hundreds of young impressionable Nigerians who, like the recruits from Europe, will not think twice before returning to Nigeria with their newly acquired capabilities in inflicting complete mayhem on society.

    If Boko Haram is this keen on completely annexing the Northeast, it will not be unreasonable to believe that , if care is not taken, if the Nigerian government does not take appropriate, creative and proactive  measures like keeping on perpetual watch list, the movements and activities of Nigerians who may stray into this weird and dangerous organisation,  Nigeria  may be heading into the mother of all troubles.

    God forbid.

  • Re: # Bring Back Our Northern Domination – Femi Aribisala

    Re: # Bring Back Our Northern Domination – Femi Aribisala

    For Aribisala, the president occupies a sinecure position and so he must not be bothered at all, whether it is about the girls, about Ebola or anything at all

    With characters like Femi Aribisala, Nigeria is hopelessly doomed. How obstreperous, how gratuitously clownish can a so-called professor get just for the purpose of stomach infrastructure? I read this supposed academic and I almost threw up. What drives their kind, what is the end in view because like the Yoruba would say, must you, because you must eat beef, call a cow brother? What is the purpose of education if all it makes you do is become boisterous in advertising idiocy? In an article he titled as above, brimming with bile and incandescent pride, he descended heavily on a section of Nigeria you would think he was writing about Tajikistan; all in the mistaken belief that he was fighting President Goodluck Jonathan’s enemies, not knowing he was merely foolishly increasing the president’s problems in geometric proportions. At least the president has not been quoted as saying he wants Nigeria’s dismemberment.

    I crave readers’ pardon for fouling up their Sunday with some quotes from the thoroughly inflammatory article.

    He had started out with this totally idiotic, if not illogical proposition, which in itself is a pointer to where that word came into the PDP lexicon since this fellow became bullish in its defence: ‘The only way the APC can redeem its perception as a Janjaweed party is by putting forward a South-South man as its presidential candidate in 2015’. But that, indeed, was one of the best parts because he would later equate APC to Boko Haram in the article even when Nigerians know in which party a former northeast governor who was severally called in by security agencies concerning Boko Haram is now coolly berthed.

    And my mind went, instinctively, to the unfortunate university students who must have passed through a man who could write as follows about fellow Nigerians: ‘The Northern Elders Forum, the apostles of “the north is born to rule, “finally played their joker. They maintained that if the government does not #Bring Back Our Girls by the end of October, 2014, Jonathan should forget about running for re-election. This again reveals that there is more political mischief to the kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls than initially meets the eye. As a matter of fact, it shows conclusively that #Bring Back Our Girls is simply another instrument of #Bring Back Our Northern Domination. The First Lady understood this clearly from the onset; which is why she declared that:

    “There is God o!” The people of Borno understood this. They have always known that their own feudal leaders are behind the kidnapping of the girls. With the statement of the NEF, Nigerians must no longer be in two minds about this. The kidnapping of the Chibok girls is part and parcel of a cynical plan by some northern elements to embarrass the government and militate against Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election plans.’ I am surprised this jester did not accuse the northern elders of breeding Ebola in their maximum security laboratory to embarrass the Nigerian president.

    Pray, how idiotic can anybody get arriving at this conclusion from that premise? Is our professor here saying it is beyond the ken of northern elders to call attention to the pitiable conditions of over 200 young Nigerian girls, holed up amidst terrorists for well over a  hundred days without the slightest idea as to when they would be freed, if ever?

    Indeed, there are professors and there are professors!

    I invite readers then, to come with me as this determined nation wrecker shows his devious hands. Wrote Aribisala, senselessly trying to pit northerners against one another in the belief that they are like the Yoruba some power mongers are currently  trying to mess up and sell cheaply: ‘The new north is the north of men like our most successful industrialist, Aliko Dangote, now the 23rd richest man in the world. It is the north of men like Ibrahim Gambari; our point-man and intellectual giant at the United Nations. It is the north of men like Nuhu Ribadu; it is the north of men like Father-Reverend Matthew Kukah, a Catholic priest with a national social conscience. It is the north of men like Mohammed Buba Marwa, the most dynamic governor in Nigeria during the Abacha regime. But subsisting beside this new progressive north is the old north of decrepit old men who have lived for long as parasites on Nigeria’s oil wealth. This bold north is the north of #Bring Back Our Northern Domination; a north of indolent political has-beens; looking for pensions from national coffers. It is the north of recalcitrant yesterday’s men who had lived large at the country’s expense and are hankering after an inglorious past where they spent the national patrimony with the profligacy and abandon of irresponsible firstborn children. This is the old north that ran down the nation’s resources. It is the north that built nothing and grew nothing. It is the north that ate up our groundnut pyramids. It is the north that, despite being in power for 38 years, failed grievously to educate northern children. It is the north of those who kept their fellow northerners in the bondage of abject poverty under a feudal system where, like dogs, they fed them from the crumbs that fell from their table. This old north is the north of men who are now reduced to pathetic bluster and blackmail. It is these same northerners that are now crying #Bring Back Our Northern Domination. But they can no longer fool the new emergent north; and they certainly cannot fool the rest of the country, except perhaps a few gullible and power-hungry Yoruba chieftains.’ Hogwash!

    What first surprised me on reading this portion of his senseless article was how a supposed intellectual could so revel in panegyrics you would think he is a juju musician. Indeed, Alhaji Dangote should please remember him in his will. Whoever recruited this fellow for the President Jonathan’s re election bid in the probable hope that there was money he could make in an election year has done a great disservice to the president. And if he chose to go on a frolic, he should look for something else to do.  Truth be told, this hagiographer is simply brainless.

    With this type of an educated fool, Nigeria is certainly doomed. With a professor so illogical, so blind he conflates his hated north, with a Boko Haram that is killing everybody, this country is going nowhere. Even a complete illiterate would remember that there was Boko Haram long before Jonathan. So what election were they stopping him from contesting then? Does Aribisala need be told that a group which attempted to kill both the late Emir of Kano and General Buhari, who he presents in his article as a blue-eyed boy of the same bad north he so unreasonably denigrates, could not logically be the handiwork of these same distinguished northerners he hates so much?

    Does he need to be so grovelling if all he wants is an ambassadorship with accreditation to, may be, nothing better than Banjul? Where is the proverbial restraint of the academic? Why could he have chosen to be a nation destroyer rather than the builder his level of education presupposes?

    This thoroughly illogical fellow is completely out of sync with the academia and he should hide his face in shame. By the way how many northerners are pushing the bring back our girls effort that the elders can no longer talk? Is Oby Ezekwezili a northerner or Mrs Oyebode one? Her father and former Head of State, General Mohammed, was from the old Bendel, the mother, a proud Yoruba, and she is married to one of our distinguished Ekiti icons, the distinguished lawyer, Gbenga Oyebode.

    What ails this character for Christ’s sake, insecurity?

    He worsened his case when, in an effort to humour the president, he went on to  commend the First Lady for views every reasonable person considered unfair and for which, she had since made amends. For Aribisala, the president occupies a sinecure position and so he must not be bothered at all, whether it is about the girls, about Ebola or anything at all.

    Just as this article was being put to bed I learnt, reliably, that together with a business associate of his, somewhere on Opebi, Lagos, our friend packages Consultancy/Training programmes which are mostly  targeted  at  making unearned profits from Abuja.

    Need we wonder any further why he must be a lick spittle?

  • Osun: Oju ti owo (money is shamed) and the fascists are put to shame

    Osun: Oju ti owo (money is shamed) and the fascists are put to shame

    Ministers of Yoruba extraction became couriers and guardians of money meant to swindle elections in two southwest states, yet it failed in Osun’s case.

    A few reactions to my last week’s article questioned my fidelity to the cause of progressivism when they saw me give hints as to how President Goodluck Jonathan could brighten his chances in the 2015 presidential election without him having to ride roughshod on the rights of the electorate by unduly militarising elections and putting opposition party members through untold torture. Let me confess that I did that because I know that the man is not intrinsically bad; nor is he a Pharaoh but being too sold on his re-election, he has permitted himself  to be dominated by two groups of Yoruba politicians, namely, the elders, whose politics is now being  solely driven by their enmity towards the former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who they never cease to claim they made, but now looms a million times larger than them politically and so had to be stopped in his tracks by their being on the coattails of whoever is Lord of Abuja while the  other group is the rambunctious power mongers I have dubbed the fascists in the title of this article and who would not mind Nigeria going to perdition. These are the two groups that recommended the total clamp down on APC members in both Ekiti and Osun, a scenario that was completely absent in the militarisation of both Edo and Anambra elections simply because, for them, Jonathan must, willy nilly, be re-elected.  A clear attestation to this was Dr Okunrounmu’s fervent prayer to God, in a newspaper interview, that Aregbesola should lose the Osun election but which prayer the all-knowing God returned to his laps in ringing hollowness because they do not mean well for the Yoruba.

    Lest I forget, I must quickly point out that the first part of this title, OJU TI OWO, is in deference to a very distinguished retired General who called me first thing on the Monday after Ogbeni shamed them all, to suggest that title for the week. As for the elders, distinguished men in all respects, what also drives them is excessive bile. When was this one born and didn’t we make him governor in the first place? That is their regular refrain about Tinubu and it accounts for all the troubles President Jonathan is putting us through in Yoruba land. I will actually not be surprised if some of these elders elect to go meet their maker than see Tinubu’s party holding the reins of federal power. It should be remembered that they were publicly led to the Villa by the duo of Olusegun Mimiko and Gbenga Daniel, two men that can never serve the president enough.

    It has been suggested in serious circles that it is to enhance President Jonathan’s re-election that these elders mooted the idea of the just concluded National Conference and got their in-house academic to write the enabling memo complete with a word as to how to ‘work’ the membership so that the president could be gifted a fresh term of six years. All they needed to do, going forward, was to be vigilant and ensure that from start to finish, a member of the group was on the ringside, missing nothing. Only problem, it turned out, was how to finally turn the resolutions of a conference that was only a presidential proclamation without any legal backing to a draft constitution. That ended up causing the ruckus at the end of the conference because they did try to force it through, pretending not to know that constitution making requires a different set of modalities.

    Then come the fascists and I challenge any Nigerian to tell me where, in this country today, there is a greater assemblage of the type of characters that mill around the president claiming to be the PDP poster-boys than the Southwest; those former governor OIagunsoye Oyinlola so uncannily described. These are men who have quite easily made an angel of the once swashbuckling Chief Bode George of the Obasanjo era and who will not mind seeing Nigeria to Armageddon. No wonder there is the whispering news that PDP leaders from both the Niger-Delta and the South-East hate their arrogance with a passion. I have no doubt they sold election militarisation in the Southwest to the president. They had earlier conned him to cede to them, the macho ministries of Police Affairs and Defence in the belief that Yoruba are weaklings, a suggestion to which the president easily agreed. And money was never their problem as this was being ferried, a day to each election, in millions from Abuja by choppers accompanied by Yoruba ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It does not get more sickening.

    If we were caught unawares in Ekiti with militarisation, torture and pre-programmed ballot papers which they, of course, could no longer deploy in Osun having been busted, not so in Osun where our compatriots showed them that the Yoruba are no weaklings, after all. Indeed, they were so determined to shame the ‘Ode Apanias’ –as one called himself after he slapped a former governor of the state – that they trouped out in mammoth numbers and ended up recording the highest percentage at any election in Nigeria since June 12.

    To demonstrate what exactly these power mongers are turning the president to all because they claim they would deliver the votes of a region where they are loathed like a leach come 2015, I reproduce below the notes of Wole Olujobi, a journalist and Media Adviser to the Rt. Honourable Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, on how these desperadoes led soldiers, policemen and hooded others to deal with APC leaders, members, and Ekitis in general:

    “At a press conference attended by about 40 journalists a few days before the election, the State Chairman of APC, Chief Jide Awe, gave the names of members marked for arrest. Governor Fayemi was himself tear-gassed and the MOPOL Commander Gabriel Selenkere, from the Niger-Delta, was quoted as saying that he was “acting on orders from above”. But the siege was yet to come as members  slated  for  arrest included the  Chairman  himself, the Chief of Staff to the governor, Yemi Adaramodu; Richard Apolola , Hon Sunday Ibitoye, Niyi Adedipe, Tope Olanipekun, Rotimi Olambiwonu, Otunba Femi Olanrewaju, Peter Oladosu and Speaker, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Adewale Omirin, Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon  Olurotimi Odu, Member of the state House of Assembly; Oladipo Ige, Hon Taiwo Olatunbosun Former Deputy Speaker, the Jamiu brothers, the Security Adviser to the governor,  Col Babatunde  Oluwayose (rtd),  Special Adviser to the governor, Kayode Akinyemi, Hon. Peter Adekunle, Ojo Olanipekun, Kayode Ojo, Femi Aluko,  Tayo Egunlusi. Caroline Egunlusi and Thomas Ajewole.

    “APC members were to be shocked into knowing that that was only the beginning when Chief Dapo Awojolu, a 70-year-old APC leader was seized. The Director General of Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation, Hon. Bimbo Daramola,MHR,  was arrested and his father thrown into an army jeep and driven away. Finance Commissioner, Dapo Kolawole, Chief Bisi Egbeyemi, Oodua Board member;  State Protocol Officer, Tade Aluko, Special Adviser, Tope Osatoyinbo and others too numerous to mention were all arrested and kept incommunicado until voting was over. Hon. Femi Awe, an LG Chairman had to scale the fence of his house to escape the early morning. Sunday Adeyanju was pointed out by a PDP member, himself in mask inside a soldiers’ truck. Earlier, Vice President Namadi Sambo had declared Ekiti election a war.

    “Eight PDP members were arrested thumb-printing ballot papers in Dipo Ani’s, (Ayo Fayose’s campaign manager) hotel at Are-Ekiti. Yet nothing came of it even after the then AIG confirmed their arrest. A week before election, a vehicle with voting materials was intercepted by soldiers who were alarmed to see 2014 stamps for Ekiti election among the materials. Till today, nothing more has been heard. In Ekiti soldiers were under instruction to respond with maximum force to any reaction by the people and the soldiers did not leave Ekiti until the House of Assembly passed a resolution to that effect.”

    This was the torture chamber these reprobates cooked Ekiti APC leaders, members and Ekiti people in general in and they are here gloating all over the place that they won an election and Marilyn Oga continues with her joke of the century.

  • Some critical post-election questions

    Some critical post-election questions

    Is there a possibility (that) the president sees the militarisation of elections as a worthy contribution to democracy?

    My the time you read this article, incumbent governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, must have seen off the challenge of Senator Iyiola Omisore, the PDP candidate in the just concluded governorship election, on whose behalf the state was unnecessarily put under a stifling security lock- down for the better part of the election week capped by a 24-hour curfew as the icing on the cake. That, of course, would be if the Election Fixing Contractors (EFC) and their rogue INEC collaborators did not have their evil way as they did in Ekiti in what is sure to turn a pyrrhic victory sooner than later. Now that the two governorship elections in the Southwest have come and gone, some questions have become of critical importance if Nigeria must remain a member of the civilised comity of nations.

    The most important of these is why, after he had been in office as president for six years, President Jonathan, and those around him, still think they must fight to the death to get him re-elected. That precisely is what Nigerians have seen in the two elections both of which turned out, uncannily, as predicted by Vice-President Namadi Sambo who said long ago that the two elections would be war.  Some of us had thought then that he was mistaking the Southwest for the Northeast where Nigeria is confronted with its stiffest war situation in over four decades.  What we have seen in Yoruba land these past two months had been nothing short of war. Not only were soldiers and police men deployed in their thousands, it has been observed, because Nigerian soldiers do not go around in hoods, that fake soldiers have equally been sent after Yorubas in whose geo-political zone the two elections took place, wearing some macabre hoods. We equally thought that the PDP lodestar, Buruji Kashamu, was merely grandstanding when , a little before the vice-president’s gaffe, but ominously in a thoroughly coordinated plot, he declared that PDP was out looking for ‘soldiers’ as its governorship candidates in the two states.

    They both must have been acting on orders from above.

    That then leads us to the next question. When on the orders of the president, elections in a democracy are turned to mini wars, shouldn’t  Nigerians safely  assume that he and his party, the PDP, actually intend to rule over a captured  people? Of course, the word capture, which used to be the monopoly of Chief Bode George, a one-time PDP poster boy in the Southwest, has since become democratised and popularised within the top echelons of the party, the latest aficionado being Chief Ishola Filani, the Acting Southwest Deputy Chairman of the party whose own ambition, as he has said severally, is to capture the Southwest for President Jonathan ahead of the 2015 presidential election.

    Is there a possibility (that) the president sees the militarisation of elections as a worthy contribution to democracy? I ask this question because without as much as initiating a single electoral reform in his six years in office, the president was recently quoted as follows while breaking fast with the diplomatic corps and some senators during the last Ramadan: “I know that one thing that is dear to your hearts is what the elections in this country will look like next year. But let me use this unique opportunity to reassure you and I’m conveying this to my brothers, your heads of government, that our elections next year will be free and fair. It will be very peaceful in nature that will even surprise the whole world.”

    Now, the above is a very weighty undertaking  and the fact that he wanted this conveyed to his brother Heads of State makes it doubly so. Given that Nigerians cannot remember anything that the president is doing fundamentally to improve our shambolic elections, unless militarisation could be so regarded, could it be there are things the president knows which Nigerians, even the legislature, haven’t the slightest idea of? It is necessary to read the president between the lines, especially where he says the election “will be very peaceful IN NATURE (caps mine), and will even SURPRISE the whole world.”  In nature, and surprise the world? Dr Reuben Abati must help us out here, and why do I say this? I am one of those who can attest to the fact that the 21 June, 2014 Ekiti governorship election was peaceful IN NATURE; the lines were peaceful, there was no ballot box snatching etc, but many will wager that it was all because the election was scientifically rigged which rendered all the usual PDP rigging tricks unnecessary. Since this columnist, and not a few Nigerians, believe that something far removed from PDP’s  romanticised ‘stomach infrastructure’ accounted for the so-called  defeat of an absolutely performing  Ekiti State  governor, it will be appreciated if the president will get one of his media aides to tell Nigerians on what basis he made that promise to the world. Not to do so is to allow present rumours take a life of their own.

    Finally, it is appropriate to ask whether the president does not think that an election as important as the presidential should be fought strictly on the basis of performance, especially by an incumbent who has, fortuitously, already spent more years than a single term in the post? Nigerians have followed the Babel  of advertisements  by several pro-Jonathan groups which decided to jump the gun even ahead of Mr President  and have observed that not a few of the claims they make for Mr President actually stand the Nigerian reality on the head. There is, for instance, the thoroughly asinine one that says the president has fought terrorism to a standstill. The Boko Haram felons must be laughing! And this is where whoever knows the president will realise that these attention seeking groups are misrepresenting President Jonathan and doing him a great disservice.

    Before the ensemble of Southwest PDP chieftains came to suffocate the president and led him on to several unfortunate routes, Nigerians knew him as neither a General nor a Pharaoh. I wouldn’t know what they think today, but President Jonathan can still prise himself free of these  do-gooders and allow genuine supporters, as distinct from these self-serving Yoruba PDP fellows who were recently appropriately described by former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, to run an intellectually grounded campaign on his behalf.

    Without a doubt, most of the problems the president has to deal with today were inherited and many, like terrorism, do not go away easily. But there were things he could have done proactively which he, unfortunately, allowed to fester.  Ensuring, for instance, that those who killed Yusuf, the Boko Haram leader, and some of his supporters were quickly brought to book would have probably stopped this menacing terrorist sect in its tracks. The president also miscalculated in shielding members of his cabinet accused of corruption instead of promptly excusing them from their duty posts to signpost his determination to effectively fight that canker worm. Only this past week, the United States finally put a closure to the Abacha kleptomania ensuring the family lost millions of dollars whereas back home in Nigeria, the president not only ordered that the case against Abacha’s son be discontinued, the fellow is being aggressively romanced by the presidency with an eye to the 2015 elections and may, indeed, emerge the party’s governorship candidate in Kano State.  Rather than allow these  power mongers to hold him captive, especially now that February  2015 is fast approaching, the president would be better served if he, from now on, pursues genuine  electoral  reforms  in which only the police would have any role whatever, squarely, aggressively and, conscientiously confronts corruption and like Obasanjo,  makes public example of  those who currently think they are untouchable and if he goes ahead to negotiate the release of our Chibok girls since a direct military confrontation  is unthinkable  as it would put their lives in jeopardy.

    That way, President Jonathan would be honestly getting ready for an election whose transparency and peaceful nature will truly surprise the world.

  • Femi Fowode (1948 -2014): We lost a friend, brother and gem

    Femi was, forever, a gentleman; picked quarrels with nobody and lived for others

    What you are about to read below are testimonies by two friends of our  dear  departed brother, Joseph Olufemi Fowode, who  was born into the family of Rev. Michael Fowode and Taiwo Odeniyi in Ijebu Igbo  on May 28, 1948 and whose  heart-wrenching translation to join the saints triumphant happened a few days ago in faraway Houston, Texas, USA. He attended St. Joseph’s College, Ondo, from 1963-1967, and the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, graduating in ‘75 with a combined Honours degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Femi would later be elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria.

    How exactly do Muyiwa and I, or any of his many friends, begin to write or talk about Femi in the past tense? When some six months  or so  ago  we  all, in  the  glittering company of  his  family, friends and well-wishers,  gathered at his son’s wedding in Lagos, little did we know Femi was doing all those  delightful dance steps for us as a final good bye. Except that he never stopped agonising over the inevitable absence at the event of his bosom friend, the late Deji of Akure, HRH Oba Adebiyi Adesida Afunbiowo II, who was to have been the Royal Father of the day, but had a little earlier joined his ancestors, there was no single dull moment. His Uncles, Professor Ayodele Ogunye, the industrialist Oba Otudeko and his brother Sanu, Chief & Mrs Kola Daisi, who Femi proudly told me years back were his ‘in loco parentis’, the way they doted over him, and others too numerous to mention, were like a cocoon wrapping him around just as the distinguished family of his spouse, friend, sister and confidant of many years, Hajia Fausat Olayide Fowode, was there in full glamour to honour the Fowode family. It was a class act and there could have been no asking for more except that we now know Femi  must have insisted on that wedding taking place in Nigeria in order to signpost his last hurray because our friend was everything like a meteor; igniting everywhere you find him with warmth, love and impeccable camaraderie. Femi was simply awesome. What he lost in size he more than made up for in bonhomie, conviviality, kindness and above all, empathy. No wonder, my wife was ever so fond of humorous ‘Daddy Fowode’.

    Mention your problem to Femi and it instantly becomes his, never sparing a moment, an effort, even resources to ensure you come out good. Each time I was in Houston, Femi instantly became –what I called him – ‘my driver’ – because my children, who  I was visiting, saw me only when Femi  decided to return me  to them  as he would have taken me round town all day. The minute I arrived Houston, Femi virtually went on his vacation. We never stopped talking about his absolutely smart children all of who graduated from college ‘magna cum laude’, and  it was  in Mummy Fowode’s beautiful  Day  Care Centre  two of my grandchildren had their first taste of school  life.

     

    Wrote Olumuyiwa Runsewe:

    Femi Fowode Goes Home – To Heaven.

    “Contrition Twines Me Like A Snake……”

    “MAU” – J. P. Clark.

     

    “One of the most famous lines and contributions of Professor J P Clarke to poetry readily came to mind a week ago when the shocking news of Femi Fowode’s passage in faraway Houston, Texas hit me through one of his children.  I was tempted to replicate the deep sorrow felt by J P Clarke as he saw cows being led to their predictable slaughter at Sango, Ibadan in the early 60s. After those initial shouts of “Oh, my God, Oh my God, Femi is Gone” something in me suddenly woke me up to the reality on ground. Come to think of it, Femi Fowode was a good man, a fantastic human spirit, a complete gentleman, a humour merchant and a man who would never pick up a quarrel with anyone.

    My close friendship with him started about 45 years ago when he was at the University of Ife and I at the University of Ibadan. Through him, I got to know almost everybody that was somebody at “Ife”. It was through him I met Femi Orebe, Sunmade Akin–Olugbade, Ishola Filani and many others whose friendships endure till today. On graduation, fate smiled on him as he landed a very lucrative job at Lever Brothers Ltd. Lagos, under the direct supervision of the celebrated management guru, Dr Michael Omolayole. Within a short time, he became a Senior Manager and feeling sufficiently equipped with the Unilever experience, he opted for greener pastures.  With his brilliance and dedication to work he would later work at the West African Batteries Ltd, Prime Merchant Bank, where he headed the Human Resources department, Credit Commercial Bank LTD and as Deputy Managing Director, Famad Shoe Manufacturing Co Ltd (formerly Bata Nig. Ltd). It was the last post, he relocated with his family to the U.S in 2001.

    Femi’s marriage to Fausat Olayide from the famous Animashaun Family of Lagos is made from heaven.  She was to him, like Don Williams’ words “Bread when he was hungry, a shelter from trouble winds, his anchor in life’s ocean, gave life to his children, and most of all, was his Best Friend”.

    Adieu, my bosom and loyal friend, Femi Fowode. You lived a good life but God loves you more. Good news is, you left for your children a bountiful cheque of honour and goodwill, from where they, and generations yet unborn, will tap. You saw all of them beyond the point of fear. Yours was a life well spent. May you continue to rest in the bosom of the Creator.”

    I am certain that as  they read this, many of our friends, especially  those back from our Ife days will not only be shell-shocked but might even drop a tear or two. Femi was absolutely unique the ready way he made friends. I felt the sorrow in Prince Eddy Adeniran, aka Dodonzo’s voice, when I told him on phone just as Bayo Williams was lost for words. I just hope the other Prince, Sunmade Akin Olugbade, is not just getting to know of this through this medium.  He will miss a heartbeat. He and Femi were that close. However, to all Femi’s friends I can say with all certainty that our friend, and brother, by the grace of  God,  has gone to be at the feet  of Jesus to rest eternally because he lived a Christ-like life. As Muyiwa noted above, Femi was, forever, a gentleman; picked quarrels with nobody and lived for others. He was as witty and generous as he was considerate.

    To the family he left behind we need not remind them who Femi was as his life was an open book. He was as devoted to the wife as he doted on his children. And without a doubt he left them happy memories to last nine lives.

    May the good Lord rest his soul. Amen.

     

    Last note: Interested friends can send commendations and testimonies for onward transmission to Mrs Fowode @zurielle2009@gmail.com

  • Revisiting the Photo-chromically rigged Ekiti election

    Revisiting the Photo-chromically rigged Ekiti election

    Jaws will drop when Nigerians get to know the details of the rigged Ekiti election

    I am always  beside myself  when I see the uninitiated continue to insult, indeed, completely rip apart, a doughty, decent  and extremely  respectable  Ekiti people, unfortunate victims  of PDP’s  unprecedented, in Nigeria, though happened in Zimbabwe’s 2013 Presidential election,  photo-chromically  rigged election of 21, June 2014,  being described in  very nauseating ways. There is hardly any insulting  epithet  under the sun Ekiti has not been painted  with arising from PDP’s irreverent rationalizations for its earth shaking ‘victory’ in that election: an election in which the thief foolishly stole more than the owner, with the sitting, performing governor  (Fayemi  has outperformed  all Ekiti governors, dead or alive) not winning a single Local Government area and the vote of  the ‘winner’, Ayodele Fayose, warts and all, almost doubling  the governor’s in the mistaken belief that the lie becomes  more believable if the margin of  victory is humongous.

    So successful were they that my friend, a world reputed intellectual and proud Ekiti  icon , was pained enough to do a  poem,  rather a dirge,  for Motherland’s fabled love of stomach. Fortunately, now that the APC has headed to the tribunal, the world will soon come to know the details of  this latest ‘Watergate’.  The PDP  and ts government have so negatively impacted the country that they  would do just about anything to hold on to power or steal it. Dr Jide Oluwajuyitan recently  reminded us that Nigeria  now  generates about 4500MW of electricity as against 4200 MW it had  a whole  twelve years ago when the late Dr Olusegun Agagu was  Minister of Power and Energy  and that was after injecting between $24 -$50 billion while another writer regaled his readers as follows:  ‘Former President Olusegun Obasanjo condemned GEJ’s government. Muhammadu Buhari criticized GEJ’s government. Maitama Sule expressed worries over GEJ’s leadership style. Mrs Hilary Clinton described GEJ’s government as corrupt. Senator John McCain said there is no government in Nigeria. Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni mocked GEJ on Boko Haram. Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe described Nigeria as a corrupt nation. The question is: Are all these people ignorant of what good governance is? And all that was long before we sank into this Watergate, this photochromically rigged Ekiti election.

    And I ask, is there a level to which this government will not degenerate?

    Many, incidentally and surprisingly including the U.S embassy in Nigeria, have commended INEC for conducting what they call a transparent election in Ekiti. I  can forgive the U.S having been accustomed to  Nigeria’s shambolic elections of ballot box snatching, murder and mayhem which were patently absent this time around, but I  feel certain America will by now be chuckling to itself saying: we were had!

    Which election did PDP not rig?  Is it the election which Olu Falae contested at the tribunal, or the one  Buhari took to the tribunal  and  in which, to save President Jonathan an Appeal Court President had to be hurriedly sacrificed? Back to Ekiti, is it the 2007 governorship election and the rerun  which the Appeal Court  held were both egregiously stolen by the PDP? It is obvious PDP did not overtly rig  the Ekiti election because it has long  ensured ‘victory’ when Obanikoro flew into the Akure Airport with his  strange ‘luggage’, later allegedly ferried to Ekiti in a bullion van.  To dispute this, Obanikoro, Jelili Adesiyan and the Anambra perpetual gubernatorial wannabe, none of them Ekiti, should tell the world what their mission was in Ekiti during the election. Obvously the vehicle arrested a few days to the Ekiti election conveying items from INEC’s Ado-Ekiti office was most probably ferrying the batch of  vanishing ink to be used in  Osun  which must have accounted for Omisore’s insistence, and INEC’s subsequent acquiescence, in the  transfer of the state’s Resident Commissioner. This is one reason APC must insist on the use of indelible ink in the Osun election as  specifically stipulated by the Electoral Law.  Otherwise, the party must make such available at all the polling booths if INEC  decides to continue to act  illegally by  providing vanishing ink as it did in Ekiti.

    I  paraphrase below, the argument of Hon Bimbo Daramola, MHR,  Director General of the Kayode Fayemi campaign, which should put the final nail on the coffin of this baloney called stomach infrastructure and the more asinine one that a governor who put in place the first ever welfare scheme for the elderly in Nigeria, giving 25,000  Ekiti  elders a N5000 monthly  stipend ,who employed about 10,000 youths through such schemes as the highly acclaimed Youth Commercial Agriculture (YCAD) which has seen a trained Medical Doctor turn a farmer, and one whose annual budgets are made bottom up by going to every Ekiti community to ascertain their critical needs, and much more, was aloof and disconnected from the citizenry:

    ‘I dare say 95 percent of those who are so confident in their oracular postulation  neither  have the hard facts  about the Fayemi years in Ekiti nor the numerous initiatives that were aimed at restoring  Ekiti back  from its ruins.

    It is obviously unknown to many that no administration treated Ekiti teachers better than Fayemi’s regardless of the competency test which was badly misunderstood.  Critics  should  therefore go and compare the various administrations since the creation of the state. Today they say teachers are against Fayemi despite their  regular  promotions,  payment of rural location allowance, core subjects allowance, 27.5% pecuniary allowance and both local and foreign training.  I am sure the election was not won because of stomach infrastructure or rice, he says, certainly not! Otherwise it would mean that all of a sudden, 25000 senior citizens  suddenly became  memory fatigued or brain dead  and  forgot  the man who made  government  have such impact on their lives,10000 volunteers  who have been on monthly financial support  for the past 36 months’ lost their minds’ and the people of Ikogosi who play  host to local  and international tourists in their thousands  equally temporarily forgot the man who made the  Ikogosi Tourist Resort  what it is.

    Continuing he said, the increased state revenue,  jobs created from  investment in road reconstruction, the Ire Ekiti Burnt Bricks  factory left prostrate for 23years, the various  job creating schemes, all must have suddenly counted for nothing because somebody brought in some bags of 2.5kg of expired Thai rice?

    Hon Daramola goes on: When latter day analysts begin to ascribe interpretations to what they do not know, I expect rational  people  to step back and attempt a  much more dispassionate  evaluation before jumping  to conclusions. For instance, when  one Segun Ayobolu  who confessed  he has not  visited Ekiti  since  Fayemi  became governor  goes on to rely on hearsays,  reasonable  people would expect him to demonstrate  circumspection.  Although he tried to tuck away his sloppiness by claiming journalists are not intellectuals,  one would still expect much more than his cocktail of lies and conjectures.  And then Akin Osuntokun goes on to mutilate facts on the altar  of the  expediency of  an urgent, even, dire need to enter into political reckoning which this “victory”  suggests to him: time to graduate from sitting perpetually on the  President’s  Chief of Staff.

    Come to think of it,  he continues, was that election all about the governor alone? Did it matter anything  that  the APC  has 3 Senators,  5 members of the House of Representatives,  25 state house assembly members in the state, besides political appointees?  All these people suddenly froze into political nothingness?  And it no longer mattered that 10  of those who  vied for  the PDP gubernatorial ticket had decamped to the APC;  Asiwaju Segun Oni  no longer  has any  political  relevance  in his home town; ditto erstwhile PDP top shots like Hon Olatubosun , Hon Babade, Chief Ojo Falegan and  many more?

    Our people must learn to think much more beyond the veneer and  take these empty postulations with more than a pinch of salt. They must see the PDP for what exactly it is :  an ensemble of political desperados  and power mongers who would stop at nothing to win elections.

    And as this writer has never shied  away from saying, jaws will drop when Nigerians get to know the details of the rigged Ekiti election.

  • Of the nobel laureate and the emerging emperor

    Of the nobel laureate and the emerging emperor

    From Adamawa to Nasarawa, from Edo to Rivers, and presumably to many other destinations yet unknown, President Jonathan’s paid agents are on the loose

    “Amid the swirling mess in Berlin of political intrigue, rumours, and disorder, the SA, the Nazi storm troopers, stood out as an ominous presence. In the spring of 1932, many in the German democratic government came to believe the Brown shirts were about to take over by force’.

    The last time I saw Professor Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate, up close, was when he visited with his young protégé, the Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, at Ado-Ekiti sometime in 2011, shortly before the general elections of that year. Naturally in tow, were his younger friends – Drs Yemi Ogunbiyi and Olu Agunloye. As we sat at breakfast that morning ra-con-teur-ing over a wide canvass, a lot was going through my mind. Suppose the Nigerian  military buccaneers had seen the last of this gem of a man;  suppose he had not survived his many incarcerations, suppose Abacha had been able to feed his flesh to marine creatures or just suppose that goggled butcher  had succeeded in making ‘Beokuta, in  faraway West Indies, his resting place as he once conjectured. Suppose, suppose, suppose. My reverie was interrupted when his son showed up with dad’s coffee which has to be ‘cooked’ in a special way and I just wondered which of his wine or coffee he liked better the way he relished and doted on it.

    At 80, Professor Wole Soyinka, a world citizen in his own right, can be said to have seen the world, if you will pardon the tautology.  He is every mother’s child, the type a father goes on his knees everyday praying to sire. He could also, with ample justification, be said to have impacted life to the limit though the way Nigeria is going, with the president eagerly being made into something of a rambunctious  emperor, we may still, and very soon too, see the Laureate again at the barricades.  In the hope that good sense will prevail and the president will himself see the rocky road selfish politicians after their own ‘stomach infrastructure’ are egregiously dragging him, and beat a retreat for the sake of Nigeria, here is wishing the Lion a happy birthday and many happy returns.

    No two historical epochs are exactly the same but events in our country in recent times have sent me hurrying back to my history books to familiarise myself again with the history of Germany, especially between the years 1932 -34; a period which saw a former Austrian Corporal become the Führer of Germany, with dire consequences for Germany and the entire world.  When at a church service in September, 2011 President Goodluck Jonathan told Nigerians he was neither a Pharaoh nor a General, little did we know that the pious product of the ‘doctrine of necessity,’ for whom democracy activists lined the barricades when he was being severally upended, would one day mutate to worse, to become like the proverbial bull in a china shop.  And to imagine that Nigerians are only just beginning to see the very genesis of a metamorphosis that has the distinct possibility of atomising this country beyond recognition!

    From Adamawa to Nasarawa, from Edo to Rivers,  and  presumably to  many other destinations yet unknown, President Jonathan’s paid  agents  are  on the loose, feverishly  impeaching state governors, dismantling  settled  state structures, misusing sensitive  agencies of state like the military and the entire security apparati,  all in  the attempt to whip everybody into line ahead of the 2015 presidential elections.  October 1931 marked the beginning of the political intrigues that would destroy the young German republic leading to the emergence of the Führer. In circumstances which so uncannily mirror today’s Nigeria of Boko Haram,  of several presidential infractions, among them deliberate,  state-sponsored  disruption of  other tiers of  government,  murder and violence as we saw in Nasarawa this past week, Germany  soon erupted into  a scale of lawlessness never before experienced. Roaming groups of Nazi Brownshirts walked the streets singing Nazi songs and looking for fights. “Blut muss fliessen, ‘Blut muss fliessen! Blut muss fliessen “Knuppelhageldick! Haut’se doch zusammen, haut’se doch zusammen! Diese gotverdammte Juden Republik!”, they sang, meaning: “Blood must flow, blood must flow! Blood must flow as cudgel thick as hail! Let’s smash it up, let’s smash it up! That goddamned Jewish republic!” That was the circumstances that led to the event which came to be known as the ‘Bloody Sunday’ which resulted in the death of 19 and about 300 wounded. Today in Nigeria, the military is involved in all manner of things  which bear no relevance  to securing the territorial integrity of the country: closing down airports, swarming  and putting under siege states where elections are being held thus  diverting soldiers from the ferocious  terrorist  war in the Northeastern corner of the country where over 200 young Nigerian girls are in captivity,  and putting a major Lagos road to rout because of an unfortunate fatal accident, smashing cars and causing more fatalities. Not even in the dark days of General Abacha were soldiers brought into such odious duties  that has made the  Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) to cry out warning President  Jonathan  against using the security establishment to persecute Nigerians; a situation  which it says has the capacity to completely demystify the military. It was good news, however, seeing the Chief of Army Staff this past week deprecating indiscipline in the military which this also constitutes. Nigerians can only hope it won’t happen again although it will be very much unlike this government not to go back on its word.

    As Vice President  Sambo predicted, elections have since become war as we saw in Ekiti even  before the election day and despite the pillory  and citizen’s overwhelming disapproval of such extreme militarisation,  everything  points to  Osun State being put under no less a suffocating siege on 9 August. It should therefore be expected that, as in Ekiti, these men, paid from the public treasury, will again be used to arrest and incapacitate APC chieftains. And this by an insecure government that claims its party is the choice of the people!  Apparently unknown to President Jonathan, the Nigerian army, as well as the entire government, will continue to lose respect both here at home and abroad as we recently saw in its complete put down by the United States.  Nigerians can only hope that this eager, and unnecessary involvement of the army in matters that should not in any way concern it will not lead to elements within it getting other ideas because Nigerians will, to the last man, reject any military misadventure.

    It is gratifying to note that at a time when elders, especially former Heads of State have become so tongue tied  they cannot utter a word of caution against PDP’s continuing  endangerment of the polity,  the Catholic Bishop of Abuja, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, has again cried out asking  the Goodluck Jonathan administration to be tolerant of opposition. Said the Bishop: ‘the politicisation of Boko Haram, in which the government in power sees anybody who disagrees with it as a Boko Haramist’ (as it has done futilely concerning the APC) ‘is very serious and dangerous’.  Indeed, with Modu Sheriff who has severally been invited by security agents on matters relating to Boko Haram now firmly settled in the PDP, it will be interesting to hear its loquacious Publicity Secretary’s new slant concerning APC and Boko Haram. After all, Sheriff was considered that important that the president had to order the re opening of the Borno airport for him even if it was denied to intending pilgrims who had to undergo what the NSCIA described as a ‘tortuous and agonising journey by road to Kano on top of their being subjected to physical and psychological grilling by security agents.’

    If President Jonathan, in his second coming, does not intend to rule over a conquered territory  of a supine and contrite people, if he does not intend to transmogrify into His Imperial Majesty of an unknown, endless tenure, if he sincerely craves a country where not only he, his wife Patience and members of his ubiquitous demolition teams will be able to freely express themselves, then he certainly must soft pedal, climb down  from his high horse and allow his campaign to spread and showcase what he considers the good works of his transformation agenda to Nigerians because, without a doubt, he will have to run on his record, and not on how far he can mollify us. We pray good counsel prevails.